Appearance

Physical Description

Yeast is of average height, with a scrawny build and wiry muscles.
While reasonably agile and resilient, he is quite lacking in strength.

Body Features

Yeast's abyssal heritage manifests in pale, greenish grey skin and a set of small horns.
In contrast to his infernal brethren, Yeast was born without a tail.
As a spawn of Zuggtmoy, Yeast is afflicted by a fungal infection on various parts of his body. While neither debilitating nor infectious, it is quite unsightly and keeps growing ever so slowly.

Facial Features

Yeast has youthful features and a tendency to scowl.
A large portion of his face is covered by the fungal infection he has been afflicted with since birth.

Apparel & Accessories

Yeast wears a well-worn, smooth wooden mask, adorned with traditional markings as a sign of his affiliation with the Circle of Spores.

Mentality

Personal history

Birth

Not much is known about the circumstances of Yeast's birth.
He was born in a rural fishing village near REDACTED to a mother that died soon after.
His father was unknown to all but the mother herself, but he was rumoured to have been a sailor or travelling merchant.
The birth of a tiefling was neither expected nor well received.
The child being afflicted by some kind of fungal growth certainly did not engender sympathy either.
Apprehensive of some infectious disease or an abyssal legacy coming back to haunt them, it was soon decided the abomination had to be gotten rid of.

Not daring to kill a literal demon's spawn outright, the villagers agreed to abandon the baby in a remote part of a nearby forest, roughly a day's march away, leaving it to fend for itself (i.e. to die).
As luck would have it, a wandering druid was made aware of the goings-on by the creatures of the forest.
The villagers tasked with disposing of the child would never again see their home.
And so it came to pass that this young tiefling was adopted by Ellywick Waambi Critterfriend Chanterelle Deathcap Blackmoss, wandering Forest Gnome Druid of the Circle of Spores.

Youth

Ellywick had Yeast grow up in almost perfect isolation.
Like few others before him, Yeast was made aware of the circle of life, death and rebirth before he could even form conscious thought.
He grew up learning the ways of the Druid and was prepared to join the Circle of Spores from the very beginning.
Apart from his adoptive mother, he did not encounter another person until the tender age of 10, finding both serenity in the forest and company from the critters therein.

As a wandering druid, Ellywick not only maintained the fragile balance between the natural world and encroaching civilization.
She would also use her accumulated knowledge to provide essential services to the sentient races.
On their shared travels, Yeast would witness Ellywick working as a Midwife and Healer and would learn from her of the remedies the natural world provides.

She would also relief of pain and suffering those beyond salvation, be it due to old age, terminal illness, or fatal injury.
This particular service granted her the nickname of Deathcap, which she bore with greater pride than any other name bestowed upon her by family, friends, or teachers.
Hoping to achieve a similar honour, Yeast was ever diligent to learn the handling, dosage, and application of poisons, toxins, and venoms provided by the world around them.

From the age of 10, Yeast was allowed and expected to assist Ellywick in her work with other people.
While this provided valuable practice and a sense of accomplishment, it more often than not proved to be an unpleasent experience for the young tiefling.
The persistent looks of fear and hatred aimed towards the apprentice only served to strengthen his mistrust and wariness of strangers.
Soon after these first encounters, Yeast started concealing his face, remaining masked and cloaked on their travels.

Recent History

By the age of 15, Yeast's knowledge and skill had grown considerably and Ellywick entrusted him with additional responsibilities.
She shared the most arcane teachings of the Circle of Spores with the young druid and on occasion he was allowed to take the lead when attending to the strange pair's patients.
At times, Yeast would be permitted to deal with ailments of a less severe nature on his own, usually when Ellywick was engaged elsewise.
He cherished the trust placed in him and was loath to disappoint his mother and mentor.

When their journey leads them to a small woodcutter settlement, Yeast jumps at the opportunity to help a family pet while Deathcap tends to a grievously injured lumberjack at the nearby lumber yard.
To his dismay, he finds the dog on the verge of death and can do nothing but to relieve the wheezing animal of its pain.
As the exhausted creature perishes under the hopeful gaze of the young girl and her mother who had only a short while ago begged for the druid's assistance, Yeast comes to a precipitious decision that would haunt him to this day.
Only a few weeks prior, Ellywick had passed on a secret technique that was considered a rite of passage in the Circle of Spores.

 

Yeast lays his hands on the small, rapidly cooling body, channeling power into the myriad mushroom spores on the animal's skin, quickening their growth, infusing the creature's body with a different kind of life.
The families' delight soon gives away to horror when it becomes apparent that what stumbles to its feet is not their beloved pet but rather a mass of spores held together by a rapidly decaying carcass, bestowed a singular purpose by an ancient magic.

