Description
A wild-looking elf is here, eyes wary and heavy. Piercings and tattoos
adorn her face: a sliver of bone through one eyebrow, a row of rings
high up one ear, a curl of vibrant green ivy curling wide around
down her ivory neck under her coat. Her lips are pursed, trembling
even, but a petite frame, button nose, and chin-length straight brown
hair of pure chestnut add to a curiously enchanting countenance all the
same. She wears the leathers of a hunter with the finery of a minstrel,
yet those gaments are stained and torn, and her jewels dulled and chipped.
A stringed instrument is slung of one shoulder, her right hand holding it
steady, while a sharp blade is at the ready in her other hand. She looks
out of work, and reeks of ale.
Role
The Funeral and the Feast, Part I
Added Sat Oct 8 13:52:41 2022 at level 13:
As her brother sang in memoriam by the grave, Rethienne fondly remembered
sitting on her father's lap so many years ago, laughing along with everyone
under the moonlight. No child should see her parents die before she is grown,
but for an elf raised by humans, such was inevitable. Only an adolescent by
elven standards, for years now Rethienne had been caring for the ones she knew
as her mother and father, and somewhat guiltily, suppressing a longing for them
to finally pass on.
A group of men began shoveling loose clay dirt into the grave. Rethienne felt
a small thankfulnesss in the fact that she was not asked to aid them.
She looked up at the stars. "A constellation of light, in the shape of an
arrow on a curved path, filled the meadow when we found you," her mother had
oft told her. "A gift from the stars," her father loved to say. But being
called a gift never felt a compliment. Rethienne smirked to herself as she
recalled all the times she ran away or acted out, just to assert that she
was her own person, not her parents' prize elf. But they always forgave her,
and she liked to think she returned the favor by enduring so much banal
service and caretaking in their late years.
The singing had stopped, and people were now busying themselves for the feast.
Men loaded the boar that Rethienne had killed onto the spit, and women
began setting up a spread of bread and nuts. Rethienne sighed. That boar
had been the first game any of them had killed in weeks - it was as
auspicious a sign as any, with how slow the hunting had been of late.
Life in the foothills had been pleasant, if not easy, and Rethienne was no
doubt blessed to see her parents each live into old age in a land as war-ravaged
as Thera. But something had weighed within her for as long as she could remember,
and after so many nights stealing away to the Sirine Inn, to Tir-Tilath, to the
lady in the cave, and asking this and that... this time, she would not be
coming back.
"It was a curse that night, lass," the old lady had said. "Your life here be
from dark magic, but there be great light in you. Embrace that light, lass,
aye, the world needs your voice!"
Her voice. How they always prodded her and her brother and sister to sing and
dance for them. She had loved to, of course, when she was truly little. But
the group seemed to hungrily harvest the joy the Cobb family projected like
grain reaped too early, using it up before it could be resewn. With her
parents' tale ended, Rethienne felt she could finally live her own life
fully as an elf, and she intended to. She didn't fit in here. That had to
be the reason for the inexplicable heaviness within her.
Continued in part II ->
The Funeral and the Feast, Part II
Added Sat Oct 8 14:05:30 2022 at level 13:
<-continued from Part I
The seriousness of the group had transitioned to laughter and chatter as
folks shared in the roast and harvest. Rethienne couldn't help but smile
as her nieces and nephews ran up to her and asked her to play the same kids
games they did, not understanding that the childlike "Aunt Reethi" was as
old as their own parents.
A voice suddenly cried out, "What is that SMELL?"
Something was wrong. The smell of succulent pork on the spit was gone. The
odor of burnt human flesh now permeated the air. "It's the boar!" another
called out.
The boar on the spit shimmered into unnatural blue flames then rose
into to a charring, ungodly steady burn. Voices cried out among the camp,
before water splashed upon the boar until finally the flames died out.
People began wretching all around her, some struggling for breath, gasping,
others crying in sharp disgust.
"Reethi! By the gods what is that thing you killed?" called out her
brother.
"I, I don' know..." Rethienne stammered. "I mean it's the biggest
thing I ever killed, I know that..."
Rethienne moved closer to the boar, inspecting it, confused. Then a voice
from the back spoke up. It was Meria, an elder among the group. "That ain't
no boar, Reethi. That was a sorceror. It's happening again."
---
From the Tir-Tilath outskirts, Rethienne stared plaintively into the
foothills, the dusk sky casting a soft purple hue upon the land.
Evening chatter echoed over the town walls, drawing her attention. She
thought again about never coming back, but there was no longer any
joy in that notion.
Things were wrong inside and out. She was going to find out why.
