After a lifetime of academic ascendancy and religious authority, Anselm Orison’s services to both the Sembren Empire’s Temple of Iusticia and the University of Dysmiridia’s Tower Legis were snuffed out overnight.

For years, the esteemed Adjudicator had garnered acclaim for his devotion to the gods and to his fellow man: administering justice and seeking knowledge with a penetrating clarity unparalleled by any of his peers present or past. Like a beam of pure light, wherever Anselm aimed his piercing intellect, truth and revelation were sure to follow, stripped from the shadows of history or contemporary obfuscation. But when that radiance shone upon the wrong edifices, Anselm Orison found himself swiftly hurled out of Black Fount and the Temple Hill. Even the “free-thinkers” on Dysmiridia shunned the denounced cleric for fear of the authorities that subsidize the academics’ island. Plummeting to the low realms at the foot of Ensembre, Anselm fled the capital city and the Crown lake valley entirely - traveling east to the place where all fallen minds find their rest: the Isle of the Essen Stair.

Stripped of his titles and his dignity, Anselm was allowed to pass under the Scathing Gate and enter the brotherhood of condemned scholars, lawyers, and acolytes at the tall, white stone tower thrusting toward the lonely eastern star. Under Esther’s Light, Anselm found solace in the peace that comes from finding oneself shut out of society but on the right side of history as well as a camaraderie with his brothers and sisters who - unshackled from the fetters of religion and politics - pursue Truth and Knowledge encumbered: enduring the cold darkness of solitude and exile to better see and pursue a clear, sharp light.

Now, Anselm’s studies of culture and linguistics have taken him to Chīa where - exhausting his meager purse provided by the Essen Stair for his transportation - he had sought to spend however much time as needed, touring the coastal towns, learning the rich history and language of the Chiali and enriching himself with the colorful beauty of the halfling civilization.

At least, that was until he met Durg and Kolbe.