Description
This wood-elfin lass moves with a naturally lissome and willowy grace as
she absentmindedly twirls a dagger in one hand and hints at a bawdy joke
she's composing. Sporting dangerous curves and lean straightaways, she's
both petite and seemingly capable of taking care of herself. As if in
ready defiance of any sense of danger she might represent she's quick to
laugh and exudes a coquettish air of playful exuberance. With a bounce in
her step and a twinkle of mirth shining in her blue-green and amber hued
eyes, her smooth brow furrows as she works out some specific nuance. With
unruly, garish blue-hued tresses, pointy ears, which are tilted slightly
back, her eyes, nose, mouth and lips are all slightly pronounced, lending
her expressions a child-like sense of innocence and youthful wonder. Both
of which are quickly dispelled when she speaks. About her left wrist she
wears a small charm bracelet adorned with thirteen tokens, most of them
miniature instruments, jugs, glasses, tankards and mugs. Her armor is
decidedly feminine, cut and tailored to accentuate her nubile form,
though she seems oblivious to that fact. From her well-rounded hips dangle
a few weapons, several well-worn flasks and at least one oft-tuned
and lovingly cared for instrument.
As your sight lingers you also see...
Role
An Errant Spirit
Added Sun Mar 26 20:09:19 2017 at level 36:
Born under what humans call a Harvest Moon, the foundling wood-elfin lass who
would eventually be named Eryari Thistlebow seemed destined for a life that was anything
but ordinary. After her family fell to a dark-elfin war-party using enslaved Svirfneblin
and Duergar as rabid hounds, she was taken in and raised by a small contingent of wood-elves
who suffered as a group from similar onslaughts that resulted in them developing agoraphobia.
Even as a toddler Eryari had a wild-streak in her that made most of her kin seem hobbled
by fear and complacency, which wasn't far from the truth. Always pushing and testing the boundaries
she was more brazen than the boys and young adults of her adopted village, though her finely
sculpted features and dulcet voice readily betrayed her gender regardless of how much dirt,
mud and greenery she managed to smear over her skin and drag home in her clothes. It was
during this time that she took to dying her hair periodically with various wild berries and
more exotic herbal tinctures.
So as to avoid overburdening any one family, she and the others who had been orphaned were
passed along from one household to another, learning from and helping each in turn, both to
contribute and with the aim of discovering what skill-set they might best be suited for
to aid the village once they reached adulthood. Middling to fair at a number of things, like
hunting and gathering, which most of her kin also did, Eryari proved to have a gifted eye and
hand when working with the village's bowyer and fletcher. She earned her namesake as a result
owing to her ability to navigate the nastiest thistle brambles and after harvesting bits
from their root systems, treating and sculpting the wood to form bows and arrows of impressive
strength and accuracy.
For a time, she found some degree of happiness in doing just that, and working with her
hands, leaving off the wanderlust that seemed to habitually pluck at her wild-spirit whenever
she tried to picture a future as just another piecemeal component of the village. Inevitably,
Eryari Thistlebow made her tentative farewells, without actually telling anyone that
she intended to leave, and one moon-lit night, slipped away beyond the village's guarded
perimeter and out into the verdant wilderness beyond.
She'd never been more excited in all her life!
Fantasy vs Reality
Added Mon Apr 3 18:31:23 2017 at level 40:
Youthful fantasy and illusion were quickly gutted by harsh reality as she skirted the
roads and sprawlign city-places that belonged to the so-called shorter lived races. Banditry,
brinkmanship, murder and worse seemed to lurk around most corners, and despite
all the safety and civilized behavior supposedly inherent in walled spaces, she quickly
learned that such places lured just as many dark-hearted type as they did those who
only flocked to them in search of shelter and safety.
Narrowly escaping a band of vicious orcs and goblins drunk with bloodlust, she eventually
reached Voralian City and found a recruiter seeking intrepid souls to join a seafaring
vessel. Still tomboyish in attitude and to some extent in appearance, the recruiter mistook her
for just another limp-wristed, blessfully mute albeit male elf, and so signed her on.
Life aboard ship was its own hell in the making, but she Eryari quickly learned to keep mostly to
herself, though oddly enough, her fellow swabbies and deckhands seemed to find a silent confidante
all but irresistable. They could blather and pour their woes and hearts out without having to worry
about ever having to return the favor, and they never had to listen to an opinion in response that
they had no interest in listening to. So she'd do the basics, like cleansing as best she could and
the like in those few moments she had alone, whether on watch, or stolen while others slept.
