Lorastine Camran

Background Filvendor Elcaryn - what Lorastine knows of her Elven father, she will reluctantly admit, is very little. She clings to her memories of him before he left: of trailing on his heels, skipping beside him on the road; of hitching wagon rides to nearby towns to watch him play the local taverns, and to her very first lessons on the magic and beauty of playing the lute.
She recalls his kind, green eyes lighting up and the bluish flush high on his cheeks whilst the stories of his life and adventures as a wandering bard. She also remembers her mother’s wary smiles and reminders to Filvendor to not stray too far from home; to bring Lorastine back in time for schooling the next day when they set off together.
Mirya Camran will, reluctantly, admit she fell for the charms of her wayward Elf ‘husband’ during the summer of her 18th year. Caught up in the heady flush of young love, she spent the warm months following Filvendor from tavern to tavern, much as young Lorastine would do. When it became clear that Mirya wads with child, they settled in the village of Red Larch, Miyra’s hometown, and for a few years lived quite happily. She set herself up as the local seamstress and earned steady coin for her work.
Now, however, Mirya can only recall those times with well-stoked bitterness and regret, though she is quick to tell Lorastine that she is the only good thing to have come from that time. Lorastine struggles to recall the untainted smiles from her mother and longs for more stories of her missing father.
In her childhood, she could not understand her mother’s reluctance to talk of Filvendor, nor the anger with which her requests for tales of him was met. She recalls having to sneak out to play and practice the lute her father left behind, frightened that if her mother should find it that it would be taken away or broken. Her mother says she cares, but how can she when music is the only thing that matters to Lorastine and her mother wouldn’t let her play or listen to the newest travelling bard to town? Instead, her mother wants her to learn to bake and cook and sew (which, admittedly comes in handy for Lorastine’s costume designs). There were seldom times when they could spend an evening without arguing but they did seem to make her mother happy.
Over time, Lorastine’s fingertips harden with the calluses from hours of practice and she learns to weave her music and performance skills into magic.
When Lorastine was 17, her mother met Ivor Stillbrow, a kindly but altogether dull merchant looking to make his home in Red Larch. They began a slow courtship a few months down the line and are engaged on Lorastine’s 20th birthday. Lorastine hates him. A number of men have tried to insinuate themselves into their house and she doesn’t see what makes Ivor so special that he managed it. He makes them sit together for dinner at the table every night and wants to know where she goes every night. He wants her to find a partner to marry and settle down properly. When Lorastine tells them all she wants is to play her music and be a famous bard for adventurers and maybe, one day, find her father, he laughs and says she’s old enough now that it’s time for her to grow out of fantasies like that.
Lorastine decides then and there its time to stop putting her dreams on hold. She won’t see herself become a bitter housewife, forever regretting her position or her choices. That night, she quickly and quietly packs a bag, being sure to take the necklace her father had given her mother, that she had saved from being pawned, and straps her her father’s old lute to her back. In the darkness of the night, she sneaks from her window and sets out on the path leaving town - towards adventure and fame and fortune - a whispered prayer to Tymora on her lips.