In a past life Eric was called "The Pious One" for his unshakable willingness to use the paladin's hammer of correction against any entity willing to slander or harm the Ecclesia, its reputation, or property.
A firm believer in the notion that "whoever is not absolutely loyal to us is against us", Eric gladly accepted whatever task the Ecclesia assigned, even the oftentimes unpleasant business of forced tithing.

Eric was an absolutist in principle, unmoved by the flattery of a nobleman's words or pleas of the landholder. The 10% mandatory tithe was to be paid by hook or by crook, nothing more and certainly nothing less.
It was a job that required a forceful personality. Unbelievably, the Ecclesia's subjects would occasionally object to the levy. On those days it helped that Eric could take his hammer and smash open whatever their secret storehouse owed.
Ever loyal, Eric would most likely have perished on some far-flung battlefield in defense of the church had not his path in life forked down a particularly dramatic mission—the failed tithe that led to his current situation.

Eric's final levy was of a prosperous town under the protective radiance of the Ecclesia.
What greeted Eric's eyes there was nothing like the description he had been given, but a shanty village ravaged by disease, blighted by bandits, and starved from poor harvests. Yet an edict was an edict. Eric had faith enough to carry out some sort of levy on peasants who would have trouble enough surviving winter as it was.
Eric's fair implementation of the levy meant collecting significantly less food than the Ecclesia had hoped. He received their reply at the next waypost: the small amount of grain did not to justify the costs of transportation. It was all to be burned so Eric can immediately head for a more prosperous town. Eric could hardly believe his eyes. The peasants' life-giving grain was to be burned? Eric decided to pause his trip until his heart could find its place again.

Fortunately for Eric and unfortunately for the Ecclesia, it was around this time that he came into contact with Hilde who had been passing out food to help with the famine. Eric was shocked to learn Hilde had begun working for the Ecclesia after her parents had sold her into slavery as a young girl because they could not meet the minimum tithing requirement. Hilde's tale broke something inside Eric. Eric re-emerged from his quarters after a day of quiet meditation to announce he was no longer a Paladin of the Light, but a "dark hammer" for breaking chains of oppression.
Eric's hammer is now directed at a very different kind of correction: the rectification by blunt force of evil hypocrites.

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