Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Moon-Lancer 09-30-05, 06:49 PM	i posted this here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=503215&page=3) too... just if your wondering or have a sudden wtf? Terran Vailray: a chaotic good druidic elf http://www.photonmoon.com/terrancontest.jpg Story: Deep within a forested region of the northern wilder, in a place called Diamond City, Terran was born. He is an elf. For most of his life as a child, he never knew who his father was. He was told he was a traveling adventure who was killed in a far-off land. His mother was a beautiful druid named Dragon Flower. She was the healer of the Diamond City Court. Although her job was important, she was of a poor status. Most healers were clerics, and she was a bit unorthodox, even for a druid. Some say it was a deep longing for the forest. She was always on verge of replacement, but for some reason, the court never got around to it. Terran’s life as a child was like a whispered secret. It was a common everyday affair that he hid from nobles, as to not offend their view. To fill the days of a long childhood, Terran spent his years learning the arts of archery and swords. His mother personally taught him the art of Sensory: to see beyond the Veil, to hear the sound of every living creature, large and small, to focus ones mind and spirit. As Terran learned the ways of his elven people and its cultural taboos, he learned secretly that his name was not an elven word. Nor was it ever used as an elven name. As closely as he could tell it was a human name, for it came in two parts and felt like a humans first and last name. One day he asked Dragon Flower why he was named Terran Vailray. She had no answer, and told him that he would understand when he was older. As Terran grew older, he noticed from week to week that his mother would be nowhere to be seen, usually during mid day. She would come back glowing and exhausted. Terran on day asked Dragon Flower where she was going from week to week, she would only respond to him in with a sigh. Summer exploded with leaves of fire that soon crumpled to the earth and became sheets of frozen snow. The city that was surrounded by forests truly looked like a city of diamonds. One day, in a day of many days, as the sun shown brilliantly in the sky, nighttime came. The moon did not say hello. “Terran. I have to go off for a bit, go hide in a forest. The place in the grove, that I showed you. You should be safe their. I shale meet you their later.” his mother told him. “Safe? What’s going on the sky is dark in the daytime. Are we in danger?” “You won’t be in any types of danger, because you’re going to be hidden in the forest.” She looked worried, knowing he would follow her but she could do nothing about it. She left like the wind, fluttering like a leaf in tornado towards Avenguard castle. This was the center of Diamond city. Dragon Flower enveloped herself in mist and Terran followed into her footsteps. Hidden they were, among the people of Avenguard castle. It was a war. Brother striking down brother with magic and steel in a barrage of madness. Death clung to the mist. Up at the tallest tower amid the great towers, Dragon Flower ran. Her senses guided her. Terran could hear the sound of crumbling rock as he found himself in a room were a handsome male and a scantly clad female with dark crystal skin and white silver hair were engaged in combat. The mist that clung to Dragon Flower dissipated as she screamed at the dark elf, gesturing violently. A roaring tower of fire emerged from the ground, but the dark elf merely smiled as the fire rippled around her curved body. Dark purple energy welled into her hands and she sent Dragon Flower soaring through the air and into a stone column. “Terran! Run. I mean it this time!!!” she said this as her eyes pleaded with his. A tear rolled down Terran’s check and as he ran. Terran heard his mother scream the name Crystala with a rage Terran had never known his mother to posses.. Terran ran for the deep forest as fast as he could. A few guards spotted him, with arrows drawn, and gazes like cold death. Terran collided with the underbrush as a thousand tiny knives collided back at him. As he ran, he caught a glimpse of something shiny and gasped as something cut through air, leaves and flesh. He ran what seemed to be hours, clawing back at the forest until suddenly nothing. It was like taking that first breath after a long dive under a pool of chilling water. Terran found himself in the center of a clearing; green moss and short grass carpeted the earth floor. The boy fell to his knees as the arrow in his chest pulled him to the ground. “This must be the place… but… where are you mom” he gasped, speaking over the pain. Time passed. A minute, two minutes; an hour, four hours; blood slowly spilt to the ground As night time drew, the moon stretched its light on the canopy of the forest. Shafts of light fluttered down to the tiny grove bellow. Terran’s worst fears were realized, he would die and his mother had already. Great pools of sadness swelled from within him, mixing with the blood stained ground, and for the first time ever, he slept, as if his sadness were a cloak of despair. During the night, at times he felt he had awakened to find strange people standing over him broke the darkness. They seemed to look like elves, with boundless grace. Some had wings ranging from butterflies to dragons, others had leaves growing from their skin, and budding from the tops of their heads. As they spoke, their voices sounded like music, although he could not understand them. Terran awoke to