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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ozmar" data-source="post: 2446511" data-attributes="member: 8021">SarakithThis is the long and strange story of a time-traveling changeling who hopefully will have destroyed the Lich Queen of the githyanki. She has many names and many identities, and many times and places in which she lives. The name she has chosen for herself as her most true is Sarakith.Sarakith was born as the twin sister of a kalashtar named Parmelk. Her father, Tarmelk, was a kalashtar of the Melk line, who had struggled against the Lich Queen during his adventuring career. He had tried to settle down in Sharn to a life of local politics, and had become involved with her mother, a changeling known as Qal. Qal was a dark-hearted deceiver, and she plotted to use Tarmelk's illicit children against him, but he discovered her secret plotting, and confronted her during childbirth. He tried to rescue the children, and there was a battle between Tarmelk's adventuring allies, and the criminal gang that was protecting Qal. In the struggle, both Qal and Tarmelk were killed, and the life force within a dragonshard escaped. This life force was called the Splinter of Kith, for it had been stolen from the Lich Queen, Vlaakith, and it was all she needed to complete her apotheosis. The life force entered Parmelk and Sarakith, giving them both access to the quori spirit, Kith, and psionic abilities beyond those of other beings.Parmelk appeared dead, so he was left alone. [Edit: one of his unique abilities is to enter a death-like trance.] The other kalashtar present, Hanamelk and Lashimelk, perceived a quori spirit in the changeling baby, and took her in, believing that Tarmelk's spirit had somehow been passed to her. They named her Saramelk, thinking that the Melk spirit was in her. They brought her to their clan and raised her.When she was five, she had dreams and visions that led her to seek out and find her missing brother, Parmelk. The connection they shared by their Kith spirit allowed them to find each other. He had survived, and was taken into the brotherhood.Both Saramelk and Parmelk shared unique psionic potential, and the Council of Seers (on which both Hanamelk and Lashimelk sat) could not divine their powers, nor how to properly train them. (This potential was the potential of the Erudite, which only the Kith spirit provides.)Saramelk and Parmelk grew up together. Both were a mystery to their elders. When they were still young, the kalashtar were visited by an oracle who prophesied that Saramelk would be the salvation of the gith race. The Council of Seers met with this prophet, a woman named Serrela, and spoke at length about her visions of the future. She in turn asked them much about their history. Tarmelk, Hanamelk, and Lashimelk had been part of an adventuring group that included the human artificer Thallia d'Cannith, and three githyanki knights: Karluth, Rha-zhul the Necromancer, Zetch'r'r and their squire, Gythra-Kyharz. Together they formed the leadership of the Sha-sol Khou, an organization dedicated to overthrowing the Lich Queen and reuniting the githyanki and githzerai people in peace. Serrela was very interested in all the details of this organization, and told them many secrets of the Lich Queen's organization and plans. Why did they trust her? Because many years ago, Zetch'r'r had predicted her coming, and asked them to give her all the aid they could.But Saramelk was still a child at that time. She grew. When she was 16, she was traveling through northern Breland and her caravan was attacked by Droaam raiders. Many were killed, but she was rescued/kidnapped by a githyanki named Zetch'r'r. He took her to the astral plane, to the very fortress of the Lich Queen herself. There he took her in as his apprentice, and taught her to imitate githyanki form, and also trained her in how to use her erudite powers. At first she was very frightened, but he tried to win her over by explaining that she had a destiny, and that he would teach her how to use her powers. He did not harm her, other than to keep her prisoner, and she began to believe his sincerity. She learned what she could, but always yearned for escape.Two years later she found it. Zetch'r'r knew she would. He allowed her to find access to an eldritch artifact (the Eternity Door) that he had discovered. He had already set it up so it would take her where she needed to go. She entered the portal and vanished.The portal took her back to Eberron, but it took her back in time. She arrived four years before she had been born, near a changeling village. She spied on the other changelings for a while (they were the first she had met) and observed two of them, a brother (Tam) and sister (Sal), talking and laughing in a field. They seemed so happy and at peace. She envied them and wanted to join them, but she was afraid. Then a big monster entered the clearing and chased them into the woods. Sarakith followed them to try to help. The two changelings split up, and the monster chased and caught Sal and killed her. Sarakith discovered this too late, as the monster was dragging away her body. Then she heard Tam calling for his sister, so Sarakith assumed Sal's appearance, and, using her mental powers to read Tam's mind, she returned to him and inserted herself into the changeling's life. She thought she was doing him a favor, to not have to suffer his sister's death, and she was also satisfying her need to belong.She was accepted into the community, none knew what had happened (although Tam eventually began to suspect, he never accused her of anything). Sal (as she was now known) fell in love with another changeling, Don, and