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[Greymane]

"You will truly go through with it?"

The voice cut through the silent darkness of Nelo's mediations like a cracking whip across her mind. Awareness, unwelcome in it's protrusion into her thoughts, slowly seeped back into the druid's body as her soul anchored itself once more into that vessel of flesh. She felt the cold mists of the waterfall washing over her, plastering hair and clothing to her slender frame. She felt the hard and icy stone beneath her, slick and wet from the crashing water. Pain, stiffness, and needle pricks of numbness slowly came to her as her body attempted to wake. Hunger would come next, then thirst. Had see been meditating in the retreat, the Force would have fed and nurtured her body as if she were a sappling taken root. Here, upon this stone for the past year, Nelo had only her willpower to maintain her...

... and her hatred to keep her fed.

"I do not recall asking your council this day, Ditari Showerstorm," she spoke at last to the other woman. Her sense could pick the druid out, even with her eyes closed. She kept them that way, offering Ditari no greater respect than an answer. As high druid of the Bud of Death and Lady of Assassins, Ditari was deserving of more, but Nelo had no interest in the conversation that was to come. They had been having it for almost two hundred years and in such a time, even the fabled patience of the elves could wear thin. "I even so much as came to this place to escape it. How did you find me?"

"Pari."

Nelo did not smile at the name of her youngest daughter, but shook her head. "The girl never did learn to keep her silence."

"She only misses her mother," Ditari said soothingly, playing peacekeeper as always.

"She has a mother no more. She is a grown woman with a husband. Let her dote and fuss upon him," Nelo sniffed without a mothers affection. Feeling returned to her hands at last and she raised them, crooked fingers straightening painfully as she gestured the druids away. "I am tired, Ditari. I will not listen to your words now."

"But I will speak them just the same, Nelo Crevicehoof," Ditari answered from the darkness, her voice controlled but filled in nameless sorrow and disappointment. There was a rustling of plants. Ditari was pacing the edge of the forest pool over which the low waterfall fell. "Two hundred years have passed, Nelo. Is that not time enough for forgiveness? Is it not time enough to plant new seeds elsewhere? You cling to the past like a shrub to a crumbling cliff, never seeing how the stones that once anchored you have long ago given way."

"Shall I forgive the ones who kicked those stones over? Who came in fire and burned down all that I knew?"

Ditari sighed, deep and weary. "There are none yet living among them who committed those crimes. Will you punish children for the misdeeds of their grandsires?"

"Living, no, but they celebrate their crimes still. They feast the day they slaughtered my people in their homes, drove us to exile or slavery. It may be beyond living flesh, but not beyond memory," Nelo said with a voice like ice. Water dripped from the tips of her ears, oozed down her dark hair. Black as a ravens feathers. Black as the scorched earth that still haunted her every waking moment. Black as the iron of the mortal's base and vile blade as she watched it cut down her loved ones. "And there will be no forgiveness until it has gone beyond even that. Until their bones have passed into dust and not even their wretched ghosts can draw strength enough to moan. When there are none left alive to remember and celebrate their butchery, then there may be forgiveness."

"And who will make the bold effort to punish them, hm? Will it be your hand alone that carries the sword and shield?" Datari asked, an open accusation. "No. It will be the children of the dead. Children who were never even dreams when Amiyaayiti fell. Children who barely know the name as more than fable, barely know their mothers and fathers as more than characters in those stories."

"I have raised them well."

"You have suckled them with hate. What will they do if the humans you so despise should hold out a hand of friendship to them?"

"They will cut it off."

"And should then the humans raise the hand that hold the axe instead?"

Nelo's expression was unchanged. "They know what wrongs were done and what acts must be taken to right them."

"They believe in you and you will consign them to death." There was open disgust in Ditari's voice now. No faltering of control, the druid wanted Nelo to hear it. "This will be the last talk between us, sister," she made the word sound as though it were a curse. "I took you into our home in hopes that nearness to the Force would cool the fires of your hatred. That something beautiful might bloom from the ashes of Amiyaayiti. Your people-"

"Lose a child, Ditari Stormshower!" Nelo snapped in sudden rage, her almond eyes flaring open into red-ringed rage. Her eyes, unaccustomed to light after so long in darkness, beheld Ditari only as a white-green blur beyond the sparkling edge of the pool, but Nelo fixated her gaze on that blob until it began to take shape. "Lose a husband! Then come and talk to me of forgiveness! Of letting go of hatred! Where is my Nine? Where is my Enure? I searched within the Force for two hundred years to find their souls and found nothing, while you sat and counseled patience and peace to those who took them from me! I've not even the meat of their bodies! Not even the empty shells of their bones!"

"And will you find them making war upon the humans? Will that bring your husband and son back, Nelo?" Ditari asked, calm in the face of the other woman's sudden fury. Nelo knew that the druid had baited her into this reaction, drawn forth this rage from her, hoping to strike while weariness wracked her body. Nelo did not care. She would give Ditari no satisfaction in seeing her falter now.

"There is nothing more of them. Two hundred years have shown me that. The only thing that remains of my husband and my son are what I carry within me. I see them, Ditari," Nelo said in a voice that was tight and no less enraged, but pulled distant by the sudden stir of memory. "I see Nine mutilated and cut down by the human's sword, his blood staining the grass. I see my Enure fight and fall and vanish under trampling boots. I see flame and I see blood."

She returned to the present, eyes now clear and sharp as thorns upon the druidess. "It is all I see anymore. There was nothing before them. There will be nothing after."

"Then I have failed," Ditari said, resigned. "If in two hundred years your vision could not clear, I take the blame onto myself, but I will not endure the results. As I told you, this is our last talk. Nelo Crevicehoof, you are no longer welcome in Dafoequa. Any of your people who wish to remain-"

"None will."

