[hider=Athulwin of Queensrock]

[center][h2][color=slategray]Athulwin of Queensrock[/color][/h2]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/RbKJbaU.jpg[/img]
[color=lightgray]Caravan Navigator, Former Monk[/color][/center]

[color=slategray]Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:[/color]
Human, 37, 8 years in the Caravan

[color=slategray]Appearance:[/color]
At 37, Athulwin looks older than he should. He knows it. People already take him to be in his forties, early fifties, with the lines around the mouth and that star-silver hair. It used to be blonde, he swears. He thinks himself lucky to be on the tall side. His back, stomach and most of his lower body is marked up with faded old burn scars, like stretched-thin fabric. Up above them, between the shoulder blades, are dozens of thin, white stripes- ancient whip-scars.

[color=slategray]History:[/color]

[hider=History]
Vampires of the Old Marshes rarely take prey. They are like their marshland home: calm, silent creatures, who do not often lust for blood. Nor does the sun much bother them, if they can stay to the twilight hours. An Old Marshes vampire can often be sighted lurking at sunset, sunrise, unbothered by the half-light. And though they are masters of powerful and cruel Curses, they do little magic besides. They are only true vampires in that they can neither eat nor die- for they are not among the living- and that sometimes, on bright nights when the midnight moon speaks to them, they do crave the Red Drink.

On a very clear night, that craving awoke in one Gareth of Queensrock, a man who died twelve months earlier and was still trying to live like he hadn't. He had fought off his new, awful desire for blood as long as he could, distracted himself from it with anything he could think of; but still, the part of him that was now a vampire demanded satiation. It took over him as tried to lay in bed with his human wife, Renalda, one night. She was pregnant, he didn't [i]want[/i] to drain her, but the craving-

Three days before Athulwin was due to be born, his mother Renalda stabbed through his father Gareth's heart. She had awoke just as he had gone for her neck.

He was buried that night, in an empty funeral attended only by Renalda and three Uttering Monks. The monks did not know him; their order considers it a duty to arrive for the funerals of the unloved. At least someone, they say, should mark the end of a life. They closed Gareth's eyes and lowered him into the soaking, marshland earth. Renalda wept. Then they begin to talk to her, and revealed another purpose in their coming: that they knew Athulwin would be born a half-vampire, would carry some of his father's curse all his life with none of his power.

A wretched existence, they said. No life at all, they said. But the Uttering Monks, in their dark, private monasteries, know a great many strange things, they assured Renalda, for they spend their days speaking fire and their nights talking to the stars. They knew of a ritual to cure him. Her son would be a man- not half of a man, not an almost vampire, but a whole and mortal and pure man, accepted in the eyes of the world. Their price was only this: that he would be [i]their[/i] man. That soon as he was old enough to be weaned off of his mother's breast, she would give her firstborn son to them, and they would raise him in their monastery according to their own traditions.

An awful trade? No doubt. But... Renalda was a widow twice over, with no craft of her own. In a village the size of a bloated thumb. Her nightmares were already filling with fears on how she could possibly care for this son-to-come so, with tears, she agreed. They sealed the promise in the way men of the Old Marshes do, by carving it in stone. A small but heavy stone was stuck, struck deeply, with ancient symbols to represent that weighty price. Renalda has it in her home to this day.

The sun rose and set two more times; Athulwin came into the world. He was a boy born into fire. Literally: the ritual of the Uttering Monks, to cleanse a child of vampirism, was to set a pyre burning, and to let the child be birthed right onto the flames. The child would not burn alive, a nun named Sister Alyn promised Renalda, for the monk's sisters too can speak to fire, and they will teach the flames how to only burn away that which is evil in her young son. His self will be untouched.

It was a half-truth; the burn scars Athulwin still has testify to that. But it calmed her enough to let the monks and nuns do what was needed. The infant screamed. It was a dark scene. We should not dwell on this subject-

Suffice to say, Renalda's baby was alive, all human, left to her until such a time as he could be weaned safely. Came and went. Athulwin was taken up into the Monastery at Queensrock before he was old enough to remember his mother. There he was raised, there is where he thinks of when he hears someone ask him about home. Those stone walls, those cramped passageways.

The aura of an Uttering Monks monastery is hard to describe. They are one of three monastic orders native to the Old Marshland, a land already filled with history and deep tradition. They are the oldest of the orders- and the strictest. Silence is kept at meal time, silence for the first hour after waking, silence for the first three hours before bed. All the space between is filled with a deep, growl-like muttering: the sound of the monks practicing their art. In a monastery of a hundred souls, like Queensrock's was, every corridor and common room and walled-in garden is filled with men's muttering, so that it bounces off the stones and becomes the background noise of the entire monastery. It is a bit like the sound of a distant ocean or a dying fire. It'll get into your bones.

They aren't speaking to each other, of course, of course. They'd raise their voices for that. They are speaking, if you can believe it, to the raw elements of nature: the sacred art of the Uttering Monks is to learn the natural languages of things like stone, wind, thunder and fire, and to spend their lives practicing those strange tongues. In the meantime, they study much philosophy, much history, much religion, so that they form the spiritual and academic backbone of Old Marshes culture. Everyone outside those dark walls was uneducated, agricultural- but within them? There shown all the knowledge of the greater world.

This academia was learned before magic, for new students; by the age of four, Athulwin was already reciting religious history, between his dragging classes on writing, reading, languages. There was little arithmetic, and that was the one thing to be grateful for.

Many long years would pass this way. So many so that it would be better not to cover them all. One pattern emerged: Athulwin was a brilliant pupil, but only when he applied himself. He did not, as a rule, apply himself. Sister Alyn joked that they should have told the flames to burn out all his laziness, too. Nobody guessed at the true cause. It was that same thing which caused his straw pillow to come to the cleaners wet with tears, which caused other children to complain that he never laughed along with them. Young Athulwin had the condition which the people of Sinverland might have called "chronic melancholia," or what other cultures in other places might have deemed Depression- but what was here, in the Monastery at Queensrock, just a stark lack of work ethic.

