The history of this young elf, age 120.
Childhood
Rioden panted heavily on the bench as he watched Caedrus and Karasin swing their wooden swords at each other in mock combat. He fiddled with the small storybook in his pocket longingly, wondering how Corellon Larethian’s battle with Gruumsh would conclude. He started pulling the book out of his pocket, and glanced over at where his father was standing, speaking to the fathers of his dueling friends. Hurriedly shoving the book back into his pocket, he picked up his own wooden sword, and feigned interest in the battle. His father had seen the book and he would surely hear of it later.
Rioden grew up not knowing his mother. He was told that his mom had died when he was still very young. His father, Telemyn Mizarius is a powerful nobleman with connections to the Eloran royalty. He leads an elite cadre of legendary elven fighter/rangers known as the Greenblades, who specialize in longswords and two-weapon fighting. A severe and demanding father, Telemyn had expectations that his son would grow into the art of swordplay with the same ease and level of talent he himself displayed as a youth. He raised his son close to the court of the elven emperor.
With a towering expectation hanging over his head, Rioden would fail his father time and again throughout his life. Despite the fact that there is no shame in scholarly pursuits in an elven society, his father made sure that Rioden’s circle of friends came from the more athletic-oriented families of the noble society, namely, the children of the members of the Greenblades. A sickly, weak boy who was more interested in sticking his nose in a book than the more athletic activities many of his peers engaged in, he was an outcast right from the outset.
Throughout his childhood, Rioden has a keen interest in the outdoors, begging to join in elven expeditions often led by his father, or to be brought to exotic natural locations famous around the Elore Woodlands. His requests are denied every single time, and the more insistent he became, the more distant his father grew. However, in an elven community, it is impossible to keep an elf from the tame surrounding woods, and Rioden spent a lot of time with the animals.
Adolescence
His vision was reddening. There has to be a cut somewhere above his eye that’s letting all this blood drown out his vision. He wiped his brow and the warm red stain on the back of his hand confirmed his suspicion. A worried trainer approached hesitantly, but stopped at his father’s signal. A raised hand that said – let the boy finish his battle. Rioden grasped his longsword’s hilt tightly in his hands, willing strength into his grip. Yet he knew that it would not be enough. Not only could Karasin match his speed, his childhood friend and opponent was stronger, and more skilled at swordplay than he is.
He looked into his father’s eyes then. Eyes that showed no emotion right now, but will only speak of disappointment later when less are present. “To proceed to the next level of training, I must do better than this. I must,” Rioden told himself. Karasin was already two levels ahead of him, and was the assigned combatant for his advancement test. He closed his eyes.
“What were the words?” he asked himself. “Incendis…” he murmured as he recollected the magical writings he studied earlier. Runes that he could barely read, but seemed to understand. “Incendis varinuyl,” he completed the chant. He felt a sudden warmth rush into his right arm, and as he opened his eyes, tongues of flame came to life along the blade of his longsword. He looked at a stunned Karasin as the crowd around him gasped. He raised the weapon and lunged.
Despite the remarkable intelligence he displayed, his father ignored the advice many well-meaning friends and insisted that Rioden study swordplay when it came time for him to learn the ways of his race. Enrolled in the Greenblade academy, his dismal performance at swordplay made him constantly feel that he is only bringing shame to his father’s name. His father agrees completely, and reminds him of that fact on a daily basis.
Not a rebellious child at heart, he had hoped that he would grow into strength as he reached adolescence. That was not to be – he remained as sickly and weak as ever. He continued his own private reading, becoming fascinated in the magical arts. He began experimenting and dabbling with the arcane on his own. An incident at the Greenblade academy roused the magic community’s interest in him – he sheathed his sword in magical flame in a duel with a fellow student to make up for his weakness. He was however considered to be cheating and received more than a tongue lashing from his father.
After several years in the academy without results, his father finally relented to a mounting pressure from the magic schools to recruit him into their ranks. He quickly rose as a star student in the magic school, mastering complex concepts and abstract ideas alike with ease and quickly making up for the years he had lost enrolled in the Greenblade academy. He also found himself among friends at last. Studying at the magic academy meant living away from his father, causing their relationship to drift even further. It also allowed him to fulfill his love for nature. He spent long hours sometimes alone and sometimes with friends, exploring deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding the elven courts, often falling asleep with a book of magic under a random tree.
The wolf suddenly burst into speed and started running through the thick undergrowth. He followed, skillfully avoiding the thorny bushes and jutting roots on the ground. He was led to what could only be described as a grove of tall trees leaning inwards to one another, as though to form a roof over a small clearing. Grown, not cut, into the trees are dwellings…
The wolf bounded through the ‘door’ of one of the smaller trees and led him to a leaf-covered bed. The wolf stopped, sat down next to it and panted. On the bed lay… a woman, sleeping. As he looked upon her face, all the years of comments to his father rang through his mind, “He doesn’t resemble you much Telemyn.” His father’s angry reply always followed. “I probably resembled my mother more,” he had always thought.
“By the Old Tree of Elore!” someone behind him exclaimed as he stared in shock at the face which resembled his with uncanny similarities. Or… his face resembled hers. He didn’t turn at the voice, but he felt someone grab his shoulders, and he was gently turned around. “You are Rioden Mizarius!” It wasn’t a question.
But… my mother is dead…
During the year he was due to graduate from the academy, Rioden was out in the forest cataloging the family members of a group of monkeys when he was approached by a wolf. The wolf beckoned for him to follow, and led him to a druid grove, and straight to the home of a woman to whom he bears a striking resemblance to. The woman was comatose in bed.
