Here is the background I wrote for a character quite some time ago. He started as an Oak Tree, and ended up an adventurer.
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Beorcum looks at those gathered around the table with him, as he drinks his tea, and his perceptive eyes sweep from one to the other of his companions, as the day of reckoning comes, as he has known it would.
Beorcum Mossa sweeps his long amber-colored hair out of his eyes, and once again looks down at his long finely articulated fingers. Fingers so small that he wears gloves made for human children, and small ones at that.
With a strained smile he looks at the man directly across from him and begins to speak, “Jaseo Stormbringer, here we are, and I am ready to answer your questions.”
Jaseo unclasps the huge fingers and the strain in his eyes mirror’s the same emotion on Beorcum face. He looks Beorcum directly in the eye and begins, “We of the Green Hills company all appreciate what you have done for us, and we know that the Hobgoblins of the Karesh Hills would still be raiding without your aid in finding their lair but if we are to continue we would know who, or what you are. Really are.” A tensing around the table shows Beorcum that this could still end in violence, if his answer is insufficient.
Time for the truth.
Beorcum looks down at the table and rubs his hand along the fine wood grain of the table he sits next to. He says, “Fine Oak. Of good lineage. Perhaps this was my cousin, brother, or a grandfather, a great uncle, or some other such as you judge relationships.”
“For my first two hundred years, in the depths of an old forest I shall not reveal, I lived and grew from a single tiny acorn to a great Oak tree with branches that brushed the sky and roots that reached deep into the soil. I remember little of that time, except peace and joy.”
“Then my life changed. One of the greatest druids by the name of Jimushi came to me, and changed my path and life forever. First, he drew into my spirit, and using his incredible powers, he augmented my spirit and separated that spirit into two pieces, Annabel and me. Annabel, was beauty incarnate, the finest Dryad ever, I am sure.” At this time Beorcum’s eyes tear over and his eyes fade out, and it is clear he is far away, and perhaps long ago.
In a few moments his eyes focus back in and Beorcum is at the table again. He begins again in a tiny voice, “Then Jimushi woke me up.”
Looking around at the looks of shock across the table he grins, and comments, “Never knew how much you didn’t know, did you?”
Then he begins again, “Now that was an experience I doubt few ever feel. Not the gift of life, but the gift of the ability to live life, and to appreciate it. That is what Jimushi gave me.”
“Jimushi, Annabel and I spent the next several years traveling the wood, and Jimushi taught me so much I would never had known. But then a darkness came into the forest, and Jimushi moved to fight it accompanied by Annabel and I. The darkness was hobgoblins, hobgoblins intent on an old place of the forest, a ruin that I had never known of, that Jimushi had never spoken of. A ruin guarded by an even dozen oaks like myself with their dryads. A ruin that must never be entered again though Jimushi would never tell me what was there, and I will NOT tell you where it is.” Beorcum says in a strong voice.
“A battle ensued of the likes I had never seen before or since. The hobgoblins, some kind of followers of Kruk-Mal-Kali. We fought in a battle that lasted weeks, searching the forest for each other and killing by whatever means were necessary. In the final battle we were near defeat, and while I stood on the stair as Jimushi entered the ruin, for he said there was no other way, and I had no choice but to believe him.”
“Annabel died there, by the swords of the Hobgoblins, while I died there by fire. Sorcerous fire burned off my leaves, shriveled my twigs, and boiled my bark until the flames reached my heartwood. And that was the end, or so I thought.”
Beorcum stops for a while, his mind back at that dark time, and some of the duller ones at the table think the story is done, but others know it is not for Beorcum sits there with them, and is clearly alive.
“But I was wrong. Some time later, I know not how long I awoke for the second time, for my second life in my second body, the one you see before you. Jimushi had reincarnated me, as the halfling who sits before you.”
Beorcum looks from eye to eye and says, “That is my story. What say you?”
Beorcum waits for their answer.
But he knows that is not the whole story, but all that may be shared with others, however trusted. The rest is even more unbelievable. For Jimushi had told Beorcum of the ruin, and the sacrifice he had had to make. For in entering he had caused the evil within the ruin to come back to life, and to piggyback on Jimushi own life.
And the price was high, very very high, as the price for containing evil always is. Jimushi had broken himself from the path of nature as nature itself abhorred the evil he now carried, an evil he would carry until the day he died, however long that might be.
So it was up to Beorcum raised with the last bit of his power, a reincarnate scroll he had been saving. Beorcum would have to carry on Jimushi’s duty. He would have to see that the ruin was defended once Jimushi had died and the evil had been passed back to the ruin. An evil the hobgoblins still were seeking for and would not give up on finding.
With his mission burning in his heart, Beorcum waited to see if he would finally find some to help him.
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