Idealistic, insightful minotaur who has made it his goal to help as many people as he can. He is an oracle, a forge cleric, and a phenomenal penpal. In his spare time he enjoys organizing grass-roots movements to take down the republic.

Fenlin Shoemaker remembers very little from his early childhood. He can speak Minotaur perfectly, and he was able tell the humans who found him that his name was Fenlin, but he has never been able to recall any more from his years before being found by his human parents, Redwald and Taya Shoemaker.
 
The village of Harney was a very small human settlement. There was very little through trade, though Red and Taya and Oswall the blacksmith were skilled enough to get the occasional patron from out of town. Many of the people in town were uncomfortable around the young minotaur, though they never outright bullied him. Anyone from outside who had anything to say about Red and Taya’s boy were given a harsh reprimand, but the townsfolk never included him as they would have a human foundling. A lot of the townsfolk weren’t comfortable letting him play with their children, so for the first several years he lived there, he stuck very closely to his father in particular. His parents and some of the friendlier townsfolk took to calling him Little Red.
 
Fenlin’s first encounter with another minotaur ended up being a very upsetting experience for him. When he was still fairly young, a party of adventurers wandered through town. The minotaur with the party found to his shock that Fen was almost clueless about his race’s history. A few words were had with Red about the fact that, among other things, Fen’s tail had never been docked to help make wearing armor more comfortable. Red was horrified at the thought of cutting off a part of his son, much less the idea of his boy ever going to war. Even as an adult, Fen often feels out of place among other minotaurs, but never fully comfortable among humans.
 
Aside from his own home (which doubled as the shop his parents worked from), there were only really two other places in town where he felt welcome.
 
One such place was the forge of Oswall the smith, who apprenticed Fenlin at a young age. Oswall was a cranky, rough-mannered man who didn’t care much for company. He saw how attentive and patient the boy was, and found that Fen was hard-working, reliable, and enthusiastic about learning a useful craft. Oswall found Fen’s serious nature and gentle presence refreshing compared with most of the children in town, and as their working relationship developed they grew to enjoy one another’s friendship.
 
The other place where Fen felt most at home was the temple.
 
The people of Harney worshipped many gods, but the chief religion in their town was the temple of Rulene, the Goddess of Home. At larger temples in more populous locations, the person who performed the most important rites was always a high priestess who had reached the rank of Mother. Because Harney was small and out of the way, the only clergy at the Temple of Rulene was Brother Brirdil.
 
Brother Brirdil was a man full of disappointment. He did have the running of his own temple, unlike most men with a larger congregation, but he had reached the heights of his calling. He was often plagued with bitterness about his place within the clergy, as well as his placement at such a small, unimportant settlement. The followers of Rulene were very devout, at least among the adults, but he couldn’t help but wish he could bring the divine word to a congregation of hundreds or even thousands.
 
Getting the next generation invested in religion was tricky enough, but Brother Brirdil had a flat speaking voice, and a weary air. If that hadn’t been enough, his perpetually stern expression would have driven most of the village children away, but for the times their parents made them attend. The only exception was Fenlin. When he wasn’t working at the forge with Oswall or helping his parents take orders for their finely crafted shoes, he was at the temple acting as a helper and all purpose assistant for Brother Brirdil.
 
As a man of the cloth, Brother Brirdil couldn’t refuse the help, especially for the reasons he wished to. Fen was earnest enough, but he was awkward in the small temple and prone to bumping into things. The fact was that Brother Brirdil was not entirely comfortable having a rapidly growing minotaur around on a daily basis.
 
Truthfully, Fenlin himself was a little afraid of Brother Brirdil, but there was something about the temple that drew him in regardless. He was loved by his parents, he was respected by Oswall, but at the temple he truly felt peace.
 
Rulene, Goddess of Home, seemed to welcome him into her temple with warmth, acceptance, joy and love. The closest feeling he could associate it with was the way his human mother Taya made him feel during the few times when he had been ill as a young minotaur; safe, loved and cared for by the gentlest, most nurturing presence he could imagine. He could see how discontented Brother Brirdil was. It wasn’t until he was older that he wondered if the man’s dissatisfaction stemmed from never having truly felt Rulene’s presence.
 
For his part, Brother Brirdil noticed how happy Fen was at the temple, and was bitter that a child could find fulfillment in the goddess where he could not. This was nothing to what he felt when Fen became an Oracle, seemingly without warning.
 
Priests and other clergy that attend temples may teach about the divine word and perform sacred rites, but they are rarely blessed by the gods with abilities, like clerics are. And even among clerics, not everyone is able to actually speak with and perceive the gods.
 
It was utterly vexing that a child in his congregation, one that he himself had mixed feelings about at best, was suddenly able to do so.
 
For Fen, it was a very mixed gift. It started with vague dreams, disquieting visions, and hearing voices. As it rapidly developed, he began having more distinct visions and receiving clear messages and demands from celestial beings. Delivering ill omens was something he agonized about. He felt enough of an outcast without also being the bearer of bad news. He was overjoyed and awed to actually speak to his goddess, and that was a great comfort to him. However, he soon discovered that unlike most Oracles he could not ignore the voices of all the other gods vying for his attention. Though he has tried since he received the gift to learn to filter out all but the voice of Rulene, he finds himself delivering the words of many gods and goddesses in spite of himself. Yet another thing that has solidified his faith in Rulene is that she is the only celestial being who has ever bothered to ask him to speak her words rather than treating him as an automatic messaging service.
 
