This is a little one shot of a character I have played in the past. It was written about 8 months ago and it starts out with Matthew Mercer's introduction to Wildemount. I do not own Matt Mercer's amazing storyteller skills or D&D.
The year is 78 PA or Post-Apocalyptic. The continent is divided both by jagged terrain and Divine powers. The Dragon coast, a collection of city states that are now towering ruins separated by gaping chasms and buried in hills of black ash, monopolizes the southwestern shores of Sharandar. Beyond the Ceriose mountain lays the massive region known as Wynandeer, bisected by the Ashkeeper peaks. Eastern Wynandeer houses the expansive wastes and turbulent badlands of Jorhask, overrun with all manner of beasts and terrors, relics from the final battles of the calamity that ruined that scarred landscape. Northward you would find the grain wildlands, a lawless realm harboring a curse that has kept it unconquered by human hands. However this story begins near the goblin run city of Khogshrek, within the maze-like realm of the Underdark, deep beneath Jorhask.
Emerging 13 generations before the Spiderbite clan has slowly gained influence to encompass the surrounding clans of the region, absorbing the goblins of the Gloomspitter and the Stumpslayer clans before finally conquering the Blacklake alliance and taking the whole of the western shore of the Crystal Lake.
Under the rule of the current Chieftain Creig Bloodtree, now in his 48th year, most are left to their own devices. You live as you did before. The city only takes a tithe of what you produce and earn. You follow its laws, worship its gods, and bow to its installed leadership. In return denizens of the city are protected from the chaotic horrors and shattered evils that stalk the underdark. This accord has led to a prosperous century for the city, or at least the goblin clans. Tensions brew beneath the chaffing watch of the town guard. Every temple is government owned and run and worship outside the approved idolatry is met with imprisonment. Rumors of military clashes at the eastern borders of the great underground lake have many folks on edge.
Our story, however, begins much smaller. Here in the southern reaches of the Crystal Lake, beyond the entry gates of the Ruyune Gorge, lays the small goblin town of Dolgrum bordering the blue glowing crystals that gives the lake its name. This town came to prominence near the turn of the recent century when the surrounding fertile lands were discovered to produce a unique type of mushroom and moss, leading to a boom of special breweries and pipe moss farmers. Now Dolgrum thrives on their exports of moss weed, crops, and spirits. Here in this sleepy trade stop along the ember road. A handful of wandering destinies slowly begin to intersect. We begin in the early hours of the morning, on the day of Gristen, in a messy room on the first floor of the Nestlenook Inn, a bleary eyed young woman slowly wakes from her lengthy sleep, catching her small snoring charge curled in the crook of her bare arm on the edge of the bed.
This woman had the look on a young child with her wide purple eyes inset into a soft youthful face, framed by a curtain of silky black hair that stood out vividly against her milky white skin as it flowed down to her hips and under the edge of the blanket. Brushing over a soft brand of a rose burnt into her thigh. Her looks had led to quite a few attempting to use her supposed naivety for their own goals, must to their own detriment. As unusual as her appearance was, it's still never wise to try and play games with a drow.
The woman looked across the room and as softly as she could, pulled her arm out from under the form of a small goblin boy of about 5 seasons and climbed out of the bed, revealing long faded scar marks crisscrossing her back. She looks over at the mirror while letting the tips of her right fingers trace over the rose in her skin as her mind travels back to when she decided on the rose.
-FLASHBACK-
A'mela ran as fast as she her young legs would take her, desperately clutching 2 small pieces of star shaped metal covered in small splashes of a thick red liquid in one hand as her other hand holds the ragged dress covering her body against her right thigh in fear. She desperately prays that no one she passed on these black roads could see the flowing script burnt into her flesh.
She stumbles over a small outcrop of rock in her blind dash and tumbles off the side of the path. Small sharp edges rocks and venomous underground plants slice against her skin until her body comes to a rest face down against the ground. She dazedly lifts her head, small purple eyes glowing in the dark as the shadows seem to shift and caress her wounds. Her eyes see that she is in a small alcove, hidden from any prying eyes that might be traveling along the road.
