Ravina
Wild Elf
True Neutral
Ranger-Druid
The wild elf Ravina grew up wild indeed, among the Iililia tribe of her kinsfolk that lived a furtive existence deep in the thickest parts of the High Forest of the Savage Frontier, where even more civilized moon elves seldom dared set foot. The Iililia were a splinter of the extreme Shadow Druid sect, with the elder nature-shamans holding unquestioned theocratic sway over every aspect of tribal life, and Ravina, indoctrinated early like all the other elf-children, accepted their tenets without much thought to the contrary.
Paradoxically, despite this stricture, the tribe would have had a chaotic, barbaric look to a casual observer (were he able to survive the encounter long enough to make such a judgment), with only the most rudimentary of toolmaking, and no architecture. These wild elves were essentially pre-agrarian gatherers, with land-manipulation (farming and building) and friend-murder (hunting and woodcutting) among their most forbidden tenets; and they mostly lived in the large trees of the High Forest, without so much as a grass hut or a rope bridge, working, playing, eating, loving, and sleeping all upon branches or grass.
The tribe warriors used weapons entirely of (naturally-fallen) wood, and the only magicians of any sort were the tribe druids and the relatively high fraction of wild elves with sorcerous blood (there was no writing of any sort, either practical or magical). Ravina's parents fit in with the tribe seamlessly, not that even that mattered given the communal nature of tribal child-rearing. Though Ravina never openly questioned their doctrines, she found tribal life a bit stifling, even with the scattered wilderness existence, and happily took to long romps by herself, proving extremely competent in wilderness survival and navigation thanks both to her primitive upbringing and natural talents.
When she came of age, she would make a long lone pilgrimage through the forest, and there cross paths briefly with a graceful, almost ethereal woman on a unicorn - the goddess Mielikki herself, who would charge her to take up the mantle of rangerhood, and when Ravina gave a joyful laugh, she was thus. The young elf-woman returned proudly to her tribe, but the druid elders were quietly yet perceptibly displeased with the individuality young Ravina was beginning to display.
She would find herself confronted with this issue a few seasons later, during an event that greatly shook the entire tribe. Imbalanced (civilized) elves were beginning to spread deeper into the High Forest, nearer and nearer the Iililia, even hunting the animals the druids knew personally. The wild elves organized raiding parties to rebalance (reclaim) their environs, striking at the budding moon elf settlement and stunting its growth. Ravina was among these avengers, drafted for her martial and wilderness skills, but she was quietly reluctant, wincing with every moon elf cousin she slew.
In an odd but somewhat beneficial complication, a series of drow surface-raids also befell the civilized settlement, and soon yet a fourth and unlikelier-still faction emerged when a platoon of human and half-elven paladins arrived, championing the ideals of civilization and pledging to help their innocent elven allies defend themselves and their new land (which by now, it was rumored even among the primitive wild elves, must have some strategic, cultural, or magical significance to be so fought over by these three other groups). Despite the superficial confluence of objectives between the wild and dark elves, the Iililia mistrusted the drow, who wantonly destroyed flora and fauna along with men and moon elves, and they wished themselves rid of all the outsiders.
The druid elders fomented a plan to use their tribe's home advantage (both in practical knowledge of and spiritual link with the thick forest) and superior numbers to ambush the drow and the paladins together as they fought, killing many of both and taking the rest captive. Ravina, her skirmishing and leadership skills growing, was a party leader in this ambush; her ample use and development of her physical and intuitive talents distracting her from her conflicted inner mores. She also then watched over the men and drow in captivity, as they were abused, starved, and fruitlessly interrogated; and she became troubled again, indeed outright disgusted.
Using solitary interrogation as a guise, she secretly took aside one of the men, the golden-eyed knight Eromus Prime, and spoke with him extensively. Despite the violent and messy backdrop of the affair, they spent nearly one full day together in peaceful seclusion, with dialogue flowing between childhoods, training, experiences, expectations, philosophies, and epiphanies; and Ravina was overcome that night with a sense of both wonder at what had been common and curiosity at what had been different. The next day she spoke with him again, and agreed to help free him, his comrades, and even his drow enemies, which he seemed to think could and would help in the affair and also said curiously 'even if my dark brothers escape, they'll not be free.' That night, the heist was carried out, and the men and drow (what few remained) escaped into the woods by her guidance, and she felt at peace, but strangely sad to see them go.
It would not be much longer before, yearning to be free of her wild yet cloistering tribe, feeling a new and unfamiliar desire for which she found no sating among her people, and sensing in a few elder druids a vaguely suspicious ire following the affair, Ravina would with hardly a goodbye to even her parents strike out from the Iililia, bound for she knew not what.
