Carlos Valenci was a secular priest who played an important role in early history of Friedport, and would later become a hated individual forced to live in hiding until his death.
During a period of decline and a mysterious ailment affecting the land and its flora, Carlos Valenci played the role of an inquisitor trying to find who was responsible - blaming it on lying witches, rituals and evil sorcery. One day him and some Landcrab followers of his were delving through tunnels under the city searching for the crisis’ source, whereupon he found a young girl using strange magical tools to try to break into an enormous network of roots. Blaming her for the crisis and being ignored as he asked for her to stop (not understanding or hearing the words she rambled through tears), he pulled out a firearm and shot her. Even as she was injured and began to bleed out, she continued, eventually collapsing inside of the roots.
The Landcrabs, horrified at what had happened and that they may have been partially responsible for, quickly turned their anger on Carlos and dragged him away, blaming him for the incident, and even the crisis as a whole. While Carlos Valenci was eventually freed by guards, he became a target of contempt from the city and would go into hiding. The Quietgrave Landcrabs, formed during this time, would go on to worship the network of roots the girl died in - dubbed the Reedmother - which they believe was inhabited by the girl’s soul. Naturally, they view Carlos with even more contempt than most.
In hiding he would act as the cryptkeeper of the Portaupearl Crypts, never truly too far from the tunnels his incident took place in. Carlos Valenci was eventually found dead in the crypts.
Secrets ahead!
While anyone is free to read what’s ahead, everything else in this article is privileged knowledge only known to a few specific people in the world of Vendrith. Take particular caution to not assume your character knows these things, or avoid it entirely if you’re worried about keeping your own and your characters’ knowledge separate!
The The Landcrab Plot were the ones to find Carlos Valenci’s corpse, in his iron-door fortified underground crypt home. It turns out that the place was being shared with The Scurvymaster, whom had been using it as a base of operations. Before his death, Carlos had carved the word “Haven” into his arm, hinting at a location that he must’ve overheard from the Scurvymaster to get back at his jailer and killer.