As a result, she actually became more well-liked by the rank and file who were her peers, because
she was clearly the most filthy elf they'd ever met. She loathed it all with a vengeance however.
The rocking of the ship, the crude humans and half-bloods and most of the ports were completely
devoid of the beauty she'd grown accustomed to in her village, which was now just a faded memory.
Eventually, owing to her agility and deft hands, however besmudged, she was tasked with running lines
and nimbly working the sails and masts. The Gambling Git, which was the name of the ship and the sign
she'd thought was cast into her path when she'd signed up, she learned a lot about the worst kind of
men, what passed for male bonding and how sail, read the weather and tie and work a wide variety of
knots. In general, it was a very mean, subsistence level existence, but it was anything but sedentary
and made her stronger, in addition to opening her naive eyes to the harsh realities that existed
beyond the confines of her people's secluded wilderness home.
It was a sobering realization for her, but in quiet moments of reflection she had to admit that she'd
always considered them, her people, cowardly for choosing to isolate themselves. But with the benefit
of experience and hindsight, perhaps they had been wise to withdraw from the outside world.
Cont.
A Day like Any Other
Added Mon Apr 10 05:21:43 2017 at level 44:
In the dream she was alone in a crowd. Hawkers shouted, singing the praises of their wares, while
peasants and gentryman alike milled about, to and fro without paying them anymore mind than they did her.
Seated in a mean, rustic little wooden chair at the center of the strange marketplace, she might as
well have been invisible and intangible for all the interest she garnered. She'd just about made up
her mind that she was going to venture off towards what looked like a sprawling range of mountains,
carved from a bedrock of yellow-black stone and stabbing up towards the heavens like wrecked orc
tusks when she realized she couldn't breathe, and woke up gasping and flailing in a tangled blanket.
A rauceous chorus of discordant snores, mumbling, grunts and the occasional fart filled the rank
air of the crews general quarters and wrinkling her nose with a grimace, Eryari slid out of her
hammock in silence. There'd be night crew on deck, but like most of the crew, they tended to catnap
more often than not, while supposedly manning their posts. The Git was on its way to Seantryn Modan,
bobbing and weaving ponderously like some great cork as it navigated the Aeryth. For once, the
sprawling ocean appeared to be taking it easy on the ship, and the steady back and forth rocking of the
ship tempted her to return to her hammock and let the repetitive motion lull her senses and put her
back to sleep, but she didn't often get opportunities to steal away above deck and see to the basics.
It turned out that life posing as a boy wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and to make matters worse
her true nature threatened to betray her more and more with each passing week.
After a quick wash, as much as she dared, and with the first intimations of dawn looming on the distant
horizon, she instead opted to climb the sprawling rig-work that allowed crew to reach the crow's nest
on the main mast, and tend and upkeep the sails. With the wind keening softly, carrying on it the fragrant
scent of the ocean, as opposed to the stench of the regularly re-tarred deck and the miasma of stinks
better left unmentioned from the ship and her crew, she could almost imagine she was sitting atop a grassy
cliffside, taking in some far away and exotic sea. But her revery, such as it was, was about to be interrupted.
In the distance, she spotted whale plume, as the enormous, graceful and gentle creatures breeched the
surface just long enough to expel spent air and take in fresh, before the inevitble dive back down
into the depths. It was glorious! And with her imagination already running riot, with how she might
describe the sight to her people, who more than likely had never seen a sea or ocean up-close...
Disaster struck.
Desperate Pleas
Added Mon Apr 10 08:26:51 2017 at level 51:
The entire ship groaned, like some overburdened beast giving plaintitive voice to its displeasre in
the depths of some inky-hued gulf of nothingness. And only luck, coupled with pure reflex, kept her
from plummeting down to the deck and splattering her brains there. The sea dragon was massive, and loosed
a shrill challenging hooting sound as it sideswiped the vessel again with its undulating, scaly form.
As if the beast by itself wasn't problem enough for the Gambling Git and her crew, thunder echoed
across the quickly clouding sky and the wind that had been so refreshing and welcome scant moments ago
was now giving way to what the experienced eye of any sailor knew was a squall in the making.