"-may do so. But you must leave and find your refuge elsewhere. I have given you two hundred years, now I given you one more day. If you are not gone from this place by dawns next rise-"

"Spare me your threats, Stormshower," Nelo said, slowly unfolding her legs and stretching them out before her. They were long and shimmering and when she bent them into the water they seemed to ripple like eels. "I will stay only to gather my own and then be gone from your wretched little enclave of assassins."

Ditari stared down at her. The druid had always towered over Nelo, but today the difference did not seem like so much. There had been challenge and friction between them from the moment Nelo had arrived. Two druids of their calibur could not share a grove without it, no more than a weed and a flower could share the same plot of soil. Red eyes met black and both refused to yield for nearly an hours time. A length no mortal could stand without going mad, but barely the space of an eye blink to the eternal children of the forest.

"See that you are, Nelo," Ditari said at last and with foreboding. Yet, it was she who turned away, the soft touch of her feet upon the forest floor igniting a ring of black roses around her that blossomed and died with every step. "Or else you will see the Bud of Death come to bloom."

"I will see it bloom anyway," Nelo said to the druids back, unconcerned if the other woman heard her or not.  "But on the fields of my choosing and watered with the blood of humankind..."

-----
Ditari turned away, back towards the retreat and the center of her power. She wanted to be there should the druid of the Copper Autumn chose instead to start her vengeance upon her own people. An unthinkable act to an elf, but Ditari was no longer certain that was what her one-time friend and rival even was. Nelo was who Ditari had gone to the spring to find, but she had found herself looking at a far different woman. A woman who shared Nelo's face and her slender figure. Who even shared the raven hair that had once inspired poets. Yet, her eyes were red. Red as the crimson sun setting over the mountains. Red as a blood rose. Nelo's had been violet when she had left the retreat to meditate one year ago.

Elves did not have red eyes, but drow did. Those vile, primitive things who dwelled in the earth like dwarves, worshiping mushrooms and emerging only to make war upon the surface world. Insane, gibbering, profane creatures who wore the flesh of elven kind, but all common wisdom knew to be nothing but empty shadows.

Yet, what common wisdom knew and the truth of a matter were not always one and the same. There were rumors among the high druids, tales of so long ago of elves who abandoned the Force and tapped into something else. Something more ancient and far darker...

Those eyes Ditari had seen worried her and gave speed to her steps. She left a careless trail of dry black rose petals behind her as she walked through the tall trees of Dafoequa. Slender willowy featherwood and lush poplar trees rustled in greeting to her, but Datari did not stop to pay her respects today. There was someone she had to find, before Nelo found them first. The very fates of elves of The Copper Autumn and The Bud of Death and the humans of Tegamong might all depend upon it...

-----------
THE AUTUMN WAR!
A Community Forest

So, I've never done one of these before, but found myself inspired to try after reading Iituem's epic work in "Olonkulet - War Machine." In the last world I generated, the dwarves had not been up to anything terribly interesting, but there was a lot of activity involving the diminishing elven communities. There were only three elven nations by the end of worldgen, two of whom were completely disenfranchised and homeless. It seemed like a pretty good basis for a game, so I thought I’d try it out.

This game focuses on Canofidale, "the Copper Autumn." Two hundred years ago, the humans of the Washed Nation were the aggressors in a war that nearly destroyed the elves of Canofidale and saw their one and only stronghold, Amiyaayiti, fall into mortal hands. The elves who survived were either scattered or enslaved, but among those who escaped was Nelo Tofifima, last leader of the Copper Autumn. In the final years of the war, she lost both her husband and eldest son to the humans and now seeks to reunite her scattered people to make war on the descendants of those humans who killed her kin and destroyed her home.

I'm looking first for seven community members who don't mind being elves for once, blasphemous as it is, playing as Nelo's chosen who are to establish the war camp. Please pick out names, skill ranks (up to ten available to everyone), and up to *200 in equipment, as well as filling in whatever background details about your character as you’d like. The basic idea of the game is that it is more of a long-term war camp than an actual community, with the civilians very literally only being there to support the actions of the soldiers.

Much as I want to make it a “pure” elven game, a lot of jobs not normally available to elves are virtually required to get by, so most everything is available, but I’ll be trying to avoid truly unelven work like wood cutting, wood burning, and mining.

It’s also probably worth noting that this game has three custom races. The hillfolk, a race of clannish low-land dwelling farmer-dwarves, and the frostlings, ice-dwelling cousins to the goblins and proficient hunters, are potential trading partners and the drow, primitive and violently savage degenerate elves who dwell under the earth, are (albeit somewhat minor) threats as raiders.

Elven Nations
Canofidale, The Copper Autumn: "Nation" in name only, the Copper Autumn is the focus of this game and the story behind it. Driven by Nelo’s lust for human blood, they may upset the very balance of the world seeking revenge upon the ghosts of those long dead.

Alisa Rethi, The Bud of Death: The only elven nation to currently still posses a site, the Bud of Death are an old and shadowy enclave of elves who specialize in stealth and are master assassins. Their leader, Ditari Stormshower, sheltered the elves of the Copper Nation, but growing worries about their leaders mental state causes her to cast them out and possibly even send a spy along with Nelo's loyalists...

Elena Silera, "The Praririe of Palaces": A distant band of elves also forced from their homes by humankind, the elves of Elena Silera are lead by Dipane Wasprasp, who is more concerned with finding his people a new home than he is with revenge. Elena Silera probably won’t play much of a part in the story, but never the less, some elves of Elena might feel differently and wish to join with the Copper Haze to seek vengeance.

Forces
Cacame: Once the gentle Force of the Forest of Skirts around Amiyaayiti, likely reduced to nothingness by human interference upon the natural order.

[Iituem]

Absolutely yes!  I don't normally take a character in Community forts, but this is something I want to be a part of.

