Cadderly Bonaduce

Cadderly Bonaduce is a priest and Chosen of Deneir.

Appearance
Standing 6 feet tall and weighing a bit under 200 pounds, Cadderly is a handsome man in his late 20s with striking gray eyes, curly brown hair and a sincere, warm smile. If he is angered, his glare can be unrelenting. Due to the extensive use of magic in the construction of the 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 porcelaine brooch showing the holy symbol of Deneir: a single candle burning over an open eye.

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. Now Cadderly is a changed person; taking so seriously the charge of being a Chosen of Deneir, he has made it his foremost commitment, greater even than that to his beloved wife and traveling partner Danica.

While retaining his gentle and warm personalty Cadderly believes 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.

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

In battle, Cadderly prefers to let allies who have a better grasp of strategy and tactics do their thing. This is not to say that he was a coward though, as he could disarm or incapacitate opponents, using melee weapons such as his ram-headed walking stick. 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 Image, Cadderly does not need to acquire magic in conventional ways such as praying in advance. Through the Song of Universal Harmony, he can access any spell he so chooses at the casting time.

Cadderly's crossbow
Cadderly's crossbow is of dark elf design. He got the idea for this weapon from a tapestry depicting the legendary war wherein the elvish race had been split into surface elves and drow. The dwarven brothers Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder constructed the hand-held crossbow after Cadderly's concept. He arms the crossbow with bolts filled with Oil of Impact. His bandoleer holds a maximum of 50 unusual crossbow bolts: darts with a small vial of explosive oil of impact inside each one, constructed so that the vial is crushed and the oil explodes when the dart hits a target. Cadderly's first kill with this weapon is against the evil cleric, Barjin.

Cadderly's spindle-disks
The spindle-discs are an archaic weapon used by ancient halfling tribesmen of southern Luiren. Cadderly read about them in an ancient halfling treatise he found at the Edificant Library. It is in effect an ancient deadly yo-yo, consisting of two circular rock crystal disks, each a finger's breadth wide and a finger's length in diameter. The disks are joined in their centers by a small bar on which a string was wrapped - Cadderly improved the design by using a metal connecting bar with a small hole, through which the string can be threaded and knotted rather than tied. The string is then coiled around the bar, leaving the other end hanging loose. To use the spindle-disks a finger is slipped through a loop on the strings loose end. With a flick of the wrist, the spindle-disks are sent rolling down the length of the string. With a light jerk of the finger they are brought springing back into the hand of the wielder.

Originally, to Cadderly the spindle-disks were a game to pass time rather than a weapon.

The spindle-disks proved a formidable weapon indeed when Cadderly had to use them in the final fight against the ogrillon Ragnor attacking the elves of Shilmista. Out of desperation, the young priest dipped the disks in oil of impact and threw them against Ragnor to at least distract the beast from the 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. During the explosion though, Cadderly's spindle-disks were destroyed.

Ivan Bouldershoulder fashioned a new pair of spindle-disks for Cadderly out of semi-precious crystal centers with black adamantide borders. This improved weapon could break rather than bruise an exposed limb, they are even capable of crushing a man's jaw, cheekbones, and forehead whilst simultaneously knocking out every tooth a man possessed with a single blow.

Cadderly's Ring of Sleeping Poison
Cadderly wears a feathered ring, which center is hollowed out to contain a small amount of sleeping poison. The priest got the recipe from an ancient tome, describing the formula for the very potent sleep poison used by the drow elves. The ingredients are very exotic and often hard to come by such as fungus from the underdark. To brew the poison the alchemist has to work in the underdark himself. When exposed to the sunlight, the poison becomes useless in a very short while. Thus Cadderly keeps his stock of the poison in a box enchanted to contain a globe of absolute darkness. Cadderly's ring is also equipped with feathered catclaws which he can dip into the poison and use his walking stick as blowtube in order to sting a person or monster with the poisoned claw.

Magical Items

 * Cadderly's ram-headed walking stick: This a multipurpose magical weapon 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 invention, which he carries with him, is a light tube with a continual light spell cast on the inside of it, with an adjustable closure on one end that allows him to focus the light into a narrow beam or expand it to broader area. The permanent light spell was cast on a disk inside the tube by Histra the local Suneite priestess at the library.

Background
Cadderly was born in Carradoon at the shores of the 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 can congregate and worship. This cathedral was known as the Spirit Soaring, which Cadderly constructed solely with his god-given clerical magic energy. Cadderly had aged greatly while constructing the 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 the aging process had reversed, Cadderly growing younger almost as fast as he'd aged until he seemed at his late twenties again. During the battle against the Ghost King (Crenshinibon infused Dracolich Hephaestus), the Spirit Soaring took massive damage, resulting in Cadderly's aging to the look of a 60 year old. After said battle, Hephaestus retreated to the Plane of Shadow (Shadowfell) 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. Now walking between the Material Plane and Shadowfell, Cadderly is of both worlds and neither. He has condemned himself to walk this ward eternally to prevent Hephaestus terrorizing the Material Plane if ever the dracolich decides to return to the Prime Material Plane.

The Cleric Quintet

 * 1) Canticle (1991) - Main Character
 * 2) In Sylvan Shadows (1991) - Main Character
 * 3) Night Masks (1992) - Main Character
 * 4) The Fallen Fortress (1993) - Main Character
 * 5) The Chaos Curse (1994) - Main Character

Legacy of the Drow

 * Passage to Dawn

The Sellswords Series

 * Servant of the Shard

He also makes a cameo near the end of Baldur's Gate, inside Candlekeep.

Transitions

 * The Ghost King (2009)