(3x20) Rising of the Darklight: Part 1, Episode 2
That Church takes special interest in Murdock because of his species, recognizing that he is no ordinary wizard, but rather seems to be the rarest of beings, a being like the original inhabitants of this world, the last of whom, Thomas the "Eldest Wizard" in whose honor the Church of the Eldest was founded, died in the last great war. They approach him and ask him of his heritage. He speaks of his father being from Esplanadia, and his mother being the Elven Queen, but they demand to know more because he cannot be so simple as an ordinary half-elven Wizard. Seeing that they already suspect something of it, Murdock reluctantly tells them, with their assured confidence, the scandalous tale of his conception.
In truth he is the son of the Elven queen and a formerly Human man from Esplanadia who, having been transformed into an Orc by the embrace of the Vampire queen Vis, and sent forth by her in an entranced state, forced himself, in his Orcish body and bewitched state of mind, upon the unwilling Queen of the Elves. The Orc man, Murdock's father, was transformed by the Elf Queen's magical embrace back into the Human he once was, but not before the vile deed was done, and Murdock was conceived. Though his father was wrought with shame for what he was compelled to do, the Elves are by nature dispassionate and forgiving, and neither the Elf Queen nor her husband held him to blame for his actions, nor did they feel any shame for her bearing a child out of wedlock. Still, Murdock has been told, his father felt the need to atone for his actions and to seek vengeance against the one who compelled him to commit them. Against the counsel of the Elves, who see such passions as fruitless, Murdock's father returned to the wilds from which he came, to hunt down the Vampire who did this to him – to them. In due time Murdock was born, the first known pairing of Elf and Orc, a half-elf unlike any of the Wizards of half-human parentage; which, it seems, yields a being like those the Church's doctrine claims all beings in this world descend from.
This discovery causes great controversy within the Church. In addition to its human followers, the Church is staffed by many half-Elven Wizards, who revere all things Elvish, and exhort Humanity to embrace more Elvish ways of calm dispassionate reason. The Wizarding branch of the church has since become dominant, but a small group of fundamentalists have begun protesting that under the Wizards the church has lost sight of its core mission of honoring the Eldest and His prophet Thomas. Fearing for the future of the world, the nominal leader of the Church, the descendent of John the Father of the Church, departed into the wilderness decades ago seeking hope that an ancient prophecy may be fulfilled: that by some chance Vampires may have survived hidden somewhere beyond civilization, and that by brokering an unlikely peace between them and the Elves at long last, the long-lost love of the Eldest may be freed from the prison in which the evil goddesses Fire and Ice set her, and that she in turn may have the power to free the Eldest and restore the world to its rightful state. He never returned. Since then, the fundamentalist core of the Church has been greatly weakened, and the Wizards have seized power. But those fundamentalists latch on to Murdock upon his arrival as a new hope, some of them whispering rumors about him possibly being the second coming of Thomas, or at least a new prophet of the Eldest.