Name:  Avetho (Lastname)
Gender:  Female if possible, not critical.
Profession:  Dark Druid
Skills:  10 Carpentry, 10 Herbalism
Possessions:  4 jaguars or equivalent 51pt beasts.  There is a good chance you will be short of points, so if less points available, either buy just one, or spend the lot on wood to bring with us.

Theme:  An elf of Elena Silera, Avetho bears little of the ill will towards humanity that the Canofidalen elves do.  She simply believes that the Force must be restored by any means possible.  She has caught glimpses of the Force's darker side in dreams and seeks a way to restore it through the sacrifice of human blood.  Not particularly psychotic or sadistic, just focused and completely unempathetic to human suffering.

Carpentry is representative of druidic use of the Force to make trees grow into living housing and other such structures in this case.



I run an Elf Forest on similar lines (added professions, but no woodcutting or wood burning and no mining) when I'm not playing Olonkulet (which is a lot, takes forever to write).  If you want to go the fully pacifist route, get good trade relations with whoever you can (except the humans) and buy wood.  Buy so much wood.  You ought to get an Elven liason, so you can set up trade agreements for 'ethically obtained' wood as well.

I personally use a trick where I take bought wood and build tree houses out of it to simulate use of the Force to make trees grow.  The main limiting factor is how damn slow the process it, though.  Be prepared to have most of your elves be busy training weapon skills and only a handful crafting, and to run this fortress over a very long ingame timespan before you get particularly impressive structures.


Also, I think you may need to set EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER to 'ACCEPTABLE' to make them butcherable.  Not sure about that yet.

[Frelock]

Interesting; I like your writing style.  I'll sign up with a fairly useful profession.

Name: Fre/Frea (for male, female respectively)
Profession: Cook / Hunter
Skills: Farmer 1/ Cook 5/ Markself 3/ Ambusher 1
Equipment: About 50 worth of sun-berries, and an assortment of other seeds.

(Substitute appropriate gender changes as necessary)
Backstory: Fre was a peaceful cook and farmer until the attack on Amiyaayiti.  There, his mate was slain, and his only child was taken into slavery.  For all Fre knows, his child remains in captivity in some human castle.  He has vowed to rescue his kin, and has a lust for blood, which he settles for a time by hunting fierce beasts (in an acceptable elven manner, of course).  His arrows are created from the bones of his kills, which he makes himself.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

Give me a elf!

Name: Vadoena
Profession:
Skills: 4 marksmen/ 3 herbs/ 3 bowmaking
equipment: a bow s/he made himself, and arrows for it, as well as some food

Backstory: Vado has been there from the start, s/he still remembers the days when the elves were a force to be reckoned with. The constant failure of the young, especially in matters of war brings s/he great shame and a good deal of anger. I could go deeper into s/her backstory, but that would take far too long, and I don't have the requisite months free. Suffice to say that s/he was old at the start of the world and s/he is truly ancient now. She has a great and long running feud against a specific dwarf, who may be the only thing older then s/he is. s/he is a member of The Copper Autumn and wishes to see the humans who have wronged the race suffer for their transgressions. S/he is a potent mage, who weaves ancient magics into the weapons she crafts, and hopes to one day restore the forgotten magic of the elves.

[filiusenox]

nice first post.

Name:Ocade Val Lithme (Sword of night)
Proffesoin:Swordsman
Skills:proficent swordself, skilled wrestler and novice armor user.
Equipment:Sword and the cheapest armor

Backstory:
son of a drow and a regular elf he wishes to KILL the humun race and destroy every race except the Elves who gave him a haven.He hates his father who was a drow and bucthered him when he was 25(young for a elf).
Mom was a regular elf. Has a prophecy concenring him that he will lead a army of demons in another realm to destroy it.(So can i have him leave in like say....5 years?)

[Greymane]

Avetho Eriyathali, “Desert Hailbrands”
Whispers

There were few places in Dafoequa where the thick canopy of branches parted to let in more than a few rays of sunlight. The elves of the Bud of Death were almost dwarven in their preference for dark places, but Avetho Eriyathali had grown under the open skies of Romimironira. She knew the taste of sunlight and often longed for it here in cold, damp Dafoequa. It was in such rare moments as these, when the thick clouds parted from the sky and the blaze of the sun pierced gold and warm instead of it's usually watery shades, that Avetho walked to the small stony glade at the eastern edge of the retreat.

She basked almost like a lizard on the rocks, blond hair unspooled around her like liquid sunlight, nestled among the tawny bodies of her cougar pack. The four great cats stretched out among the rocks, their warm bodies heavy as they curled about their mistress and offered themselves as pillows to her comfort. One quietly groomed her leg, it's dry tongue tickling as is scraped over her skin. She smiled and scratched it’s flank in return. Like her, these cats stood out among the darkened landscape. Like her as well, they were orphans from their home, brought here by elves fleeing Amiyaayiti and abandoned as cubs. They would have likely gone the way of all children left to natures callous mercy had Avetho not taken it upon herself to raise them.

The wind had died off, bringing an end to the mournful sighing of the trees above, and the sun beat down across her skin like the panting breath of a dragon. At moments like this, Avetho could almost relax, let her eyes draw closed and let her muscles melt into the contours of the beasts. If she was not looking, was not paying attention to the thick and groaning forest around her or the damp coolness that permeated the air, she could almost, almost pretend she was home in Romimironira again.

Yet, there was danger in that and a twitch in her brow was the anchor that kept her mind from slipping out of conscious thought and into the realm of dreams. There, visions would await and ones she was not so entirely pleased to behold. It was a place of long shadows. She could see it even now, the images called up from memory almost reflexively. A great twisting of black vine and purple leaf that tumbled in and out of focus for eternity, ever writhing. Avetho became aware, acutely, of the silence that had settled around her, as if all of Dafoequa were suddenly a million miles away.

“fEeD mE” a voice whispered upon the beating of a lone bird’s wings. Avetho’s eyes snapped back open, unsure of what she expected to see.