As Fen grew, it became obvious that Harney was not going to be a place he could stay forever. By the time he reached young adulthood he was seven feet tall, and weighed close to four hundred pounds. To his very great sadness, the only place he didn’t feel squashed and ungainly was in Oswall’s forge. He had always been a bit prone to clumsiness, which he had tried to accept as a part of growing up in buildings built exclusively for humans. When he realized that he could barely navigate his parent’s shop, he decided he needed to find someplace where he could live without fearing he’d break something. HIs parents bid their Little Red a tearful goodbye and made him promise to write, and to be sure to let them know if he needed anything.
 
Fenlin journeyed to a real city for the first time. There were so many different people in Knighthallow, from humans and dwarves to aarakocra and other minotaurs that he felt for the first time as though he could blend in. He found work with a dwarven smith, Ketsyl. He worked for her for a number of years. She was an artist at the forge, specializing in weapons and armor, and she very much wanted to pass her knowledge on. Fen enjoyed the learning the intricacy of designing and creating beautiful and functional pieces.
 
Ketsyl was a cheerful woman with a boisterous nature. She enjoyed a good tale of great deeds (or misdeeds) and a drink, and she usually invited Fen along when work was done. He was an easy companion with a good sense of humor, though he could be shy with new people. She wanted to bring him out of his shell a bit. When he noticed that many minotaurs seemed to wear jewelry or sheathes on their horns, Ketsyl designed him an intricate and lovely set of sheathes to wear. No small feat, for Fenlin’s horns were an impressive three feet in length, curling and pointed at an upward angle. When he expressed concern over whether he should dock his tail, she pointed out that he should try instead to design a set of armor that allowed a race with a tail to wear it comfortably. She helped him become a bit more relaxed in his own skin. He felt indebted to her, though she swore he needn’t feel that way. He was devoted to his friend though, and Fenlin joined readily in any brawls Ketsyl wished to take part in, collected payments from customers that seemed likely to “forget” their debt, and filled orders for less expensive (and to Ketsyl’s mind, less interesting) household wares and children’s toys so that Ketsyl could concentrate on her art.
 
Eventually, and with her blessing, Fen was able to open his own forge, making a comfortable living forging pieces for soldiers and the city watch. He also continued to make household items, which he would often donate to families in need.
 
He was able to find a large temple of Rulene not far from where he worked and lived, and he spent quite a lot of time helping with the charitable works the temple organized. It was there that he met Mother Hilna, the halfling high priestess of the temple. Even before his gift as an oracle was revealed to her, Mother Hilna knew there was something special about Fenlin. It was from her that he received guidance about the good he could do with the potential she sensed within him. She was the one who gave him his holy symbol, a rough wrought pendant with the simple image of a tea kettle over a hearthfire engraved on it.
 
Mother Hilna saw a lot of good in him. He had come from apparent tragedy, yet he had chosen to see what a valuable thing kindness was, and he held close the lesson that it is always important to try to act kindly. He was attentive and patient with animals and children, and he was willing to help the sick and infirm. He had few attachments to specific people, but those attachments were deep and profound for him. It didn’t take long to know that Fen would do absolutely anything for the people who meant the most to him, that short list including his parents, his first teacher Oswall and his former teacher and now best friend Ketsyl. It was humbling for Mother Hilna to realize that Fen quickly grew to consider her one of those important people as well.
 
Fen’s good qualities aside, she also saw the things that concerned her, for his own sake and growth. Knighthallow was a city that was built to accommodate people of any size, yet he still seemed so bothered by what he considered his ungainliness that he often bumped into things because he focused so much on it. He was very coordinated when it came to his work in the forge, even down to small detail work, but he could not get outside of his head about his lack of grace unless he was too preoccupied to think about it.
 
It extended into his work helping local families. He clearly loved children, and especially babies. She sometimes saw him watching new mothers with a soft, wistful expression. If anyone offered to let him hold their baby, he always refused, and she knew it was because he worried that he would somehow hurt the infant, and that he would never forgive himself if he did.
 
He was also naive. It wasn’t especially surprising, given the small village he came from. He generally had good instincts about strangers, but he was very willing to let himself get swept up in trouble if Ketsyl thought it was fun. Fortunately Ketsyl tended more toward good natured tussling and singing loudly in taverns, rather than thievery or some other destructive impulse, but Mother Hilna worried that one day Fen might befriend someone who wasn’t as forthright.
 
By far the most troubling thing she took note of was his temper. It wasn’t something that anyone saw with any frequency. Fen was exceedingly slow to anger, but there were a few things that seemed to actually enrage him. By far the quickest thing to set him off was when someone hurt a child or another small creature who was weak and helpless. Offenders soon discovered that while a seven foot tall minotaur can seem intimidating, a furious seven foot tall minotaur is terrifying.
 
It was in part to find a productive vent for this anger that Mother Hilna encouraged Fen to join the occasional groups of soldiers that mobilized to defend the city. His connection with Rulene made him a valuable healer to have around, and his sheer size and strength made him useful in battle.

Age

30

Gender

Male

Eyes

Amber

Hair

Light brown

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Light brown

Height

7'

Weight

400 lbs