they were married and had four children: a boy Nok, another boy Tal, and then twin girls, Vaz and Suz. The kith spirit was spread out to these children.The changeling village believed in the Reality Seeker's ethos, and taught that they should be true to themselves, and never live a lie, especially against other changelings. For four years, Sal tried to keep up the facade, but eventually her beloved husband was killed by a wild beast, and she couldn't handle the stress. She abandoned her four children to her brother's care, and went to create a new life.She arrived in Sharn in the same year that she had been born. She joined a criminal guild of changelings and dopplegangers, but as soon as she did, she was a participant in the terrible battle of her own birth, where her mother and father were killed. She was horrified at the realization that she had traveled in time, and hid during the battle. After everyone had left, she crept out and recovered the dragonshard that had held her kith spirit. She then created the identity of a human woman named Serrela. She worked in a halfling criminal organization as a spy, learning ninja-like skills, and practicing her powers. She earned enough money to buy a nice apartment, and made it into a strong safehouse for her criminal activities.  She hid the dragonshard in this apartment. Later she discovered a haunting spirit in the apartment, that told her it was the spirit of her future self, and that she needed to prepare for the battles of her future.She spent many years honing her skills. All of her children eventually looked her up and she got them into various roles and positions in Sharn society. After seeing that they were cared for, she faked the death of her human identity, left the apartment to her eldest son, and traveled to the astral plane. Disguised as a gith, she infiltrated the stronghold of Zetch'r'r, and once again used the Eternity Door to travel back in time.Once in the past, she assumed the identity of Zetch'r'r, and began gathering allies. She built and founded the Sha'sol Khou, and found like-minded gith to help her fill out its organization. She worked her way into githyanki politics, and gained the attention of the Lich Queen. She became a close confidant of the queen, and Vlaakith trained and expanded her erudite skills. All the while, Zetch'r'r learned more of the Lich Queen's plans, and how to stop them.Eventually, she leaked this information to her more powerful allies, including a band of kalashtar brothers: Tarmelk, Hanamelk, and Lashimelk the Necromancer. They joined with the artificer Thallia d'Cannith, and met with the githyanki lords Karluth, of Ruun-Karzai, and Rha-Zhul, of Kamyn Dhun. With her aid, they were able to break into the Lich Queen's palace, and steal a Splinter of Kith, imprisoning it within a dragonshard.They fled and went their separate ways, confident that the Lich Queen could not complete her ritual without the Splinter of Kith. Enraged, Vlaakith eventually tracked down Rha-Zhul in Kamyn Dhun. The Necromancer used a magical ritual to protect the city from her wrath, but the city was banished from the astral plane, appearing on Eberron deep beneath the ocean. Almost all of the city's inhabitants were killed.Vlaakith also found out about Karluth, and besieged his fortress. The fortress was engulfed in a magical mind storm, and all within were assumed slain, but the fortress remains, and Karluth yet lives within his prison.Through it all, Zetch'r'r remained at the Lich Queen's side, and she has not detected "his" treachery.After things had quieted down, Zetch'r'r went to the material plane and kidnapped Saramelk from the Droaam ambush. He took her back to his fortress in Tu'narath, and began training her in the ways of the erudite. Eventually, she escaped by using the Eternity Door to go back in time.Zetch'r'r continued to bide his time. At last, when the time was right, he again went to Eberron. Disguised as an ogre mage slave trader, he purchased Parmelk in a Droaam market [edit: Parmelk had been captured during the war and sold into slavery], and took him up into the mountains. There he trained Parmelk in his erudite skills, and finally set him free to return to his life, and to his destiny. Then he returned to the astral plane to wait.[edit: the following describes events that have not yet played out in the game. I anticipate things will go this way during the last adventure.]Eventually, his time had come. He contacted Parmelk and his allies, and invited them to Tu'narath, to strike against the Lich Queen once and for all. He helped them fight in the final battle against her, but he was overcome. He had prepared for this eventuality, though, and through his death, he provided a final distraction that may (or may not) have enabled Parmelk and his allies to be victorious. His spirit freed, he fled back to the Eternity Door. He used it one last time to go into the past, destroying the portal in the process, in order to put his Kith spirit out of the reach of Vlaakith.In the past, he found his spirit drawn to the dragonshard that had imprisoned him before. He was thus imprisoned in Serrela's apartment, and could only manifest an image to haunt the building. He met Serrela, and told her much of her future, but there was much that he could not remember, or dared not say. Eventually, she left the apartment to her son, Nok, but by then Sarakith's spirit had diminished, and although she tried to communicate with Nok, there was little clear that she could say. [edit: in Nok's background, he has a haunted apartment, and I'll use Sarakith's spirit to plant clues to guide the adventures...]That's it.</blockquote>

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