He was flogged often. 

It was perhaps inherited from his mother; it did not improve with age. He would've been outcast from the order altogether, if it weren't for his saving grace: Athulwin truly is a prodigy with languages. Monks learn mortal languages before magical ones, to prepare the mind. It was with an uncharacteristic eagerness that he tackled the words of the Wandering Elves, the rumblings of the Forrestal Dwarves, and the odd language of the Eld Fae- fairy folks who lived in the Old Marshes before humanity drove them out. He'd only been required to learn one.

Soon, with the blessing of the order, he was speaking to the stars. Now when he went wandering the swamps alone at night, he had a good excuse to be doing it.

And that was how he met Alder.

Alder, a man who only seemed to live at night and twilight. He appeared out of the fog to speak to the young monk whenever the swamp was dark and lonely- he claimed to be a Lord, but one without any land, and claimed that he had known Athulwin's father. 

Athulwin knew he was a vampire. Alder knew that Athulwin knew, but why he kept coming out so late for conversations with a blood-sucker- that was the mystery. Still, they talked. The night hours were passed together. Alder never once tried to drink from him. It became a kind of unspoken alliance, this secret friendship between a vampire and a monk.

Their friendship formed over common interests. Language, history, philosophy. Alder always knew more than he should; it made you wonder how old he was. Athulwin learned secrets from the stars- he tried to impress Alder with them. Years passed, and they knew everything about one another.

Uttering Monks will temporarily take Vows of Silence, to meditate on the natural elements. Alder bore that time with patience, filling the air with only his words, while the dutiful monk nodded along. Something about the chatter made Athulwin's constant sorrow part, if only for a while. Time would be passed the same way as he prepared himself to learn to speak to fire, then to wind. He was becoming a true Sayer.

Alder asked often how his studies came. In the times where he was not shackled by a vow, Athulwin answered, never wondering why his friend would ask so much. It only became clear when, on a clear night with the moon swaying over their words, Alder made his proposal.

He wanted Athulwin to become a vampire, like his father, and of the same clan. It made sense now why he would play so long at friendship; vampires cannot participate in the monastery, so none ever learn Utterance except by turning a monk, and learning it from them. He promised Athulwin a very high position in the clan, for his part.

But he, perhaps drawing on something of his mother, was repulsed. He spat at the suggestion, almost literally. He demanded that the vampire unhand him- for he had now grabbed him by the wrist, and was tugging him closer. The moon was singing to Alder, he was going to turn him, he would try to drink from him as Gareth had tried from his mother, and-

In rare cases, a gifted Sayer who speaks the language of fire can go further than only talking to fire; they can [i]breathe[/i] fire, like a fairytale dragon. That's what Athulwin did then. For the first time. Alder was left with half his body burnt from the flames; he staggered backwards. He wasn't dead, thankfully- but then Athulwin heard the words that would change his life. 

Alder, with that kind of bitter, dripping rage that only vampires have, pronounced a Curse on Athulwin. The words of the spell were not in any tongue men could recognize. Hearing it felt like a hearing Utterance in reverse, upside-down; there was nothing natural about it. And though it was incomprehensible and unnatural, Athulwin found that he instinctively knew what it meant: that he was cursed to die. That the sorrow and sadness which has always been inside him would gradually work its way outwards, graying his hair and aging him too fast, working in him until it rotted his bones and brought him to a young death. 

There was a possible release from this curse- if he would become a vampire. If he would one day embrace the gift Alder tried to give him, the Curse would break. Until then, he was doomed to grow weaker, and weaker, and then die.

With those words ringing in his skull, he fled.

The next two years at the monastery passed too slowly. Every day, it seemed, Athulwin found another gray hair in his head, felt his body seeming a little heavier even as he lost weight. He knew what was taking hold. One day, without warning, he ran for good from the monastery, leaving his vows behind him. It was an impulse decision, probably the only one he's ever made. All he knew- that he had to see the world before his ended. 

That was how he found the Caravan. He has stayed for eight years, never knowing how long he has left before Alder's curse finally comes due. With his power to speak to the stars, he's become the official navigator, and so a kind of leader. It put more responsibility on him, more than he would normally like, but he doesn't altogether mind. It lets him leave a mark. Before the Curse comes due.
[/hider]


[color=slategray]Personality:[/color]
Still and calm. A contemplator. A hearer, not a talker.

Through his long time in the Caravan, Athulwin has gained a reputation as someone you come to when you need someone to talk to. He is the one who will actually listen to [i]you[/i] speak, pouring out whatever is on your mind, and only answer back once you've said all you need. He'll look you in the eye, tilt his head towards you; he really cares. And, a true Uttering Monk, his words back towards you are chosen carefully, with a surgical kind of precision. A habit coming from the Vows of Silence that he once held. Words are precious.

When he's not charting out the Caravan's next course or hearing out caravanners problems, Athulwin is usually somewhere silent, deep in meditation or reading or simply thinking. There is a flaw here: he almost never helps with the physical work of the caravan. Nobody has ever seen him chop wood. Maybe it's because of weakness from his curse, some say. Or maybe got used to trying to skip out on work back in the monasteries, and avoiding it like the plague became a habit.

[color=slategray]Motivation:[/color]
What is he looking for, life? But he's given up on that. Instead, Athulwin most wants to seek knowledge before his death. Not knowledge of the world, of things. But spiritual wisdom. All this journeying is only a path to that greater goal. He hopes that, by experiencing and seeing all that creation is filled with, he can glimpse something of the hand of the creator.

