Griffith Adarian Druid

Griffith is 31, 5'10" tall, 170 lbs., with rich brown curly hair and green-hazel eyes, and (unusual for a druid) clean-shaven. His handsomeness is, if anything, accentuated by his simple clothing; green robes and white garments, with fine brown boots.

Griffith is a druid of Obad-Hai, come to Greyhawk to seek for help in the Adri Forest, where he lives. He seeks rangers, elven folk, and reverers of such deities as his own and Beory to help the folk of his home against the depredations of the Great Kingdom on the one hand, and the humanoid rabble increasingly forced south from the Bone March by successful warriors in Ratik on the other.

Fear for his home, and beloved forest, is one of the reasons why Griffith has a permanent air of melancholy and sadness about him, even though he is unusually sociable for a druid and likes ales, wines, and the novelty of a comfortable bed in a good hostelry. Elves are allowed a Wisdom check to realize (after a time spent in Griffith's company; the DM can decide when to allow this check) that there is something elven about Griffith's underlying sadness. Griffith harbors something of the sadness of elvenkind at the transitoriness of the world, but at a deeper level, and this causes him a sadness verging on anguish in his darker moments.

Griffith's secret lies in the special magical amulet he wears. A blue gem of indeterminate sort set in a silver chain, this item rediates intense magic of the enchantment, charm, and evocation varieties. The relic is akin to a soul gem, in that it harbors the memories of an elven warrior lord of incredible antiquity, an elf who lived and died when Oerth was very young and men had only just come upon it, a time when forests covered almost all of the Flanaess. Griffith found this object in a hidden, dense heartland of the Adri Forest, a secret place which no others knew, and which he has never been able to find again.

The ancient memories rise mto Griffith's mind when he dreams, as he does most nights, and he relives fragments of the elfs centuries of life in that dim, distant, and grim past. As a druid, Griffith is especially tormented by these dreams, for upon that young Oerth magic lived in the forests, waters and rocks to an extent unimagined today, and his acute awareness of this makes him realize how greatly his beloved forests have shrunk and their power faded. This awareness leaves him sunk in the deepest depression for a day or longer after a particularly vivid dream.

The gem also contains immense power, although Griffith is loath ever to call upon it, for by concentration and calling upon the name of the elf, Rachleach (Rak-lee), Griffith is possessed by him. This power can only be called within the Adri Forest itself, and when the forest is imperiled. The elf-lord (and thus Griffith) is treated as a 17th-level fighter, with 125 hit points, and a natural AC of -5. Whatever weapon Griffith has at hand is transformed into a long sword + 5 with the powers of sharpness and wounding, and Griffith/Rachleach also possesses a composite longbow +4 which can fire as far as the horizon, together with arrows of slaying for men, ogres, and orcs (10 of each type), has 90% magic resistance, and regenerates 3 hit points per round.

Further, Griffith /Rachleach can call an elven horse of great power as his steed; this singular creature is treated as a ki-rin in all respects except alignment (neutral), and it will serve Grif-fith/Rachleach with complete loyalty. Calling the steed causes Griffith still further heartbreak, for it is the last of its kind, and lives alone in the clouds and winds.

Griffith has called upon all of these powers just once, when a force of some 300 warriors of the Great Kingdom assaulted the forest with axe and fire following the hot summer of 581 CY, hoping to smoke out many of the forest folk who wish only for their own way of life and independence. The troops were headed right for the heart of the forest, and were accompanied by an evil patriarch with a special wand of defoliation and evil mages using acid and fire to lay waste to nature. Griffith's heart was so pierced that he called on Rachleach 's power and rode forth, slaying scores, and scattering the forces of Aerdi to the winds-and the forest bears and wolves who pursued the survivors.

Griffith took nearly a month to recover, stuporous from depression, feeling the wounds to Adri a thousand times more keenly because of his emotional bonding with Rachleach. He fears desperately that a second use of this power will drive him insane, and while Obad-hai continues to grant him spells, he knows not whether his god will accept such an action again. To be Rachleach felt like immortality, felt like being a demigod, and Griffith is very frightened of this. Worst of all, Griffith has suffered a wound to his soul so deep that he fears that he may bear it through many lives as he moves through the wheel of reincarnation. He also knows that the gem may never be discarded or passed to another, for he cannot remove it from around his neck, and even if he could he would never allow another to possess it.

Prayers for advice, and an audience with the Grand Druid, have not eased Griffith's mind. It even seems to him that his druidic brothers and sisters shun him while feigning their usual friendship, and Griffith reproaches himself for this unworthy thought; but then he wonders whether it is not Rachleach's lack of love for the men who destroyed the world of ancient elvenkind which the other druids sense. Perhaps, Griffith's ultimate fear is that he may lose his mind wholly to Rachleach.

Griffith is a tormented and tragic fig ure, but his own miseries have made him more determined than ever to bring all the help he can to the Adri. If the forest becomes and remains well defended, he might never need to call that power down to aid the forest again. From his many ad ventures, Griffith has accumulated large sums of treasure-he has a cache worth some 30,000 gp-and will certainly pay well for adventurers prepared to defend the forest against the twin perils.

On a different level, Griffith has an other problem-his long-time animal companion, Reza the tigress. Although she is growing older, Reza is a formidable animal (with 41 hit points), and Griffith will not leave her to allow her to become wild again (as she would if they were separated for more than a few days). When he is in Greyhawk, Griffith takes over an entire stable, and has Reza kept there, visiting her every day and feeding her. However, traveling with her is quite a problem since few boatmen are comfortable with an 11-foot tigress on board their ship. If PCs decide to accompany Griffith, Reza will always be with him, and she has a way of licking her lips when looking at a gnome or halfling which conveys the word "snack" very clearly. Accommodating and feeding her can be an adventure in itself.

Griffith is a handsome, charismatic, and charming man with a truly tragic burden and a secret which will only be revealed to any character when he has wholly gained the trust and friendship of that person. His mysteriousness, sadness, and tendency to wake sweating and frightened from his vivid dreams can make him an intriguing and powerful NPC for PCs to befriend.

AC 3 (leather armor + 3, shield, and Dex 15 MV 12; D9; hp 60; THAC0 16; #AT 1; Dmg 1d6 +2 (quarterstaff +2 Str 11, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 11, Wis 17, Cha 17; AL N.

Spells: 6 1st, 6 2nd, 4 3rd, 24th, and 1 5th.

Magical items: leather armor +3, quarterstaff + 2, staff of swarming in sects, ring of water walking, boots of elvenkind, and a special amulet (see be low).