Race: Gnome Class: Wizard Subclass: D&D Beyond Link
Backstory
Davira is a Rock Gnome Wizard from Bluevine in Aundair.
“It is so marvelously vast, with winding stairs, magically hidden passages and never-ending corridors, that once a scribe got lost in there for two months! When they finally found him, he was barely alive!” Davira’s eyes grew large as Skylei contorted her face to show how emaciated the scribe had been. Skylei the child minder told the best stories – especially about the wonders of the floating towers of Arcanix. A dream shimmering with excitement started taking shape in little Davira’s mind: herself on the back of a Giant Eagle approaching a castle in the sky, where she would join the greatest minds on the continent and unlock the deep secrets of the world. The dream grew and grew until she could not contain it, and that night at dinner, she excitedly told her mother, Imres, about her plans.
“You mean that you also want to get lost and almost die? Sounds wonderful!” Imres laughed. “Vira, studying at the Arcane Congress is something that only the very smartest do. You don’t seem to have been born with a magical ability, so you need to do exceedingly well in school to get in there.”
Davira nodded thoughtfully. Yes, that sounded reasonable. To her mind’s image, she added a large chest held in the Eagle’s talons, full of scrolls, books and diplomas from school.
A loud crash and a clattering came from the stairs: the sound of several things being toppled over and something large falling down the steps. A cry of pain and outrage followed.
“DAVIRA! This time I’LL KILL YOU!”
Davira dropped her book in shock. Oh no. The book pile on the stairs – she had forgotten it again! Heavy, limping footsteps started coming up towards the second floor. She jumped up from her bed to lock her door – but stopped as she realized the lock was broken since last week. The window! She dashed towards it, heart pounding, and struggled with the latches as the steps marched closer. Oh, pleasepleaseplease – finally the window burst open and she climbed out on shaky legs, jumping to the apple tree next to the house. Another crash came from her room as she landed, scraping her hands on the rough bark of the branch she grabbed.
“You stinking little rat! I twisted my ankle!” Her older brother’s voice was brimming with rage and Davira winced at how clearly he could be heard, even when shouting from inside the house. The vineyard was next to the garden, and if one of the workers heard him and told Mother… She gasped as the book she had been reading came shooting through the air at her as she climbed down as quickly as she could. Glancing up, she saw Zodok’s furious face, teeth bared as he aimed another book at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly as she scrambled to pick up the books. “I didn’t mean to.” Then she ran before he could come after her.
The vineyard was large, its rows sprawled out over the hilly land with little groves of wild trees here and there. Davira knew every corner of it, especially the good hiding spots. Good thing the weather was kind today – she would have to finish her book out here while waiting for Zodok’s temper to calm down and Mother to come home. She tried not to think about what would happen to the rest of the books that had been in the pile. They had been rather expensive, and she hadn’t even started on them yet. Hopefully, she’d just find them thrown out through the back door.
The grove she had settled in lay on top of a hill overlooking the horizon to the east. She wondered where Father was and how he was doing. His last letter had almost been darkly cheerful, describing how morbid and silly it had looked when a fellow soldier he had disliked had gotten mauled by a Thranean war bear. Davira fiercely hoped he would stay alive and come back soon. They all needed it, especially Mother. As the years had passed and Zodok had grown to become the spitting image of his father, she had come to lean on him more and more, asking for his counsel and counting on him to carry the family business into the future. She never ackowledged the tension between her children. Once, Davira had tried talking to her. Imres had immediately started shouting at Davira that it was all in her head and that she never was to speak of it again. So she didn’t.
Davira touched her nose, lingering on the crooked part of the bridge. It was still a little tender. Zodok had seemed at least slightly remorseful when she had gotten back from the healer, though she never could be sure about him.
“Too bad it got broken. At least now you’ll remember to be careful”, he’d said. She shook her head. It had been so stupid of her to practice balancing rocks next to the glass cabinet holding Zodok’s insect collection. So utterly stupid. Just like thoughtlessly eating the pie he had wanted last week. Or forgetting her books on the stairs today. Or… There were too many examples. She could remember historical events in detail, complex mathematical formulas, and every grammar rule and their exceptions. Yet in everyday life she kept making dumb mistakes. And she couldn’t do that, not if she wanted to get into the Arcane Congress. She had to be the smartest. Clenching her teeth, she pressed harder on the tender spot on her nose until tears welled up in her eyes.