Down below, her fellow crewmen were emerging out on the deck like glossy black and red ants spilling
forth from a disturbed hill of carefully piled dirt. Heedless of them all, Eryari clung to the coarse
fabric of one of the bound upper sails, trying her damnedest to figure out how she was going to make
it to the crow's nest, because short of an act of sheer idiocy blessed by the gods, there was no way
she was going to manage a return to the deck without it involving a fall that would likely prove fatal.
She needn't have worried.
As jagged arcs of lightning skewered and danced across the darkened sky, the sea dragon rose from the
waters and spewed forth a searing plume of steam and in the same instant the sails abruptly filled with
a gust of wind and her tenuous grip failed her. Scrambling for purchase as she slid the length of the
main mast's cross beam, the ship tilted precipitously and then groaned anew as it right itself and hurled
Eryari through the air and into the wind tossed waters below!
Death, either from drowning, sharks or sea serpent seemed like it would be the most probable result,
and as she paddled and sputtered, trying to clear her lungs of briny seawater, another wave slapped her
in the face and left her gasping for air. Desperately fighting to survive, she prayed to whatever gods
might hear her for succor.
Minutes later as her muscles burned with exhaustion and the reality that she was likely going to drown
began to set in, she almost welcomed the brush of what had to be a shark as it swam near. 'It beats
drowning.' she thought morosely, though she couldn't bring herself to look forward to those rows of
vicious, serrated teeth. But then a silhouette broke the surface of the waves and she realized it wasn't
a shark at all, but a pod of dolphins!
By the whim of fate or fickle Lady Luck it seemed that she had been saved! But to what purpose and had
it truly been chance or had her prayers been answered?
A New Beginning
Added Mon Apr 10 23:24:01 2017 at level 51:
Thanks for the dolphins, luck and perseverance she managed to reach the shores of Arkham, a city stained
to its core with all that was wrong with cities in general. But it was land, and if she hadn't
passed out almost immediatley she'd have kissed it. She had never feared the sea, but like any sailor
worth their salt, she respected it. As it turned out there were a lot of things in life like that.
When she finally came to, water lapping at the itchy fabric covering her thighs, she rose silently and
made her way to Arkham's docks, where she stole some food and a skiff and set out for the not so distant
docks of Hamsah Mu'tazz. On that city's sprawling docks, while carousing the smaller shops, she eventually
came across a dancer named Tahira, who took pity on her and after clearly discerning that Eryari was
not a young man, despite her rough garb, treated her to a chance to bathe and clothing that lent itself
more to exposure and enticement than Eryari was comfortable with. Her transformation, for that's
exactly what it was, was shocking, but truth be told, dramatic shifts seemed to be the order of the day.
The sense of exposure was utterly complete, but there was nothing to be done for it. As Tahira explained,
'The beggars cannot afford to pretend they have choice, yes?' And so, dressed in clothing that arguably
did more to accentuate her form than if she'd been all but bare, Eryari learned to accept her developing
curves and femininity for the first time in her life. It was both empowering, and disconcerting in the
same breath.
She quickly learned that at the docks of Hamsah Mu'tazz, as had been the case in her village what seemed
a life-time ago now, she had to pull her own weight. Leanly muscled from her months aboard the Gambling
Git, with curves that she'd fought so hard to hide now making themselves known, she relented when Tahira,
for what seemed the umpteenth time, pleaded with her to let her teach Eryari to dance.
Proving to be a quick study and possessed of a natural rhythm, Eryari began frequenting various
standalone spots in the small bizarre on the docks, she gradually gained enough of a following to be
invited to perform in taverns and inns in the desert city proper and even the smaller hamlet of Balator.
It was in Balator, after several months of honing her new craft that she earned the attention of a
traveling minstrel, who upon hearing her sing as a result of a dare, like Tahira had before him,
relentlessly pursued convincing her to pick up a recorder and learn to sing. And despite her misgivings,
Eryari finally relented. It beat dressing up like one of the Sultan's concubines or a well-to-do prostitute
after all...
Green Eyed Monster
Added Wed Apr 12 18:37:18 2017 at level 51:
Though she enjoyed the dancing, truth be told, she realized in an epiphany of sorts that music,
song and biting bits of sarcastic wit and humor came to her as naturally as a fish to water.