Reanimated Dog (Source)

 

From here, the situation escalates quickly.
Yeast finds himself running from the screaming mother and child, dodging around like a wounded animal, losing not only his calm but also his mask in the process.
Amidst shouts of hatred, he finds himself driven into the center of the settlement, ringed by an increasing number of burly men wielding axes.

 

Dumbfounded, Yeast closes his eyes and accepts his fate as one of the men pushes him to the ground and draws back his axe.
He feels the visceral impact and in his final moments embraces this next step in the cycle of life and death.
The settlers go silent and only the rustling of the wind can be heard as Yeast feels the warm wetness of fresh blood spreading on his chest.
To his surprise, he feels neither the expected sharp pain nor his consciousness fading as he lies motionless on the ground, cold air and the scent of blood filling his lungs.
As the settlers' murmurs grow, Yeast opens his eyes and immediately understands the sudden silence and lack of pain.

 

He clutches the lifeless body of Ellywick, the axe still embedded in her back, staring into his mother's eyes, devoid of even a glimmer of the person she had been mere moments before.
Beneath the ice-cold rage welling up, Yeast gathers his calm and channels it into a terrible purpose.
He focuses on his power, drawing ever more from the forest around him, from the skies above, from the very earth.
They share his loss and give freely of their vital essence, following his grisly determination and pouring every ounce of it into the remains of the only family he had ever known.
A deathly silence settles over the forest once more and Yeast's consciousness fades just as Deathcap's corpse begins to take on an orange, bioluminescent glow…

The settlement was no more.
In a single instant it had been reclaimed by the natural world both Ellywick and Yeast had sworn to protect.
The eruption had consumed every living being and every construct of civilization in one fell swoop, leaving only the dried-out husks of every man, woman, and child in the settlement for the mycelium to feed on.

Only Yeast rose from the dense dusting of spores coating every surface in the vicinity, standing next to the massive coral fungus that had grown from where Ellywick had drawn her last breath.
Even now it stands proudly, pulsating with vigor, mocking the settlement that had taken and given it new life, claiming the area for generations to come.

All it had taken was one act of utter desperation to irrevocably induct Yeast into the Circle of Spores.
With every breath he felt the spores drawn into his lungs, with every heartbeat he felt them coursing through his veins.
While the person he called mother was no more, he knew she would live on in this place just as she would as a part of him.

So it was that Yeast Blackmoss had found his purpose in life on the day Ellywick "Deathcap" Blackmoss had found her purpose in death.

Mental Trauma

He still is traumatized from the day he lost his mother.
Yeast blames himself for her death and the gruesome event that followed.
He feels he should be affected more severely by the lives lost that day.
Yeast vowed to hone his skills so he could give back to the world what was taken that day.
 
The young tiefling is deeply apprehensive of his abyssal legacy.
For that reason, Yeast is not keen to find out more about the details of his birth.
Ellywick is the only family he ever knew or wanted.
With her, even the most tentative connection to his birth place and biological parents is gone and forgotten.

Morality & Philosophy

Having grown up in isolation from most other people and having experienced his fair share of bigotry, Yeast is rather wary of strangers and is slow to trust anybody.
On the other hand, these experiences served to cement his conviction that all are born equal and that people are to be judged based on their personal conduct rather than on appearance and wealth.
 
Yeast prefers the natural world over all constructs of civilization and disapproves of settlements larger than a thorp as they tend to upset the natural balance.
Even so, the sentient races have a part to play in the ever-changing order of the natural world and deserve to be protected from what would threaten to destroy them.
 
Yeast knows he must adapt to the world around him.
Change is an intrinsic part in the circle of life and death.
The natural world cannot and will not accept stagnation.

Known Languages

Common, Gnomish, Druidic, Abyssal

Personality

Motivation

Yeast is searching for the Heart of Decay, apparently an important aspect of the Circle of Spores lore.

Hygiene

Yeast rarely bathes in order not to upsetthe delicate balance of spores and bacteriathat permeate his clothes and skin, both ofwhich tend to remain slightly damp at all times.Against common expectation, he does not smellunpleasant but rather exudes a faint scent ofpetrichor.

Social

Family Ties

Ellywick Waambi Critterfriend Chanterelle Deathcap Blackmoss

Social Aptitude

He is rather timid and self-conscious, especially when encountering new people.
He has a hard time dealing with large groups of people and prefers spending time alone or at most with a small number of acquaintances.
Yeast exhibits confidence in familiar surroundings and with people he has begun to trust