Davira’s classmates gave the obligatory round of applause as she stepped up onto the stage. She thanked the headmaster of her school as he gave her a scroll with the school seal, her final grade. Then he picked up another, more ornate, scroll from the table and her breath hitched. This was the diploma for the most outstanding performance. The goal she had been working towards for all her school years and what she needed to apply to the Arcane Congress. A great weight slowly lifted off Davira, like a heavy blanket was rolled off her shoulders and dropped on the ground. The feeling was so intense that she could barely hear the headmaster’s speech and barely see the happy smiles of her friends and the disappointed looks on the other ambitious students’ faces.
How Davira got home, she would later not be able to remember. For all that she knew, she had not been walking up the dust road from the town to the Lun Vineyard. She had been sitting on a Giant Eagle, the wind whipping her hair as she approached the glimmering towers of the Arcane Congress. Soon, very soon, her dream would come true. She would be gone where Zodok could never reach her. She would learn from the sharpest minds, find answers to the most intricate mysteries, and finally rise to her full potential.
She bounced into the Lun house, scrolls held securely against her chest.
“Hello!” she shouted. “I’m home!” Since the war had ended a few months ago and Chisten had come back, life at home had calmed down considerably. Zodok was now allowed to stay out with his friends in the evenings, giving Davira some much needed peace to study and freedom to actually announce her presence at home.
“Hush, Vira!” Imres came rushing out of the kitchen, looking strangely afraid. “Don’t disturb Zodok’s concentration!”
“What–” Davira started, but Imres shushed her again, grabbed her arm and brought her into the kitchen. Zodok was standing in the middle of the room, quietly muttering, brow furrowed, staring down a pot on the table like he was trying to shatter it with his gaze. His hand was outstretched and in his palm a purple-white light flickered. It crackled slightly as it extended like a beam half a foot towards the kettle, then it died out. Davira gasped.
“What–” she tried again, but her father, Chisten, standing behind Zodok, interrupted her as he put both hands on his son’s shoulders.
“Isn’t this marvelous?” he beamed. “A natural born arcanist in the family again! Great-grandmother Myriol would have been so proud!”
“If she hadn’t lost her mind from joining in with that dark mage”, Imres said under her breath. Davira wondered briefly what she meant – they had never talked about Myriol – but her attention was immediately pulled back to the present situation.
“But –” she sputtered, “how – when did this happen?”
“Oh, just a couple of hours ago”, Zodok responded with an easy smile that brought Davira back to the time he had told her that her cat lay slaughtered in her room. “I’m really glad, you know”, he continued. “I don’t have the mind to study like you, but I have been wanting to get into an arcane university somehow.” He paused for a second. “Oh, but I completely forgot! How did graduation go?”
The room was spinning, or maybe it was just Davira’s head. Zodok’s words felt sharp. Lethal. Like an explosive missile shot from a catapult aimed at a tower in the sky… She sat down abruptly on a chair; all excitement having poured out of her like water from a shattered glass.
“It went well”, she found herself saying. “I graduated with the diploma for the most outstanding performance.” The words came slowly. “I can get into any university I want now. Like you have promised.” She looked to her mother, but Imres looked at the floor, then at Chisten. There was a chill to her silence that made Davira almost panic as she turned towards her father.
“Well…” Chisten withdrew his hands from Zodok, walked over to Davira, pulled up a chair and sat next to her. He took a deep breath. “Arcane universities are heckin’ expensive, you know?” His short laugh sounded forced. “We can only afford to send one child. I’m sorry, Vira, but Zodok is the eldest and has the magical ability that runs in our bloodline. We know you really wanted this, but there are plenty of other opportunities for a smart…”
The missile hit the tower and exploded, making Davira’s ears ring and drowning out her father’s voice. Almost panic grew into full blown panic as she ran from the debris crashing down around her: rocks, glass from shattered windows, bricks, books… The shadow of the falling tower engulfed her, and she found herself in absolute darkness. She was adrift, alone and disoriented, in a black and silent void without gravity. Am I somewhere in Khyber? Am I dead? Nothingness spread out in every direction. Nothingness that suddenly coalesced into somethingness: a presence that reached for her. She felt gentle tendrils, like vines, starting to wrap around her.
