Lughan
Lughan of the Forest (a.k.a. Lughan the Wise)
Lughan is an Ydoran elf looking for a cure for a terrible curse that aflicts his homeland.
Born in 717 SE on the eastern edge of the Black Forest to a small Ydoran tribe, Lughan was always clever, and hungry for knowledge. He learned to read the ancient Eveshi language by his father, who was an elder of the tribe, and he learned to chant the old songs that recited the stories of his people. He was also fond of animals, and would often go wandering to look for critters, big and small. One evening, he met a dire she-wolf, and without fear, he approached her. Instead of eating him, she allowed him to snuggle up to her, and the next morning, when his family went searching for him, they found him snuggled up next to her, like her pup.
His father took it as a sign, that Lughan was touched by a greater magic, and he sent him away to become a student of Browen, an old druid hermit who lived in the territory of the tribe. Browen was a hard teacher, but he saw potential in Lughan, and over the years Lughan learned the ways of the druids. He learned to feel the flow and the cycle of nature, of life and death, of growth and consumption. But there was little book learning with Browen, and Lughan had a hungry mind. Lughan would always ask about tales of Browen's people, of ancient histories, and tales of far away lands. But Browen would answer that he didn't remember his people, that history was a circle and all that was will be again, and that nature was the same everywhere, no matter how far you travelled.
These answers were far from satisfactory for Lughan, but there were all he would get, so he resigned himself to learning what Browen wanted to teach. They would travel the forest together, observing the plants and the animals. It was during these travels that they first came across the Wither. Trees and plants would get a purple discolouration, and after a while die, but more worrying still, this blight would kill the very soil, and make it so no new plants would grow there. It seemed to spread underground, but even after investigating it for months, and finding plants all over the eastern forest that had fallen to the Wither, Browen and Lughan could not find a solution. And now animals would start to get infected as well, and their reaction was much worse than the plants. Their skin would begin to rot, and they would be gripped by a terrible anger, that would make most animals, whether prey or predator, very dangerous. It seemed to happen if you ate the plants affected by the Wither, or ate infected animals in turn.
When Browen told Lughan that there was no cure for the Wither, and that his tribe would have to leave if the blight kept spreading, Lughan got angry, and left Browen, to go to his tribe, and his father's old texts. He knew that the Eveshi might have an answer, as they had lived here for thousands of years, before anyone else even knew how to dress themselves. He researched for days, reading bark scratchings and cave paintings, and eventually he found a discription of the Wither: it had happened before, in the Golden Epoch, and it had some connection to the Night-father, which is what Lughan's people called Baal. To find more answers, Lughan would have to leave the Black Forest and seek out more civilized lands, where they kept histories of the events of the Second War of Ashes. He travelled to Dunor where he lived for years and learned to read and speak Dunorian. Most people, especially scholars, didn't treat him with much respect, and it took him years to establish a small amount of access to libraries and schools. He would make his living as a healer and sometimes a guide, but always he was searching for answers to the first Wither, and how it had been defeated. Eventually he ended up in Sarkara, where he would find more clues, and finally finding that the Wither had been caused by Ashagor the Despoiler's adviser and court Wizard Luthik the Vile. But here the trail grew cold. There was no more information about Luthik, nor about the Wither, and Lughan had to make a living, so he returned to his life of wandering and adventuring. But he has never stopped searching for information about Luthik the Vile, and an answer to why a 1000 year old curse had resurfaced in his forest.
Background:
Born in 717 SE on the eastern edge of the Black Forest to a small Ydoran tribe, Lughan was always clever, and hungry for knowledge. He learned to read the ancient Eveshi language by his father, who was an elder of the tribe, and he learned to chant the old songs that recited the stories of his people. He was also fond of animals, and would often go wandering to look for critters, big and small. One evening, he met a dire she-wolf, and without fear, he approached her. Instead of eating him, she allowed him to snuggle up to her, and the next morning, when his family went searching for him, they found him snuggled up next to her, like her pup.
His father took it as a sign, that Lughan was touched by a greater magic, and he sent him away to become a student of Browen, an old druid hermit who lived in the territory of the tribe. Browen was a hard teacher, but he saw potential in Lughan, and over the years Lughan learned the ways of the druids. He learned to feel the flow and the cycle of nature, of life and death, of growth and consumption. But there was little book learning with Browen, and Lughan had a hungry mind. Lughan would always ask about tales of Browen's people, of ancient histories, and tales of far away lands. But Browen would answer that he didn't remember his people, that history was a circle and all that was will be again, and that nature was the same everywhere, no matter how far you travelled.
These answers were far from satisfactory for Lughan, but there were all he would get, so he resigned himself to learning what Browen wanted to teach. They would travel the forest together, observing the plants and the animals. It was during these travels that they first came across the Wither. Trees and plants would get a purple discolouration, and after a while die, but more worrying still, this blight would kill the very soil, and make it so no new plants would grow there. It seemed to spread underground, but even after investigating it for months, and finding plants all over the eastern forest that had fallen to the Wither, Browen and Lughan could not find a solution. And now animals would start to get infected as well, and their reaction was much worse than the plants. Their skin would begin to rot, and they would be gripped by a terrible anger, that would make most animals, whether prey or predator, very dangerous. It seemed to happen if you ate the plants affected by the Wither, or ate infected animals in turn.
When Browen told Lughan that there was no cure for the Wither, and that his tribe would have to leave if the blight kept spreading, Lughan got angry, and left Browen, to go to his tribe, and his father's old texts. He knew that the Eveshi might have an answer, as they had lived here for thousands of years, before anyone else even knew how to dress themselves. He researched for days, reading bark scratchings and cave paintings, and eventually he found a discription of the Wither: it had happened before, in the Golden Epoch, and it had some connection to the Night-father, which is what Lughan's people called Baal. To find more answers, Lughan would have to leave the Black Forest and seek out more civilized lands, where they kept histories of the events of the Second War of Ashes. He travelled to Dunor where he lived for years and learned to read and speak Dunorian. Most people, especially scholars, didn't treat him with much respect, and it took him years to establish a small amount of access to libraries and schools. He would make his living as a healer and sometimes a guide, but always he was searching for answers to the first Wither, and how it had been defeated. Eventually he ended up in Sarkara, where he would find more clues, and finally finding that the Wither had been caused by Ashagor the Despoiler's adviser and court Wizard Luthik the Vile. But here the trail grew cold. There was no more information about Luthik, nor about the Wither, and Lughan had to make a living, so he returned to his life of wandering and adventuring. But he has never stopped searching for information about Luthik the Vile, and an answer to why a 1000 year old curse had resurfaced in his forest.
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