Frequently Asked Questions about Rethienne Cobb
Added Thu Oct 13 13:47:34 2022 at level 19:
Why is her last name Cobb?
Rethienne was found as an infant by a human couple who raised her as part of
their family. Their last name was Cobb!
Why does she talk like she's Ruth from Ozark?
The Cobb family are part of a collective of herders and ranchers living in the
northern foothills. Good country folk, livin' simple country life, talkin'
simple country talk.
Why is she a bard?
Besides growing up hunting and playing in the woods with her siblings and
mending and sewing with her mom, she also spent time singing and dancing
with her family: the Cobb kids performing old folk songs and silly shows for
friends and family, until her siblings grew up and got their own spouses and
children, and Rethienne, still a child by elf standards, instead dedicated
her time to her aging parents. She's also, of course, creative and dreamy
at heart. She finds her way as a traveling companion thanks to her charm,
passion for adventure, and self-sufficiency in the wild.
What's she got against magic?
1. She's been told the story her whole life of how she was found in a meadow
under motes of light forming a constellation in the shape of an arrow on a
curved path. She hates the notion that she was some special gift elf to her
parents, or was magically made. She wanted to just be a girl.
2. At her father's funeral, the giant boar she caught and that her brother
roasted reverted magically into a corpse of a human, halfway after everyone had
started eating! This particularly left a bad taste in her mouth.
3. She discovers that the recent decline in game to trap or hunt is related to
a sudden surge in shapeshifting sorcery. "Pretend" predators and foragers
cleaning out the hills' resources and throwing off the life cycle.
4. She gets into some arguments and scuffles with some shapeshifters after she
ventures into the world, and things escalate most violently.
Why is she adventuring?
There must be more than this pastoral life! Her passion is discovery and
expression, but it is in conflict with and superseded by a deeply seeded desire
to resolve an undefinable melancholy within her, an incompleteness, even. She
doesn't know where she's really from, who her real parents were, but even beyond
that, she feels off, and doesn't know why. This tension of passions has a habit
of manifesting as anger intitially projected onto shapeshifting sorcery, but
often any obstacle in the way of her desires.
Needlepoint
Added Fri Oct 21 21:02:13 2022 at level 25:
Rethienne cursed as her needle became unthreaded, then sighed and started
again. Over, under, around, and through. As she worked the needle up
the fabric, her returned swiftly to her worries. She didn't feel
excited to be out in the world anymore. She felt overwhelmed, angry,
frustrated. She may not have known as much about the rest of Thera
as other folks, but she knew well enough what made sense, and nothing was
adding up wherever she went.
Conjuring and shapeshifting magic was running rampant, the world was
suffering for it, and no one seemed to care outside of the tiny band of
"Battle Ragers" she'd allied herself with, the only ones who took her
fears seriously. There was satisfaction in thinning the herd, it was one
way she felt she was tangibly helping, but victories weren't the same
as answers. And she had so many questions.
People were acting strange all over. Folks were were following faiths
that were long dead. People knew of these Ordasens, Eshvals, Lyristeons,
Thrakburzugs, they in fact knew they were nothing but tales long past, but
for some reason no one found it odd that followers for these gods were
popping up out of the woodwork.
Rethienne wondered if the two phenomena were related, she wondered also
if her anxiety about these happenings was the whole of her discontent with
herself.
It didn't help that Rethienne didn't know how to read. Herders and trappers
never needed to, though the idea of reading a book while idling over a flock
seemed a nice thought, perhaps better than sewing a blanket or playing a
tune. But she was done with that life, and she knew the clues to the
questions that gnawed at her were in the libraries and relics of Thera.
Some of the ones known as "Heralds" were helpful, guardians of the famed
Theran Lyceum. But each little discovery they helped her find in the great
library seemed to only introduce more loose threads. A kind giant named
Iskiohr walked Rethienne through the Lyceum, explained recent incidents
and showed her the books on the gods, and read some to her. One book
caught her eye. "Arvam," the giant said. "A great explorer, a patron of
my Inn once." Rethienne wanted to learn more of him, but they could not
find anything else.
Rethienne then asked Iskiohr if he would help her learn to read, but
instead he suggested someone else at the Inn, another elf named Liliath.
But this elf, one Rethienne had met and grown fond of, ignored her.
Rethienne smirked. Not even Esmei, the little girl in Evermoon who'd given
Rethienne her book for a song, would take the time to teach her.
"OW!"
Blood emerged in the palm of her left hand where she'd poked herself.
Luckily, none had gotten on the fabric. Rethienne sucked at the palm of
her hand, wiped it clean on her legs, then admired the shirt now
improved with some lavender embroidery. She practically embroidered it
any shapeshifters in it.
