Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AStott" data-source="post: 522910" data-attributes="member: 7825">This is the background story written by Kent. He's such a wonderful player. I didn't even ask him, but he purposely provided all sorts of nice hooks for me to use.The Early Years of Tera Jannot Flynn Tera Flynn and his wife Penna had a nice life. Two beautiful children, Megan and Jannot, Megan 3 years older than her little brother. Penna was a midwife and well respected among her neighbors. Tera was a successful Tanner, in business with his best friend, almost a brother really, Thom Handolen. Their only worries of the day were whether the rains would force them to take in the hides while they still stank and how to get the children cleaned up from playing before supper.Then, came that one, dark, harvest time. Some people say that there was a caravan from the south that brought foulness with it. Others told that they saw a man, feverish, get off of a trading vessel and meander through the town like a drunkard. Whether any of them were true the sickness came. It would start with a sick stomach. Then a man wouldn't be able to hold his dinner for a day. It was followed by a fever that burned for half a day with a heat like that from a forge. Then a delerium that lasted only hours in the strongest of men... and then a quiet but sudden death.Panic raced through the city. People locked themselves in their homes out of fear... and it likely saved many of them. However, Penna was a midwife and was one of the many people that were considered competent healers at the time and was looked to for help at the beginning. This was how she was among the first people who contracted the plague... and brought it home to her family out of ignorance.Thom wasn't married and didn't have as nice a home as the Flynn's, and as such didn't live as far into the city. As luck would have it, as it were, Jannot and Thom were fishing a bit that day before dinner time. The sicknesses had just started the day before and though Thom was a bit worried, he didn't really fear much about it. As they made their way back that evening toward Thom's home, the city guards were announcing throughout their patrols, that seemed particularly heavy, that people should remain in their homes for safety. It seemed that it was at this point that Jannot saw what was actually happening around him: people scurrying around each other with their belongings held close, avoiding contact with others as carefully as possible. People casting cautious and fearful glances to each other where the day before there was polite, if not friendly conversation about the coming harvest.As they made their way toward Thom's house, Thom told Jannot that he needed to stay at his place that night. Jannot asked why he couldn't go home, but Thom just forced a smile and told him that they were going to not work the next day and go fishing some more instead. Jannot was a little scared, about the people acting strange outside and about not going home to his family, but his excitement about fishing the next day held stronger in his mind.After that Jannot's memory seems to cloud. The next day there were fires in the street that he could see from the window at the front of Thoms house. They produced thick black smoke and an awful smell that he would recognize for the rest of his life as burning flesh. That next day Thom tried to explain what was happening outside but that just made Jannot upset and scared. He really missed his family. Especially his sister.In just two more days, three in total, the smoke had cleared. Some unfortunate people had cleaned the piles of smouldering... whatever it was out of the streets. Jannot's memory of the walk back outside and to his families home that morning is still very clear, but the things about mortality and life and the love of friends and family that a crying Thom was trying to tell him fell on mostly deaf ears.It was then that he seemed to notice birds for the first time. Whenever something would disturb a bird, it would just fly away to somewhere it could be peaceful again. He wished he were a bird...Thankfully, when Thom and Jannot arrived at the Tannery, the only sign of disturbance was a large soot-blackened area in the road half a block down from the shop... and a note. It was a letter from Jannot's father. It told of the love that the three of them had for Thom and Jannot and how if they were both still alive that Jannot was to be raised by Thom and Thom was to take over the business. It also stated how the business was to be sold or maintained if one or both of Thom or Jannot had not survived.Jannot still has that last letter of love from his father. It's in a leather binding, in a small box, in his bedroom. He hasn't looked at it in years.Jannot was well taken care of. After the plague, He stayed quiet, to himself. Nothing like the playful and cheery little boy he once was. Afraid to leave the home, and whatever memories he still had of his family, he became a recluse. The only person that he'd speak with willingly until he was 13 was Thom. Instead of playing outside with other children Jannot would just sit inside and stare out the window for birds. He'd do it for hours.By age 10, Thom had given up on the idea that Jannot would get over his fears of the outside, or whatever it was that kept him in and forced him into some schooling. Even so, Jannot would still seek seclusion - in books. Jannot was smart enough, but didn't put any effort into school work, so Thom gave that up after a few more years and had Jannot help him out in the Tannery.Jannot would still seclude himself, but now it was in his work. He became a very good tanner after a while and growing into a man, became full partner in the business that his father had started with his best friend. It was in the tannery That Jannot learned to communicate again, although only little by little, with other people, his customers.Regardless of the success of the business and Jannot's personal progress, he still remained something of a recluse. He would speak to customers only when Thom wasn't there to do it for him. His neighbors all worried and thought highly of him, succeeding through such a tragedy, yet he'd never involve himself in a conversation with them unless cornered.There were festivals each year, in the spring and after harvest. Each year Thom would try to ply Jannot into going to the festivals with tales of wild food, wonderful drink and beautiful women. Jannot never went. Though attractive and approached by the occaisional woman who would come by to have leather work done, Jannot just never was able to open himself like that to another person.He and Thom still run the Tannery and go fishing together from time to time, but Thom is approaching 60 and is doing less leather work and more paper work these days.Next time... Some questions are answered in character.</blockquote>

Verification