Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies

The Swordsman's Tale:

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Silas Rotleaf:
Yes I'm an outlander. I come from a realm where we believe dragons were responsible for creating our world as we know it. I won't trouble you with too much of my background as chances are if you stumble upon this the here and the now will be much more relevant or possibly helpful to you than my childhood.

My name is Kaine Morrus. Originally I'm of Brelend but chances are unless you are Eberronese you won't have heard of it nor Sharn.

I'm a bit of a flirt with the ladies. It doesn't matter their creed, morals, color or station too much because to me a woman is a woman and being kindly towards her is part of demonstrating you have the proper breeding and had decent upbringing.

Sometimes I serve Lady Dennith. She's Eberronese like me but from a different place, FlameKeep rather than my home city of Sharn. She's very inspiring and a master of tactics. I always learn new things when I travel with her.

I'm not the most experienced soldier. I will admit that. I am easily whammied by attacks on the mind. I do have discipline though and am likely not to drop my weapon unless slain.

Lady Dennith serves Ezra but I met a red woman who somewhat resembled the dragons of our world and might like to start a goodly cult around her. I've decorated my shield in her image and named my secondary weapon, a spear of cold forged iron after this smart Selyth.

It is good to have friends in both high and low places. I like the Garda (especially privates Reveka and Yondran (sp.?)) who try to keep the roads safe but also have some friends in the sewer who when I was down on my luck helped patch up my wounds. The Boravians don't know this but not everyone down there who looks feral is a mutant. Some are what people from my and Lady Dennith's home plane would call "Swamp people" or those from Toril would refer to as "Orcs." When they have the flat noses and the protruding lower teeth that isn't the effect of sorcery exposure while in the womb I think. Well, on the other extreme of the spectrum I am happy to associate with Sir Havenshire and Lord Blaise though I am not part of any organizations or factions.

I will gladly share some or most of the loot if you brave terrifying adverse situations with me and the rest of my companions. Otherwise we could perhaps share a meal or I could possibly buy you a drink? I like hearing from other outlanders what their homelands are like or when it is the locals about their family history and trade.

- Lt. Kaine Morrus of Brelish King Boranel's 67th Battalion.

Silas Rotleaf:
Updated my journal:
The smith, Borval, a stout dwarven man of great talent and artistry when it comes to metalcraft revealed to me he is also a master-at-arms and gave me a crash course on dwarven swordfighting in exchange for carrying out a number of difficult chores in his service. These included hauling loads of ore, sweeping the foundry and gathering the durable shells of fire beetles Northwest of Vallaki.

I was called on to bear witness to a crime I had well, witnessed. I think the Lance Corporal understands I don't mean to go around causing trouble for him and his militia.

An old man, one Darius S. taught me a few words in Balok and corrected my mispronunciations. Also I should go back to my earlier entries and change the spelling of his countrymen. The land is called Barovia not Boravia. I was a tad hurried before when I had last written in my journal.

The red haired private who was nice to me is named Reveka! When she was in the infirmary from stab wounds I left some cakes and flowers outside the guardhouse for her and the other one Yondran I think his name is? He and I had a chat and he says he might need some mercenaries to pick up the slack in the event their militia is short staffed. I told him about how before I was misted I was in a militia as well and so I understood how it can be a very difficult job where usually the community you serve and protect might not always appreciate your duties. I know most guards don't get into that profession because they want to get paid to bully people, it's typically because you want to do the right thing and uphold a community as the arm of its officials.

There is a local young bard who is very talented named Merna whom when I told her  I liked hearing her songs and complimented her outfit she very quickly came up with a tale about an enigmatic husband who traveled a lot. Perhaps that was fabricated and perhaps I was too friendly toward her.

Something to think about: A woman, even one who is evil is still a woman and I would never willingly harm the fairer sex. I do suppose monstrous and undead would be an exception but humans and what the wizard and scholarly types refer to as "demihumans" are all people.

Would it then be unchivalric to defend myself if the attacker is female? I should ask some knights like Sir Havenshire, the Green Knight Varian in service to the Ezra Church, Sir Matthew or even that one black knight for their thoughts on this subject.

Silas Rotleaf:
Updated my journal:

It is now winter.
Master Borval says my defensive techniques have markedly improved but my attacks still leave room to be desired.

Lady Dennith is disappointed in the "dirty fighting" I had recently picked up and insists I no longer coat my weapons in monster venom. She says that is for thieves and bad men and I should be better than that. It isn't being the right type of paragon of the goodly swordsman to engage in such tactics. Our "drow" archer offered up a different opinion and says every advantage the unforgiving land can offer should be made use of if you wish to survive and that he was surprised I'd not picked up on it much sooner as it is a very common tactic in the land he is from. I shall dispose of the remaining vials. I do want to be a good example.

