A broad-shouldered half-elf with weathered bronze skin, dark auburn hair worn in a single corded braid, and pale green eyes flecked with gold. A thin crescent scar runs from his left temple to the corner of his mouth, a souvenir from the night his family died. He wears well-maintained chain mail beneath a plain ash-gray surcoat marked with a small silver sunburst, and keeps his shield scarred but polished.

Miklós is restrained, observant, and unexpectedly gentle with frightened people. He listens more than he speaks, remembers small details from every conversation, and treats even mundane chores as part of a sacred duty. Beneath his calm is a tightly controlled fury that surfaces whenever someone uses faith to excuse suffering.

Miklós Vauldrin was raised in a riverside settlement where his human mother kept the shrine of a patient harvest god and his elven father repaired barges for a living. Miklós learned the prayers, but he never had the temperament of a quiet devotee. He preferred carrying supplies through flooded streets, settling disputes between fishermen, and standing watch during winter processions. When raiders came one moonless night, they did not attack for coin. They arranged black candles around the family home, painted a split-circle sigil over the door, and killed everyone inside with ritual precision. Miklós survived beneath the floorboards, listening to a chant that ended with his sister speaking in a voice that was not hers. He buried his family with the shrine's silver basin and swore an oath before the dawn, not for vengeance alone, but to make certain no other household would be turned into an altar. His first steps as a paladin have been practical rather than glorious. He visits temples, compares fragments of cult doctrine, questions smugglers and undertakers, and follows rumors of the split-circle mark from village to village. He has not yet found the cult, but he has found evidence that the attack was one small part of a wider pattern. Every answer draws him closer to the night he fears may not be over.