Ulmer Sterrion

Ulmer had spent his youth apprenticed with "Marion & Kids," one of the companies that made regular trading runs between Devil's Backbone and other cities. When the war had made things dangerous for all but the most well-guarded (or desperate) traders to risk travel on the open roads, Marion had seen this as her opportunity to make her company much more profitable by being one of the few merchant caravans willing to play the trade routes with outlying areas. She, along with most of her children and Ulmer the apprentice, set out with a few mercenaries hired as guards along a major road that should, in theory, prove safe. Marion's ambitions proved larger than her prudence, however, and during that first fateful foray, her small caravan was set upon in the night. Ulmer was able to survive the attack (he claims it's "quite a tale" but has never gotten around to telling it, somehow), but with his master dead and the company in shambles, he was out of work. When he made it back to Devil's Backbone, the other trading companies saw his status as the lone survivor of the caravan as an ill omen and refused to let him join them.
Ulmer decided that he had survived not due to a quirk of fate or luck, but by somehow convincing the wild animals that they should leave him alone. Whether this is true or not,* he made up his mind to study the new hazards of the wild, the better to inform the people that remain of the dangerous new world around them. To that end, he is learning as much as he can about the wilderness and how to survive in it, while also preparing himself on how best to disseminate that information.

Journal 1:

To whoever finds this journal: If you are reading this, then you're either a thief or more likely this book was found on my corpse. I guess that technically makes you a looter, but I forgive you. I'm sure I'll do my own share of picking things off dead people before all is said and done.
Let's skip the boring parts and get to the journaling: Dear Diary, I am Ulmer Sterrion, humble beginnings, going adventuring, blah bleh blah.
Today marked the beginning of my new career as a mercenary. I marched into the Guild here in Devil's Backbone and sought out a job, and sure enough some folks were just about to set off on a little errand and were happy to let me come along. A magical bird figurine led us a few hours' walk to a man named... Hammer? Thumper? Damn, it'll come to me. Something about cracking skulls. In any case this guy briefly led us into the wilderness, where we found a magical sword being guarded by plant monsters that seemed eager to kill us.
Hammer ran off the moment the plants turned in our direction, and things got hairy. The sword turned out to have a mind of its own, and moved on its own to save me from getting speared through. While we were pretty sure this sword was the thing we had been hired to retrieve, it asked us to help look for the tomb of its former owner, which was close by. It had just saved our lives, so it was the polite thing to do. The sword called its owner "Jocelyn", and clearly she had been a warrior of some amazing power. The people who had buried her told her story in carvings in the entryway: She and the sword had served a god named Cade, and saved a village. But then Jocelyn gave up the sword and gave her heart to a demon in exchange for great power. Interestingly, she used that power to save the village again, and the people who had carved it made it sound like this was a good thing she'd done, so maybe she didn't turn evil despite being bound in service of a devil.
But despite not being evil, she was not allowed to rest in this tomb built for her. After a lot of jumping and falling, we found Jocelyn's coffin, and she was not happy. She summoned some undead warriors (now that I think about it, were they companions buried with her, or were they magical summons? I don't know.) and they kicked our asses seven ways to Sunday. It was almost entirely the sword's doing that kept us alive--it cleaved her chains and convinced her to renounce her oath to the demon (or re-pronounce her oath to Cade? Maybe both?).
I'm not ashamed to say that I was only able to get a few licks in at the skeletons during the whole battle. This was far outside of the job description!
The whole place started coming down around us, and we barely escaped. The sword stayed behind with its master, and I think it's a fitting end to her story. Where the ground collapsed, a massive statue made of vines grew in the shape of Jocelyn. So if you find that statue, this is the tale of how it came to be. The battle took its toll harder on some of us than others. While two of us were literally brought down and brought back, some...thing happened to change myself and another of my party due to a spell Jocelyn cast. As far as I can tell, I've been aged unnaturally. It doesn't hurt, but it's not great to think about. Eva, however, appears to be transforming into a reptilian beast. Strangely, she seems more disappointed about this than scared. It's like she expected it somehow. But we're all allowed our secrets, so I'm not going to dwell on it any further here. The statue created five vials of a mysterious liquid as it formed. Coincidentally, one for each of us. It's my hope that this fluid will turn back these changes, as a last thank-you from Cade for bringing her warrior back to her side.
But I don't know that for sure. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find out more in the morning once I've had a good night's rest and cleared my head.
For future reference, my travelling companions on this excursion were: Lorafaen: a nice enough woman. I think she's studied to be a bard like me! Harken: brave in battle, and with no small ability when it comes to investigating mystic objects. Rob: a quiet man with great faith. He healed me at least once after a nasty fall. Eva: a spellcaster who, like me, seemed to be getting in over her head as this day wore on.
Future plans: 1. Investigate mystery liquid 2. Reverse this aging and Eva's transformation, or at least find out how. 3. Look into Cade? This god still has power. Strange that we'd never heard of her. (scrawled in a margin near "plans #1"): Shit! I need a pearl worth 100 gold! Plan 0.5: earn 100 gold

