Aurora of the Cordite Forest

Born near the conclusion of the Dawn War, Aurora vaguely remembers the chaos and bloodshed of a bygone era. The Cordite Forest firbolg tribe worshipped the goddess of the moon Sehanine, creator of their island. This devotion continued even after Sehanine’s departure, and many of the tribe are still granted holy power through her blessing. Aurora was not so lucky. While she was perfectly capable of twisting natural, firbolg spells, her blood was not blessed by Sehanine. Instead, she honed her skills, and trained tirelessly to know the forest inside and out. Of particular interest to her were the animals. Such feeble creatures, blind to the kindness of the gods, were worthy of the love and protection of a fellow weakling. At the same time as she trained, the Cordite began to become a more hostile environment. Dragons, while common at the time, favored mountains and the seas for their lairs. One day, Aurora heard an unusual purring noise coming from one of the numerous caves she had charted. Exploring the cavern, she came across a single silver dragon curled up sleeping. Aurora, naturally curious about this strange new animal (which she had never seen before), went to investigate the cave’s new tenant. She nearly payed for it with her life, as the dragon responded fiercely upon awaking. As her limbs creaked to a halt in the dragon’s paralyzing gas breath, she noticed a small clutch of eggs hidden behind the mother. The dragon, seeming to understand Aurora’s intentions after her surprise seeing the eggs, let her go. Aurora returned to her tribe, but made no mention of the dragon’s appearance. While immensely curious, she understood the beast’s immense power, and decided to leave it alone. But not for long. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she began to frequent the dragon’s den to watch it move, hunt, and nurture its eggs. The dragon, of course, was aware of her presence, and eventually accepted Aurora as a benign existence. Ironically, as these observations continued for decades, Aurora developed a close relationship with the dragon. Onyx, as she was called for her beautiful black and white eyes, revealed that she was hiding from a fierce gang of red dragons who were out to eat her eggs. While she understood Onyx’s plight, Aurora did not entirely understand the implications. Unfortunately for Onyx, her luck was about to run out.


Eventually the day came. Aurora woke from her slumber one dim, moonlit night to the sound of a mighty roar. Recognizing who it came from, she went sprinting for Onyx’s den. As she approached, she noticed that there were bright yellow flames roaring before her—the forest was on fire. In front of the den, she witnessed a horrible sight. Dozens of small red dragons swarmed around Onyx, chewing into her neck and spewing white hot flame down her back. As she struggled, a single thought entered Aurora’s head: “save them.” Hearing Onyx’s voice in her head, she dashed into the cave and collected a single, swirly silver egg. Unable to carry more, she said a brief prayer to Sehanine and escaped past the carnage of the battle, which was still ongoing. As she fled, she watched her old friend fight to the death behind her, while the forest burned around her. Determined to carry Onyx’s legacy, she fled from the forest to hide in the cavernous mountain range surrounding Cordite. After giving it a day to cool off, she brought the egg back to the tribe for protection. The tribe, however, had disappeared. Along with most of the forest. Now alone in the still burning embers of her home, Aurora spent the next several decades caring for the forest as it regrew. In that time, the egg hatched. The tiny dragon helped distract her from the trauma, as the difficulty of raising a dragon as a firbolg kept her too busy to think. The young wyrmling grew quickly, and it was not long until Aurora found herself mistaking it for a smaller version of her old friend. One night, as she slept with the silvery lizard curled around her, she met a dragon in her dreams. However, this dragon could speak verbally, and seemed just as confused as she was. Then, Aurora was awoken by a sharp, burning pain on her forehead. Opening her eyes, she saw a brilliant, blinding beam of light between her forehead and the dragon’s. As it fizzled out, she noticed that she and the dragon now had matching scars—and could hear each other’s voices in their heads. From there, she and the dragon spoke constantly, and Aurora would detail her life from before the dragon had hatched. The bond also seemed to augment her druidic powers, which she used to speed along the regrowth of the forest. The dragon, not knowing any better, enjoyed letting Aurora ride around on her back, and their mental connection let them fly in perfect sync. As the deep green of the newly developing forest rustled beneath them, Aurora resolved herself to never let this atrocity happen to other natural sanctuaries. With the help of the dragon, she rode across the land, across the ocean, through the skies to other islands. In her journey to protect nature, her dragon riding became legendary, and other Dragon Riders arose in Wisteria to join her. When they first met another rider pair, the rider asked Aurora, “What’s her name?” Thinking of her old friend, she immediately responded, “Nyx.”

Unfortunately for the Dragon Riders, their presence was brought to an end with the increasing popularity of dragon hunting. These “Dragon Slayers” would hunt the dragons down for sport, not understanding the diverse nature of the multicolored dragon races. For safety, Aurora and Nyx decided that it was best for them to live the rest of their lives physically apart, for mentally, they would always be connected. Aurora has spent the rest of her life turning herself into a living natural library, conversing telepathically with Nyx, and returning to her study of the world’s animals. Toward the end of her long, 500+ year life (year in campaign is 1107), she studied the people of Maluen. She found their aggressive, organized government fascinating, as it brought out some unique reactions from the people under it. Now, her studies have brought her into the midst of a ground of dissidents—nothing like a hands-on approach to learning.
Notes:

Aurora loves people. And animals. She loves people because they are animals, and treats some of her interactions with them like they’re animals.

Despite her studious nature, she is very caring when it comes to people. She like an 5 century-old grandma

She is old AF, and remembers a lot of events from the past.

She knows Primordial, the language before the split into Ignan, Auran, Terran, and Aquan. She can understand and speak them all, but occasionally twists up her words since they are similar to the relationship between French, Spanish, and Italian, for example.

She will never forget what happened in the Cordite forest, and will gently remind others to protect nature to keep others from making the same mistake she did.

She still worships Sehanine, and prays to the moon every night

She occasionally is seen having conversations with herself. This is actually her speaking her thoughts out loud to Nyx, which she hardly ever realizes

Physical Description

Identifying Characteristics

Has an old white scar on her forehead shaped like a seagull in the distance.

Species

Firbolg

Life

5 BDW 586 ADW 591 years old

Gender

Female

Eyes

Dull green

Hair

Stark white and knotted

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Grayish blue

Height

7'0"

Weight

240lbs.