Vinack

Vinack
Details
Race	Human
Birthplace	Kendraki Provinces, Akros, Theros
Lifetime	Mending Era
Spouse	A wife
Children	A stepson
Sources
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Vinack was an Akroan hero on the plane of Theros, who sacrificed himself to save his people. He was also a violent, abusive man who terrorized his family and the farmhands on his land.

Description

Vinack was carved like a living statue, strong and muscled with many scars. He had short hair, originally black, but whitening and thinning. He wore a necklace of various teeth and claws, and three bracelets filled with teeth - trophies from the beasts he hunted.

History

Vinack was already a regional hero when he married a widow and took his place on her farm. He kept seeking out beasts to slay to keep his heroic reputation, and he was away from the farm for many periods. His wife loved him and wanted him to stay with her and not go on his adventures, and they regularly got into arguments about it. He started abusing the farmhands, and when confronted about it, he hit both his wife and his stepson. His son knew that Vinack would eventually be judged harshly by Athreos the ferryman, even if everyone else outside thought of him as a hero.

After some years, the son grew confident enough to confront Vinack about his behavior and was beaten badly for it. Having reached her limit, Vinack's wife then threw him out of the farm, aided by all the farmhands he had terrorized. Vinack left the land. Afterward, his wife was the target of much negative gossip from the villages, who viewed Vinack as a hero. This gossip, and her grief over her husband, left her frail. Her son did not understand how Heliod would permit this, and the cures of Pharika did not help. Vinack's wife died when her son was seventeen years old.

Ten years later, Vinack returned to the farm. His stepson had grown tall and strong by then, but his hatred of Vinack was unchanged. Issuing a weak apology for his past behavior, Vinack asked his stepson for help against the marauding minotaurs. The son reluctantly agreed, not out of any sympathy for Vinack, but to aid his people - but he asked Vinack to sleep in the stable rather than one of the spare beds.

They set out in the morning. Vinack's step-son had learned that the villages had been giving the minotaurs human sacrifices for years to stave off their attacks, and suspected Vinack was going to betray him and offer him as a sacrifice. But he refused to meet a fate similar to the scholar Zerili who years earlier had been torn apart by minotaurs, his body parts left lying in the sun.

When they arrived at the minotaurs' swamp camp, Vinack revealed the truth - that it was he who would be the village's sacrifice, and he had brought his son along as a witness. Vinack strode into the middle of the minotaur camp, offering himself as tribute. An Oracle of Bones stepped forth, and unceremoniously smashed Vinack's head in, then broke his spine. His blood permeated the air, and the minotaurs all sniffed it in while the oracle cast a dark spell. Vinack's son could see the star-gleaming silhouette of Mogis shimmer briefly behind the oracle before the spell was over. Vinack's corpse was then thrown into a carcass pile, to be eaten later, while his son snuck away unseen.

Thus, the village's secret blood sacrifices would continue, and for abetting it, Vinack's son shifted his hatred of his stepfather onto himself.

Years later, stories of Vinack portrayed only his heroic side. One such story revolved around the brave Vinack, who felled a cyclops by reflecting the sun off his bracers into its massive eye, distracting it while he rammed a spear through its belly.

Story appearances

Title	Author	Publishing date	Set	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Cowardice of the Hero	Matt Knicl	2014-01-22	Born of the Gods	Theros	Vinack, Athreos, Heliod, Pharika, Zerili, Mogis
Desperate Stand	Matt Knicl	2014-04-16	Journey into Nyx	Theros	Vinack, Aesrias, Solon, Kedarick VI, Kytheon Iora, Erebos, Athreos