“Davira Lun”, the somethingness whispered. Its voice came from everywhere, yet it was hollow, echoing into itself for what seemed like infinity. “Long have I wanted you. Your future is gone. You have nothing left but me now. Come. It is time to give in.” Waves of stark despair rolled in over Davira with every word. She was so little and so broken. She didn’t even know where she was. There was nothing she could do in this void, against this enormous presence. Maybe she didn’t even want to do anything. She could just give up and let this something pull her away from broken dreams, failure, pain and uncertainty. It would be so easy. And after all her years of struggle had proven futile, maybe it was finally time to let it all go. Yes. She just had to breathe out and let the vines tighten around her chest.
But then, teetering at the edge, Davira suddenly felt something shift and align inside of her, forming a crystal-clear insight that grounded her like gravity and put everything in its right place. Of course. She almost laughed at the instantaneous relief that followed.
“No, you are the one who has to give in,” she replied. “We are in my mind! Here I am the one holding the power. You will leave now.”
The vines tightened momentarily, then there was a roar of fury as they fell away, and the darkness shrank into a singular point and disappeared. Davira’s eyes shot open. She was still sitting on the chair and her father was still talking. Mere seconds must have passed, but she felt years older. Gone was the panicked little girl with the broken dreams. In her place sat a woman filled with the specific determination and confidence that one only claims by successfully standing up for oneself. Whatever she had conquered in her mind had been immensely more powerful than any adversary she could face now – including her brother.
“Um, Davira?” Chisten interrupted her thoughts. Right. She should say something.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Davira smiled. “Zodok should go to university. There will be other opportunities for me. If you don’t mind, I’ll go get started immediately with looking through some of those apprenticeship leaflets that I have.” Her parents looked surprised as she excused herself. Zodok frowned but Davira didn’t care anymore. She had a plan to make.
All Davira’s years of hiding proved useful as she started sneaking out after her brother at night, following him as he went out with his friends, drinking, having fun and making mischief. She soon discovered that vandalism, minor theft, and burglary were some of the ways the group liked to enjoy themselves. This was exactly what Davira had hoped for. She doubted the Arcane Congress, or any university for that matter, would accept someone with a criminal record. Now she just needed a good opportunity.
“Are you youngsters going to the spring festival in Swiftrun tonight?” Chisten asked as he passed the potatoes to Davira.
“No, I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “It seems like it’s going to be too rowdy for me.”
Zodok snorted. “Afternoon tea with the old ladies would be too rowdy for you. But who’s been talking about the festival being wild?”
Davira’s throat started tickling and she coughed. Stupid cold, she should have been well several days ago. But at least it wouldn’t look too suspicious if her face turned red now.
“Well”, she croaked, and took a sip of water, “I saw at least ten of the town guards riding in that direction when I was going to the butcher’s. Figured the festival was where they were headed.” She looked down at her potatoes. How could trying to sound normal be so difficult?
“Huh. Well, I’m going anyway”, Zodok said. “Can’t get too bad with that many guards around. I’ll be out until tomorrow night.” Liar, Davira thought. She had been listening in on Zodok and his friends for weeks now and never once had they mentioned going to the spring festival. They had, however, talked frequently about there being “too many stinkin’ uniforms on patrol” for them to be able to break into the bar. The nervousness made Davira’s stomach turn and she made ready to leave the table. She couldn’t eat any more and she needed a head start before Zodok.
“Vira!” Imres called after her. “Rock!”
She stopped to snag the fist-sized piece of quartz she had forgotten on the table and shoved it in her pocket, trying to act like she wasn’t in a hurry.
“It’s not a rock”, she replied dryly, “it’s a crystal.” Then she left before someone could retort.
The tool shed at the edge of the vineyard was the ideal place for a band of young miscreants to conspire unheard. At least if it hadn’t been for the one person who had hid in a barrel in the corner to listen in.
“So at three in the morning then?” Palen, one of Zodok’s friends, asked.
“Yeah”, Zodok responded. “Bring a sack each. We can hide the bottles here, this time of year no one ever comes here. We could even take some girls here to party!” They laughed and joked. As she sat cramped in the barrel Davira suddenly felt, to her absolute terror, an ill-boding tickle in her throat. No. No! But there was nothing she could do apart from stifling the cough the best she could.
“What was that?” Zodok asked sharply. Davira heard a scuffling sound and clenched her fists as her throat kept itching.
“What do you mean?” Palen’s voice still bubbled with laughter. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Someone was coughing.” Zodok had come closer to the barrel. Davira bit her lip.