Wild Elf
True Neutral
Ranger-Druid
The wild elf Ravina grew up wild indeed, among the Iililia tribe of her kinsfolk that lived a furtive existence deep in the thickest parts of the High Forest of the Savage Frontier, where even more civilized moon elves seldom dared set foot. The Iililia were a splinter of the extreme Shadow Druid sect, with the elder nature-shamans holding unquestioned theocratic sway over every aspect of tribal life, and Ravina, indoctrinated early like all the other elf-children, accepted their tenets without much thought to the contrary.
Paradoxically, despite this stricture, the tribe would have had a chaotic, barbaric look to a casual observer (were he able to survive the encounter long enough to make such a judgment), with only the most rudimentary of toolmaking, and no architecture. These wild elves were essentially pre-agrarian gatherers, with land-manipulation (farming and building) and friend-murder (hunting and woodcutting) among their most forbidden tenets; and they mostly lived in the large trees of the High Forest, without so much as a grass hut or a rope bridge, working, playing, eating, loving, and sleeping all upon branches or grass.
The tribe warriors used weapons entirely of (naturally-fallen) wood, and the only magicians of any sort were the tribe druids and the relatively high fraction of wild elves with sorcerous blood (there was no writing of any sort, either practical or magical). Ravina's parents fit in with the tribe seamlessly, not that even that mattered given the communal nature of tribal child-rearing. Though Ravina never openly questioned their doctrines, she found tribal life a bit stifling, even with the scattered wilderness existence, and happily took to long romps by herself, proving extremely competent in wilderness survival and navigation thanks both to her primitive upbringing and natural talents.
When she came of age, she would make a long lone pilgrimage through the forest, and there cross paths briefly with a graceful, almost ethereal woman on a unicorn - the goddess Mielikki herself, who would charge her to take up the mantle of rangerhood, and when Ravina gave a joyful laugh, she was thus. The young elf-woman returned proudly to her tribe, but the druid elders were quietly yet perceptibly displeased with the individuality young Ravina was beginning to display.
She would find herself confronted with this issue a few seasons later, during an event that greatly shook the entire tribe. Imbalanced (civilized) elves were beginning to spread deeper into the High Forest, nearer and nearer the Iililia, even hunting the animals the druids knew personally. The wild elves organized raiding parties to rebalance (reclaim) their environs, striking at the budding moon elf settlement and stunting its growth. Ravina was among these avengers, drafted for her martial and wilderness skills, but she was quietly reluctant, wincing with every moon elf cousin she slew.
In an odd but somewhat beneficial complication, a series of drow surface-raids also befell the civilized settlement, and soon yet a fourth and unlikelier-still faction emerged when a platoon of human and half-elven paladins arrived, championing the ideals of civilization and pledging to help their innocent elven allies defend themselves and their new land (which by now, it was rumored even among the primitive wild elves, must have some strategic, cultural, or magical significance to be so fought over by these three other groups). Despite the superficial confluence of objectives between the wild and dark elves, the Iililia mistrusted the drow, who wantonly destroyed flora and fauna along with men and moon elves, and they wished themselves rid of all the outsiders.
The druid elders fomented a plan to use their tribe's home advantage (both in practical knowledge of and spiritual link with the thick forest) and superior numbers to ambush the drow and the paladins together as they fought, killing many of both and taking the rest captive. Ravina, her skirmishing and leadership skills growing, was a party leader in this ambush; her ample use and development of her physical and intuitive talents distracting her from her conflicted inner mores. She also then watched over the men and drow in captivity, as they were abused, starved, and fruitlessly interrogated; and she became troubled again, indeed outright disgusted.
Using solitary interrogation as a guise, she secretly took aside one of the men, the golden-eyed knight Eromus Prime, and spoke with him extensively. Despite the violent and messy backdrop of the affair, they spent nearly one full day together in peaceful seclusion, with dialogue flowing between childhoods, training, experiences, expectations, philosophies, and epiphanies; and Ravina was overcome that night with a sense of both wonder at what had been common and curiosity at what had been different. The next day she spoke with him again, and agreed to help free him, his comrades, and even his drow enemies, which he seemed to think could and would help in the affair and also said curiously 'even if my dark brothers escape, they'll not be free.' That night, the heist was carried out, and the men and drow (what few remained) escaped into the woods by her guidance, and she felt at peace, but strangely sad to see them go.
It would not be much longer before, yearning to be free of her wild yet cloistering tribe, feeling a new and unfamiliar desire for which she found no sating among her people, and sensing in a few elder druids a vaguely suspicious ire following the affair, Ravina would with hardly a goodbye to even her parents strike out from the Iililia, bound for she knew not what.