Maybe it was her time spent in seedy dives at docks all about Thera, or perhaps a simple byproduct
of toiling and working with a bunch of salty sea-dogs with a very limited repertoire when it came
to expressing themselves, but whatever the source, it quickly overtook her and she didn't bother
trying to fight it. The fact that she wasn't hard on the eyes having earned taut muscle through
toil, and blossoming into womanhood, and of course her blonde-brown locks and wood-elfin grace
all colluded as one to make her an oft looked for favorite at venues in the towns she visited.
However she quickly discovered there were a plethora of downsides to finding her true calling. In
Hamsah she captured the hungry eyes of a young noble, which in and of itself wasn't necessarily so
bad a thing, excepting for the fact that he already had a retinue of former dalliances under his
belt, and nary did they agree on a thing, except that young Alfaz would be theirs and theirs alone.
When a young wood-elfin bard who cursed like a sailor when deep in her cups and acted more like a
man, according to them, than a woman, excepting when she was dancing, caught their beloved's eye
the evil witches banded together to vanquish this new rival. One of the women, a courtesan from
Voralian acted as the jealous covens envoy and visited Tir-Talath's apothecary, bidding its
master alchemist mix a pigment that was the most virulent mixture of blues that he could create.
And this he did, with an uncommon fervor, for certain favors were promised when the deed was
completed. So, weeks later, when the mixture was complete, the coven of catty women devised a plan
to douse Eryari's face with the mixture, hopefully spoiling her beauty forever and thereby ridding
themselves of this upstart rival. They'd deal with eachother afterwards of course, but that would
come after they'd deposed the troubadour.
Loathe to dirty their own hands, and truthfully, fearful that gloves alone wouldn't prevent the
tincture from staining their fingers, the women carefully picked a dimwit who could never hope to
be traced back to them, to perform the deed. Unfortunately for them, said dimwit thought it too rude
a thing to walk up to a fancy lady and hurl goop in her face! So instead, he found the Inn at which
she was performing, broke into her room there, and stashed the mixture in a delicate bladder that
would burst under very little pressure, therefore doing the deed for him without the accompanying
sense of guilt.
And so it came to pass, only rather than laying her face on the trap, after a long night performing
and no few drinks, Eryari threw herself onto the bed and gasped in shock as something flowed
unnaturally under her hair and then abruptly burst!
Just Roll with It
Added Wed Apr 12 18:57:50 2017 at level 51:
As a result, her once beautiful blonde-brown sun-kissed locks were now a lurid mix of wild blues
that made it seem as if she'd slept on a bag full of unnaturally wild, blueberries. For the next few
weeks she faded from the public eye, visiting this and that alchemist and searching far and wide for
a method of treatment, after shaving her head entire and opting for wigs that only made her scalp
itch. In the end, short of choosing another color and repeating the process, there seemed no salve for
her disfigurement. But as she ironically said to the very alchemist who had created the goo. 'It's
not really a disfigurement I figure. I've always loved the ocean, I'm just irked there weren't any
green in it! Fargin color-blind alchemists!' So aghast at what he had inadvertently done, the
alchemist feigned ignorance and offered her a one-time discount on his wares. In the grand scheme
of things it wasn't much, but she was oblivious, and thankful for the offer.
In the end, her disappearance cooled the young noble's lecherous ardor, and rid her of the coven of
jealous women, who could now spill their venom on one another.
Maybe she wasn't as vain as she'd always imagined she'd become, after leaving the Gambling Git and
her one-time village behind, but in the same breath she knew she was far more conscious of her
appearance than she'd ever been before falling under the influence of Tahira. But there was no sense
in struggling against change. It was the spice of life after all! And not knowing what might be
around the next bend in the road was part of life's luster!
So, determined to follow her passions, Eryari bid her gigging at Inns and Taverns a fond farewell,
in addition to Tahira herself, and took to the road, aiming for a life of adventure over setting roots
in this or that walled and fenced in place, where enemies could be made at the proverbial drop of
a hat, or sidelong gaze.
On her road to adventure she's had a few mishaps and missteps, but embraces the wild happenstance
of it all! How else would she have ventured into the lairs of dragons or wandered, hopelessly lost
in far off wastes? Granted, dragons and so many things in life aren't all that hospitable, but armed
with her instruments, a glib tongue and ready laugh, she feel ready to take on the world!