It was, most certainly, not the red feathered cardinal that swooped and spun above her head. Like Avetho and her cats, it was no native to this place. The little bird chirped shrilly and dove towards her until she at last raised her hand and it took a careful perch upon her finger tips. She could feel it’s tiny heart beating like.

“Brave little soul,” she soothed, stroking it’s white belly softly as she carefully raised the little bird closer to her ear. “Tell me what tidings you bring.”

When Nelo Tofifima stepped out into the shadows at the edge of the glade some hour later, Avetho was dismissing the little bird with a flick of her finger tips. The cougars basking in the sunlight did little more than raise their heads at the elder druids approach. One of the females half-roared and half-yawned in a lazy gesture of warning, then laid it’s head back down and gave a long suffering sigh.

"News from your countrymen?" Nelo asked, her eyes following the flight of the bright red bird.

"From the high druid. Well wishing mostly. As well as the usual requests I abstain from my oath to go north with your people on their war," Avetho answered, unshaken by the high druid’s abrupt appearance after an entire year away from the retreat. Such times of seclusion were known to all elves, but particularly those who followed the druids path. Avetho herself had spent several months sequestered in a hollow tree trunk just this last spring. Nelo’s return had been heralded already, the very day and hour of foretold before she had even left.

There was a log on the edge of the glade, the trunk of an ancient who had chosen upon it’s death to serve forever more as a place of rest and comfort. Moss and toadstools grew upon it’s craggy surface. Nelo a touch of her hand upon the log causing the thick moss to ripple and stir, smooth out like a blanket before she sat. "And what did you say to that?"

"That an oath must be kept,” Avetho answered plainly, a tap of her hand causing the cat behind her to stir and shift, pushing the elf up into a more dignified sitting position. “Worry not. Nothing has happened in the year gone by to change my decision or weaken my resolve.”

Nelo’s answering smile was thin. So was the druid herself, Avetho could not help but notice. Scrawny as a coyote twenty days in the desert, with eyes so blood shot they looked red from across the glade. Evidently, her meditations had not been restful and refreshing. “I am glad to hear it. I fear that finding another willing druid in a single days time would be challenging.”

“A single day?” Avetho asked, her eyes widening until she caught the little smile that played on Nelo’s lips. She paused a moment to rearrange her face, subduing the incredulity that showed in it, then continued. “So little time to prepare.”

“We have had two hundred years to prepare, young one,” Nelo laughed softly. It was melodic, but not kind. There was always a certain mocking edge to Nelo’s humor that put Avetho off. Her own high druid, Dipane, was a humorless stump, but at least you never felt him looking down at you. Still, she let it go as Nelo continued to speak. “Our minds have been waiting only for our bodies to act.”

“Yes. I meant to prepare in a physical sense, high druid,” Avetho corrected and opened her arms in a sweeping gesture to the emptiness and silence around them. “We have no supplies gathered for the journey north or establish the encampment when we arrive. Plans were not to be finalized until your return. We expected months yet to make ourselves ready. Perhaps even years.”

“You will have to make do with what you have and what you can find along the way,” Nelo’s answer cut Avetho off. The mocking humor that had briefly shone on her features now vanished from her face. It was replaced with a look as hard as ironwood. “I am sorry, but the high druid of the Bud of Death has already spoken. We are to be gone, all of us, by next sunrise or else they will considered us to be invaders and act accordingly.”

“... I see.” This time, Avetho kept her surprise in check and her expression closely guarded. “May I... may I ask why the terseness of these terms?”

Nelo did not answer. She was looking in Avetho’s direction, but the younger druid was aware that she was no longer the focus of the high druid’s attention. She was being stared through and for an instant a cold shiver danced up Avetho’s spine as she wondered if the high druid were somehow using her as a window to that dark place that haunted Avetho’s dreams. At long last, Nelo seemed to draw breath to speak...

When suddenly, four feline heads rose in unison as something came plowing clumsily through the underbrush across the glade. Avetho’s attention snapped along side Nelo’s to the diminutive figure that stood shaking on the edge of the glade. The kobolds scaly body jittered, it’s tiny feat dancing up and down as it stared in wide-eyed panic at the two elven women and four large predatory cats who had all fixed their gaze upon it. It clutched a heavy copper dagger in it’s hand, the tip bobbing up and down as though the kobold were faltering back and forth between thoughts of attack or escape.

That choice was made for it when the whole of the retreat rang out with the baying cry of a horn. Trees rattled, awakened from their slumber, and those nearest the little beast creaked and groaned in alarm, green motes of light sprouting from their trunks and spinning up to their branches. It was not even an instant later that a slender white arrow whistled through the air and struck the tree trunk a hairsbredth above the kobolds head and the little rat-skull bells that dangled from the end of the fletching slapped the beast in the face, jarring it out of frozen panic.

“Oh, ho! Better run, little one!” called out a jovial voice. Avetho recognized it at once. A tall figure in emerald green came dashing out of the tree line, another arrow of exquisitely carved and polished bone set to the string of his bow. The string sang out like a harp as he let fly, the arrow planting deliberately into the ground between the kobold’s legs. The little creature let out a squeal of terror and turned to flee at last. Fre Caleemima stopped to laugh as he watched the little creature scamper back into the woods. “HA! Look at him go! Oh he is a fast one, isn’t he?”

A second arrow, this one wood, arced over Fre's head and came down upon the kobold. The darting little pest barely avoided the arrow as the missiles sharpened head split open the cloth on the creatures loin cloth. A tall elf matron dressed in white and gray, her equally pale hair cropped short to her skull, emerged from behind Fre and swiftly passed the mirthful hunter up.

“Less shouting,” Vadoena said gruffly as she speed past with the grace and lightness of a cloud. An arrow in hand, she smoothed it’s feathers on the tip of her tongue and put it to her bow, but was waiting in patience for a clearer shot. “More hunting.”