[color=slategray]Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:[/color]

Skills:

[hider=Magic: Utterance]
Utterance has been described as a kind of cross-breed between druidism and elemental magic. It is a form of language, allowing one to speak (literally, with their voices) to the non-living aspects of nature, like stone, or sunlight. The obvious use for such a power would be to control natural elements; to tell a fire to cook or to burn down, to teach ice to freeze itself around a threat, to call on rain for the crops. It can do those things, though not so often or effectively as a true wizard might. (Reason being: the elements can say "no" to one using Utterance.)

Instead, the main reason the Uttering Monks study it is for [i]learning[/i] from nature. Nature, after all, witnesses and knows many things mankind does not. One who speaks to the stars may learn from them the correct paths to travel, may hear of ancient history those stars' eyes have seen, may be told of great and secret things that happen in the heavens. Those who whisper to the wind may hear it whisper back, telling them of news from far-off lands, of secrets said in a king's chambers while the window was open and the night breeze whistling by. They cannot control the elements with the same precision as a mage, maybe, but a [i]Sayer[/i] (that is, one who practices Utterance) knows far more.

And this learning goes deeper than head-knowledge, too. Finally, a Sayer has an Aura. Their Aura is based on the elements of nature they most often speak too, because as you commune with something such as fire, you will find that burning power seeping into your own soul. The Aura a Sayer has is felt almost tangibly around them, and heard in their voice, giving most of them a kind of unnatural charisma. One who speaks to stone seems strong and unbreakable, one who speaks to ice becomes coldly intellectual. All of them feel impossible to argue with. A good Sayer tends to get their way in conversations. Their voice carries much weight.

As a last note: Utterance isn't one language, it's many. Each part of nature speaks its own tongue, after its own form. All these things have a secret language; twilight, shadows, thunder, time. But these tongues are not like the languages of men, that anyone can learn them if they just study enough. They are stranger.

Take the language of the stars, for one example: to hear it spoken feels like fire, like a burning light, full of wisdom and cold fury. It feels like you're hearing something from another world, something straight from the cold void of space. It is so much more than just sounds. So when someone speaks it, they do indeed form actual words with their tongue, but there's something deeper happening that everyone who hears it can sense.

That's no accident. Before one can speak the language of, say, water, they must spend months or years in silent and intense meditation, learning to [i]think[/i] like water. The same goes for any other natural language. Someone who wishes to speak to the wind must think as quick and surely as the wind. And during this time, the student must take a vow of total silence; they cannot speak a word in any language, even an ordinary one. This can take much focus. Only after a long time has passed is the student ready for a proper Sayer-Teacher to be brought in, who will finally show them the real words and syntax of the language that they wished to learn. After that, their vow of silence can be broken, and it becomes like learning any mortal language.

Each natural language is different, so this process has to be repeated for every Utterance one learns. You may already know how to speak to lightning, but if you want to speak to thunder, you still have to go back and start your meditations from scratch. So only the very old or very dedicated can know more than a few Utterance languages.
[/hider]

Athulwin is a Sayer; one who uses Utterance. Specifically, he speaks the languages of [color=FireBrick]Fire[/color], [i]Wind[/i] and [color=silver]Starlight[/color].

[color=silver]Starlight[/color] teaches him many things, though it has no use beyond that. As it says above, "one who speaks to the stars may learn from them the correct paths to travel, may hear of ancient history those stars' eyes have seen, may be told of great and secret things that happen in the heavens." He uses this knowledge to aide the Caravan on its journey, keeping them away from places where the stars speak of danger. The knowledge is not always perfect; stars are not like you and me, and their words are like riddles born from an alien's mind. Much of what Athulwin hears from them has to be... interpreted.

[color=FireBrick]Fire[/color] is an opposite to starlight, having little to say but much it can do. There's not a lot a fire can tell you; its spirit, if it has one, cares for nothing but to burn. But then, that is the use. Speaking fire is good for a fight, good for removing obstacle's in the caravan's path, or even just good for cooking a meal and warming you on cold nights. Like many Sayers who have spoken this tongue a long time, Athulwin is not harmed by fire, and can breathe it as a dragon does.

[i]Wind[/i] is somewhere between the two, having some practical use and sharing some knowledge. A Sayer can speak wind to push things and people out of the way, or speed sail-boats along. It can also carry messages across long distances, so that Athulwin is able to speak something into the wind, and another Pilgrim will hear it a mile off as clear as if he were standing beside them. Among the people of the Old Marshes, the language of the wind is  associated with spy-work, because of the way Sayers use it to hear other people speaking from far away. In the Marsh, they say never to speak a secret when the wind is blowing, because it will carry your precious words to a Sayer, who might turn and use it against you. Before the Pilgrimage visits a new city, Athulwin will always stop to listen, to hear what sort of people live there- and to guess if the Caravan will be welcomed.

Outside of Utterance, Athulwin has little physical or practical skills, and relies on his charisma to get through situations that can't be burned or blown away.