find himself holding an arrow in his hand and large leafy bandages covering his wound. The voices that spoke to him in his sleep were still ringing in his head, but one word stood clearly in his mind. It was in elvish, and it rang in his head like a song. “Shadow Moon”. Somehow he knew, without a doubt, that this was his name. A name fashioned by the self, and is an expression of his identity. It was like a feeling of power binding mind and soul into one. Picking himself off the soft carpet of the earth, saddened, he called out to the nothingness, and the nothing responded. He looked down at his bandage, wondering who had saved him and if he would ever know their name. He moved throughout the forest, eating berries, and salvaging for food. His chest hurt, but he continued onward. Day turned to night; night became day. A week of what could hardly be called an adventure passed. After some time, Terran felt that his wound had healed, and he removed the leafy bandages from his chest. He found a strange mark were the arrow had pierced his shoulder. It was like a letter of some kind, with a runic quality. At nighttime, Terran thought his eyes were playing tricks, for it seemed that rune softly glowed under the moon’s rays. It was a ghost like quality and during the day he wondered if he had imagined it. When he looked up into the sky, he could almost see the same glow emitting from the rim of the moon. Another week passed, and Terran came across tiny settlements, mostly human. He had never explored the world before; he had never traveled but ten or so miles in the forest surrounding the palace of diamond city. Traveling from town to town, Terran quickly found that humans were not as responsive or as visually perceptive as elves. He realized that with out too much trouble; that he could take whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t over do it. And that is just what he did. Not staying in any one place for long, Terran traveled around from village to village, taking what he could. A few months passed without much incident. A few close calls but nothing Terran couldn’t handle. One night though, as Terran was helping himself to some bread, at an unattended food stand, a shadow flew from the darkness and grabbed his outstretched hand and the cuff of his shirt. Terran whirled around to see a man in a dark cloak standing over him. “Well, well… what do we have here…” Terran cried out as he was lifted off the ground and thrown against a stone wall, plunging him into unconsciousness. The voice of laughter echoed in his head. Terran awoke to a cold wet sensation as a bucket of water was poured upon of him. “Ah… done pretending are you?... well now that that’s done with… I should cut off your hands from trying to steel from my shop. Luckily though I am a man who… shall we say… appreciates a boy of your talents…” “Don’t call me boy… I’m probably older then you…” Terran promptly charged the man attacking with his head for his arms were bound with cord. “Now, now… don’t be so hasty” he spoke with a jolly voice… and threw Terran casually to the ground. “My name is Vailmier…” he said, with a hint of pride and a pose that could but any bard to shame. “So… how about joining my crew… it’ll be fun… after all it beats the alternative...” “And what would that be?” Terran hissed, his voice full of venom. “Well… you know… pain, suffering, and death, very unpleasant stuff.” As he said this, his face clenched and his fingers curled, in a moment of disgust, as if thinking about it would do ill to his charm. “I guess I have no choice then.” “Wrong, death is the only choice that any of us can truly make.” A few years passed, and Terran discovered what it was to be a true thief, although his heart was not into it. He only stole to survive, but the cloak and daggers as they called themselves, seemed to go overboard, and sometimes they killed people, although he could never bring himself to kill the people that he was told to steel from. He would be beaten severely at times for not doing so, but never by Vailmier. Terran would think day and night of ways to escape. For a long while, he was afraid to die, but when living is more painful then death, one finds the motivation to find freedom. He thought of sneaking away in the night, while everyone was asleep. The other members of the cloak and daggers were humans or Halflings. They would go into very deep trances for almost half a sun cycle, some times more. One night, sleeping in a tiny room with the other children, Terran felt a strange feeling. Terran knew from his mom that the moon would be its fullest in a few days and in his mind he felt a yearning be walking in a forest under the moons pale light. He felt as if the wild was calling him and that he could not call back. He felt that he was slowly dyeing. That night Terran made up his mind to escape. On the night of the full moon, Terran attempt a date with freedom. Slinking into the shadows, he folded into the darkness gliding across the room. He passed a few unconscious guild members. One was sleeping face down on a desk, snoring and a pool of wet drool. The other was slouched in a adjacent chair. They looked as if they had fallen asleep at watch. He was lucky. They both seemed to be asleep. In the next room, moonbeams cascaded like spears downward through a bared window. Terran’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight. He was so close. He could see the shadow of leaves in the distance. “Well, well… you’re up rather early… or later… I guess its all frame of mind ones it… isn’t It.” said Vailmier delightfully from within the shadows… Terran rushed for