“Yes, my wise council,” Fre grinned and suddenly turned to the two druids still seated in the grove. He swept the wide rope reed hat from his head and bent his back in a dipping bow, before turning and quickly taking up after Vadoena.

Avetho had been caught off guard a moment by the sudden whirl of activity around her, but her wits had not completely abandoned her. Twice she made a soft sussing sound and gestured to where the kobold had been. Both times, one of her great cats bound to it’s feet and dashed off after the little beast, swiftly catching up to both bowmen as all four were quickly swallowed by the trees.

“Pests,” she sighed and shook her head, her tone just amused enough by Fre's antics to hint that it might not have been the kobold she spoke of. “They grow in more places than weeds. Even in the Ponderous Jungle we suffered them. Now, high druid, as I was asking...”

Avetho’s voice trailed away as she raised her gaze to where Nelo had been seated. The log was empty.

“Hm,” she observed with mildness and a tiny frown, aware of the question that had been left hanging and so deftly dodged. “Still,” she mused and stroked the top of her remaining cougars heads. “I suppose we have work to do, don’t we? Let us gather the rest while Fre and Vadoena have their fun...”

----------
So, I don't intend to make everyones introduction this long, I just sort of got carried away while writing. Hope I came at least a little close to how the characters were envisioned. I sort of pictured Fre's bloodlust coming out in the form of mirth and excitement. Next thing I do will focus on Fre and Vadoena and introduce Ocade. Not really sure how I can have him "leave" after five years, short of just taking away his name and assuming he's a completely unrelated elf, but that might be awkward.

Iituem, Avetho had to settle for cougars since the Copper Autumn actually had a rather disappointing selection of animals to pick from (for elves). The list was only a screen and a half long! Guess that comes from never expanding and then getting booted from your homes though.

Points aren't really going to be a problem, since I'm going to use a cheat-thing just and only to give the elves the same 2080 points of starting resources that dwarves get. Everything that doesn't go into characters chosen equipment is going to be swallowed up with wood.

[filiusenox]

Thats fine with me.or you could just kill my characther off and say that im missing in action.Nice writing tho.

[Greymane]

Fre Caleemima, “Fre Strappinggulfs”
Vadoena Noquemesethe, “Vadoena Lushpacks”
The Arrow and the Seed

”Do you know why the sun berry glows?”
”Nuh-uh....”
”Because it can, little one, and because the world would be such a dimmer place if it did not.”
”Cacame makes them do it?”
”The Force.”
”Ma’am says it’s Cacame.”
”Cacme here. Alama Boatstones elsewhere. Other names in other places, but all of them joined together. The Force is not like the small and petty gods of dwarves and men. The Force is everywhere. In the good earth and the swift river and even in the humble sun berry.”
”Even us?”
”And even us, yes. If you practice the meditations I showed you, you’ll be able to feel it moving within you. Feel it tie you to the earth and the beasts who walk upon it.”
”Like a druid!”
”No, little one, not quiet. A farmer is not a druid, Aven. We feel the flows of the Force, but we do not direct them.”
”Oh... papa?”
”Yes?”
”If we have the Force in us, how come we don’t glow?”
”... ha! I don’t know. Maybe if you want to enough you will, my little sun berry...”

-----
“Hoy, you’ve got that smile again,” Vadoena said, giving the green-clad hunter a queer look as they darted through the forest after their quarry.

“Do I? Sorry,” Fre said, his features twisting back into their usual excited grin. It was no less strange a smile, Vadoena thought, but at least she was more used to seeing it. “Just thinking about something.”

“Of more bones for your collection?” Vadoena said, a certain kind of accusation in her tone.

“Mmm, something like that,” Fre said, for a moment the oddly distant little look starting to reappear upon his sun-browned face. A sigh and a shake of the head later though and it was gone. “But come, I’ll never have them if Avetho’s cats kill the little thief first. He’ll be down their throats in two gulps!”

“Feh. Let them. It’s unnatural what you do anyway,” Vadoena snorted in disgust.

“You would not complain so if it were human bones I carved.”

Vadoena could not deny that assertion. Her face and tone however, were still disapproving. “Prove to me you can kill so much as a kobold first, then I might entertain the notion of you actually putting down a human.”

Fre laughed.

They spoke in unhurried tones, as if on a casual afternoon stroll and not running at blinding speeds through the trees. Neither elf was so much as winded by their sprint, while up ahead they could each hear the panicked wheezing breath of the kobold who had tried to sneak into the retreat. Another thief, Vadoena decided in disgust, no doubt lured by the same fool fables of elven kind hording the wealth of eons and burying them among the roots of their trees. How disappointing it must have been for all of them, when they made it past the glade runners and the wardens and their beasts, only to find the only treasures here were nature’s beauty.

Fre abruptly paused and with swift and experienced hands pulled up his bow to fire, only to let the string go slack an instant later with a disappointed cluck of his tongue and resume his run. “Oh he is a fast one, that little fellow. Why, he might almost make it!”

“No he won’t,” Vadoena said, her eyes narrowed.

She had no patience for the games that Fre played and displayed it with a sudden leap from the forest floor, her pale cloak streaming behind her. An upraised hand caught the moss-slicked branch of a tree ahead and she rode her momentum in a flip that carried her to the top of the branch. Her feet found instant purchase and her eyes marked the trail ahead, picking out where the rustling underbrush shifted against the wind. In one smooth motion, she plucked an arrow from her quiver and loosed it into the air. Too fast for the eye to follow, the slender shaft darted across the air and vanished into the thick folleage just ahead of where the kobold’s careless crashing about would lead him.

The air exploded with an agonized squeal and on the ground below, Fre let out a crowing whoop! “The champion is down! What will become of our hero now?”