[b]Strengths:[/b]
	[b]Knowledgeable[/b]: A strong knowledge of philosophy, history, geography and- of course- theology was drilled into Athulwin from a young age, and his own caravan has as many books and scrolls as it can practically store. He also hears news via the wind, and receives cryptic messages and esoteric knowledge from the words of the stars.
	[b]Unnatural Charisma[/b]: Although not the most outgoing fellow on his own, Athulwin's connection to the raw elements of the world gives him a constant feeling of power and authority that clings to him. His tongue is as if it's enchanted; he gets his way in conversations even when his words are plain.
	[b]Fights with Fire and Wind[/b]: Although not a pyromancer in the arcane sense, Athulwin's connection to fire allows him to control it. He can walk through fire with only moderate pain, wrap himself within flames like a cloak, and command fireballs to leap at foes. But, unlike a true wizard, he cannot summon flames from nothing, except for when he breathes them. So before a fight, you'll likely see Athulwin spit fire onto his own hands, and command the flames out from there; and this is still painful for him. He can also push the bad guys around with gusts of wind, or hover himself a few feet over the ground.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b]
	[b]Cursed[/b]: The Curse that is on Athulwin makes him age faster, and makes his body both weak and heavy. He is very frail. To boot, one who has lived long under a curse such as this one has a way of becoming more vulnerable to dark energies. Foul magics and other curses hurt him even more than they would hurt others, and he can resist them less.
	[b]Impractical[/b]: Athulwin scorns physical labor, both because of his weakness and because of his own personality, and he rarely cares for the day-to-day necessities of life. If he had to fully look after himself for a month, he'd be a beggar by the second week. His head is always in the clouds, you might say. Or, as it were, in the stars.
	[b]Melancholic, Impersonal[/b]: Few things bring joy to Athulwin. Even those things that should make a man happy can scarcely bring a smile to his face, and this impacts his relationships with others. He is hard to befriend. And, because of the impractical mindset mentioned above, he doesn't care to talk about 'ordinary' things with ordinary people. All conversations with him somehow end up being about magic and nature and the gods, or else they end up being about nothing at all. He has few friends among the less educated of the caravan, who cannot follow his meandering thoughts.

Tools:
	-Maps, quills and scrolls, various cartography equipment
	-The [i]Eld Breviary[/i], a book of chants that focus the mind before Utterance.
	-The Moiling Chain. A heavy, iron chain given to Uttering Monks who serve in a monastery for ten years, reminding them of the weight and burden of their holy duty. It is enchanted never to rust, and each link is engraved with shockingly detailed images of religious history. In a pinch, it can be used as a whip.


[hider=Optional: Extra Details]
[center][color=slategray]What They Most Want:[/color]
[color=silver]Wisdom[/color]. [i]Knowledge[/i]. [color=FireBrick]Insight[/color].

[color=slategray]If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:[/color]
Lawful Neutral.

[color=slategray]Three Likes:[/color]
Utterance, wisdom, crisp air that clears the mind.

[color=slategray]Three Dislikes:[/color]
Dark and occult magics, those who live without a code, and vampires.

[color=slategray]Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:[/color]
He used to follow his heart. But somewhere, in all those silent and contemplative years in the monastery, re-reading scriptures and philosophical texts again and again and again for new interpretations, the mind took dominance.

[color=slategray]Worst Fear:[/color]
That he will break, and become a vampire.

[color=slategray]Favorite Color:[/color]
Silver.

[color=slategray]Most Like The Animal:[/color]
Raven.

[color=slategray]Favorite Time of Day:[/color]
Deep dusk, when the stars are just coming out, and the last rays of sunlight sinking down below the horizon.

[color=slategray]How They Dress:[/color]
Back home, a brown robe was the standard. Sometimes spruced up with a small hat, or- for festivals and other such rare occasions- a necklace.

But after eight years of travel, Athulwin keeps a variety of clothes stuffed into his caravan, ready for most any environment. He's learned that, when he has the choice, he likes softer and neutral colors: grays, off-whites, almost-blacks. It goes with his hair. Robes, cloaks and other flowy, wizard-y fare is the usual ensemble.

[color=slategray]Favorite Season:[/color]
Winter. Crisp air, chill wind, early sunset.

[color=slategray]What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any):[/color]
The Uttering Monks, and those marshlanders whose villages are sprinkled amidst their monasteries, worship the ancient god Eld Frowen. They teach that it was him who Spoke all things into being at the beginning of time, and their practice of Utterance is but a pale imitation of that great act. Eld Frowen sits in the Unseeable Throne at the center of the earth, far underneath the sunlit lands, and He is still Speaking today. Every word that He says keeps the world in motion, keeps the sun rising every morning and breath in our lungs. All the universe is like a story told by Eld Frowen. (In fact, Uttering Monks often call the world of Alwyne "The Great Story.")

Other gods and deities are seen as Echoes of Eld Frowen's words, which form when the words He says echo off the walls of the great cavern that is his throne room, being changed and distorted in the process. So, in Authwin's eyes, every other god is an echo or a perversion of something Eld Frowen once said. He tries to keep that opinion to himself.

In art, Eld Frowen is often depicted as half man, half fae, and either blind or eyeless. Blind, because the monks teach that He is a bit of an absent creator, "an unmovable mover," who keeps the universe in motion but does not otherwise interfere in people's lives or the events of history. In a sense, He is a god both blind and deaf, neither watching over the world nor much hearing prayers- only speaking His great story, [i]ad perpetuam[/i].
[/center]
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[hider=Terilu]

[center][h2][color=Goldenrod]Terilu[/color][/h2][/center]
[center][color=Goldenrod]Ascendant of the Third Caste and Called by the Reaching Hand, in Form of Baítudatu-Thumilie, of New Dawnlit[/color][/center]

[color=goldenrod]Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:[/color]
Eratie, Nineteen, Two Weeks in the Caravan.

[hider=Eratie]

The Eratie are considered a beastrace: humanoid creatures that bear some of the features of animals, or else (depending on who you ask) animals that speak and walk on two legs. For Eratie, the animal they take after is undeniably the bat. They have all the expected features: chiropteran faces ending in a snout, with dark eyes for seeing at night, black and light fur covering their bodies, and huge ears for picking up on echolocation. And, of course, there's that huge set of huge leathery wings sprouting from their shoulders- hard to miss that one.

