Levion

Description

Name: Levion Malarath
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Class: Draconic Sorcerer
Race: Peredhil (dragonborn (brass), summer)
Gender: M
Age: 28
Weight: 160 lbs.
Height: 6' 2"
Eyes: Blue with orange flecks
Skin: tan-colored, covered in a mixture of hide and small scales
Hair: dark brown, swept back, several inches long
Personality traits:

• Even-tempered: sees even unfortunate events as more curious than stressful
• Cautious: always ready to react to something going wrong, almost to the point of paranoia

Ideals

• Happiness: Every action should make the world a happier place for as many as possible

Bonds

• Hopeless romantic: will do anything for whoever it is he’s fallen for most recently

Flaws

• Honest: never lies, even when it's in his best interest, or would protect the feelings of someone he cares about

Backstory

Most children eagerly look forward to springtime; as it means the dawning of summer, playing outside, and the freedom to make the most of what would later by a memorable childhood. For Levion Malarath, it meant something entirely different: bloodshed. Hospitable conditions meant that restless and greedy warlords could finally set in motion the plans they’d been stewing over all winter. Armies marched on the heels of melting snow and springtime blossoms; a fact the young boy knew all to well.

But, growing up in a traveling mercenary company will have that effect on a person’s outlook. Levion’s parents were fighters by trade; and fortunately, quite good at it. Years ago they had been recruited to opposite sides of a war, but in the heat of combat became so smitten with each other that neither could bear to strike the other down. Their immediate bond was so strong that they were a large part of the reason the two factions ended up brokering peace, rather than seeing either of them killed off. A heartwarming tale, to be sure, and one his parents oft loved telling; but being born into such circumstances can hardly be considered especially unusual for the child of an elf and a dragonborn.

It wasn’t until he was in his teens that Levion learned that there even were children whose parents didn’t throw themselves into constant mortal peril for a living. On the occasional trips into ‘civilized’ towns Levion went on growing up, the people there always seemed so fragile and pedantic to him. There were far less trivial things to be concerned with than who said an unkind word about who, or what the next social event was. Levion was never put into any undue danger himself (his parents always considered his safety a top priority before they went into battle); but living near warzones has a way of teaching you to always be cautious, just in case.

Levion was trained by his parents in combat with light weapons from the time he could hold a knife; but when his powers began to manifest in his adolescence, his studies shifted from swordplay with his mother to learning of the draconic arts from his father. Neither parent was magically gifted themselves, but the boy’s powers clearly stemmed from his father’s bloodline, and the man did his best to teach his son anything about their shared history that could help him tap into his abilities.

As Levion grew, he became quite the formidable fighter in his own right; blending the skills that each of his parents had taught him, to represent a combatant few opponents had experience countering. But soon his magics outpaced his control, and he found himself struggling to master the energies within him with only the limited knowledge his father had been able to impart. As much as it pained his parents to see him go, all three knew that the young man would have to begin life on his own, searching for someone or something to help him reach his true potential.

Journal

Entry 1

The latest in my never-ending string of would-be arcane mentors had little to offer me in terms of new abilities; but he did have a way to at least potentially keep my... 'outbursts' under control: journaling? It seems silly to be, but he spouted some rationale about 'keeping in tune one's inner self', or whatever; but it seems to work for him, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. So with that being said, here goes:

Once I realized I was wasting my time and my coin with my now former mentor, I fell back to the old family standy and headed to the local job board to see what needs killin'. Petty grievances, mostly (and work no self-respecting mercenary would be caught doing; better left to the assaassins), and a few tasks I'd need a larger force beyond my pay grade for, but one in particular seemed like it wasn't particularly dangerous. Word from some of the more remote farms in the area is that the local animals have gotten restless as of late, and... larger? Wolves, the likes of which these farmers have never seen, have been eating livestock, harassing people, and just generally creating a nuisance; so there's a decent chunk of gold on the line for anyone that can deal with the problem. Might not be easy, but wolves are nothing new to me. Hell, Lombard used to give his dire wolf free roam of the camp. Dad was none too happy with that situation and a toddler, from what I hear. But that worked out okay, so I'll start tracking tomorrow at dawn, and see if these beasties are any cuddlier than ol' Wog.

Entry 2

Good thing I didn't think to start dating these entries, because things just got.... complicated. Gods. Where to begin.

So I had just finished hunting those wolves I mentioned, and as I was leaving the cave, I came across a group sneaking through the adjacent abandoned town. They didn't appear to be there to take anything (not that there was anything left in the place; I'd checked, of course), but they seemed to be looking for something. They were certainly an odd bunch. Suddenly, an ENORMOUS falcon (seriously, I could've ridden this thing) swooped down, and the paladin started stabbing at it, unprovoked. It wasn't even attacking us, he just went at it with a lance. Once that little event was 'resolved', they proceeded on to what they were looking for, which was apparently the druid's former house.

