Norendithas MoonShadow

[Kuroboshi]

This will be the character I play when not playing specifically with a friend. Comments and feedback welcome. I will add to this thread as he explores the world and interacts with it.

Player Name: Kuroboshi
Character Name: Norendithas Moonshadow
Deity: Gond
Alignment: CN
Age: 187
Race: Sun Elf
Hair: Black
Eyes: Green
Skin: Bronze
Languages Spoken: Common, Elven, Gnomish, Draconic, Sylvan, Dwarven

Physical Description:

Midnight hair pulled back into a neat pony-tail frames the bronzed face of this sun elf. His shrewd green eyes watch the world with a hint of detachment, as though he is always concentrating on something other than the conversation at hand.

Small, intricate and interwoven tattoos cover his chest. Together each small pattern forms part of the larger one. Should anyone actually have the chance to examine them in detail, they will find they are notes and formulae on magical item creation and the working of various rare metals. A functional notebook that is also aesthetically pleasing and shows the kind of style Norendithas enjoys in his work.

As sun elves go he is surprisingly hardy and strong. Long years at the forge have given him a body resembling a fighter, more than a mage. His muscular development is clearly visible in anything but heavy armour. He is a tall elf for one of his race. Though the elves of Faerun are normally of the same height as humans, his 6?2? frame is easy to pick out in a crowd. His footsteps are light, and his movements are as lithe, wiry and graceful as his people are known for.

His hands are calloused from practice with weapons and long hours swinging a hammer. The ink stains common to a mage?s craft colour his fingers and palm, joining other stains of varying origin in his search for spell and crafting components. The smell of the forge can precede him when he forgets to use cleaning cantrips to remove it before venturing out. The only thing worse are the smells that come from his alchemy lab and those he rarely forgets to deal with, as they can cause potential customers to blanch and look elsewhere for their goods.

Personality traits:

Norendithas is highly intelligent and not as aloof as many of his kin. He has realized that condescension in tone or attitude drives away potential customers. His goal is to make and sell items of magical and mastercraft nature. He cares little for whether such items serve the cause of good or evil, so long as they are not used against him. Whether local laws or conventions permit or ban the things he makes and/or sells is also of no concern. If someone will pay for it, Norendithas will sell it. Life is that simple to him.

Norendithas cares first and foremost for himself. Second in his life is his craft. He will do whatever is needed to perfect his art. He will study any tome, any knowledge, forbidden or not. He will make any item he can, just for the challenge of making it. If that happens to need a rare or expensive component he will barter for it if he can or set out to find it himself if need be. Any source of learning or knowledge for his spell casting and his crafting will be used. To him, good and evil are just two different types of buyers.

He has trained as mage and fighter but before the magical arts to the martial ones. He believes that one should be knowledgeable in the things one makes and sells. One cannot answer a buyer?s questions if one does not know how to use the things one makes. To this end he has heard of the elderitch knights. They seem to blend both fighting and magic and would allow him to continue his studies of both.

Background:

Norendithas was born in Cormanthor. His father, Jandar, is an elven bladesmith and an enchanter. His mother, Sarrel, is a wizardess. The more powerful spells that go onto Jandar?s blades are put there by Sarrel. The two get along well and are good examples of simple elves following the teachings of Corellon in arts and magic. A nice family and utterly boring to Norendithas.

Norendithas was fascinated by crafting. Anything that was being built was something he would watch and learn from. He could sit for hours in rapt attention as hammers fell on steel. He could watch and not care about the fumes that came from the alchemist?s furnace. He would use scrolls his mother wrote for him to scry the Weave and watch its strands thrum and glow as she cast spells upon his father?s blades. All these things fascinated him, much more so than the item being crafted itself. It was the art, the making, that interested him.

Cormanthor had become a dangerous place since the Fall, centuries before his birth. When their family started to grow, both his parents realized it was no place to raise children, ancestral home or not. They left for Evermeet even before the Retreat was called. Joining their kin and the many other elves there as it seemed the logical thing to do.

They continued their trades on the blessed isles and Norendithas continued to learn from them. Watching, questioning and growing as the years passed by. In time, he went through the usual weapons training given all elven children. Growing up in dangerous places, especially the forests of Cormanthor, had shown the elven peoples the wisdom in making sure all their number could use sword and bow, whatever their calling. As he studied though, Norendithas wanted more. He was learning to make weapons other than just a longsword from his father. Why make a weapon he could not use? How could he be sure the weapon he made would work if he didn?t know how it worked? So, he enrolled with the local guard for a time and went to work learning the ways of weapon and armour. Each one had its place, its use and its need. He learned all of these in turn.

[Kuroboshi]

((continued from above))

Jandar thought his rather unnecessary until Norendithas finished his time of training and returned once more to studying with the family. Norendithas then showed that his keen mind had not been idle. He was able to bring buyers to Jandar?s doorstep for more blades than Jandar had made before. He was able to show the scouts the fine qualities of the short swords Jandar could make and demonstrate how well they cut and were balanced for the types of uses to which a lightly armed and armoured scout would put them.

Jandar was finally forced to concede that at least a basic knowledge of arms was a good thing to have, though nothing in depth was needed. He was a smith, not a warrior. Jandar was a smith of more than just the blade. He was a full blacksmith as well and often made the simple but needed tools of everyday life. Plows, horseshoes, wagonwheels, harness fittings, buckles, cloak pins and more came from Jandar?s forge. Norendithas was right there with him, watching, learning, and growing. The only thing Jandar did not make was armour. Few elves ever wore more than leather armour and that was not made in a forge. Chain shirts and the like were sometimes worn, but the crafting of mithral was too hard and specialized a skill for casual use. Jandar taught the basic concepts to his son, but had little of such rare metals to use and certainly none Norendithas could practice with.