At least, that's the [i]stereotypical[/i] Eratie. The way an Eratie looks varies much depending not upon their genetics, but upon the mystical energies in the air when they are born. An Eratie may or may not be born with wings; they may or may not have fur; their faces may resemble that of a common fruit bat, or may be more that of an ugly Natalidae. It varies by the stars that are overhead, and by the poorly understood Powers that swirl around them when first they come into this world. Even the time of day plays a role: Eratie born at the stroke midnight often have tiefling-esque horns. They call these variations in their bodies their "Forms," and as they are a people who categorize everything, they of course have a name for each. The most common form is the one they call "Baítudatu-Thumilie," and that is the stereotypical one described above.

Most of the world population of Eratie exists in the land of Tureiamú, which is considered their homeland: it is a small peninsula that stretches out somewhere south of the lands of the Old Marshes and Trist, almost approaching towards the coastal kingdom of Ordos. But, historically, the Eratie who live there have had little traffick or trade with the humans, who they consider a brutish and dangerous bunch, and their culture shows this. Over thousands of years living in the same places and rarely varying their way of life, the Eratie-Tureiamú have been built into a complex, strict culture that prioritizes tradition and orderly behavior. Their caste system is enforced, and unquestioned. Their houses and clans are maintained by blood and by ritual. The lives of those who are born under Tureiamú's sun are set out both by the station of their birth and by their astrological signs. Even the shoes that an Eratie puts on in the morning may as well have been pre-planned according to three thousand years of tradition. Who is there to argue with it?

Each Eratie is meant to behave after their own kind, after all, following their destiny as their Form, Calling and House would dictate it, and this is the only way. Those who break from their destinies are shamed or outcasts. They have walked the Unsteady Path, that winding road which leads to decay, and cannot be made clean again.
[/hider]

[color=goldenrod]Appearance:[/color]

Terilu is a rather common kind of bat, and this has always irked him. He wishes that he had the horns of the Detiastu-Tiatietu Form, something all dark and imposing to frighten the bigger races. But, alas, he does not. He is in every way what the human imagines when he thinks of an Eratie: something small, maybe three or four feet tall, with a cute fruit bat's face. His fur's all black except for a ring of brown around his shoulders, worn just like you'd wear a scarf.

His eyes are young, and full of burning potential.

[color=goldenrod]History:[/color]

[hider=Part 1: Plague]

Terilu's path to necromancy began with a plague. He was less than eight years of age, and some vile disease was sweeping through New Dawnlit- the stone, crumbling old city where he was raised. 

Like most Eratie, the young Terilu was living deep within a crowded "nest-" a single massive home where dozens of Eratie (all of the same caste, of course) reside communally under one roof- when the sickness began. In a normal year, a nest is meant to be a warm, busy place, where every child has as many mothers as there are women, and has as many fathers as there are men.

All the children of the same age were Terilu's nest-siblings, and he shared meals and jokes and conversation with them all throughout the nights. All in the nest were related, all of the honorable Third Caste, and this made them as good as brothers and sisters. Each of them would be one day trained in the approved professions for ones such as they: meaning that for most of them, they would have educated, upper-middle class jobs. The Third Caste was considered the caste of the artists, the writers, the scribes, the wizards, the architects, the scientists; the thinkers and the feelers of their world. Young Terilu and his nest-siblings were lesser gentry, the lower part of the aristocracy- wealthy and privileged, though not in charge.

But, in a year like this, with this strange plague in the city, their crowded nest became a vector of disease.

The women of the nest, the mothers, were struck the hardest. Nobody understood why. The disease made them shrivel and rot, losing weight while they vomited up their meals. It was rabidly infectious; a nest that caught the plague could be hollowed out in a matter of weeks. It killed fast, and that was the only mercy. The first to fall in Terilu's nest was an old woman he knew as Mother Deatta. As is Eratie custom, the nests' many children were brought in to see the body- to say their last goodbyes.

Little Terilu looked down at the Mother's corpse. Staring at this skull-like face, shrunken down to nothing by this starving, blind plague, the young child was struck with something. He was too young and not bright enough to articulate just what he was feeling, but suddenly he was aware that this is how all life ends. Plague or no plague. He was understanding for the first time, that this is what will eventually happen to the rest of his mothers, and to his fathers, and his friends, and then to him. They will all one day be like the body laying on the table.

Tears rolled down his face. They thought he was crying for Mother Deatta. He wasn't.

It was the next morning that he declared to everyone in the nest, with the confidence that only children have of the future, that he was going to become a powerful necromancer. This, he said, was his chosen path. The nests' elders did not much question it. Necromancy was indeed an acceptable profession for the Third Caste by the ancient laws of their people, and the child had certainly seen enough death in his life that it was no great mystery why his mind should be on this track. They assented. The lad was to be trained in the ways of undeath. When the disease had passed from the city, they assured him that they'd search for proper tutors and dig up the proper spellscrolls for his study.

But the plague, meanwhile, tore on through the nest like a flame through paper. Half of them died, especially the mothers. Terilu almost became numb to all the funerals, to watching his sisters and teachers and mothers pass away. Until six months later, he lost the one- Mother Terria. 

Mother Terria was his birth-giver: the very one he came from. Unlike the other women of the nest, he came out of her. That made her death feel... different. When the messenger boy came sprinting through the narrow, long little stone halls of the nest to tell him that she'd died, he began to shout and scream. He isn't even sure if the shout was one of grief or anger. He could not distinguish which emotion this was. It was simply wrong: wrong for another one, and [i]this[/i] one, of all, to be taken from him. He cursed and he spit, something that would've gotten him in real trouble if the wrong adult overheard. (The messenger boy, in sympathy, swore himself to silence.) He declared aloud to a room of fellow mourners, when they took him to see her body, that he'd see her rise again. By the necromantic power that he was going to learn. Nobody took it seriously- he hadn't even been trained yet- but the uncomfortable silence that followed was real enough.