“You’re paranoid!” Palen laughed. “It was just a bird or something.”
“What did you just call me?” The tone was heated, but it sounded like Zodok was turning away from the barrel. The door latch opened.
“Man, you got to calm down. Just take the joke for once.” It was Snert, the quiet one, who spoke. “Let’s go have fun tonight before we have business to do.”
Zodok grumbled something in reply, but the shed turned quiet as the group left. Davira let out the breath she had been holding. They had taken the bait. They hadn’t discovered her. Now she just had to place the capstone on her plan: leaving an anonymous note with a tip where the town guards would find it.
Davira gripped the branch until her knuckles whitened. There they were! Three small figures were creeping along the wall of the bar, carefully sticking to the shadow. They didn’t see the two human guards that were laying quietly on the rooftop. Two of the figures stopped while the third crept up to the window and held something up. A cloth-muffled crash was heard as he broke the glass. Then it all happened fast. The guards jumped down, yelling and brandishing their weapons. One of them leapt for Zodok’s friends but missed, and the young gnomes took off into the night with the guard running after them. The other managed to catch Zodok by the arm and wrestle him to the ground, cursing at Zodok as the gnome kicked his shin. “Rock-worm scum! I’ll show you!”
Zodok yelled in pain as something metal glinted in the faint moonlight. The guard stood up, giving Davira a better view. The man was big and burly and held Zodok in the air by the throath with one hand. Zodok gasped for air, thrashing and clawing at the man’s arm. His cheek was cut open and bleeding. Davira drew in a sharp breath. Guards weren’t supposed to be this violent!
“You thought you’d rob the bar?” the guard growled. “I bet you lot are the ones who have been causing us so much trouble lately. You cockroach creatures swarming our town, thinking you own it…” Zodok’s thrashing grew weaker. “Oh no”, the guard continued in a mocking voice. “How unfortunate you are so strong and aggressive. I’ll have to keep this chokehold in self-defense.”
The cold realization shot through Davira that this was going terribly, terribly wrong. She had to do something! But if Zodok saw her… No, no, she still had to try somehow. Awful as he was, she didn’t want him to die like this. Panicking, she dug into her pocket and found the piece of quartz. She threw it as hard as she could in the direction of the guard, at the same time as she heard a gurgled mutter from Zodok and saw him reach out his hand. Purple lightning crackled and shot through the guard’s chest. He didn’t even have time to yell.
The quartz landed on the ground at the same moment as the guard did, though a good five feet away. Zodok, having been dropped, swayed on his feet before he too fell. He didn’t move after hitting the ground. Davira sat frozen, trying to comprehend what she had just witnessed. Zodok… had killed that guard. Who had tried to kill him. Zodok could be laying there dead as well, for all that Davira knew. And she was the one who had set this in motion. Fast footsteps approached as someone came running.
“Hey Thomas! I lost the other ones!” The other guard came sprinting around the corner, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the two forms on the ground.
“Khyber’s void! What the – Thomas! Somebody, help!” He kneeled by his fallen colleague, trying to shake some life into him and shouting for help. Davira realized she had to leave, now, before the town square filled with groggy people in their night gowns gawking at the horrible scene. She climbed down and slipped away through the streets. Over and over the fight played out before her mind’s eye. Zodok getting brutally choked. The guard, pierced by arcane lightning, falling to the ground. Zodok, unmoving, maybe dead. Her plan had worked – but at what cost? She sat waiting by her window the rest of the night, but the sun rose well over the treetops before she saw a group of guards make their way up the hill. To Davira’s relief, they didn’t carry a body. They knocked on the door. Someone opened, but the voices could barely be heard through the walls. Davira hesitated, but eventually made her way down the stairs. She had to face this. Her father was leaning against the wall, pale and shaking, staring at the guards in disbelief.
“My son… a killer? It cannot be!