That answer was given with a snarling roar as the two mountain lions dashed past the green clad hunter and jumped into the shrubs. From her vantage point, Vadoena could see what followed as the kobold, her arrow lodged into it’s leg, scrambled back out of the bushes and tried to ward off the cats with a panicked flail of it’s little dagger. The cougars broke apart and circled the tiny creature from different directions. One cat feinted in and the instant the kobold turned it’s attention onto it, the second was baring down on it with fang and claw. The kobold let out one last squeal before it’s body vanished into a swirl of blood and yellow fur as both cats crashed together to wrestle over who got to eat the filthy thing. Vadoena saw an arm, bodiless, arc out of the entanglement and spin through the air, then decided to watch no more.

“A fine shot,” Fre observed, standing on a stone just under Vadoena’s branch, bow at his side and a hand needlessly shading his eyes. Looking up, he grinned at the elf matron and held out a hand to help her down like a human noble leading his lady from a carriage seat.

“No new arrows for you today, it seems,” she said, ignoring the hand instead dropping gracefully back to the soil.

Some of the younger women were flattered by such things, particularly those who had no true notion where many of Fre’s flamboyant mannerisms came from. Vadoena mostly found herself regarding him with a mixture of tolerance and disgust. He was a fine bowman, she would allow that much, but he took too much enjoyment out of playing with his prey. More than once, he should have dropped the kobold and chose instead to toy with creature. Like too much about him, that sort of pettiness reminded the matron of humankind.

"And I so wished to carve a tribute to your skill into his skull," Fre, indifferent to the calculating look she stood and gave him, only rubbed his chin thoughtfully and shrugged merrily. “Well, there is always tomorrow. Maybe we’ll be lucky and that kobold will have a brother or sister or... whatever those little beasts have. Do they even have genders?”

“Who cares?” Vadoena said. She had already shouldered her bow and was stepping around him to return to the retreat.

“Obviously not you, Vadoena,” Fre said, hurrying to catch up and quickly falling into even pace beside her despite her longer strides. “I don’t imagine there is much at all you do care about.”

“I care about our people. I care about what was done to them,” Vadoena said, her voice harsh and prickly. “What do you care about, Fre Caleemima? Fine silks and a soft bed made from feathers?”

Fre looked at her and that smile came back to his face. That damned and distant one, like he was staring somewhere a million miles away. “Yes. You have me pinned to the target, Vadoena. Oh how I long to be human! Then I could live in Amiyaayiti and have a hundred fat ugly children... or maybe just one beautiful one...”

Vadoena shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, as if the strap of her quiver were pinching. But that was not it at all. She frowned and she glared, holding the expression on him till she was certain he saw it. “Don’t let the high druid hear you speak that way. Not even in jest, she’ll-“

The words cut off as Fre raised a hand abruptly for silence. Vadoena realized that the focus of his gaze had changed. He was no longer looking into that distant place, but actually peering into the distance. They both stopped walking and the matron elf turned to follow his gaze across the forest to a single beam of sunlight that fell between the bodies of two standing figures. One was clearly marked by the ring of blossoming roses around her feet, every flower budding black. Ditari Stormshower, high druid of the Bud of Death. And the other, hooded and cloaked in rope reed dyed black, a shawl spiny grasses across his shoulders...

“The half-breed,” Fre said, his voice a whisper and his presence close as a conspirator at her side. “Now what do you suppose the Lady of Assassins would have to say to him that would call for such a private meeting?”

Vadoena did not answer, only watched, her eyes focusing hardest on the dark figure who stood across from Ditari. Ocade Val Lithme, he had called himself. Sword of Night. She had always thought that named sounded pretentious and self-appointed. She refused to believe any parent of elven stock would give their child such a name. Then again, Ocade could only barely be called an elf. Even from a distance, she could see how his body was too darkly shaded, purple as though he were bruised from head to toe. His brow was somewhat sloping and brutish, giving him a glaring face that often only seemed worse when he smiled – an act she had only seen him perform once or twice.

What she had seen him perform was some of the finest swords work she had seen in the past three hundred or so years. True, the half-breed was not even a shadow to the blade-masters of her youth, elves who had invented the sword and become one with them. With the understanding of his age and generation though, Ocade had gotten her grudging approval. Enough that she was more willing than most to tolerate the concept of a half-breed drow joining them on the mission north.

Ditari and Ocade were not conversing in an animated fashion. They each stood facing the other with barely more than moving lips. One dark and the other light, like statues carved from ebony and spruce. They were too far away to read lips and the natural sounds of the forest were swallowing whatever words might have escaped their intentional hush.

“Do you want to get closer?” Fre whispered, peering now almost as much at Vadoena as the two unlikely companions across the forest.

She briefly considered it, but finally shook her head. It had been amazing that the high druid had not noticed them already. Had the chase not carried them so far from the heart of the retreat, she likely would have. Besides, spying on this strange meeting was giving her a familiar disquiet in her gut. The same feeling she had two hundred years ago, when the human diplomat – dressed not so very much unlike Fre – had stood and spoken to Rafa Doorraptor on the edge of Amiyaayiti. The very next night, fires had burned in the forest and the grass had run red with elven blood.

“No, let’s get back to the retreat. Something is happening.”

“Yes, my wisdom,” Fre murmured, lingering a step behind to give the curious pair one last parting look. “I suspect you may be right.”

------
Okay, soooooo when I said I wouldn't make everyones intro as long as Avetho's, apparently I lied. Since I'm still three-elves short of a full party though, it's probably not such a big deal.

Ocade comes next, whom, by the by, was able to afford sword, shield, and a complete set of wooden platemail and still have 15 points left over. Wood armor is cheap. Even breastplates are only *100. Of course, that's only fair given their general effectiveness, but some armor is better than none.

Also, a suggestion for Fre, since he apparently carves his own arrows, perhaps he should have a skill level or two in bone carver?