It was later that afternoon when he found out that the nests' elders were having the corpse cremated. There would be no resurrecting her.

Little Terilu was heartbroken, and confused. He thought this move a random, mean injustice to him, and to his mother. Only later did one of the fathers sit him down and explain. There's no real bringing someone back from the dead, he told him. The dead rise when a necromancer tells them to, yes, but it's not the whole person. It's either just the body, hollow and rotting, or just the soul, ethereal and tormented. Either way, there is no having Mother Terria back, whole and healthy and herself. That time has now passed.

It nearly killed young Terilu's desire to become a necromancer, hearing that. But changing course is extraordinarily hard in the uncompromising Eratie culture. Already his name has been marked down as a future necromancer. Already, here come the tutors assigned to teach him this sacred art, and here are the relatives bringing gifts of dried bones for their favorite youngling to practice on. The many mothers and fathers of Terilu's nest forbid him from changing course. It would be embarrassing for the family. So he continued.

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[hider=Part 2: Student]

His first tutor in the art of necromancy was an old, wrinkled bat named Master Earídu, a fellow member of the Third Caste but who came from some far-off nest in a city that Terilu had never heard of.

The lad instantly disliked him. He never appreciated the young lad's jokes and jests, for one thing. Just looked at him with that ancient face. "He looks as much like a dead body as the ones he brings back," young Terilu said to his friends. It was funny, because resurrecting the dead seems to be the one thing the aged necromancer was unable to teach. Terilu has many blurry memories of long hours wasted listening to Master Earídu talk about the theory and philosophies behind necromancy. There was much he had to say about the symbolic meaning of a person who is kept both alive and dead, and why this is important to their culture. When he didn't feel like talking (that was rare, but did- occasionally- happen), he'd sentence Terilu to many long nights of drawing out body charts and complicated diagrams of rituals. He'd review the drawings, mark where Terilu had made a mistake, and send him back to rework the entire thing. 

But only rarely would he let the young pupil put any of this into practice. Perhaps it was because of the Master's failing health: he was nearing sixty, an incredible age for an Eratie, and seemed to have no more energy for real spellcraft. The grave was drawing near to him. During a particularly dry lecture on the nature of arcane energies, he once lamented aloud that he wished he had learned more when he'd been Terilu's age. Then, maybe, he could've ascended into something like lichdom, and kept himself alive for centuries more, as some few of the greatest Third Caste necromancers indeed have.

Terilu whined to him that he wouldn't achieve lichdom either- or anything else- if he wasn't shown some real magic soon, but the master would not hear of it. When he predictably died of old age some five years later, Terilu felt more annoyed about it than anything else. This dotting academic had wasted his entire education! In a fit of irritation, he snuck into the Mausoleum with a necromantic spellbook snuck under his arm, and found where they had buried the master. 

He probably would have failed if, ironically, it weren't for the excellent theory and form he'd learned from all those lessons. Dragging out the man's casket with both hands, he cast the most powerful Resurrection Spell he could find on Earídu's own corpse. And it rose to life as his slave. Laughing with genuine delight, he made Earidu's body dance and juggle for him. It was the first thing he'd ever brought to life bigger than a rabbit! It was the eve of his 13th birthday.

And that is, of course, the age of adulthood for Eratie.

He decided now that the Art of Necromancy really was the path for him. If, for no other reason, so that he could escape the fate of so many others in his young life: so that he could use this dark power to stop himself from dying. He wouldn't allow himself to just be another funeral. But he had also decided that his homeland was not the place to learn. The necromancers here were all like Earídu: academic scholars concerned with getting their names on books, not with achieving real things. He is utterly repulsed by them.

So it was that he had many tearful goodbyes with his family and friends. The now adult bat was going to venture out into the "Wilder World," as Eratie called the savage universe outside their safe little peninsula of culture and knowledge. His mothers were convinced he would get himself killed. There, they warned him, necromancy was hated as an evil and black art, and any who discovered what he was would murder him. But no, he reassured them: he would follow the rumors of wicked necromancers in distant lands until he came upon one himself, and there he would beg to be their apprentice. He would learn all they had to teach. If he came back, it would not be in a casket, but as a lord of the dead. Powerful, wise, and ascendent.

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[hider=Part 3: Necromancer]
It took three years of hard, long travelling and searching, but he did find his teacher. She was an elven woman, Aryyna. Oh, he loved her. She was the opposite of the old bat. The image of a classic necromancer, complete with an undead army and plans to conquer the world. Sensing the presence of her many undead servants from afar off, he had tracked her to her hideout in an abandoned watchtower mounted just at the mouth of a bloody and forsaken old battlefield. Many wars were fought in that land in ages long past and, cleverly, she was raising the corpses that had fallen in battle to build an army of her very own. She was preparing herself for an all-out invasion against the local villages- there was some petty grievance that she had against them; Terilu didn't care what it was. When she saw that he was ready to serve her no matter the cost, Arynna gladly took him under her wing. It helped that he proved to be rather magically gifted. He learned from her how to raise skeletons and ghouls to follow one into battle, and how to seek wisdom from the spirits of those long gone. In time, he was the lieutenant of her dark forces. Just her, him, and a few hundred sword-wielding corpses.

He stayed with her for several more years. It was, he would have to say, the most valuable time of his life. There is nothing like being shown the tricks of the trade by a true expert. He never came close to her power, but she assisted him where he was lacking. She helped him create an undead slave to bathe him every morning and clothe him every night. She had the ghouls bring him wine on a platter. She showed him how one communicates with the undead telepathically, only thinking and having your will accomplished. He could soon sit on the balcony of the tower and watch the dead go out to war at his unspoken command, raiding the villages by night until the powerless peasants were forced to offer tribute. He and her took the very best of their goods: their wines and fabrics, clothes and foodstuffs, their gold and oil. He felt like a warlord.

