I gave all my notes to Roger after each game session so he could send emails with a synopsis and XP’s so the history is background and whatever I can glean from emails and openers. =)
Have I ever mentioned that I despise trolls? At a very, very young age my parents, my sister and I were traveling through the Western Heartlands. I was too young to remember where from and where we were going, however, what happened in the hands of the trolls is irreplaceable in my memory.
We were traveling alone, as a family through the Western Heartlands. This as I think back now, was foolish on my father’s part. He obviously did not have the skills or knowledge to be taking his family through the dangerous terrain by himself.
One night, if memory serves, we were sleeping (another mistake of my father’s to not have someone keeping watch) and a pair of trolls captured us and took us back to their lair. The trolls probably saw us as an easily captured meal. The trolls were thinking that day, they ate my father first, the one person in our group that could have caused the most trouble; right in front of my mother, my sister and I. Trolls really do have disgusting eating habits.
Next they ate my mother and my sister. Fortunately, for me, they were full and wanted to digest the rest of the family before devouring me as well. I don’t remember specifics as I have blocked more than I wanted of this occurrence from my mind. But I presume that I must have fallen asleep, just as my captors had.
When I awoke, my foster father was carrying me. Saevel Stormwhisper. A handsome specimen of a male moon elf; black flowing hair, blue eyes and a kind face. He took me home to his wife Talindra Dundragon. As the second elf I had ever see, she was also hauntingly beautiful with blue hair and blue eyes.
Saevel and Talinda named me Lyssiah Stormwhisper, as I was too young to speak much and couldn’t have told them my name if I had tried. The Elvin community became my home growing up. There were good times and bad times as there are for all children as they grow.
I think the first time Saevel and Talindra realized that human children were so very different was when they caught me learning rogue skills from a group of friends at the age of eight. They did not realize that I would reach my majority faster than other Elvin children. Their own children, my foster siblings, were not so advanced in their maturity and they all had more than 40 years of age on me.
Nym, the eldest child of the house of my foster siblings, began taking me along with him in his lessons on the longbow. I learned how to use the longbow and also how to craft bows and arrows. The next several years went by rather quickly, I learned how to use many weapons, but as all people do, picked a few as my favorites and continued using them pretty much exclusively.
Life in an Elvin community seems slow and without purpose compared to the outside world. Although, the beauty, serenity and peace obtained there cannot be compared to anywhere else in the world, as least that I haven’t seen yet.
When I obtained the age of 16 in human years, my foster father took his children, Nym, the twins Moon and Mourn and myself out into the forests. Angharradh and Kitiaran the other siblings were determined to be too young for this type of endeavor.
Our father began teaching us ranger skills. Wilderness lore, tracking, signs to look for, animals, traps and many more skills. Nym and I spent the next five years working with our father. Mourn and Moon went back home after a year. They found they did not have the inclination for having more than a minimum of skills in this area. Father made a living as a deep wood sniper and worked briefly with Nym and me in this area. Maybe someday, I will be skilled enough to reach his level of expertise.
One day Num and I were working on our skills in one of the more traveled parts of the forest. We saw a group of people working their way through on one of the trails. Some predators that the drow had driven south attacked them. Nym and I were able to use the skills that we had been learning. We assisted in killing or driving off the predators. The group of people asked for aid. They said they would pay if we would guide them to Harrowdale.
Not very knowledgeable about the ways of the world, Nym went to father to ask. I in the meantime scouted ahead and led the group through several miles until Num and father arrived. Father counseled Nym and I on the procedures of being a good scout for the group and then he went back to his duties and let us have our first adventure in scouting and guiding.
Nym has worked in tandem with me on several other guiding jobs that have come up over the last several years, but they seem to be more my forte than his. Mother and Father have been very encouraging to me. I believe it is because as the only human in an Elvin community they have observed and themselves taken part in the unintentional repressing of my character. As a human, I mature much more quickly than the other Elvin children in the same vicinity of age.
Not that I wasn’t given opportunities. I was. Mother and Father made sure that I was given opportunity to learn many skills. The community had a broad range of skills that I could have learned; weapon smithing, scribing, arcane knowledge, singing, dancing and mercantile. Anything and everything that I could have wanted to learn. Mother and Father once confessed that they were very surprised that I took to the forest and the nature skills as well as I did. I didn’t ask for clarification, but I presume it was because my biological parents were of a different bent.
So, for the last several years, I have spent more time away from home than I ever did. Even with the 5 years with Father and Nym in the forest, I have been away more than I have been home. My siblings don’t really seem to miss me much. Mourn and Moon have always gone their way and never really had time for me. Angharradh and Kitiaran also have each other and are learning their own crafts.
Father and Nym seem to miss me the most. Mother has the other children to dote on and watch. But Father and Nym seem to miss sharing what we have seen in the forest on a particular day. They also seem to miss our archery contests. Not that shooting against Father was ever a contest, but it was definitely challenging. My last visit home was almost a year ago. I spent a day with Mother and the other siblings and then 3 weeks with Father and Nym in the forest. Father and Nym were happy and a little surprised at the skills that I had picked up while I was away.
I miss them. I miss the serenity, the peace. I miss the music, the singing and dancing in the town square. I miss the pole and their quiet gentle ways. Each visit home shows me how much I never rally belonged, but on the same hand it also shows me how much they really care about me and how much I care about them.
I miss the elven warriors of the community. I miss watching them spar, practice and teach the younger members of the community. Valar, Despiegelaere and Quaramara. I miss the spell casters and scribes. Profion the sorcerer, Rouquette the scribe, Snowmane the wizard and Zorastryl the wizard. I miss them all with their multi colored hair and eyes.
But mostly I miss the rangers and the druids. My Father, Nym, Darvin, Accardi, Hadrhune, Alustriel, Folcoerr and Maurmeril. I miss their soft voices, the melody of their speech. It didn’t matter who they were talking to, the treants, each other, the animals, me the pixies or the dryads. I miss the melodic sound of their voices.
I heard their voices for 20 years and that is what I miss the most. Well, enough reminiscing and dreaming today. I should give up my perch in this tree, retrieve my horse and see about getting another scouting job.
