Aye, lads and ladies, it is time to gather ‘round the hearth. Stow your pipes and fill ye tankards and ale-horns. Kids, ye also gather around. Lilli! Get me some mead while ye at it. Aye, women. Tis a long tale and I’ll need something to wet me gullet.
Everyone else ready? Great!
Our tale begins on these very isles we call home. What the outsiders call the Moonshae Isles. But us ffolk have always just called it home. In times past, our wonderful isles were beset by war. That is in the past now, and we have our wonderful High Queen Alicia Kendrick to thank for that. Earthmother bless her.
But violence still comes to our villages. And even so great a ruler as the High Queen can’t keep us all safe. And it was on a fateful moonless night, that monsters came to our village. This was before a lot of you were born. But your older brothers and sisters will remember them.
Wreathed in fire, the fiends were. With red skin, dripping blood and goo. It was a disgusting sight! And I will spare ye the gory details. Ye parents won’t forgive, little ones, if I kept ye awake all night. So, it is sufficient to say that the monsters had come to Caer Tenweeth. And a night of horror it was.
Until the sky went white in the moonless sky. Aye…I remember that light like it was the night before. It was bright. Brighter than any light I ever seen. But it didn’t hurt to look at it. And us on the ramparts looked up at it. We forgot about the fiery blighters at the gates. That light gave us a hope. And listen ye young and old – there ain’t nothing as powerful as hope.
The fiends froze in their tracks at the coming of the light, and then we heard an ear-shattering boom! Thunder. But thunder unlike any of us had ever heard before. And with it, the monsters and fiends turned to ash.
But we were too dumbstruck to cheer at our fortune, for a blessed angel hovered with wings of splendid gold and white, just over Caer Tenweeth. Now, Lilli here is pretty…yes, ye are! But this angel was like nothing else. I cannot describe her, for I know I cannot do her visage justice.
She landed among us ugly fools, and with a smile, released any bit of hate we may have had in our hearts then. It was there that our tale truly begins, for she passed to me among the crowd a blanket. And swaddled inside the blanket was but a wee one. A wee one that many of you may know. But for the benefit of the young, let us not spoil this story.
The angel spoke to us in a voice that sounded like ambrosia. It might’ve been. She said her name was Concordia. And she said this:
“You hold in your arms one of my blood. And for granting protection to these lands, I ask only that you grant protection to her. To raise her as one of your own. Her name is Tereal, but you may call her by a name that will garner less suspicion.”
I nodded dumbly at that time, but do not judge me, children. I was a younger man, and even the oldest among us were close to fainting. Some did!
Since then, as ye’ll know, Concordia has guarded these lands from fiends, the undead and other monstrosities. And in exchange for her devotion, this village housed a little baby, with shining amber eyes, skin almost as pale as snow, raven black hair, and an energy we only began to discover years afterwards.
We called her Teri. For Tereal was much too big a name for a wee one. And soon, the village became her family. No one thought of her looks as odd. For, to us, they weren’t. She was just Teri. The baby that an angel gave us.
As Teri grew older, her friendliness increased. And why wouldn’t it? She knew Caer Tenweeth, and we were all good to her. At first because Concordia gave her to us. But as time grew on – because she was our little Teri.
As Teri hit 14 years of age, she was no longer our little Teri. She was taller than all her age. Something about her blood, we guessed. But her friendliness and energy hadn’t abated. She was always eager to help any of us, taking turns sleeping in every house in the village. And don’t think her a vagabond! She worked off all debts, even though we gave her none.
The years went on, and Teri was the only evidence we had of Concordia’s visit. We sometimes told her about the angel who had left her. She would shrug and say: “I know. She tells me.”
Concordia spoke to her, apparently. When I asked her what the angel said, she only grinned, and replied:
“She tells me to do what’s right.”
And I’d ask: “And? Are you?”
“She hasn’t told me I’m not yet.”
An age passed, and Teri eventually came of age. I feared for the lass, as most of her friends had been married already. And while the boys liked our resident angel-born, they would never dare to court her.
But I feared in vain, as Teri came to each of us in the village one by one, thanking us and letting us know she would be back to visit soon.
Forgive my sniffles here, for it is never nice to watch a child leave the nest. And Teri was all our children. But she was ready to leave the village. She told us that she needed to complete her Oath, and that the world was a large place, so she best start early.
I found out soon after she left that she had been training with the sheriff with spear and shield. She was going out into the world to fight. Like Concordia…I presume…
…
Yes…yes. I’m okay.
That was not the last we heard of Teri, thank the Earthmother. For we received letters back over the years that followed. Letters from her. Letters from her new friends. She’d gone out into the world and befriended more villages, making new families, and protecting them from evil.
I’m not going to lie to ye. A part of me wishes that Teri would come back home. But I know that she’s got an important job out there. The world is full of darkness, wee ones. And Teri is doing her best to give a little light.
“Oi, Ewan. Ye telling tall tales again?” Teri grinned that infectious grin, stowed her glaive and shield by the tavern’s entrance, and embraced those she had left behind. “I’m home. I told ye I’d be back.”
Teri Tenweeve’s Stats
Teri Tenweeve is an Aasimar Paladin following the Oath of Devotion, with the blood of the angel Concordia running through her veins. A combination of her celestial origin and humble background compelled Teri to seek out adventure and friendship far afield.
Teri is trusting, loyal, protective and generous. But her boundless energy is just as easily channelled into slaying fiends and evil men than it is to playing with peasant children or drinking with the farmhands.
Teri has gone out into the world, far from home, to fight evil where she can and save those who deserve to be saved. But while she believes all people deserve redemption, her angelic patron and her own experiences have led her to never trust traitors, and to seldom every forgive them.
Teri is quick to befriend but can hold her own when friendship isn’t enough. More than one fiend has fallen on the blade of her glaive. And many more will. For Aasimar live a long time, and Teri isn’t close to tiring.
For those familiar with D&D, her character sheet is attached.
What type of character would you like to see me create? Also, if you like my writing, make sure to check out Part-Time Monster Hunter, an urban fantasy about a university student who hunts monsters to pay the bills.