He was lonely, that was the only thing. In his crowded nest back home, he never wanted for company, and so he never realized how much he relied on it. But now Terilu was beginning to know himself better. He looked back with fondness on the many hours of conversation that he had with his nest-siblings, and the ways that they laughed at his jokes. He tried conversing with Arynna, but she was cold. And her dead weren't for talking.

But he could have continued in this way. Being the second-in-command. He still could have kept on until they conquered a small kingdom's worth, gladly, even though the occasional bloodshed made him chafe. He did not know he could be a killer- but then, it wasn't [i]him[/i] doing the killing, he told himself. And the villagers were only hurt if they fought back. Nobody made them fight back, he told himself. And his magic was growing so much! And so, still, he would have continued. But, alas.  

He found Aryyna dead one night at the hands of an assassin. To this day, Terilu still doesn't know exactly who it was who did it, or how they got past her undead guards. The best guess: that someone from the villages climbed in through the window. The assassin killed her while she was in the bath, whoever it was. They got a knife in her throat before she could rise to throw a spell at him, or call for help. Even the greatest mage can be taken down by someone quick and suicidal enough.

The blood ran down her body turned the bathwaters red. It reminded Terilu, in a funny sort of way, like wine. It was a disgusting comparison, but that's what it looked like. He's not sure how long he spent looking at her body. He felt grief, of a kind, but it wasn't only that. His steady life here had just been pulled out from under him. Without her, he knew with a sinking feeling in his gut, he wasn't strong enough to keep command of the undead servants. He was not a true master, not yet. Most of the undead soldiers would just crumble apart, becoming immobile corpses again. But some of them, the ones who did not just return to the grave...

With only a few bags of needful things strapped around himself, he fled. He flew out the window, escaping from the old tower before the dead could realize that his magical hold on them was gone. He did not want to discover what kind of vengeance they could bring onto him. For all he knows, they still haunt that old battlefield, restless.

He joined the Caravan not long after. At first, it was just to lay low for a while. With the Caravan's endless roving, it's a place where anyone who knows his recent past as a necromancer's apprentice might have trouble finding him. But after only a few days aboard, he realized that he's going to stay. It's not just that it's the perfect hiding spot. It's that... well, he was lonely under Arynna, and the Caravan has many souls. He's dearly missed belonging to a nest.

Plus, its adventures give him many opportunities to practice his magic. If he is to be as accomplished as his beloved teacher one day, he needs practice.
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[color=goldenrod]Personality:[/color]

Bubbly. Humorous. Outgoing, bright and immature.

Were these the words you were expecting?

It has seemed strange to many of those who have known Terilu that he seems so... unbothered. So completely unbothered. He does not have the spirit you would expect of a necromancer. There is no edge to him. Or if there is, it's so deep inside that one can rarely find it. He flies down to you with a smile, ready to jest and talk about nothing at all. For him, conversation is a great pleasure in and of itself.

He does tend to show that more aristocratic side of himself: he takes most everything for granted, and gently assumes the service of those around him. The kind who will get the room to laugh with a joke, and then make you the butt of his next joke, and never consider that it could have hurt you. If you held a grudge about it, he'd be genuinely shocked. He's just a rich, laughing boy. He likes having power, and he likes it when people do what he says; but he also likes company, the thing he was most lacking under Arynna's tutelage.

So you wouldn't think that he practices a school of magic as stereotypically dark as he does. That's probably because, in Terilu's mind, it isn't dark. The other necromancers that Terilu previously studied under were all of a kind: brooding, crushed, and weighted down with hate. Of the world, of their victims, of- at least a little- themselves. But there is no such guilt on Terilu's conscience. He sees his form of necromancy as being perfectly fine, after all, and he's still quite young and energetic, so he maintains something of the charisma of a puppy dog even while he may blackly defile the rotting bodies of the dead. Why should they care, anyway? They're dead already.

Perhaps due to his dark nature, he also has an unfortunate love of puns.

[color=goldenrod]Motivation:[/color]
Impatient from a lack of progress under his many tutors, and believing there is no more he can learn from the lectures of old men, Terilu has turned to the Caravan. He does not imagine there is anyone in such a place who can teach him necromancy- but then, he has learned all the theory that he can stomach. The young bat now seeks to gain experience. To put his knowledge into practice, and to hone his power by using it. To do that, he reasons, one must live.

[color=goldenrod]Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:[/color]

[b]Strengths:[/b]
	
	[i]Bat Traits[/i]: As a winged, bat-esque creature, Terilu can fly, has excellent vision in the dark, and- when vision proves not enough- uses echolocation. The echolocation is too high for human hearing, but another Eratie (or anything else with above-average hearing) can pick up on it, making for a kind of secret signal. Eratie talk in ultrasonic sounds when they don't want the lesser races overhearing them.
	
	[i]Necromancy[/i]: This one is obvious. Terilu can raise the dead, and bend them to his own will. He can sense and communicate with any undead, even if they aren't his, and he can take command of the weaker-willed ones. He knows how to reach beyond the veil, tampering and communicating with the souls of those who have left their mortal coils, to various ends. If he's pulled into a fight, he can rip and tear at his enemies' soul, torturing it with dark magic. He can even try to pull a soul wholly away from a person's body, capturing their disembodied spirit as his servant and living their body a husk.

