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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jubilee" data-source="post: 3395886" data-attributes="member: 36594">Description and Background for GwaennaMost of the other characters don't know and likely won't find out much about Gwaenna's background, but I figure why write it if no one is going to read it?  So here's some more about Gwen. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />***The most striking feature of this small, purplish-skinned goblin girl is the fine, golden ridge of scales on her forehead and her inquisitive, flashing golden eyes.  She seems to have a sunny disposition, with a smile on her lips and a laugh in her eyes.  She is usually dressed in a silk wrap-around kimono over her fine chain shirt.  If she doesn't have a sword in hand, it's likely she has a book instead.  She is tidy and stands upright, making the most of her mere 3'6" of height.   She has bluish-purple hair, which is usually pulled back in a bun.***Gwaenna grew up in the warrens underneath the sewers of Sharn with a clan of goblins known as the 'quiet folk' to the denizens around them.  Their way was to stay quiet and out of the way, for their elders had decided the best way to survive was to live without being noticed.  This was their path to survival, but not prosperity.  They gathered what little food was to be had in out of the way places and ran away from any conflict before it could begin.When Gwaenna was very young, a purple-skinned stranger, who looked somewhat like a man, took sanctuary with them and began to hunt for them.  Gwaenna knew that the stranger, whom they called Hunter for his gifts, was not one to run away and hide as her kinsmen taught her.  He met his foes straight on and defeated them.  He was dangerous and terrifying; Gwaenna wished with all her young heart she could be a man like him instead of a small and frightened goblin. Years later, halflings from the world above came upon a group of Quiet Folk gathering their food.  For sport, they gave chase and caught Mok, who was leader of the food gatherers and Gwaenna's father.  He let the halflings have him so the others could escape – and he submitted to their beating until they grew bored.  The rest of the gatherers found him then, and brought him home.  Then they sent for Hunter.Hunter's rage was terrifying, quiet and seething.  Not long after, he returned to them with the halflings who had done it, one of them dead and the other nearly so.  The other did not live past the night - Gwaenna's heart swelled with pride when it was her father's own knife that landed the killing blow.  But this one night of triumph over their fear did not change the Quiet Folk.  On the following day, they once more went creeping about the warrens, searching out food and fleeing from danger.Gwaenna urged them to fight back and make a better place for themselves with youthful vigor.  She wanted a better life for herself and her kinsmen, but they did not believe it was possible.  They told her to stay quiet, to stay in the shadows as their people had always done.  They assured her it was the only safe way to live, the only way they could survive in this world of wild folk and people bigger, stronger, and meaner than them.  No matter what she said, her kinsmen would not listen and began to distrust her.  They told her she would bring doom upon them all if she lived so loudly. She did try staying in the shadows and quiet as a mouse for a while.  But she did not run away from conflicts; instead, she sought them out - sometimes to watch others brawling in a tavern, sometimes to take her anger out on one of the feral halflings with her fists and a sharpened stone - when she could catch one alone.  She picked up scraps of fighting as her kinsmen searched out scraps of food.  Eventually, she grew so bold as to sneak above the sewers Sharn, where she could witness some true magic.  These scraps she treasured and practiced, determined to find a way for her people to rise above their pitiful existence.When she showed her father the little cantrips she had gleaned, and the skills she had developed with her fists and a sharpened rock, he was horrified.  He begged her to stop and warned that she would bring danger and death to them all if she continued this way.  They were the Quiet Folk, and had survived that way for generations.  Her loud ways were destruction to her kinsmen.Gwaenna saw that she was not yet strong enough to defend them, as Hunter had done, and so in a way her father was right - She had to be able to roar like Hunter before she could hope to bring a new way of life to her kinsmen.  And she could not learn how to roar while she lived with them - her mewlings would bring predators that would harm them all.  So she took her sharpened rock, and her little bits of magic, and began to delve into the ruins of the Dhakaani even further below Sharn than the Quiet Folk’s home.She was trying to make a living and a name for herself in Blackbones, beneath the Cogs, when a group of topside adventurers came to her and asked that she act as their guide.  They were looking for an ancient Dhakaani ruin, but were anticipating trouble navigating the twists and turns of the corridors so far below Sharn.  She wasn't interested in the gold they offered (having that much wealth in Blackbones just made you a target), but when they offered her a metal knife and a wand that could shoot rays of frost, she accepted.  In short order, she helped them find their ruin.  There were many large and dangerous creatures there, and many deadly traps.  For the most part, she stayed out of the way, but something in the final chamber caught her attention.  One whole wall contained a carving of a host of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears, all bowing down before a goblin queen.  A veneer of colored and metallic pigments was still present on some of the wall carvings.  The goblin queen had a golden crown low on her brow -- one that looked just like Gwaenna's birthmark! Unfortunately, the halfling trap finder botched his attempt at getting into a vault built into the wall.  Red-hot magma flooded into the chamber, pinning the small man where he was and burning him alive.  At great personal risk, Gwaenna leapt from statue to altar to pillar over to the halfling, and was just able to rescue his sword.  She made it back to safety as his cries finally died down. Now she had a magic sword!  Her goblin queen, though, was quickly being covered in lava.A year later, her newly acquired wealth nearly gone (for, somehow, none of the adventurers had made it out of the depths alive, but their monies had), Gwaenna was deep in the library of Morgrave University.  She had learned to read and write, and was still looking for information on her goblin queen.  An ancient goblin came up to her, his eyes gold and mysterious.  He told her that what she was looking for was not in this library, but on a mountaintop far to the west, in Droaam.  Without being able to explain why, she believed the old goblin.  He would answer no more questions, though, and as she followed him around a stack of books, he was suddenly gone. So she left Sharn and found her mountain top with nothing on it, but was not there long before she was approached by a gold dragon with mysterious gold eyes. In his strange, draconic way, he confirmed that there was once an empire ruled by goblins, more than a thousand thousand years before the Dhakaani empire rose to supremacy – so long ago that not even the elves remember it, and only the dragons do.  He told her of other ruins that predate the Dhakaani, and of a hobgoblin hero’s tomb that may reveal even more secrets.  She has been traveling Khorvaire, investigating ancient ruins and seeking more information about the hero’s tomb ever since.</blockquote>

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