Enderal:Jaél Tannerson
Jaél Tannerson (sometimes Jaél Tanner's Son), known as The Butcher of Ark, was a serial killer that acted in Ark from 6088 a. St. to 6098 a. St. Most of what is known about Jaél comes from his autobiography, The Butcher of Ark. In the book, however, two competing sources exist: Jaél's own writings, and the research of Carolyl Dal'Gamar, a chronicler of The Holy Order that studied Jaél's account.
A few points are consistent between the sources: Jaél was abandoned as a child in front of a statue of Malphas, where he was found and adopted by Gilmon, a tanner from Fogville. He became an apprentice and then overseeing priest at the local temple, until he fled the village entirely in 6088, one day after the festivities of the Star Summer Night. Jaél wandered into the Red Ox, where he met and was humiliated by Naratil Dal'Karek and Jorah Dal'Karek. Trying to get his revenge, he sneaked into the stable at night and attempted to alter the food of the two brothers' horses, but was caught in the act by one of the brothers and beaten up for it. Later, he traveled to Ark, staying in the Dancing Nomad, and committed multiple murders, until he took his own life after writing a manuscript of his autobiography.
Jaél's own account
According to Jaél himself, he was two years old when he was abandoned, and has no memory of anything before that age. When he was 28 years old, he had a dream in which the Veiled Woman showed him his own decaying corpse. After waking up, he heard a voice inside of him and felt what he called "the fire", a dull sensation in his stomach. The voice beckoned him to abandon his "false life", lest he end up like the body he found in his dream.
He fled Fogville to the Red Ox, where he killed one of the Dal'Karek brothers, his first murder. There he also met Qalian, a member of the Black Libra that had been tasked with killing the brothers. Qalian helped Jaél by killing the remaining brother, hiding the bodies, and fleeing the Red Ox with an unconscious Jaél.
Qalian then traveled with Jaél to Ark and brought him along to a mission, where they both killed the staff and customers of an Undercity brothel that sold tied-up and drugged women to be abused and killed, as well as the services of children performing sexual acts. During this mission, Jaél discovered his "gift": the "fire". He apparently had an instinctive knowledge of of "sinners": People who had resigned themselves to the "demons", doing evil acts as if they were natural. Sinners could not be cured, as the demons could not be removed once a person allowed them in. As such, he had to kill the sinners. Once he did kill a sinner, he was able to feel the "nectar of sin", where the memories their sins flashes through Jaél's mind, as vivid as a vision from The Prophet.
After four months of killings ordered by the Black Libra, Jaél was initiated into the group, vouched by Qalian. He was locked into a room, where he stripped himself naked and sliced his own throat, undergoing some kind of ritual, and then woke up with no signs of harm in his throat. The pages describing the ritual have been torn out from the manuscript Jaél wrote before killing himself.
After five months working for the Black Libra, Jaél killed a nobleman, but discovered through his "nectar of sin" that the nobleman wanted to change his ways, and that he simply acted the way he did because his father demanded he did so. This revelation caused him to question the Black Libra's creed that no "sinner" could ever repent, and he decided to desert the group. Qalian, his mentor, allowed him to do so, but warned him that the Libra would come after him.
Jaél then fled to a trading post in the forest, where he wrote a manuscript of his autobiography and killed himself to avoid the Black Libra. At the end of his story, he writes warnings that The Holy Order will try to twist his story and simply blame him as a Pathless killer, and that the Black Libra will also try to discredit him in order to keep themselves from being discovered.
The chronicler's research
Carolyl Dal'Gamar, a chronicler of The Holy Order whose letter is included at the end of Jaél's autobiography, has researched many of Jaél's allegations, and seems to have a different idea as to what really happened. According to the chronicler, Jaél was born in 6056 a. St. to Samaél Chipblade and a wandering prostitute, in a village named Northwind. Samaél, an extremely religious man, was forced to marry the prostitute after the pregnancy was discovered, to avoid damaging his image. Samaél constantly abused both his wife and Jaél, verbally and physically, claiming that he had to protect them from the "demons" inside of them, and that the "demons" can't ever be purged, that they always return.
Unable to bear the abuse any longer, Jaél's mother killed Samaél with a warhammer, then took her own life. The then 4-year-old was found on the bedchamber with his dead parents, and no one from the village wanted to adopt a boy that had already witnessed so much death. And so, the village priest abandoned Jaél in front of a shrine of Malphas.
Jaél was appointed a priest and oversaw the local temple until he was 32 years old, when he fled Fogville to the Red Ox. There, he was humiliated by Naratil Dal'Karek and Jorah Dal'Karek and tried to take revenge by altering their horses' food, but was caught in the act and beaten up. During the beating, he fantasized about killing his aggressor, without actually committing any murder. This is corroborated by the fact that both Dal'Karek brothers were seen in Ark only a few days later. He fled to the forest, and then began traveling to Ark, alone. Innkeepers of the Red Ox claim to have never seen the main named as "Qalian".
He arrived in Ark and stayed at the Dancing Nomad. Again, the innkeepers there can remember Jaél, but no such "Qalian". After arriving there, he started killing residents of the Undercity, both guilty and innocent alike. Carolyl found no evidence of the brothel cited in Jaél's story ever existing: his Undercity contact found no trace of it, and the Rhalâta never did anything about it, which would be strange if such a big source of income were to suddenly disappear.
Dal'Gamar concludes that Qalian, the Black Libra, the "fire", and the "nectar of sin" were all made up by Jaél in order to justify his actions, to avoid moral ramifications by framing his actions as "good". He further corroborates this theory by citing that Jaél uses the same names that Samaél, his biological father, used when beating him and his mother: "demons" that infect "sinners" and can't be removed. According to Dal'Gamar, Jaél was lead to kill because of the repressed memories of his father abusing him, that caused him to continue the cycle of violence.