The thing was in disrepair and barely standing, but they had come here looking for someone they thought might be here. So, of course, the druid did the only logical thing: she LIT THE PLACE ON FIRE. Without even checking for the person she came for first! Or any valuables! Who does that?? Dad literally breathes fire, and he's never done something so reckless with it (Well. Not in any of the stories he and mom have been willing to share with me, anyway. But the way Gunjar tells it, dad wasn't always so well behaved...). So that makes two people in this ragtag bunch that are completely unhinged. Can't get a read on the Yuan-Ti, though.

Anyway, that's where it starts to get weird. (I know, right?)

So now I'm convinced these people are going to burn this place (and maybe whoever they come into contact with next) to the ground, so I stick around to make sure they don't set fire to the forest or anything, and the next place they want to go check out is what looks like it used to be the house of whoever ran this place. Fortunately that's made of stone, so I don't have to worry about the druid cremating us alive. So we check the place out, and find our way to the basement (which had some rather lovely vintages), where things are... wrong. There are people here that have been freshly killed, despite the fact that clearly no one's been here in years. I begin to suspect poison in the wine, when the victim's assailants make themselves known: a bunch of mechanical constructs come out of nowhere and start attacking us. They weren't much to take out, but then this group starts telling me they've run into these things before. Apparently they've pissed off somebody powerful, and now he's sending these things after them (which probably serves them right, given what I've seen so far).

So we leave the house... and it's winter. Not a chilly fall day, not a pack of winter elves roamed into the area: honest. To Gods. Winter. There's a good amount of snow on the ground, and a bunch of the buildings have collapsed since we were last outside, so all indicators point to us having... skipped some time? I know it sounds nuts, but it's all that makes any sense right now (which, trust me, isn't a lot). The worst of it is, we know the season's wrong, but we have no gagues for how many seasons have gone. This could be three months from where we thought we were, or twenty years and three months from where we thought we were. Or... when we were? I guess? The others don't seem concerned, because they apparently burned (ha ha. I know. But seriously though.) any ties they had to anyone or anything in the present; but I'm trying to keep down a panic, because as far as my parents know, I could have just disappeared off the face of the earth until they day they died. The group said something about setting up camp for the night and climbing this big, spooky tree in town in the morning, but I barely heard it. I just need to find someone who hasn't been skipping through time to talk to, ASAP.

Entry 3

What have I done. Life with these people is NUTS.

So we climb that tree (for reasons I'm still fuzzy on) - well. 'Climb'. A more accurate word would be 'enter', because apparently the enormous thing is actually hollow, and basically a wizard's tower on the inside. But there's some anonymous important thing at the top, so up we go! And of course, we immediately get attack by spiders, at which point I realize I can't use most of my family magic, because the structure that surrounds us all is MADE OF WOOD. Gods. Good thing I can use a blade (thanks, mom. But really this time.). For once, the paladin's penchant for killing everything comes in handy, and it seems he's nont totally useless at other things because he can... talk to spiders? Still puzzling over that one.

As we climb this more and more ominous tree, we realize that the spiders aren't the danger; they're actually trapped here. They're being kept as a self-sustaining food source for the giant birds (remember the giant falcon? Oh, giant falcons. Simpler times.) that keep the spiders under constant attack. Pretty ingenious, really. Anyway, we make our way to the top, where this bird-man who calls himself the falconer starts explaining that we have to atone for killing his friend, so of course Varis does the obvious thing, and stabs another of his friends. Gods. These people.

We would've all died immediately, except that in some stroke of either brilliance or sheer, dumb luck, Varis managed to temporarily banish the falconer and gave us time to escape. Or, try to, anyway. We hid in the tunnels below the town like rats for a while, but the falconer clearly had a way of tracking us, as he found us in short order. Our options were basically two-fold: either we could all die (probably not ideal), or Varis could swear a life-debt to the falconer-god and do his bidding for gods-knows how long. Varis may be dumb, but he was smart enough to go with B.

These constructs must be tied to us by divine fate or something, because although Varis was sworn to secrecy about his marching orders, he could tell us that he (and by extension, us) is supposed to be hunting them now (which, given this group's track record, shouldn't be too difficult). So, to that end, we're finally headed back to civilization to retrieve some inheritance of Enna's that may contain something that can help us. Let's hope I can keep this bunch out of trouble once we get there. Or at least keep them from killing anyone...