Journal 2

I must write this down before I forget. I awoke feeling mightily refreshed, even after the events of yesterday. I would describe what happened as I slept as a dream, except that in my experience dreams do not persist beyond a few moments after waking, when the reality of the world comes pressing in.
As I slept, I heard... whispers. A thousand voices: gossiping, arguing, laughing, complaining. They seemed surprised that I could hear them, but instead of vanishing or turning me away, they welcomed me. I was free to listen to them, they said, and told me that they were the spirits of ideas--thoughts that lived longer than the minds that had created them. When a concept is said to have "taken flight," these are what fly. And they fly mostly among each other, until another mind is open to them.
These spirits did not ask for nor offer service, but most of those who spoke to me had the opinion that they were worth listening to. Ideas give you hope to be better than you are, they said. They would not allow themselves to be depended upon, but should the mood take them they would share their knowledge if I opened my mind to them.
Again, I would describe all this as a dream... But after I awoke, and even as I write this,I can still hear them. Is it madness? Or visionary?

Journal 3

Pages from here on begin to be written less neatly, as if by poor lighting, an unstable surface, or even as the scrivener was walking and trying to hold the journal in one hand while writing with the other... Day 3: My adventuring career in Devil's Backbone was much shorter-lived than I had imagined. Not due to any failings on my part, or even being run out of town due to a misunderstanding--not that that's happened to me before, I'm merely using it as an example--but from a sudden spurt of the milk of human kindness. (scribbled next to this: "revisit this if any intent to publish. that metaphor is disgusting")
Mere hours after we parted ways in the Spire, we met up again in the Drunken Goat. Rob introduced us to a massive minotaur named Arekan Glorybane, a former(?) pit fighter who was concerned about the plight of the unlucky people caught up in the war between Idica and Eqix south of here. And while one man might not be able to do much on his own, a group with a cause to get behind might affect some change...
To be honest, a half-dozen of us still doesn't sound like we'll be able to do much. But scrounging up supplies for aid turned out to be surprisingly easy; the local shopkeepers here are a soft touch for a proper sob story and like to at least act as if they care about their fellow man as long is someone else getting down in the mud to do the handing-out part. I think they're also a rather gossippy bunch and if we don't make a recognizable appearance down south after having said we would, our faces will be up on wanted posters before we can blink.
Still, we've agreed that we're going to avoid the front lines, and stick with helping refugees and others who need help getting by. Let the generals and their armies fight the wars; for now I'm happy to be a little hero solving the little problems of the little people. That's what I got into this whole business for, anyway.

Journal 4:

Journal entry, Day... 10? I've lost track. Time to stop numbering them. Arekan's proposal to render aid to the people affected by the war of Idica and Eqix was more popular among the others than I would have thought, considering Rob had just met him. Still, I have to think that a man that holy must be a decent judge of character, and I'm surprised at how easily we were able to mount an aid package worth delivering all on our own. We'll be able to help a not insignificant number of people once we get where we're going.
In the meantime, we've stopped for a rest in Strathford after an attack by bandits. I never even saw them with my own eyes, but Harken and Rob say they were goblins. Goblins, in this region! Times must be desperate for them to try attacking convoys this close to a town this big. Either that, or our group looked like easy pickings, if they somehow missed Arekan.
I haven't been to Strathford in a couple of years, and it's more or less how I remember it. I'm not hauling a bucket of road apples this time, which is a nice surprise, and we ended up strolling in just in time for their annual festival. I've never taken part in it before, so it'll be nice to see it from a visitor's perspective. Assuming Arekan lets us! He's something of a hard driver, with little time for weakness in others. We haven't set a difficult pace while travelling, but luckily one or two of us can rest up in the cart because it has been a lot of walking without stop every day. I'm not one to complain overmuch, especially if Eva and Lora are keeping pace without saying anything, but... Well, being footsore's nothing compared to what the people we're trying to help are going through. Gotta keep things in perspective.