the door, but a hand from within the darkness gripped his collar and lifted him slightly into the air. “My, my… you are fast… strange. You never seem to muster this strength while performing your duties… I think you have been holding out on m… the cloak and daggers…” he corrected himself “I must just have a problem with motivation … what can I say… although that’s not the point. The point is I will still be a kid before you die of old age. Think about that for a moment. In a few years you will be dead of old age and I will have appeared never to be touched by time. Must make you feel pretty inconsequential considering it all. I don’t see how this relationship is ever going to work. “Oh please… you’re breaking my heart,” he said overdramaticly. Your greed will make you hollow and empty. If you let me go, it might breath some empathetic life into that husk of a shell you call a body. Vailmier’s eyes burned like worm embers, but his expression and voice were cool, and he smiled. “As you wish.” his face twisted like psychotically “… however…. only on one condition… go to the temple of the east and collect for me the spire of earth. And don’t think you can just escape. I will be watched.” “I guess I have no choice then…” Vailmier raises his eyebows, but says nothing A carpet of green sea lay before Terran. Towering roots lined the walls and a star field of fire leaves covered the ceiling. Terran felt at home almost at once but his heart was acid as he recalled what he had to do. He was inside the temple of the Druids of Ehlonna. It was quite. He had expected to have to hide his presence but for the moment the temple seemed deserted. Walking down through the living corridor, moments of memory struck like lightning miles and miles away, like a strobe of conciseness. Terran thoughts were broken though by the soft thundering of a man and a woman behind him. “By Ehlonna’s grace!!!” One of them shouted, “We’re late.” “What a way to make a first impression,” the other one said. Terran embraced the darkness and followed quickly behind them. He was lead to a large room surrounded by 7 white trees with glowing lettering encircling them. The letters looked similar to the mark on Terran’s chest. The room was full of robed figures of varies colors. They chanted soft tunes of joy. In the very center of the room there was a boy on a thrown made of leaves and living trees. A crown was on a stand to his left. Above him was a spire of green crystal. Terran’s eyes blinked whispers of a strange language that filled his head. He pushed these thoughts away, for he saw it, his freedom. Before anyone was the wiser, Terran had climbed the closest tree to his entrance. Shouts came from above him has he ran along the brances of the tree. A moment later, the tree seemed to come to life. It was too late though, Terran had already launched himself through the air, towards the spire. As Terran touched its crystalline surface, green light radiated and scattered to every corner of the room. Terran was flung into a moss covered wall. His chest burned with pain as if his wound from the arrow had opened. Blinding pain swept over him and the last thing he saw before yet again meeting darkness was chunks of green crystal shrapnel laying siege to the room, and a large peace falling into the throne and the screams of a boy echoing in his head. Nightmares wracked Terran’s mind. Regrets, fears, and guilt bled together in a painful array of memories. He the last image he had seen was a little boy being crushed by a large green crystal. If he had never gotten near that thing, he would not be dieing and possibly leaving for an unspeakable afterlife. An awkward moment of clairvoyance passed over Terran, as he realized Vailmier had never expected Terran to ever leave the cloak and daggers… alive. How could he have been so foolish? Terran screamed into the nothingness… however on this occasion… the nothingness responded, truely. It was the same voice in his head right before trying to take the spire., in the same strange language, but unexplainably, it was comprehendible. *Why do you weep so? You are shadow-moon. You almost forgot that, and look at the mess your in.* “Wait, who are you? How do make my wrongs into rights?” *It’s silly to ask questions you already have the answer to, silly.* * * * “What do you mean … forgive him… he killed our prince. Our would be king!” “You can deny what happened, but he would never have been able to penetrate our defenses so easily if he was a mire thief. He might be coming into a druidic gift, it’s hard to tell, and I have to wonder if he is…” “No… don’t even say it, theirs no way he could be. He must die for this. The blood of the innocent is on his hands.” “In any other circumstance or culture he would have been killed, but we are supposed to wise. It would not be wise to find out what happened here, or how the Earth Spire reacted the way it did.” “Hmmm… I do not agree with you, but your right we do have to find out what happened.” “Perhaps we should let him believe he has been sentenced to death and fake incompetence on our part, letting him believe he as escaped. Then we can observe him and decide if death is a suitable action to take upon him.” “I do not think we will find anything that warrants such excessive treatment for a common thief. I will go along with this… for now. “Trust me; I have a feeling about him.” * * * Terran awoke to find he was in a cell made of thorns. Leaf-like plants partly encircled him as they cupped a wall of moss and stone. That is when he noticed it. Looking down at his hand he clearly saw that the mark on his chest had grown. To