Over time Norendithas came to realize that part of the lack of such metals was also lack of skill in his father. His father was a good and competent smith, but not a legendary one. The rare few times his father did work such metals, he noted magic rings on each hand. That was when Norendithas knew for certain. He had rings to increase his skills. Confronting his father about it, Jandar was unconcerned. ?Better magic rings to help than spoiled work my son.? That was when Norendithas realized that what mattered was that the project was completed without error or blemish, not the methods used to complete it.

He continued to study and learn more of magic from his mother. In time though, he grew restless. Both his parents clearly saw it. Knowing he would leave one day they both sat down with him and wished him well. He did love and care for his parents but he felt he had limited opportunities to grow in Evermeet. So with their blessings he left the isles and returned to Faerun for the first time in many decades.

He made his way to one of the last great refuges of his people, the city of Silvery Moon. Known not only as a home to the elves but also having the most prestigious magic academy in all Faerun. He was sure he could learn and grow well there. It was with some consternation then that they found him too young and inexperienced to join the guild! ((min level 11 to join according to PnP rules)) So he apprenticed as he could, setting about to learn what was available to be found.

Silvery Moon was known for another thing, also rare in Faerun. It is one of the few, if not the only, place where elves, humans and dwarves live together in harmony. Not just in separate areas, or quarters, but really together. It is a city of not racial tolerance, but racial harmony. Many of the great trees have elves living in the upper branches, humans in the lower and dwarves close to their beloved ground. Sharing space and hearth is common there.

So it was that a sun elf found a teacher that would be unheard of almost anywhere else on the continent, a gold dwarf. Stethas Stonecleaver was a dwarf with a good heart, though he had the same temper as any other dwarf. For over a year he watched Norendithas work and study and practice at the only forge he could rent time at. Norendithas would do small blacksmith work for another elf in exchange for some time and materials to continue his practice. Eventually, he noticed Stethas watching him, and was secretly pleased. Clearly if one of the greatest of armour smiths, a dwarf, was interested in him, there was an opportunity to learn more.

Casually, Norendithas began to make more dwarf friends. Not hard to do in a smithy as many could drop by talk with the elf that helped him study and for whom he did some of the menial grunt work. Norendithas started working hard and with his high intellect mastered the dwarven language in only a few month?s time.

Finally he went to Stethas himself, and asked permission to study with him, in dwarven. The old dwarf was pleased at the effort to learn not only the language, but the proper way to ask. Feeling that Norendithas was willing to put the time and effort into real learning, he accepted. Norendithas worked long, hard hours at the forge. He was able to pick up several interesting phrases from Stethas, not one of which could be used in polite company. He learned to drink dwarven ale and not get sick from it. Once again his sturdy constitution showed, another thing Stethas came to like about him.

He watched a man who could work all manner of metals into all shapes and forms. It was also during his this time that he realized his parent?s god was not his own. Corellon may watch over magic and crafting, but he was determined to be good. Norendithas wondered what to do about this dilemma, when the answer walked into the forge. A gnome priest with several odd devices Norendithas had never seen before came in with drawings and sketches, plans and blueprints. He needed a number of metal pieces made for his contraptions but could not forge all of them himself. So he hired Norendithas and Stethas to do it for him.

The work went well and Norendithas was fascinated by the oddities the gnome both made, and ordered. He said he was Falrinn Blackrock, a priest of Gond, the master crafter. At first Norendithas dismissed Gond as a gnome god. Elves have Corellon, the dwarves have the all-father, now it seemed the gnomes had Gond. It turned out Gond was a human god and took anyone who had a crafting interest into his fold. What mattered was the crafting, the work, the labour, not the thing or its use. This was the kind of god that fit perfectly with Norendithas? own beliefs and he converted to Gond after only a few months of talking with Falrinn.

When Falrinn had all the things he wanted, Stethas surprised Norendithas. He told him to leave with the gnome. Shocked Norendithas could only puzzle why, then ask aloud?

?Lad, ye practice yer sylvan with the druids and priests here. Ye practice all your crafts and arts with everyone here ye can. Ye learn languages and practice them. Ye study craft and art day and night. But ye need to get out and experience the world. Ye said ye canna sell a thing to someone if?n ya don?t know how it is used. Well, ye canna sell it anyone if?n ye don?t know who they are, and what they want, now can ye??

Norendithas realized he had yet more to learn. All that time studying and still more to learn. Falrinn was glad to have someone to talk with that took his ideas and creations seriously, even contributing to them. So, the two set out together. They walked, travelled, swapped tales and knowledge. Norendithas even picked up the gnome?s language, as Falrinn was sure it contained the terms needed to properly discuss his creations and that no other language did. Norendithas found any language but the common trade tongue good for that. Even Common worked to an extent, as it was made to be a language of commerce.

When they had learned all that they could from each other, they parted ways in the City of Splendors. There on the docks they said their farewells. Farlinn was to travel back to the Lantan Isles while Norendithas would travel north. He had heard tales of a place far north split apart a bit from Faerun by powerful magics. It was to be the next place on his quest for knowledge and the perfection of his crafting.

After a long sea voyage, during which he was reminded that trying to scribe a scroll at sea was all but a lost cause, he arrived at the port. Stepping off he saw the beauty of the land and smiled. He strode down the docks with his savings and equipment to see what he could learn in this new land, and in turn, how he could sell the things he made to support himself here while he studied.