Her breathing slows as her panic subsides and her gaze falls upon the metal clutched tightly in her small left fist. She slowly uncurls her fingers as for the first time in years, a small smile flits across her lips as two blood splattered shuriken are revealed. One blade pulsing with a feeling of dread and despair as the other glows with a soft blue light, ice cold to the touch. The memory of the small pointed edges tearing through the throat of the ithilid that owned her, giving her more joy then she can remember ever having felt. But, after a few moments the smile slips from her lips as her right hand tightens over her right hip and the mark that she bears upon her very flesh.
She looks at the small blades in her hand as the image of a fabled flower that was said to have once existed in myths flash through her eyes. She presses the glowing blue shuriken into her right palm as she slowly begins to turn the hated flowing script into a beautiful blossoming rose upon her thigh.
-END FLASHBACK-
A soft tap on the door jolts her out of the past as she realized that she was standing bare in the middle of the room where her little charge could wake up and see. She hastily donned her leather armor, set a feather light kiss upon his brow, pats her pockets where specter and phantom reside, and slipped through the door, letting it softly close behind her.
"It is time. Are you sure this is what you wish to do my dear?" A voice filled with age and sadness from a harsh life spoke from her waist. With a quick glance down to see the old innkeeper, A'mela nods.
"You know my story and what I face. My path would be too dangerous for him. I face the dangers of my people as I hunt down and expose those who destroyed my family, daring to use my birth and skin color to do it and claim the throne in the process. On top of that I refuse to leave others in the hands of the vile ithilid to use as slaves. I must look out for them. It is better that Belk has a chance to grow here among his own people. Safe and well cared for. I will keep coin flowing in to you to make sure that neither he nor you want for anything."
The old goblin shakes her head stubbornly. "You do too much child. Settle down here with me and raise him as you wish. I can see it in your eyes. You look at him and I look at you. As your own child to protect and care for however you may. We live in a harsh world, take what comforts you can."
A'mela swipes her fingers across her cheek to wipe away the start of the tears that she is trying so hard to hold back before she leans down and wraps the old lady in a hug. "Take care of him for me, mother. I shall return one day and then we can all live happily as one family. But for now, I can't let any others be left behind to live as I had to. I must look out for them." She quickly releases her and moves down the stairs of the inn at a quick pace, leaving the only two that she considered family behind, safe and able to watch out for each other.
As she went down the stairs she tried to ignore the whisper behind her from the old lady. "I understand, but who my daughter will look after you?"
A'mela briskly stepped away from the inn and headed to a dark empty field beyond the town walls. She stopped and softly called out into the low blue light given off by the crystals, "Nemesis?"
She stood silent for a few moments to nothing but silence surrounding her. As dread started to well up in her stomach, a thick tail made of warm black armor lands down on her shoulder, showing a wicked and deadly looking stinger sticking out just in front of her. She jumps in fright as the shadows quickly coalesce on her left hip, forming a long sheathe with the hilt and cross guard of a katana. Her right fingers grip the handle of the blade in her fright before quickly spinning round and throwing her arms around the giant scorpion that had snuck up on her.
"Nemesis," she scolded, "How many times have I told you not to do that? You nearly scared the life out of me."
Nemesis lifts an oversized claw and rubs it affectionately across her cheek before drifting his eyes around her in search of something.
"He isn't with us anymore. He doesn't deserve a life as dangerous as ours my friend. He is best left among his own kind. But we will be back to see him again someday." Her eyes glaze over with soft tears before she blinks them away and turns her gaze to the road leading away from the town. "Come on then, we have much hunting still to do." After all, she thought, the Mistress of Shadows has much hunting still to do and Death to court.
As one, the two step onto the trail. Looking forward to the many adventures that lay before them, secure in the knowledge that they will always be there by each other's side.