The druids living at the grove turned his world upside down, as they poured out the truth that have been kept from all the years of his life. The woman is her mother. She is a druid. The wolf is her animal companion. She met her father in the forest during a hunting expedition and they fell in love. Her father promised to respect her way of life as a druid, and to spend time with her in the grove if she would spend time with him in the city. They were married in both druidic and elven tradition and she bore him a child. After the childbirth, they grew distant from each other, as he refused to fulfill his promise to her and share in her life.
In the end, her need to be with nature overwhelmed her, and she decided to leave. His father again made a promise, that he would allow Rioden to visit her once he is older. His father then delayed that by saying that Rioden needed to concentrate on his studies of swordplay, and promised to allow them to meet later. Telemyn’s connection to the Emperor served to intimidate Rioden’s mother into patiently waiting over the long years for Telemyn to fulfill his promise. Rioden was told that quite often, his mother hovered nearby while he was in the forests, watching over him or innocently playing with him in the form of an animal, quietly enjoying their time together but painfully regretting the decision she had made in the past and wishing that she could reveal herself to him.
Finally, her patience ran out and she demanded that Telemyn allow her to see Rioden. She arranged a meeting with an old friend in the noble, who was shocked to find out that she was still alive. She has finally found out the lie that Telemyn had told about her supposed death in order to protect his reputation. She returned to the grove, preparing to confront him once and for all, but suddenly fell ill. Her health continued to deteriorate, and no one knew how to cure her. She finally became completely comatose.
In a fit of rage, Rioden returned home and confronted his father, only to discover that there was another woman in the house. Living away from his father had not only granted the son in the family more freedoms it appears. “Why do you care? She abandoned you when you were a child. She is practically dead,” was the answer he received from his father. His father has lost all interest in a son who could not carry on his legacy. Rioden abandoned his studies at the magic academy, packed up his things and moved to the druid grove to care for the mother he is desperate to save. He found that living in nature improved his own health dramatically, although his physical strength did not improve. For months she remained alive but unmoving as he futilely attempted to learn of ways that he may save his mother.
One day, as he gave his mother’s inert form a massage as instructed by his druid mentors, her eyes fluttered open, and she took a deep long breath. “Mother…” he managed as tears rolled down the face of both mother and son. Looking hard at him, reaching up an arm, but not managing to reach his face, her eyes softened as she uttered with her last breath the only words that he was ever to hear from his mother, “I’m sorry.”
Early Adulthood
He stared intently at the orc shaman. As she lifted her arms and began weaving them in the air, chanting magical words in a coarse gutteral voice, Rioden identified it. Scorching ray – he began chanting himself, and tracing his fingers through the air in the same pattern. They both completed their chanting. The orc shaman triumphantly pointed her finger at one of the wounded druids, her fingers glowed red and… nothing happened. Rioden smiled and lowered his own glowing hands as the orc shaman finally noticed his presence.
She shouted something at him that he couldn’t make out, and began chanting another spell. Again he identified it, to his own dread. Fireball – a spell he had not yet mastered. For a brief moment, he wished that he had concentrated more on his arcane studies. “She’s throwing a fireball!” he warned everyone, but he knew it was already too late. Fire would consume at least half the druids, and the wounded ones will likely perish.
The orc shaman once again pointed her finger, this time directly at Rioden, a similar glow… and once again nothing happened. There – far to his left. A male human in hide armor, completing his counterspelling. As the shaman shrieked in frustration, Rioden watched as the man hunched onto the ground, shapeshifted into a lion and leapt at the shaman.
He smiled to himself as he started chanting his next spell. As three points of blue light began to form above his palm, he altered his finger movement, added a word, and the points of light changed into three glowing blades of leaves. As the leaves zip towards the orc he thought to himself, “Perhaps, my kind isn’t all that alone in this world.”
It took Rioden several years to get over his mother’s death, and his father’s deception. He continued to live as a druid at the grove, caring for his mother’s wolf who had given birth to a litter of wolf pups. They took to him instantly, and they became his only joy in those tormented years of his life. One particular wolf pup, Greymane became his close friend, and eventually his own animal companion.
From his mother’s body, he retrieved a wedding ring with the Mizarius family crest. He was told that the ring was a magic ring of protection, given to her by his father when they took their marriage vows. Yet after her death, the ring became inert and no longer demonstrated magical properties. His mother’s fellow druids swore they had detected a magical aura around the ring before. Curious about the ring and it’s possible relationship to his mother’s condition, he returned to the magic academy and sought to study the ring. He ended up completing his studies as a wizard but not gleaning much information about the ring.
Rioden continued to drift between his life as a druid, and continuing his own studies as a wizard, excelling at both equally. His burning curiosity, interest and magic and love for nature thankfully survived the turmoil of finding out about his past. However, he found that he fit in neither community, and is considered a dabbler at best by his mentors on both sides, who were constantly reminding him that his path of study is going nowhere should he never specialize in either druidism or arcane magic. His father has meanwhile remarried and his new wife have given birth to another son.
While joining the druids on a raid against orcs he met Aramus the Dark, a human who excelled at both arcane and druidic magic. Discovering that there is a path almost perfectly suited to him after all, he appealed to Aramus to be his mentor. And thus he began his journey as an initiate of the Emerald Circle.
His broken family and the closed-mindedness of the majority of the druids and wizards that he had hoped to call his family at a tumultuous time in his life broke the illusions of elven cultural superiority that he had been indoctrinated with all his life. Studying under Aramus taught him another important lesson in perspective – an elf of over 100 years of age studying with a human who was only 40 years old. Rioden also learned of the impression many mortal races have of the elves, that of a haughty, self-righteous species, and made up his mind to avoid projecting such an impression whenever he can. He began to pay more attention to the current situation of the land he lived in, instead of dwelling on his own troubled past.
In the Emerald Circle he had at last found a home again. And this time, he fit in perfectly.
