Verne Greencloak, Wandering Druid

[PlotDevice]

Basic Information

Name: Verne Greencloak

Class: Druid (Animal, soon also Wild)

Ancestry: Half-Elf

Background: Curandero

Archetype: Cleric (Erastil) and Sorcerer (Dragon)

Leader role options: Warden, alternatively Magister, Counselor or Viceroy

Will try to guide the new kingdom to exist in harmony with nature, occupying the land without despoiling it, teaching settlers how to live without destroying wild places.

Character Sheet

 

Personality

Much of the time he seems carefree, wandering where he wishes, always on the lookout for sweet treats and cured meats. But he has a low tolerance for wrongs he witnesses, and anger comes quickly and easily if he sees animals or people neglected or abused, or wild places being despoiled or disrespected.  He dabbles in civilization, but his attitude is that it's a nice place to visit sometimes, but not a place to call home. Despite his leanings toward the wild, though, he is able to get along well with people - open and friendly with all sorts, as long as they want to live in peace and freedom.

 

Appearance

Verne is a thin, almost frail young man, with youthful features and a Kellid appearance.  His ears are slightly pointed, but hidden beneath an unruly mop of black hair, and a hooded greenish-brown cloak that he wears so consistently he has been named for it.  He travels with a strange-looking bear, fur a strange blending of white and brown, standing waist-high though it is still a cub.

 

Background

 

Boy Who Spits Fire

He was found on the slopes of a volcano in The Crown of the World, nestled in the arms of a dying Kellid woman.  The People of the Fox were there to collect tar, for sealing boats. Their Wise One tried to save both mother and child, but only the child lived, so she adopted him.  As he got older, she began training him to be her apprentice, but he earned his name on his own when he was only a year old - on the coldest night of the year, when Old Winter took people's breaths from their lungs and snuffed out fires that dared to burn.  The night was so cold that the Fire Watcher grew drowsy, and he failed in his duty, letting the frigid wind from the chimney snuff out the flames.  He was frantically trying to get it lit when the little boy crawled up to him, pulling himself upright on the man's leg.  "Want fire?" he said, and the man hushed him, saying, "Of course!  Go to sleep, boy!"  The little boy gave him a toothless grin, and said, "Make fire!"  Then he spat out a ball of flame, that tumbled through the air to land on the pile of frozen branches and peat moss the man was working at desperately with his flint.  It burst alight, and the man stared, as the little boy grinned proudly.  "Fire warm!" he said, scooting up to sit close to the fire he'd made, and nobody could budge him for the rest of the night.

 

Boy Who Spits Fire wasn't strong, or tough.  He looked different than everyone else, and he couldn't handle the cold as well as the rest of them.  But from that moment on, his place in their camp was secure, for making fire from nothing was a better skill than any hunter had.  As he learned the ways of the Wise One, he showed where his talents lay, not with spear or sleigh, but with his mind, channelling the little magics that kept their people alive, finding the healing roots and lichen under the snow, mending the wounds hunters suffered from sharp teeth and merciless jagged ice.  And when the People of the Fox met a larger, stronger, more vicious clan, he was not killed along with the rest of them, but enslaved; taken by their Wise One and forced to forget his old tribe.

 

Boy Who Frees Bears 

His time with the People of the Bear was an ordeal.  He mourned his friends and adoptive family in secret, for he was beaten when he mentioned the People of the Fox or even seemed to be thinking of them.  He hadn't known that The People could be so violent to each other, and as he spent more time with the new Wise One, who was hateful and cruel, he realized that this tribe revered some unnatural creature that lived under the vast Lake, rather than the nature spirits that the rest of the People followed.  He thought perhaps they had once been the same, and corrupted by this Wise One, who was very old, and ruled the clan with an unnatural mix of sacrifice and dogma.  They didn't revere the Great Bear now, but kept bears as beasts of burden, war, and even food.  They revered the creature under the Lake, and they honored the clouds of midges that came during the short springs that came every year.

 

He pretended to cooperate with his new master, and played the part of the faithful apprentice, but he held the proper teachings in his heart, and only waited for the opportunity for vengeance and escape.  Almost two years passed, and then for the second time, the People of the Bear (in his heart, he called them the People of the Midge) celebrated.  He'd seen their frenzy of carnal acts and depravity the previous year, so he was ready.  This year, he was trusted to help with the preparations, and he made the drugs especially potent, and mixed in a lichen that induced a deep sleep.  It was the longest night of the year, the coldest, and the darkest; and as they were distracted by their horrifying revels, and the heavy, lichen-induced sleep, he went from cage to cage, freeing the bears they had chained and tethered.  They were not tamed with love, but enslaved by pain and fear, and when released, none were loyal to their masters.  Some embraced their freedom and ran immediately into the cold winter night, some were so angry and full of hate that they laid waste to the camp and slaughtered their captors.

 

Only one bear didn't know what to do - a newborn young cub, a hybrid of a great cave bear and one of the nomadic white bears.  His mother was gone, killed by a hunter who could not break her to bondage, and the cub was too young and afraid to venture out alone.  He joined the boy, following him as he lit a dozen kayaks aflame, and hopping into the last kayak as the boy slid it out onto the lake, crawling down into the hole, so that when the boy took his place and started rowing south, he could feel the warm furry body snuggled around his legs.

 

Stranger in Brevoy

The journey south across the Lake of Mists and Veils was long and perilous.  He was constantly afraid that the demon underneath would get him, and he had a more rational fear of being pursued by those he had escaped from.  But he made it safely to the shores of a new land.  He and his friend explored, watching the strange people from afar before daring to meet them.  He wandered the hills, living in the wild but visiting towns more and more frequently, healing people and selling herbs in return for the strange and delicious treats called 'candies' and 'pastries', and 'ham' and 'bacon', and the few supplies he couldn't fashion for himself.

 

He is young and adaptable, and he has learned their language and their ways, but he still prefers to sleep outdoors, on soft loamy ground under the open sky, or in a cave dug beneath an old tree bole.  Only occasionally does he find himself sleeping in one of their too-soft beds, where the sleep is too deep, and the air too still.  The folk in this land found his old name strange and impossible to pronounce, so they gave him a new one - Verne Greencloak.  It still sounds foreign to his ears, but he is in their land, and there is no place left for him in the North, so he has taken it as his own, to start making this place his new home.

 

He has heard rumors about a brutal and sadistic bandit king to the south, and people saying those lands should be settled.  When expressing his opinion to people, that the land should be left wild and free, he got into intense discussions about civilization vs. the wild, and the whether people should try to tame nature or live in harmony with it.  He heard word of a meeting, to decide the fate of the lands to the south, and he determined to attend, to speak for the wild, which would otherwise have no voice.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by PlotDevice (see edit history)

[PlotDevice]

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by PlotDevice (see edit history)