Cadderly Bonaduce

Cadderly Bonaduce was a human cleric and Chosen of Deneir.

History
Cadderly was born in Carradoon on the shores of Impresk Lake, as the son of Aballister Bonaduce and a woman of unknown name. He grew up at the Edificant Library in the Snowflake Mountains.

During his time at the Edificant Library, Cadderly befriended a white squirrel, which he named Percival.

His life goal was to build a cathedral where priests of every goodly deity could congregate and worship. This cathedral was known as Spirit Soaring, which Cadderly constructed solely with his god-given clerical magic energy. Cadderly aged greatly while constructing Spirit Soaring, to a point where everyone expected him to die, with Cadderly accepting that as the sacrifice necessary for the completion of the monumental library. Soon after completing the main building, however, the aging process reversed, with Cadderly growing younger almost as fast as he'd aged until he seemed in his late twenties again. .

During the battle against the Ghost King, (the Crenshinibon-infused dracolich Hephaestus), Spirit Soaring took massive damage, resulting in Cadderly aging to the look of a 60-year-old. After the battle, Hephaestus retreated to the Plane of Shadow to recover and heal. Cadderly chased him into that plane, and took over the mantle of Ghost King as Hephaestus retreated from Cadderly's divine light. Walking between the Material Plane and the Shadowfell, Cadderly was of both worlds and neither. He condemned himself to walk this ward eternally to prevent Hephaestus terrorizing the Material Plane if ever the dracolich decided to return.

Personality
Growing up sheltered at the Edificant Library in the Snowflake Mountains, he was a likable young man who was intensely curious about life, living, and things unusual. However, later in life, Cadderly was a changed person, taking seriously the charge of being a Chosen of Deneir. He made it his foremost commitment, greater even than that to his beloved wife and traveling partner Danica.

While retaining his gentle and warm personality, Cadderly believed in justice tempered with mercy. Evidence of this became apparent when the wizard Dorigen was helpless before him after causing great destruction. Cadderly's friends urged him to kill her, but the young priest could not. He broke her fingers with his walking stick instead, so that she could not again cast spells. This act of compassion would prove to be for the better, as Dorigen later became a powerful ally and friend.

Tactics
Never intending to become embroiled in combat as a priest of Deneir, Cadderly had, through the course of his adventures, found fighting to become an eventual necessity. He faced foes such as vampires, greater demons, ancient dragons, and even the evil artifact Ghearufu.

In battle, Cadderly preferred to let allies who had a better grasp of strategy and tactics lead, though he was certainly not a coward, and he could disarm or incapacitate foes with his walking stick or other melee weapons. Eventually Cadderly's connection with Deneir became so powerful that spells became his most potent weapon. As the chosen of the Father of All Literature and Images, Cadderly did not need to pray in advance for his spells, for through the Song of Universal Harmony he could access any spell he chose when he wished to cast it.

Cadderly's crossbow
Cadderly's hand crossbow, constructed by dwarven brothers Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder after Cadderly's own concept, was of dark elf design, inspired by a tapestry depicting the legendary war whence the drow split from the surface elves. He armed the crossbow with unusual bolts containing oil of impact, darts constructed so the small vial of oil inside was crushed and exploded upon hitting a target. His bandoleer held up to fifty of them. Cadderly's first kill with this weapon was against the evil cleric Barjin.

Cadderly's spindle-disks
In an ancient halfling treatise, he found in the Edificant Library, Cadderly read of the spindle-disks, an archaic weapon used by ancient halfling tribesmen of southern Luiren. In effect an ancient, deadly yo-yo, it consisted of two circular rock-crystal disks, each a finger's-breadth wide and a finger-length in diameter, joined in the center by a small bar about which a string was wrapped. Cadderly improved it, giving the metal bar a small hole through which the string could be threaded and knotted. The string was then coiled around the bar with the other end hanging loose. To use the spindle-disks, one slipped a finger through a loop on the string's loose end; with a flick of the wrist the disks were sent rolling down the length of the string, and with a light jerk of the finger, they sprang back to one's hand.

Cadderly originally considered the spindle-disks a game to pass time; however, they proved a formidable weapon when Cadderly had to use them against the ogrillon Ragnor, who was attacking the elves of Shilmista. Out of desperation, the young priest dipped the disks in oil of impact and threw them against Ragnor, hoping to at least distract him from his fight with the elven prince Elbereth. The explosion blasted the ogrillon straight off the ground, impaling him onto a tree branch and rendering him helpless to the finishing strikes of Elbereth's sword; it destroyed the spindle-disks, however.

Ivan Bouldershoulder fashioned a new pair of spindle-disks for Cadderly out of semi-precious crystal centers with black adamantine borders. This improved weapon could break an exposed limb, or crush a man's jaw, cheekbones, and forehead and knock out every tooth he had in a single blow.

Cadderly's Ring of Sleeping Poison
Cadderly wears a feathered ring whose hollowed-out center he fills with potent drow sleeping poison, a recipe he discovered in an ancient tome. The potent poison's ingredients, such as fungus from the Underdark, are exotic and hard to come by, and the alchemist brewing it must himself work in the Underdark. Cadderly keeps his stock of poison in a box enchanted with a globe of absolute Darkness, as it quickly becomes useless when exposed to sunlight. The ring also includes feathered catclaws; Cadderly can dip these in the poison, then use his walking stick as a blowgun to sting an enemy with them.

Magical Items

 * Cadderly's ram-headed walking stick: This multipurpose magical weapon is made of silver and magically enchanted by the wizard Belisarius of Carradoon. A blow with this staff can often have bone-shattering results, and its shaft is hollow, such that it may be used as a blowgun once the ends are removed. The walking stick got destroyed in a fight with Kierkan Rufo, the vampire.


 * The Light Tube: One of Cadderly's own inventions he carries with him is a tube with a continual light spell inside - cast on a disk within by Histra, the local Suneite priestess at the library- and an adjustable closure on one end, allowing him to focus the light into a narrow beam or expand it to a broader area.

Description
Standing 6 feet tall and weighing a bit under 200 pounds, Cadderly was a handsome man in his late 30s with striking gray eyes, curly brown/blonde hair, and a sincere, warm smile. However, if he was angered, his glare could be unrelenting.

Due to his extensive use of magic in the construction of Spirit Soaring, Cadderly aged rapidly. By the time the church was completed, his body was as that of a 100-year-old man. As a reward from Deneir though, Cadderly gradually returned to his normal age over the course of several years. During the Battle of Spirit Soaring against the Crenshinibon-infused Dracolich Hephaestus, the Spirit Soaring took considerable damage. With Cadderly's life-force tied into the Spirit Soaring, every inch of damage the Spirit Soaring took aged Cadderly. Cadderly now appears as a 60-year-old man that walks a sealing ward around Spirit Soaring in between the Material Plane and the Plane of Shadow.

His favorite accessories are a blue silken cape and a blue wide-brimmed hat with a red band adorned with a porcelain brooch showing the holy symbol of Deneir: a single candle burning over an open eye.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * The Cleric Quintet
 * Canticle (1991) - Main Character
 * In Sylvan Shadows (1991) - Main Character
 * Night Masks (1992) - Main Character
 * The Fallen Fortress (1993) - Main Character
 * The Chaos Curse (1994) - Main Character


 * Passage to Dawn
 * Servant of the Shard
 * The Ghost King (2009)
 * Video games
 * Baldur's Gate