The Seams of Passion
Added Tue Nov 1 08:07:28 2022 at level 34:
Rethienne drew in a long, slow drink from the goblet and closed her eyes. The
alcohol warmed her head again with adequate satisfaction. She opened her eyes
and gazed at her wine, a hazy, dark pool of motionless burgundy beckoning
for ripples. She motioned accordingly, and took another long sip.
Is this what the wide world promised her? Death. Bravado. Darkness. Pursuit.
Disease. Deceipt... ...indifference.
Indifference in everyone... no one cared that tendrils of mana had infected
the world, ruining everything as they knew it. The convenience of magic was
too great, perhaps. But what was a little herder from the hills to do about
it? Rethienne fancied herself a hunter, but cutting down magical boars,
lizards, or bulls was one thing. Outbattling dark sorcerors... she was no
warrior. She was no match for any of them.
She closed her eyes and brought the goblet to her lips again. "Stay awake!"
a voice whispered. She opened her eyes and looked for the barkeep, but she
was alone. "Enough. You would drown yourself!" Was it the goblet?
Rethienne mutter something incoherent at her goblet.
"You are crossed. You are unstitched," it returned. Rethienne glared inside
the goblet and angrily put the wine to her lips, finishing the cup in one
long gulp.
Her head swimmed.
"Do you fight, or wander?"
"I-"
"Do you discover, or hide?"
"I don't-"
"Do you create, or consume?"
"I don't know-"
Her head stopped.
"You are sleeping through."
"I don't care. Someone will wake me up."
"You are passionless."
"I am drowning in passions. A lost frog paddling in a sea of dreams."
"You are-"
"Floating."
"I can't wake you up."
Therethine Eil-Lithume
Added Tue Nov 8 21:43:00 2022 at level 46:
Rethienne had been guilty of it too, of course. Throughout the reknowned
Inn of the Eternal Star, staff were dressed as macabre ghouls of all sorts,
and few customers paid them any mind, recognizing the All Hallows Eve season.
But... some of the ghouls at the inn were very much real. Most notably
Maellina, the librarian of the Lyceum, whose very body was literally nothing
more than a lifeless husk after the infamous incident. It was surely natural,
then, for folks to presume that others out back were similarly victimized, as
sad as it may have been.
And everyone had gotten used to undead Maellina and the others, just like
they were used to the shapeshifters and conjurers and pumpkin people. The
latter three Rethienne passionately crusaded against, and while Maellina
and others had unsettled her... she had let the Heralds worry about that.
But then, there she was, face to ghoulish face with one of the folk
out back of the inn, decidedly NOT in costume. Therethine Eil-Lithume,
her mouth and eyes absent, her nose nothing more than slits with a bone
shoved in, moved in hypnotic fashion, absently plucking at a pincushion,
still conducting sales of her garments. Rethienne and the dwarven bard
Larhetlas had rushed out back when they heard an especially painful
wail, and Rethienne came to this spot when she heard the similarly painful
sound of good fabric being randomly ripped. Or was it flesh?
As Rethienne looked at the unfortunate garment-seller, the creature oddly
became more animated. Chestnut brown hair shook wildly, tangled between
pointed ears. And a long, sinewy neck bore a vibrant tattoo of climbing
ivy. Therethine. Rethienne.
Rethienne suddenly grew sick, vomiting! The creature tried in turn to mimic
the noise, and the flesh on her face ripped. Blood spilled everywhere.
Rethienne fell to the ground, trembling. The creature fell to its knees,
convulsing, almost as if weeping. Rethienne instinctively crawled
to the figure, only to find that it... grabbed one of her feet and petted it.
Rethienne felt her life force, felt her sorrow, felt her confusion, and
held Therethine. Therethine then squeezed her... painfully, fiercely.
Rethienne pulled away. Larhetlas tried his best to comfort them both.
As Rethienne stood up, she cursed to the air accusations of dark magic or
poison, confusion and trauma overpowering the familiarity she had felt.
Rethienne ran.
As Larhetlas called after her, Therethine Eil-Lithume remained on the
ground, her hands and face bleeding, and the rest of her limp as a wilted
onion.
PK Wins
Oct 7, 2022 |Lv 13|Forest of NoWhere|Tipryss vs 1: [13] Rethienne (100%, piercing dissonance)
Oct 13, 2022|Lv 19|Voralian City|Xorphe vs 1: [19] Rethienne (100%, blast)
Oct 21, 2022|Lv 25|The Past Grove|Disso vs 1: [25] Rethienne (100%, piercing dissonance)
Nov 19, 2022|Lv 51|Shepherd's Row|Ronlin vs 2: [51] Rethienne (0%), [51] Ravln (100%, crush)