[Iituem]

A pretty generic response, but with meaning:  You are prodigiously skilled, Greymane.  I hope to learn many trechniques from your writing style, as you clearly have a far greater grasp of descriptive storytelling than I.   

[filiusenox]

a fox pup.They cost 13 coins use the rest to buy wood.

[Frelock]

That was a suggestion that I had considered, but the only skill I could really detract from is cooking, and that will be far more valuable to the group as a whole.  You could take a point out of markelfship if you like.

By the way, great job.  If this continues, it will probably be one of the best forts I've ever read.

[Greymane]

Ocade Val Lithme Lithotise, “Sword of Night Seizefins”
Outcaste

“I vill tell you vhat I am telling her: I don’t care.”

Bird song echoed through the trees, returning only gradually as the flighty creatures returned once the growling of larger beasts in the distance had faded. Motes of dust stirred in the singular beam of sunlight that separated half-breed and high druid. The insubstantial beam marked a boundary separating them. Small as it seemed, it was as a vast as a mountain chasm and every inch as deep. They stared across that divide, the two of them, both acutely aware of it’s presence. Eye to eye, neither flinched nor blinked as they traded words. Ocade never the less felt himself at the advantage here. All of the pure-bloods were uncomfortable around him, even one so exalted as a high druid.

 “You don’t care what fate will befall your own people?” the high druid asked.

“I am not having a people,” came Ocade’s swift reply. He had been reminding the elves of that since his arrival some months ago. Months or more, more. Marking the passage of days was always difficult for him. He had learned time with his father’s people, marking it with the growth cycle of mushrooms and dimly glowing mosses. Not, as these elves did, by the movement of the sun and the changing of the weather.

“Your mothers people,” Ditari corrected just as swiftly, the answer too ready not to have been planned  “She loved you enough to storm the bowls of the very earth to find out and bring you here. She gave her life to save you from the drow’s madness. You have have only lived with them for two years, but surely some attachment must have formed.”

Is that long a time, is it? Ocade mused, surprised by the fact but still unmoved by the plea.

“Vhat my mother chose to do vith her life, vas not my doing. I vas not asking her rescue. She gave, I took. For people, I vas asking for something and they gave. I owe them debt, nothing more. That this debt can be paid in human blood is joy to me, not burden,” Ocade said and twisted his lips up into one of his rare, nasty smiles. His long fingers drummed upon the carved handle of the sword upon his hip.

To her credit, Ditari did not seem intimidated by it. She was hard to phase, that one. It was why he liked dealing with her, though he would never confess it. “You profess indifference, yet share their hatred of mortal kind. Why?”

“Not elf. Vat else is needed?” he asked, confused by such an obvious question.

“Those are your fathers people talking.”

Reflexively, unable to stop himself even when he realized what he was doing, Ocade reached up and rubbed a finger against the white scar that ran across his dark brow. It itched from time to time, worse when someone mentioned his father. Ocade wore a deep frown by the time he lowered his hand and answered. “Father vas spider-bitten bastard, but this is not meaning all drow thoughts are mistake.”

“Perhaps not,” Ditari nodded, a concession he did not expect to hear. “But this one is, for practical reasons alone.”

“Vat is practical reasons? Phef on your practical reasons!” Ocade said, throwing up his hands in the first gesture either of them had made since the conversation began. “Practical reasons vhy human and dvarf and others infest vorld bad as they do. You let giant cave svallows nest outside of community. Complain later vhen they start eating children and crapping on mushrooms.’

“You may be right,” Ditari, again, evenly conceded. Ocade tried not to smile. She would subvert that statement in another breath. He just knew it. Surely enough, her next words came. “But realizing failures of the past do not alter the plight of the present. You have a perspective different than the others, Ocade. You have to see war with the humans has done to our race so far, even if the others do not. There are so few of us left...”

“Nhem...” Ocade said, conceding the point himself. There were few younglings running about the retreat, rare to glimpse as the ancient gremlins that dwelled within the caves. Their parents coddled and protected them like precious stones. A mistake, truly. Hardship would breed strength. They should be thrown into a pit and made to fight and scavenge for worms and spiders to eat, as he and his broodmates had done. It was no wonder to him that the surface elves were pushed about so easily by the lesser races.

“We cannot afford to lose more,” Ditari said, her voice growing stern and forcing him to pay attention to her again. “We cannot afford to have the entire Copper Autumn wiped out by this war. It may well mean the end of us all together.”

Ocade shrugged again, though the gesture went deeper then Ditari likely knew. “Vhat you tell me for? Tell Nelo.”

“I have tried and often,” Ditari said, sadness and bitterness both seeping into her voice as she said though. “Nelo is too intent on her revenge and her people too loyal or caught up in their own need for vengeance to do anything but walk with her into doom. You, Ocade, by your own admission, do not share that motivation.”

“Am not sharing yours either,” he reminded her.

“No. Not now you don’t. Think on this though, Ocade. What will become of this world when the elves are gone? What ruin will remain of it without someone willing to try and slow the hungers of the younger races?”

A bird chirped in the silence that followed her question. It hung between them for many long seconds, until at least Ocade broke it with an audible snort. The half-drow could not entirely stymie his laugh. It was an unpleasant sound, even to his own ears. Ocade hated to laugh. He laughed like his father had. There were just some times that called for mirth no matter how much you wished to deny it though. “Ho ho ho! Vhat vill become of this vorld, high druid? I am not thinking I vill be here still to see this.”

Ditari had not seemed put off by his laugh, holding his gaze through out. “Then you walk to your doom in the north knowingly.”

“Valk to something, yes,” he smiled despite himself, leaving the statement hung enigmatically between them. “Maybe doom. Maybe not. Future vill be vhat it vishes to be.”

