Kesla Ploch - Rustic Wizard

[Dan The Diceman]

 

Kesla Ploch, a Brevic Farmer with Ideas Above Her Station

 

 

"Whoever said 'Knowledge is liberating', clearly never pushed a plow a day in their life."

 

Human Wizard 1 (Universalist, Metamagic Experimenter)

Theme Music: https://youtu.be/VpOP-D8ASQA

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Kesla Ploch Ancestry: Versatile Human Background: Borderlands Pioneer Class: Wizard (Metamagic Experimentation) Level: 1 XP: 0/1000 Age: 23 Gender: Female Eyes: Green Hair: Red Alignment: NG Faiths: Erastil, Gozreh, Nethys

Abilities Ability | Modifier STR: 10 | +0 DEX: 12 | +1 CON: 12 | +1 INT: 18 | +4 WIS: 16 | +3 CHA: 10 | +0 Hit Points: 15 Hit Dice: d6 Armor Class: 14 Size: Medium Speed: 25 ft Senses: Standard Perception: +6 Fort Save: +4 Ref Save: +4 Will Save: +8

 

 

A Short Background

 

Southern Brevoy. A small, unassuming farm. A determined young woman, auburn hair and not too un-handsome, independent streak a mile long, doing for herself. A Kellid wanderer, tall and clad in furs and leathers and exhausted from the road, saying little but to ask for aid or shelter or food at every farm door he passed - all shut. Save one.

 

You'll earn your keep and have the barn and a bowl of soup... but only one night, said she. He agreed and bent his shoulder to the plow in earnest.

 

One night turned into two. Two turned into a week. Then, a fortnight. And then... well, they reached an understanding after a bit, as two very different souls somehow manage to do so often in this world. Not exactly the most adventurous or mysterious romance, as breathless poets often pen, but then, not many folk in Restov have time for anything grand and exciting.

 

So there was no talk of the many, many books in the farmer-woman's library... nor of the curiously large sack of gold the strange man bore with him. Not when there was chores and fields to see to. So they set down to that. And when a little red-haired babe came into their lives barely a year later, they matter-of-factly set down to that as well. She was handed a pitchfork when she was old enough to hold one, read her mother's books when she was old enough to be taught her letters, and learned wood-ways and trail-following and beast-lore from her father when she was old enough... but also ready enough, as only he could judge.

 

Kesla Ploch doesn't remember very much of the latter. Not clearly, anyway. Tracking game, learning how to tell herbs from one another, certainly, and she remembers how big and tall her father. Some talking, in that soft but deep voice of his... but not much else.

 

She doesn't really even remember him living. One night, when she was five. Just being half-awake, seeing and hearing her parents talking at the doorstep. He looked... scared? Worried? But later, Kesla's mother would say only that he had something important to do. A worried look in her eyes, too, as she said it.

 

Hopefully it was very important, because he never came back. Kesla and Mother never spoke of it again - didn't see the need. That was sixteen years ago. Mother passed one winter from a fever - Kesla cried her tears, but then buried her down by the hill over the pond, where Mother liked to sit and read, and that was that. There were chores to do and farming to be done, after all. Auntie moved in with her wild pack of little toddlers to "help," but they ended up just being more sheep to herd about at the end of the day.

 

What was the point of all that reading and all that learning if she was just going to be stuck on a farm the rest of her life? Lost empires, ancient heroes, sciences, arts, sums... magic, too, after she tried her hand at a book she'd picked up from a passing peddler on a lark and turned out to be not too terrible at it... they stirred around her head like a swarm of bees in a stuck hive, knocking about to get loose.

 

Maybe she could learn the wizarding ways, if she could find a teacher or a master, apprentice for a bit. Certainly not in New Stetven - all traders and pirates (depending how you looked at it) and far too cold up there on the Lake. Osirion or Varisia or Katapesh was far too far. Absalom, though - that was the City of Anything and Everything. If she saved up enough - scrimping and penny-pinching everywhere she could - maybe she could go there someday and try to study Properly.

 

That was the Dream, anyway. But seven years to a young woman is a very, very long time... and she's starting to get very antsy for some kind of big payoff to push her plans forward much, much further.

 

Sharing a bed with three young children will do that. Especially if they kick in their sleep.

 

And particularly now that the day-lapses are getting more frequent.

 

And longer...
 

 

 

A Short Tale

 

Do you know why we're here, Little Flower?

 

I don't. And I've never seen these trees. They're... strange.

 

These are different trees than our usual ones, child. Special ones. We're doing something very special today.

 

Special how?

 

Special like... well. You'll understand when you're a bit older, I think. It would take a lot of big, hard words to explain just how special.

 

I know lots of big hard words, you know. Try me. I'm big. Almost five now.

 

Ah, yes. Your mother's books are full of big hard words, aren't they?

Yes. Lots. A... pleh-thore-ah.

 

Ah, that IS a big, hard word. It must be a Northern word. I don't know that one.

 

Why... are we here, Daddy?

 

Ah. I would need a lot of big hard words to explain it. But... it's important. So, so very important. And you... musn't tell your mother.

 

Don't tell... why?

She... wouldn't understand. But she will. And so will you... someday...

 

* * *

 

Kesla's eyes snapped open and she gasped, sharply, for breath. She was in the World again. The noon-day light of the sun kissed her face, and the wind wended soft little trails through her hair and ruffled at her straw hat -

 

Wait. She'd started plowing the field at dawn. Half the day couldn't have gotten away that quickly.