Silas Rotleaf:
Updated my journal.
I have learned of something very troubling.
Remember earlier when I indicated the people those from the realm Lady Dennith and I were misted from refer to as "swamp folk" and mages and scholars call orcs and half orcs get confounded with mutants whom the Barovians refer to as calibans? I have a friend, a sort of a sewer doctor known as Drez who says he is from a nation named Thay which is also in a different realm not of this "core". He is not a sewer mutant but resides in a hovel down there because most of the locals having no frame of reference for what a half orc is assume he is some sort of "womb freak" or had been tainted by malevolent witchcraft while still a swaddled babe in his mother's cradle. He tends to try to avoid too much attention and is very careful to obey the curfew placed upon outcasts which is that they should not gather in public during the day and when we are required to travel on our adventures he considerately dons a face covering disguise and full body robes, extensive bandage coverings, a thick cloak and so on, so as not to cause too much panic by his unusual appearance. ...Indeed, it seems that the human half of his heritage is dominant over the orc blood coursing through his veins for he is quite intelligent and practices all manner of medicine and bits of alchemy.

Well what bothers me is on one of our journeys after a successful ridding the crypt below the Vallaki outskirts church of its restless dead and having mapped out some new tunnels he and I never noticed before a one-eyed woman with a prosthetic leg assaulted him, unmasked him in public, rubbed his face in the dirt and cracked his head to humiliate him. She said the Garda paid her to and later I talked to her about it and she showed me her hit contract. The person who authorized it was Private Reveka!?!!

That certainly changes a bit how I feel about her. I do believe the mercenary woman is telling the truth because though she might not be of sound mind she is proud of her craft, that is... Of assassinations and bounty hunting and had no reason to lie.  I was mad at her before for humiliating my friend but she said it was not personal and simply a job on her list of contracts. She showed me the page in her hit book and there was the Private's name under the client, right there, plain as day.

Drez has mostly recovered from the ordeal but is saddened one of his tusks was broken and now they are uneven. I have heard of this new science called "den-tis-try" that is being worked on in Lamordia and Dmontlieu and it sounds like they could repair his damaged tooth but how would we smuggle such a large and unusual individual into polite society? There's the rub.

As an alternative, perhaps a druid or cleric could cast a regeneration spell upon him to regrow the tusk back?

The mercenary's name is Hellena. She has a rather fearsome reputation too and people say she is insane.  Why would...? As far as I can tell the only reason I can fathom she would do that job for Private Reveka is perhaps Hellena was offered a pardon for some previously convicted offense she had committed as part of the conditions surrounding it?

I asked Drez if he'd ever to his memory at any point deliberately caused trouble for the garda, perhaps raided supplies in their fort or vandalized a guard house and he says he has not. He's very honest, bluntly so, so I have little idea what sort of vendetta exists between the pretty officer who struck me as kind and my friend the undercity doctor.

I needed some time to figure things out so I accepted an invitation from Lord Blaise who was looking for escorts to help him while he is conducting an excavation of tombs in Har'Akiri. The road to the desert itself was fraught with many perils, the desert itself was also very treacherous, and the intense heat is a stark contrast to the bone chilling cold of Barovian winter. Currently I am without money or weapons because it seems I had passed out partway through during the expedition of the second tomb. ...The first one had been going so well! Almost too easily.

Lord Blaise is a dandy and interested in well, people and academical things but does not like getting his hands dirty. That is why we are the hired muscle, as it were.  I am okay with this.  In this party there is a distrusting knight named Sir Roland, a Barovian swashbuckling adventurer named Luka (No relation to the Vallaki town drunk), and a dark skinned tracker chap named Mumbata who likely hails from some tropical region I have little hope of ever accurately pronouncing.

Silas Rotleaf:
Updated my journal.
Monsters like chewing on me and so I have gained something of an aggravating reputation as a reckless idiot. The legend of my apparent idiocy so far seems to be confined to Vallaki mostly but I don't like the way that Erebeth woman was very insulting towards me and Drez the other night. She wanted me to leave him behind to catch up alone when there were worgs on the road and kept chiming in every time Lady Dennith who militarily on our usual travels acts as my commanding officer reprimanded or instructed me and I do not appreciate that. I am on the front line doing close quarters melee combat to keep the monsters and ruffians from laying waste to our casters, healers and archers who are more vulnerable in direct physical combat. She should be grateful she can sit there behind us at a safe distance to read books and interpret arcane sites, artifacts and the like. I am not a thorough idiot. Lady Dennith and I have a code that nobody should be left behind while we are in a unit so I insisted on waiting for Drez so he wouldn't be set upon by the worg packs roaming the rural crossroads alone with just a crossbow or a dagger to fend them off with.

Does this haughty mage Erebeth not understand the value of a well disciplined unit?!
I know were she and Drez's situations reversed she would not like to be abandoned by the rest of the group hurtling on ahead. That angered me.

Drez thinks maybe she comes from a magocracy and that since it can be assumed half orcs who possess a talent for the art are evidently rather uncommon that would explain her incredulity towards that he could be a doctor of sorts and also her demeaning behavior towards me for being a noncaster.

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