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SaurizinTheEye — Ulysses (Elm Rowansson)

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Published: 2024-01-25 22:16:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 811; Favourites: 4; Downloads: 0
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Description Elm was the wayward son of King Rowan Oaksson, leader of the Firbolg peoples. He fled his homelands in the great fforest of Carnac after stealing a sapling of the great elder tree that lay at the heart of their capital, Dreymadal. This was heresy. The Goddess Arduinna and her daughters would surely see him imprisoned if he did not flee. Casting aside his royal lineage, he took the name Ulysses Whitlock Brown and wandered the lands of Severa.
After a time he found companionship with a group of rag tag adventurers that would come to be known as Ulric and the Wraiths. It was useful to have friends in these lands, as the mossy fur and great stature of the firbolg race would sometimes make him a target for superstitious Severans, and would eventually draw the ire of the inquisition. Ulysses’ time in the dungeons of the inquisition was not kind to him, but he endured, and was rescued by the wraiths. They spent a year or so adventuring before word came to Ulysses of a great danger in his homeland.
A dark power known as Cysgods Bell lay beneath Carnac, and the Duke of North severa wanted its might for himself. Controlled from the shadows by his general Sir Vrag, the duke marched his army to the fforest to wage war. Vrag was the last of the men of Kryll, a people from the mountains to the north. They had long ago used the power of Cysgods bell to destroy the civilisation that thad thrived in the lands where Carnac now stood. Ulysses had to destroy the bell before Vrag and the duke could get their hands on it.
With his companions he travelled deep beneath the roots of the elder tree, discovering an ancient ziggurat. At the ziggurat’s peak was a portal to a Demi plane that housed not only Cysgods Bell, a great orb from which no light or life could escape, but also Arduinna, Goddess of his people. Arduinna spoke the truth to Ulysses and the veil was lifted from his eyes.
The men of Kryll, who had decimated the ancient civilisations of these lands, and the firbolg, were one and the same. Arduinna herself had once been the queen of Kryll. When she saw the oblivion her husband the king had wrought on the lands using Cysgods Bell, she sacrificed herself to imprison the Bell and cast a spell over the men of Kryll. This spell wiped their culture and memories away, and transformed their bodies into those of wild beasts. She gave them the name Firbolg, the worst insult in the tongue of Kryll, meaning “peaceful one”. All of her people had been changed forever, all bar one, who hid from Arduinna’s spell in the realms of Chaos. Vrag.
It was then that Vrag ripped his way into the demiplane, ready to claim Cysgods Bell. But in an act that changed the course of the world forever, Ulysses struck down Arduinna with his own blade. With the death of the goddess, Cysgods Bell was banished back to the foul realm from whence it came. Vrag’s fury shook the earth and a great battle commenced. In the end Vrag lay slain.
But when Arduinna died, her spell too faded, and the firbolg people were transformed back into the huge mountain folk they had once been. Their minds flooded with ages of cultural memory long suppressed.
A time of turmoil came upon the lands, as the firbolg scrabbled to make sense of this seismic change.
Ulysses too struggled, but kept hope that his people could put aside the warring culture of their past and retain the peaceful ways they had followed for so long.
There is long road ahead for Ulysses and his people. But for now the open road and adventure calls. With the Wraiths by his side a new Ulysses sets forth.
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