 

She stared up at the sun, peering at its position, then snapped her head back down and traced an imaginary curve in the air as she went. A little bit of sums and figures in her head, her lips moving soundlessly as she worked it out in her mind...

 

Noonday. Sure enough. And she could hear Auntie Iira making lunch for the cousins, if she strained her ears just a bit. The clacking of cutlery, Auntie's big wooden spoon in the pot over the hearth... and a moment later, the sound of a bowl smashing on the floor, and Auntie scolding... yes, that'd be Drenn, sure enough. Such a butter-fingered wee one.

 

But... how?

 

She ran her fingers over the smooth, oaken grain of the wooden plow in her one hand. That was still there, sure enough. But... in her other hand? She held a horse collar... and no horse to be found within.

 

Panicking, she cast her gaze up and in every direction. "Crumpet?? CRUMPET!!" Oh - thank the Gods, he was milling not more than two dozen paces away, by the water trough, staring at her impassively. And Gods help him, if Crumpet had been a person, Kesla would swear she could read deep, deep concern in those eyes of his as he looked upon her without a word.

 

"I'm so sorry, Crumpet," Kesla said, letting out a deep sigh of relief as she trodded her way over in her heavy leather boots. "I don't... I don't know what happened." Thank goodness the collar had a breakaway lace, in case Crumpet ever spooked - poor beast would have been stuck standing for hours while Kesla was...

 

Wherever she was. Where, exactly? Another waking dream? All she could remember was just... voices, talking. Nothing tangible.

 

She gently stroked Crumpet's muzzle, not sure what else to do at the moment, evoking a soft snort of affection from the dear grey-dappled creature. Kesla shivered... and not from the cold. Winter was weeks behind, and the spring rains were threatening to spill any day now, sure, but... Gods. She'd had spells before, out here in the field and in the boles down by the Sellen River, but... never like this. Never this long. Never more than a moment or two.

 

She didn't dare tell anyone. Not even the wise-woman down the lane by the willow tree. They'd talk. Farmfolk always did. Their lips were just natural-like loose. Anything even remotely sure to cause a stir, no matter how well-confided, would be common knowledge by the next day. But that'd been when it was the thing of a moment, her thoughts a bit addled. Not... this.

 

She'd just sort of felt herself... drifting. Drifting... down? Away? Like... little rivulets, her thoughts branching and twisting hazily, until they began to drift, like they always did... there.

 

Her gaze slowly, uncertainly and shaking like a stone down a steep hill all the while, rose to the horizon and looked to the south. She almost couldn't help herself.

 

The Stolen Lands.

 

She'd heard stories. Everyone had. Bandits... trolls... worse things, maybe. Hardly anyone mad enough to go down there ever came back. Her books said plenty of folk, strong and brave and clever and certainly many more unpleasant things besides, had tried many times over the years and even the centuries to tame the South. But they'd all failed... for just as many reasons. Some said it was cursed.

 

It was the kind of thing a superstitious farmer would say, certainly. Daft. Not the kind of thing someone who read books and studied proper would entertain. But read enough books - and the certain kind of books as she had done, and... well. She'd plenty enough tales in her little library inside to know that maybe curses weren't as daft or superstitious as many "learned" folk might think to dismiss.

 

So why, in spite of that, did she feel this... pull? Was she cursed, too?

 

"Can't be havin' with this, Crumpet," Kesla murmured, as she tore her eyes away from the horizon and put them squarely on the horse-nose in front of her, the muzzle-patting getting more determined. "Got to get this field ready for seeded by tomorrow. And there's three more to seed after. And the rushes to gather, piglets to drive to market, use the money for fixing up the barn doors..."

 

She sighed and set her jaw, cutting herself off from the list without end. "Seven more years," she murmured. "I'll have saved up enough for the passage to Absalom, and set me up somewhere decent for a bit. The boys'll be plenty old enough to work the field instead of me, by then. There's LOADS of wizards there. At least a handful that need an apprentice..."

 

Crumpet snorted softly in her face.

 

"Fine. A scullery maid, maybe. At least to start." She frowned. "An extremely... unusually well-educated scullery maid." A soft sigh. "Who can... speak four languages and light candles without a wick."

 

Kesla shook her head to clear the uncertain thoughts out of her mind. They wouldn't be helpful. Just had to get away from here, that was the ticket. Small, boring Restov. Small, boring farm. Small, very uncomfortable bed she had to share with three cousins.

 

Small, boring... Stolen Lands to the south.

 

She shivered again, involuntarily. Maybe the seven-year-plan needed a bit of coaxing along.

 

"It's nothing. It'll be fine. Just need to get away from here. Far away. Anywhere's better than here." Kesla turned and began to lead Crumpet back over to the plow to hitch him back up.

"Ain't nothing that'd make me want to go down THERE... don't you worry yourself none, Crumpet," she said with a little, cackling chuckle. "There's no one in these parts daft enough to make a go down there. You won't catch ME signing up for some nob's crusade."

 

"Not even for a CASTLE!"

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Dan The Diceman
Adding blurb (see edit history)

[youngaberration]

Very interesting. DM me I have a few questions

[Dan The Diceman]

Added a boatload of story and background stuff - let me know what you think! I believe I'm ready for a more formal review of my sheet as well but whatever you're up for. :)