Corporeal Forces: 4 Strength: 8 Agility: 8

Ethereal Forces: 4 Intelligence: 9 Precision: 7

Celestial Forces: 5 Will: 10 Perception: 10

Vessel: older male human/3, +2 Charisma

Skills: Detect Lies/2, Dodge/4, Emote/3, Fighting/4, Knowledge (Arthurian Myths/6, Administration/3), Languages (Latin/3, Gaelic/3), Large Weapon/5 (Longsword), Move Silently/2, Savoir-Faire/5, Small Weapon/3 (Dagger), Tactics/5

Songs: Dreams (Celestial/2), Healing (All/1), Light (Celestial/2), Projection (Ethereal/2), Shields (All/3)

This is the Arthur of dreams, not the Arthur of history (whomever that might have been): resolute, chivalric, honorable, just ... and pious. This has made him a major headache.

The Matter of Britain has inspired artists and writers for most of the last millenium, and as the legends crew, so did the spirit. He's not, strictly speaking, an ethereal god, as nobody provides him with Essence through worship (and Arthur would react badly to anyone who tried), but he is in no danger of fading away. Thomas Mallory and T. H. White have seen to that. He has become a representation of the Ideal Ruler in Western literature and mythology, and that belief is strong enough to ensure his existence without Arthur ever having to bother visiting the corporeal plane.

But he still manifests on Earth constantly, in flagrant violation of the ban on ethereals. Why does he do this, when he doesn't have to?

It's very simple. He's King Arthur.

True, there are no more dragons or giants on Earth (and Arthur is not pleased that Uriel destroyed them all, centuries before he had the chance to slay at least one), but there are still many evils out there. Tyrants, sorcerers, injustice, and of course, demons. Demons of all sorts and sizes, tormenting and tempting good folk: why, one even tried to tempt Arthur himself with power, in exchange for an alliance with Satan. No doubt that the return of the emissary (well, parts of the emissary) was a sufficient reply. They've certainly tried their best to just kill him since then.

And the angels aren't much better, it seems, although King Arthur suspects that most of his fellow ethereals are more than a little craven. He's dealt with more than one of these Malakim in his day: certainly, they may start off by screaming and waving flaming swords around, but usually they calm down fairly quickly. It's all a matter of making firm eye contact. Staying true to the dictates of Christ helps too, of course, but that's true in all situations.

Still, some of these angels can be an annoyance to an entity doing his best to keep honor and chivalry alive in an imperfect world. It's getting to the point where Arthur is ready to have a talk with this Laurence, and find out exactly why a good Christian knight is constantly being interrupted while doing God's work…

The Archangel of the Sword is in a real bind about this particular ethereal: it's bad enough that Arthur radiates honor like a torch, but there's almost no difference between his ideals and those expressed by the Sword. In fact, the legend of Arthur was used as a method to spread the Sword's ideals. Normally, divine religions don't create ethereal spirits, but apparently nobody told Arthur that.

What makes it worse, of course, is that Arthur is a devout Christian: Laurence doesn't even want to contemplate the dishonor that would arise from utterly destroying a co-religionist, simply because of existing policy. But, if ethereals can choose to unreservedly serve the Creator, is the ban on Earth really justified? That's a can of worms nobody wants to open.

Most of the Host, except for Servitors of Stone and the occasional Triad, handle the problem by ignoring it. No Superior's actually gotten around to declaring Arthur evil, which gives the Malakim (and the more rigid organizations) a convenient out, and certain Archangels have even pushed to have Arthur declared a loa. David's Servitors, however, are expected to provide "discouragement": the Archangel of Stone doesn't like the precedent being set here. Luckily, Arthur knows that they can't start fights, so they aren't usually too much of a problem. Besides, once demons show up, such nonsense goes out the window.

All in all, Arthur's not a bad entity to know. He's more tolerant than you would think, despite his distressing tendency to refer to all non-Catholics as "paynim". Fighting the forces of Hell gives one an excellent yardstick to judge good and evil, and he's pretty good-natured to begin with. Not to mention eminently trustworthy, honorable, chivalrous and fundamentally decent.

Arthur doesn't fight all his battles on his own, of course (not even bringing up his Knights of the Round Table, which is a whole other issue). There are other ethereal spirits out there who aren't pretending to be pagan gods, and Arthur tends to work with the ones who are also dedicated to helping humanity. It's rumored that he and Uncle Sam are the only ethereal spirits who have ever been invited in for drinks at the Eighth Virtue…