Description
The gnome before you appears small and frail, even among gnomish
standards. His face is remarkably unremarkable - grey eyes sit
above a plain nose. His lips part in an occasional smile or
frown, but for the most part he shows little emotion. A pair of
bushy eyebrows dance on his forehead when he speaks. His words come
in bursts and his voice tends to squeak when he gets excited.
His hair is thin, wiry and unkempt and has grayed well before its
time. He gestures frequently, his delicate hands waving about as
he tries to make his points. When he looks at you, you sense a
profound feeling of wisdown and balance in his grey eyes.
Role
Tumarellen's Niche on the Island
Added Mon Mar 19 18:17:14 2007 at level 51:
Tumarellens life became intertwined with the Nexus and the lives of the
other Keepers. As he approached his 450th birthday, he took a week-long
retreat to the wastes north of Hillcrest to reflect on his life.
For the past 300 years when he was inducted and brought onto the Island, he
had come to know little other than the ways of the Seekers. Early in this
time, he had dedicated most of his efforts to study - to learning the
nuances of the 7 elemental magical fields and the tenets of Balance. As he
aged and began to reach the pinnacle of his studies, he found himself being
called upon more and more to enforce Balance. Sometimes it was through
protection and passive assistance. More often the calling came for him to
deliver Balance through the force of his magics.
While several of those who had long been Keepers or had come up with
Tumarellen remained, far more had died violent deaths or simply had not the
longevity of a gnome and died of old age. While the Nexus always seemed to
be able to replenish its Keepers, most of the Island now were new and young
to Tumarellen. In this regard, he also began to take on an informal role of
leadership though Tsyda was the formal head as Meter.
Tumarellen was now growing old, yet his vigor for Magic and Balance remained
as strong as ever. Never much of a religious man, these things nearly became
his Gods. At the same time, Tumarellen felt his mortal time on Thera was
dwindling. Where his journey would take him next he could not say.
Tumarellen the Seeker
Added Thu Dec 14 21:18:41 2006 at level 29:
Tumarellen did well in his studies and advanced steadily in his guild,
outpacing most of his peers in his accomplishments. Farelleck had been
watching Tumarellen grow, and came to him one day. He told Tumarellen of a
certain courier who could connect him with the leadership of the Nexus,
should he choose that as his path. Tumarellen knew already that this was his
calling, and he sent a missive to the Meter and the Rhyme.
One day as he napped between studies, he bagan to dream of a giant magical
veil hovering above the waters of a great sea. A deep voice was drifting out
of it, chanting his nickname, "Tuma! Tuma! Tuma!" Suddenly, he sat up,
wide awake. The calling in his head did not stop, though it softened and
began calling his full name, "Tumarellen. Can you hear me?" He responded in
his mind, and the voice said, "I am Geranim. Can you come to the Veil?"
Tumarellen knew Geranim as one of the elders of the Nexus and made his way to
the veils he had seen in his vision, veils which hovered over what he could
only figure was the Sea of Despair.
When he arrived, he saw the Veil just as he had imagined it and was met by
Geranim and Nanorab, the Rhyme.They spoke with him at length and taught him
a number of things he had never learned, even from Farelleck. At the end of
the conversation, he was found worthy of the cause of the Nexus, and was
named a Seeker by Nanorab. Tumarellen's fate became that much clearer.
Voices and Visions
Added Thu Nov 23 13:13:55 2006 at level 19:
Accept these stats? he began to venture out and explore the world
as he honed his magical skills. On these travels, he came across a hand
carved of marble hidden away in the robes of a sage he had slewn in battle.
Upon holding this hand, he felt himself gain immediate insight into all of his
spells - it was as though the hand lent him extra knowledge from some other magi.
After carrying this hand with him for several days, he began to become attached
to the artifact as it seemed to mold with him. It seemed to weave into him,
caring as much about magic and its balance as Tumarellen did. Stranger still,
Tumarellen began to hear a voice, as though the hand was speaking to him in his
own mind. It guided him, cheered him when he was successful and jeered him when
he was not. When he put the hand down, it called for him to pick it up and use
its power. And so he did with growing regularity.
What happened next, Tumarellen was never certain of. Whether driven by the hand
or some other magical or divine source, a vision came to him in his mind as he
explored the Oryx Steppes one day. In this vision, he saw Chester, a cruel
necromancer, fighting a forest guardian in the Forest of Nowhere. Several minutes
later, he saw him again. Later that day another vision came to him of Chester in
Tir Talath. Deep down inside, Tumarellen knew that this was a sign and a call to
action. As Tumarellen read the sign, this Chester was offsetting the Balance, and the
equilibrium was calling to him to be the tool to correct the imblance.
Tumarellen took off to the last place Chester had appeared in his vision and found
Chester was gone. He returned to Galadon to find his mark there. Chester jumped
Tumarellen, poisoning and plaguing him and leaving him to die. Tumarellen recovered
quickly and pursued the necromancer to the highways north of Galadon where he
engaged him in a fiery battle. The conflict spilled back into Galadon, where
Tumarellen finally felled Chester in a wall of flame outside the Copeham Inn.
Tumarellen had never murdered a man before this, yet after it was done he felt a
sense of calm and fulfillment. Something was right in the world again, and he felt
all the more certain he had found his calling.
Early Life
Added Fri Nov 17 14:18:04 2006 at level 16:
Tumarellen's earliest memory was that of the long trek with his parents in
a carriage from the town of Hillcrest far to the north to Thera's greatest
metropolis - Galadon. His father was a scholar of elemental magic and by
all accounts one of the greatest to have ever to have come out of the
gnome town. Due to his work, he was forced to move his family from
their homeland to Galadon to pursue further studies.
As Tumarellen grew up in Galadon, he was trained by his father in the
elemental magics and eventually took up an apprenticeship under one of
the local high wizards, a wizened old gnome named Farelleck. Farelleck
was an old scholar of the Veil and had served many decades with the magi
of the Nexus. Tumarellen's mentor, thus, was a strong believer in balance
of all aspects of life, and these beliefs echoed in his magical studies. He
taught Tumarellen that in the study of elemental magic, true mastery could
only come through balanced study and a thorough understanding of all the
forces of the elements. To learn only fire unbalances ice, to only know of
air tips the scale unfavorably from the earth. With such guidance,
Tumarellen took to a feverish study of all 7 elements.
On Tumarellen's 75th birthday, his father and Farelleck came to him. His
apprenticeship now complete, they bid him well and turned him forth to
the world to make his fortune. With the clothes on this back, the
knowledge in his mind and a firm dedication to balance and the elemental
magics, the tale of Tumarellen begins.