The wagon creaked as it swayed from side to side. As it turned out, riding a Great Eagle to a castle in the sky was a thing of dreams. In reality, people were transported to the floating towers of Arcanix in small wagons hanging on a thick metal wire that ran as a loop between a nearby hilltop and one of the towers. There was a gigantic horizontal wheel on a thick pole on each end of the loop, turning slowly and keeping the wire moving. The personnel that had helped Davira board the wagon had explained that there was a large cave below the hilltop with machinery that powered the wheel. It sounded very intriguing; she would have to go see it someday. But for now, she was headed upwards. Towards the Arcane Congress. She could not take it in; it felt like she was still sitting on a hill in the vineyard daydreaming. One of her former daydreams, that was. Her mind rarely wandered those paths these days. Instead, her thoughts behaved much like a tongue obsessively prodding a loose baby tooth. She constantly found herself ruminating on the arcane abilities of their family, on Myriol, who her parent’s still didn’t want to talk further about, and on the strange presence she had encountered in her mind. Maybe she could find a connection somewhere, a solution to the mystery.
But much like your gums start bleeding when you prod a loose tooth, so Davira’s pondering always reopened the wounds that were her guilt-tinged memories from the last months. She had tried to banish the memories from her mind, to exercise the control she felt she should have over them, but it hadn’t worked. The best she could do was to keep them somewhat contained, so they wouldn’t disturb her too often.
The first memory popped up. As usual, it was her parents hugging each other in the kitchen and crying.
“Zodok swears the guard tried to kill him first”, Imres managed to say between her sobs. “He even got wounded! But there are no witnesses, so they will never believe him!” Davira had almost said something that moment. Almost. But she had no good reason to have been out by the town square in the middle of the night. Zodok would realize she was behind everything… So she stayed quiet and let her parent’s hearts break in the worst way possible.
An image of her father followed. He was sitting on the front porch after Zodok’s trial with an emptied glass in his hand. He seemed to have aged ten years in a day. Davira had stayed at home during the trial, claiming she was ill. It was barely even a lie given how her stomach churned when she thought of having to look Zodok in the eye and see Thomas’ grieving family at the courthouse. What a coward she was.
“Lifetime”, Chisten said in a toneless voice. “They gave him a lifetime sentence. He’ll be sent to work in a quarry in the Starpeaks.”
Then came her mother, the day Davira left for Arcanix. Imres’ eyes filled with tears as she gripped Davira’s arm hard. “Please don’t change. Don’t get your head filled with strange ideas.” She sobbed and threw her arms around her daughter. “My poor boy! I just wanted him to be good! I tried, I tried! But this accursed Lun blood – I wish I’d never-”
Davira imagined that she shoved all her memories into her suitcase and shut it firmly. Her thoughts went quiet. She shook her head. As much as she wanted to find answers to her family’s apparent curse and maybe repair some of the damage she had done, she wasn’t ready. First, she had to move on. Fill her mind with other things, like spells and science, and let the caress of time soften the sharp edges of her regrets. Only then would it be possible for her to approach the situation objectively and analytically and find the answers.
Through the window on the wagon’s front wall, the tower loomed large and glistened in the sun. It would soon be time to disembark and enter the next chapter of her life. Davira saw, through the open entrance doors, a wide stairway just inside with a bustling, colorful crowd of all shapes and sizes, moving up and down in interweaving chaotic patterns that somehow still looked orderly. All these people! Everyone had their own unique gifts and knowledge. Everyone was someone Davira could learn from, and she would learn from them all. Then she’d balance their individual pieces of knowledge like rocks, until she had made a stack so high it could be seen from all corners of the world. She picked up her suitcase full of books and regrets and made ready.
Notes
Reason for joining the group
After a dry summer with a failed grape harvest, Davira’s parents are dangerously close to going bankrupt and losing the vineyard. They can’t support Davira’s studies anymore so she seeks to join the Guild of Infinite Order, an Arcane Order that specializes in studying the complexities of the arcane as science. They accept very few but finance the studies for those that they do accept. The Guild tells Davira that while she is a promising student and would be a suitable fit for the Guild, she needs to bring something more to the table. They send her off with some funds to go out into the world and find something new in the arcane field that they don’t already know of. Davira aims high: she sets her sights on investigating the Mournlands. Therefore, she makes her way to Thrane, where she meets other skilled adventurers. She joins them since they too want to explore obscure places and solve mysteries, and she’ll get further with a group than alone. She is patient and won’t mind the occasional detour here and there, as long as she can keep herself financially afloat and work towards unraveling more and more complex arcane mysteries.
Connection to the Church of the Silver Flame
Davira likes the basic beliefs of the Church of the Silver Flame. Some of her friends in the Arcane Congress believe in the Flame and they are good people. Davira is also interested in the power of the Flame from a scientific perspective. That’s about as deep as it goes.