	[i]Aspiring Lich:[/i] Although he still has a very long way to go, Terilu has begun learning how to become a form of lich. He has a connection to the forces of undeath that lets him sometimes act as if he were already a corpse himself: he can stop breathing for a while when he needs to, and survive things that should kill a living creature because, in a sense, he is [i]not[/i] fully a living creature anymore. He's partially on his path to lichdom. As a rule of thumb: if an undead could do it, Terilu might be able to as well.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b]
	
	[i]Bat Traits[/i]: It's not all good being a bat. He's half-blind during the day, when his nocturnal eyes can't adjust to the sunlight. But most people would've guessed that much. No, the real disadvantage is actually his body type. He's made for flying, but getting a humanoid form off the ground is no easy feat. An Eratie is therefore incredibly small and light. He's only 3 and a half feet tall, his bones are hollow, his whole form is designed to be as weightless as it can possibly be. It's shocking how little he weighs: coming in at only 35 pounds on the scale. He's therefore weaker than a human child, and if any strong man so much as shoves him, he'd go flying. Literally!
	
	[i]Prejudiced[/i]: In spite of his studies under a bright elf, and though he has made the acquaintance of many races through his journeys across the Wilder World, Terilu has always found them all to be very simple compared to the shining order and complexity of his own people. Anything non-Eratie is a bit of a barbarian in his mind. They're too often unlettered, backwards, and ignorant of deeper truths. He's (pleasantly) surprised when a human can read.
	
	[i]Dark Connections[/i]: Terilu counts his brand of necromancy as, if not [i]ethical[/i], at least Not So Bad. He avoids torturing souls and tries to avoid harming innocents. Nonetheless, he touches on many dark magics and things that very much are bad, and it's impossible to escape the consequences of messing with these forces. He's been tainted by it. Magics meant to drive out evil creatures, demons and undead and the like, bother him more than they rightfully should. He is a little beacon for evil things. There are abominations from beyond the veil who know his name.

[b]Tools:[/b]
	Aside from basic survival, living and cooking supplies, Terilu has a special collection of prizes given to him by his family, before the outset of his journey. Most of them are a little magic, to be sure, but the real benefit is that they keep him from forgetting his true home, and his true purpose.

	[i]Mother Terria's Ring[/i]: A silver ring he stole out of his natural mother's urn after her passing. He fished it right out of her ashes. It has a slight bit of magic to it that helps out in the tougher moments of spellcasting, but Terilu mostly keeps it out of sentiment.

	[i]Mother Haula's Earring[/i]: Ear piercing has a significance in Eratie culture. The ring you wear is a way of marking yourself. The earring Mother Haula gave him is a hollow silver circle that hangs from Terilu's left ear on a short, golden chain. This is, to those who understand the meaning of such things, the mark of a necromancer. He has a bad habit of tugging at it when he's nervous.

	[i]Father Siámie's Staff[/i]: Once a walking staff that eased his birth father's hurting joints, Terilu has carved and enchanted this family heirloom into a conduit for magical powers. Unlike the ring, when he wields it, he's truly more powerful.

	[i]Grandmother Hal'teura's Recipe Scroll[/i]: Look, no self-respecting Eratie is going on a long journey without a taste of his grandmother's fruit pie. You might say this one isn't magic, but Terilu would ask you to try saying that after you've tasted some.

[hider=Optional: Extra Details]
[center][color=Goldenrod]What They Most Want:[/color]
To escape the cycle. To Reach Beyond.

[color=Goldenrod]If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:[/color]
Lawful Evil

[color=Goldenrod]Three Likes:[/color]
Poetry, fun, and necromancy.

[color=Goldenrod]Three Dislikes:[/color]
Disorder, aging, ignorance.

[color=Goldenrod]Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:[/color]
Mind.

[color=Goldenrod]Worst Fear:[/color]
Sinking down into the same kind of base, meaningless life that most others beings already live. Becoming caught up in the degrading cycle of animal instincts and desires, until he grows old and unachieved.

[color=Goldenrod]Favorite Color:[/color]
[color=goldenrod]The color of dawn and dusk.[/color]

[color=Goldenrod]Most Like The Animal:[/color]
Bat. Not only because of his appearance, but because of his nocturnal habits, his love of moonlit flight and his hunting at night.

[color=Goldenrod]Favorite Time of Day:[/color]
Deep dawn, when the stars are fading out from the sky, and the first rays of sunlight crowning over the horizon.

[color=Goldenrod]How They Dress:[/color]

[/center]Clothing among the Eratie is rather complex, dictated highly by class, sex and age, not to mention the natural limiting factors of one's Form, and it's shameful to deviate from the traditional style of dress.

For one such as Terilu, expected clothing is an all-leather robe that flows long in the back, down to the ankles, but is cut short in the front, revealing trousers and black shoes. There's a high, stiff leather collar to the robe, giving the ensemble an official if slightly dramatic air. There are slits for ones wings.

Through the last two years of travelling, Terilu has refused to give up this manner of dress. He left home with several outfits of this kind, and has learned to mend them when they are damaged so that he can keep on rotating through them even as he travels through hot summers and freezing winters. It's become a point of pride that he still dresses like a proper Ascendent of the Third Caste. Even if, by now, the robes are both torn and beaten down by the weather, and his shoes worn as old rat's skin.

[center]
[color=Goldenrod]Favorite Season:[/color]
Winter. He likes the feel of flying through cold air. And besides, Winter is the season of death for many lesser creatures, so he can gather up his forms to work with. There is something very apropos about a necromancer descending on black wings out of a cold winter morn, harvesting up a body from the chilled earth. The ice keeps the corpses fresh.

[color=Goldenrod]What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any):[/color]
The 8th Person and the Diviner. 

The 8th Person is one of the nine aspects of Ad'itie, Goddess of Twilight, and the ancient patron deity of the Eratie people. Each aspect of Ad'itie represents a part of Eratie culture, has a different name and form, and corresponds to a different hour of either dusk or dawn. The 8th Person is called Eru-atie, and is the one most associated with necromancy and the darker forms of magic.

The Diviner is the emperor of the Tiatietu peninsula, and is worshipped as a mortal vessel of Ad-itie.

[/center]
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