“Doom,” she repeated emphatically and there was something new in her eye. A dangerous glint that inwardly cooled the humor the half-breed had expressed, even as outwardly he held the unpleasant smile to his lips for longer. The bird song had stopped and Ocade realized that the roses around the high druids feet had seemed to redouble their growth and decay. Writhing and blossoming, they were like the surface of a magma vent, bubbling and boiling. “I ask again that you think on what I have said, Ocade Val Lithme, for your own, selfish motivations if nothing else. There are more paths open to you than the one you’ve set yourself blindly upon. Ones that will not make you the monster fate wishes you to be. Find them.”

The smile Ocade had worn had turned into a frown and he found himself gripping the handle of his sword tightly, barely aware that his arm was braced to draw. “How are you knoving this things?”

It was Ditari’s turn to smile, soft and enigmatic. She gave him no answer though, but instead turned her head to the side. Her gaze fell upon a seemingly unexceptional piece of tall thorny shrub, and she raised her voice. “You may approach, Avetho.”

There was no rustle of leafs as the blond druid from the west slipped out from the plants, having the good grace to at least feign embarrassment. She approached, a moment later one of the big four-legged beasts that followed her about emerging from the bush as well like a tawny shadow. “My apologies, high druid. I was not attempting to eavesdrop.”

“It was never my suspicious that you were,” Ditari soothed with a smile more pleasant than the one she had given Ocade. “Speak your business, child.”

“It is with the half-breed, high druid,” Avetho said with a nod towards Ocade. “Nelo sent me to fetch him. The war party is gathering and he is to be a part of it.”

“Yes. Yes he is,” Ditari looked back at Ocade, like a change from day to night, the look on her face cooling as she regarded him. “I suppose we will have to continue our talk some other time them, won’t we Ocade?”

“Nhem,” he grunted, finding himself for the first time uncomfortable under her eyes. “Other time, yes. Now ve go and ready ourselves to be killing humans. Vill you be coming to help over see preparations?”

It was a low attempt at a jab and had no clear effect on the druid, who only gave him another cool smile. “No, I don’t think Nelo would entirely welcome me there today.” She did something then that Ocade had not expected. Leaning down, the druid reached to the dark flowers growing around her and plucked a single black bud, unblossomed and fresh. With a step closer to him that carried her under the beam of sunlight, Ditari reached out and took Ocade’s hand. Pressing the bud into his palm, she closed his fingers over it tightly. All the while, her eyes never turned away from his own.

“This is your moment, Ocade Val Lithme.” Under the light, she seemed to glow and became almost too bright for him to look at. For some reason, it made his scar itch, but he refused to rub it.

Behind her, Avetho wore a strange expression and Ocade had some notion that this ritual must have meant something, but what he could not say. She had not relinquished his hand, but held it and through it seemingly held him in place for almost ten minutes before finally letting go.

“Yes,” he said, awkward and uncertain of what now should follow. Ditari stared a moment longer, then gracefully turned and opened the way for him to go and accompany Avetho. He found himself hurrying past, as he moved slipping the bud she had given him into a pocket hidden inside his tunic.

“And Ocade?” Ditari called to him over her shoulder, looking back through the curtain of dark hair. “Watch where you step. Some paths to where you are going are far more dangerous than others.”

He looked back, but did not answer her and instead motioned for Avetho to lead the way. She still gave him that strange look, but offered no commentary on what had transpired. The younger druid gave a parting nod to Ditari and moved into the forest with swift and silent strides.

Ocade followed along, lost in his own thoughts. He had thought this coming war would be like any other raid. He had been on hundreds with his fathers people. Surface, slaughter whom you could, steal what was there, and retreat to the tunnels before the topsiders knew what was happening. He had known that the fashion in which it would be staged would differ, but surmised the ultimate purpose would be the same. A good chance to sharpen his skills, to repay the Copper Autumn for sanctuary, and little else.

Yet somehow, it had already gotten infinitely more complicated than that. He felt the rose bud in his pocket, heavy as a stone.

----

Not really so happy with this one, but I gotta confess that Ocade is kind of hard to write. Never pictured elves and drow intermingling much beyond to kill each other and the whole 'destined to lead an army of demons into another world thing' is a real awkward fit, but hopefully it at least came out passable.

He's also going to have to settle for a raccoon pup rather than a fox. No foxes available.

Still, last one for now until I get a more elves to complete the starting seven.

Edit: Frelock posted while I was still typing this, heh. Anyway, he's probably fine as he is. He can just learn bone-carving as he goes along. Thankfully, a zero-quality bone arrow shoots just as straight as a masterwork one.

[filiusenox]

sorry for being so hard to write.

[Greymane]

Naw, it's not worry fil. =D

I should really look at it more as a challenge than a difficulty anyway.

Edit: Also meant to say earlier, but thank you very much for your kind words, Iituem and Frelock! I've still got a long to learn, but it's encouraging to know that I've not made a mess of things yet.

[Frelock]

Well, if you're pressed for more elves, might I add in another name for consideration?  You could also edit the title of the first post to indicate that recruitment is ongoing.  That might bring in another person or two.

Name:Fenor/Feana
Profession: Spearelf
Points: 5 Spearelf / 2 Wrestler / 2 Shield User / 1 Armor User
Points should go towards a full set of wooden armor, along with a wooden spear and shield.  The rest should probably go towards normal wood.

(again, gender changes where appropriate)
Background: Fenor was a young child when Amiyaayiti fell.  He was forced to watch helplessly as his entire family was slaughtered by the human invaders.  Just as the humans had turned their attention on him, Nelo came out of nowhere and engaged them in combat.  Fenor saw his family avenged that day, and though he dislikes humans and does wish they were no more, he isn't as adamant about their destruction as others are.  However, he does have a near-fanatical loyalty for Nelo.  After they had escaped, Fenor swore his life over to the protection and service of Nelo.  He has spent all his time since then training, hoping to be of some use for his savior.