Background and Early Life

The woodelven druid Edwall has lived a tumultuous life in the palms of eastern slave trade. His real parents are unknown to him, as he was presumably taken from them in his infancy by one of the many mercenary groups in and around the north coast of Nadir. The North Coast here is known for its wast tropical beaches, deserts and salt mines. Many beautiful cities and harbours dot the bejewelled coast, were he was sold into slavery.


For most of his youth he served different noble families in the port town of Azdravar, doing house work or running errands. He ended up as a slave to the High Consul Rasha, who despite the grim circumstances took good care of the boy and even tought him how to read and write. Rasha was as custom of the diplomats and politicians of the Zamali culture and faith forbidden to have children, so he took a liking to Edwall. When this was discovered Rasha was forced to sell Edwall or retire from his post as Consul.


 
Edwall then ended up in the slave markets of Azdravar and were bought by the local overseer of the Salt Mines. For 4 years Edwall worked himself to near-death in the mines, until a traveling circus came to town. Edwall was allowed a day off from time to time and spend it in deep fascination with the circus and its traveling family of elves, gnomes and strange animals he had never seen before. The father of the circus, Cameron Evergreen, an astral-elf, himself an orphan, helped the kid escape his life of slavery.


And so Edwall became a gypsy, the best years of his life. He travelled the world, saw the west and learned of animals and beast and how to handle them. It turned out Edwall had a natural affinity towards it and even showed glimpses of druidic magic and prowess.


 
It sadly came to a sudden end in the imperial lands of the west, when he awoke one morning to the smell of fire and the sound of shouting. They were camped with their travelling caravan on the west-outskirt of the Fellowmark, crossing into the heartlands of the Empire, when they were assaulted by brigands. Their tents and wagons burned quickly and they tried their best to fend of the hostile bandits, but it was too late. Barely surviving himself, Edwall, who had taken the name Evergreen, crawled along the ashen ground and found Cameron. Dead and burned among his beloved animals.
 
The following years of his life became shrouded in a haze of sorrow, as he lived off the lands as a hermit, mostly avoiding people and towns. The rest of the crew scattered, some of them tried to convince him to join them, but he refused. As he traversed the lands, he felt a faint whisper in the air and a cold dark in the heart of the night, as if something was communicating with him. A dark ancient voice, weak and faint. A warning. 
His travels took him into the Greylan Dominance on the eastern border of the Empire, the same signs following him. Here he heard a story of an old druid, hiding in isolation within the fragmented divide to the south of the Greylans. Because druids are rare and now hunted down in the empire, this rumour was enough to make Edwall curious, so he travelled south in hopes of learning more of this strange warning...