say this would be an understatement. It would me more accurate to state that it had exploded violently from a small mark to an entangling design of ivy that now covered his right and the entirety of his shoulder. “Thief!... you thief.” A deep voice came from behind the ticket of thorns. “You will be sentenced to die in seven days for killing the prince of the druids. May whatever god you wish have mercy on your soul.” Moments later Footsteps echoed away into the distance. Grief overtook Terran as he leaned on his leafy prison for support, but fell onto the ground as if he had passed through paper. A saddened smile crossed his face as he spoke quietly to himself. “I may be a coward and I may be afraid to die, but I am not afraid to pay for what I have done.” Terran embraced the shadows of the moons rays, and fled into the blanket of night. ----------------------------------------- Character Traits: Terran is a kind hearted elf. He is around the age of 40 after escaping from the druids of Ehlonna. He is ashamed for running his entire life. He goes through life with something to prove, but only to himself, never to others. Terran also has a strange wisdom about himself. He has a hard time understanding his own feelings sometimes, but he is very intuitive at understand other people, but at times he is ignorant of society’s standards and their norms. He is incredibly free spirited and detests any type of oppression of himself or of others, and will always come to the aid of another if their free will is being taken away. Terran would be the first in any crowd to become deviant over rules that hold no purpose or make any sense. Terran’s pain and hate surface whenever he hears the word Crystala. He remembers her sadistic laughter, and this is the only time he truly hates. Even Vailmier cannot focus Terran’s anger into such potency. Physical description: Terran is average height for an elf. He has sandy blond hair that becomes lighter at its tips. His hair is tied into a long braid with a bit of leaf twine to hold it twisted. His eyes are the color of the forests spectral shadow. Terran wears a hat made of straw woven in a cone-like shape. He carries a sword shaped out of a living peace of wood. Terran’s clothing tends to be simple and plane with the occasional art nouveau motif. Green is his most commonly worn color. Terran has not found an animal companion as of yet. Terran’s Powers: Everyday often the rune on Terran’s chest seems to grow. Someday he wonders if he is dying, although he speaks none of this to anyone. By now he has discovered his magical power is connected to it. Terran has observed many casters and he realized he is radically different. He doesn’t need components to cast his spells nor does he need a focus. His rune however glows vibrantly when casting spells that require lots of willpower. Terran does not mind the mark on his chest and arm, for because of it, feels that he is free and alive. Living and atoning is all Terran cares about at the moment and to work towards freeing his guilty soul. In the meantime, Terran his busy nourishing his newfound druid magic and making sure that his power will never be used for evil. He feels that by using his new power for good, he is honoring the late druid prince. And his death was not a waste of life.
Fithero 09-30-05, 11:37 PM	That is a very interesting character with a great (and long) backstory. Id be interested to know why all the other elves disliked him at the start of the story aswell as what the whole deal with the mark on him is. Overall i enjoyed reading it, good work. Later
Moon-Lancer 10-01-05, 12:50 AM	Thanks. The main reason that the other poeple of dimond city didn’t like him was that it was a major class difference. Also DragonFlower has a really bad reputation. So someone might say... “oh... my their goes that little bastard, Terran... can you believe his mother... what a tramp, why isn’t she act everyone else.” so his mother thought him to stay out of the way of other people. Maybe I should have explain that. Also he lived in a rickety old house full of roots, and it’s out of the way of the other families. Theirs so much I wanted to add but it would only make it longer. The deal with his tattoo is that its dm plot hook. But to give you more info, it’s a gift from the fey. Terran didn’t nourish the gift, and the earth spire exploded because of his gift (vinegar and backing soda). It supercharged his rune and had a disasters effect on the druid prince. Also if vaguely is trying to say Terran may be the true druid king, but… that is up to the dm. I just left it open. I gave Terran eschew materials steady concentration to mechanically make the rune work. So he now he can cast spells extremely close up with no problem, and he will never find himself without the ability to cast spells, as the power is within himself (in a way) I also asked the dm because eschew materials is slightly over powered that hopefully it could include focuses without a value as well. Any type Terran casts spells with focuses, his focus is the rune. This character is vow of poverty. He swore never to use magic items and to give his wealth to the needy so they would not have to end up like him when he was in the cloak and daggers. As for his sacred vow, he vows to protect the fey and magical bests like unicorns, as they healed his arrow wound. But thank you for reading my very long story. I am glad you liked. If you want, I can post his stats too. Right now he is level 8. If you have a cool character write-up/story/whatever, I would be glad to read yours in return for reading mine (as you have already read mine).