Father Kelmun Drift – Cult Shepherd / Zealot
“The water does not kill you. It takes you somewhere quieter.”
Name: Father Kelmun Drift
Race: Human
Role/Class: Cult Shepherd / Zealot
Appearance: Father Kelmun Drift appears calm, almost gentle. He is thin, tall, and stooped slightly forward, as if listening closely to the ground beneath him. His skin is pale and water-softened, his hair dark and slicked back with marsh oils rather than filth. His eyes are light gray and unfocused, often gazing just past whoever he speaks to.
He wears layered priestly robes that were once ceremonial whites, now stained to a uniform gray-green by repeated immersion. Rope cords replace belts, and carved driftwood prayer tokens hang from his neck and sleeves. He carries no visible weapon—only a waterlogged prayer staff capped with a cracked basin that slowly drips even when dry.
He smells faintly of wet stone and incense.
Backstory
Kelmun was once a respected priest assigned to minister to ferry workers, marsh settlers, and the families of those lost to the Brackish Brinelands. His sermons focused on endurance, balance, and acceptance of loss.
After surviving a ferry collapse that drowned dozens around him, Kelmun returned changed. He spoke not of survival—but of release. He began teaching that the marsh did not claim lives out of cruelty, but mercy. That drowning was not punishment, but passage.
His doctrine of Drowned Salvation spread quietly among the grieving, the exhausted, and the hopeless. Kelmun never orders death. He simply reframes it as inevitable—and preferable.