Journal 5:

Entry number... let's call it 5: Going from putting lost souls to rest to helping living people is no small step, especially when the odds were so stacked against us. After a night in Strathford, we set out to find and stop the bandits that had attacked us on our way in. After a few false starts in the forest, we came into a canyon where a fort had been built long ago. It was this building that the goblins were using as a base of operations.
We waited until nightfall and snuck into their keep, taking down one patrol on our way in without raising the alarm. Another skirmish took them down to half their number, but one got away during our third encounter and they were able to mount a unified defense that we (perhaps foolishly) walked right into. It was there that I was able to see my friends in magnificent action: Harken freezing nearly half of the combatants solid with a single spell, Rob fearlessly charging into battle with the zeal of his god behind him, Eva channeling mighty blasts of fire from her hands, Lorafaen sticking arrows into her targets from a safe distance. As for myself, I did somewhat less direct action against the enemy, but I was able to keep my companions fighting several times when they would otherwise have fallen, and I am proud of how I managed.
When we had brought down everyone but their commander, he turned out to be nearly more than we could handle. Eva was able to put him to sleep magically, and we were discussing how to deal with him in the short time we had, when he suddenly leapt to his feet and... I don't actually remember what he did, but it was very fast and hurt a lot. Around the campfire later, the others said that the enemy laid into me and Rob with just his shield, like the stories of the fabled Captain Idica. All this talk about bandits so far is because I think I've been avoiding describing what happened next. Though my contact with the spirits had so far always been voluntary, I have to think that I was at least halfway through death's door when I was beaten unconscious, because I was with them in a way far deeper than I ever had before.
I don't recall the actual words they said, if they used any, but I remember the feelings. Some were supportive, cheering me for our bravery in battle; some mocked our tactics and blamed me for letting myself be hurt. Some were interested, some were bored. It was as if the events of this world are a stage play being put on during a crowded festival; people come and go, some stop to watch, some stop to heckle, many more pass by without a glance. That was the feeling I got: all these eyes on me.
There was also a feeling of being pulled away, something taking my hand and firmly trying to lead me somewhere. I couldn't see where, just that I was being taken. Maybe not unkindly, but that there was a place I should be and I wasn't in it.
Then things began to get... brighter, and I awoke in a hurt but very much not dead body. But for a few moments, I still felt the gentle pull on my hand, something trying to be helpful. Over the next days of travel, I felt that agency around me at times even if I couldn't see it. Items I wanted would come out of my pack without me having to root around for them. A branch for firewood floated up to my hand before I could bend down to get it.
I can't help but think that I was indeed on the spirits' side for a moment... and though my friends brought me back, I didn't come back alone.

Journal 5:

Chapter 2: The Idica/Eqix War I've certainly wasn't intending to, but we've found ourselves among the main encampment of Aeternum + Idica forces just before the main assault. After reporting our success in clearing the goblin bandits harassing Strathford to the local authorities, our descriptions of the magician who had fled were enough to make the sheriff decide that the war effort needed to know what we'd faced in person. We had enough time to get a good night's rest and prepare for the trip a little before heading off. I spent nearly all my coin on a good lightweight chain shirt and a crossbow. I'm glad I did, because this feels like I'm wearing practically nothing at all after hauling around that cowskin.
We pushed through the fringes of the camp and approached the command tent, just when things began to get busy. A woman with an enormous dragon appeared followed shortly by a battalian of aarocrokra warriors. I left to look around a bit after that, but apparently the woman with the dragon was Tia herself!
The thing about a military organization is that as long as you aren't actively screwing something up, everyone assumes you know what you're doing. I suppose that's nice for people with training and skills to function in such an environment, but for someone who literally wandered in from the wilderness like myself it's something of an overwhelming experience. There were so many different groups here to take part in the war that people are just able to push through if they're confident enough. I have to wonder if any Eqix spies are in here... they'd probably be skulking around by themselves. Like me. Hm. The group of Rob, Lora, Harken, Eva, Arekan, and myself split up without much ceremony. True, we weren't official, but now we are unlabled shipments in an unfamilar warehouse--I don't know where we're supposed to go or with whom. Our original intention of telling someone about the magician from Strathford and their mind-stealing magic may have been lost.
I've decided that unless some group looks particularly inviting, I'll try to continue on with Harken. He's a warrior with some impressive magical skills, but from our last battles I think he needs someone to watch his back in case things get bad.
There appears to be some commotion going on near the central tents, so I'm going to head over there to find out what's happening.

Year of Birth

15 AoA 29 Years old

Gender

Male

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Black

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

White