Eltanin Titansglade's page

Eltanin Titansglade is a half-elf woman standing barely five feet tall and at best slender. She either holds herself perfectly still, listening or watching or reading a book with her full attention, or she speaks with moving hands, expressive in voice and face and gesture. She can be long-winded - she occasionally forgets that inquiries can be answered simply and loves to provide details. Her skin is light tan, her eyes green and her hair is dark and grows just to her neck.

Ellie usually wears cooks clothing - her artisan's outfit - during her day job. Most other times she wears scholars clothes, alchemy satchel and her Varisian scarf. If she is expecting trouble, she wears her backpack, belt pouches and bandoliers under her lamellar cuirass with all her other equipment.

Ellie has a good speaking voice but only a warbling, alto singing voice. She does have a recorder, however, and will happily provide the harmony to anything. She travels light, but always carries a massive satchel which seems to contain an endless supply of powders, fluids, and odd containers. Whenever she opens it, the weird chemical smell is quite strong but when it's closed it's not too bad.

She openly wears two daggers, and keeps a third one concealed in a boot sheath.

Ellie has an interest in any creature that combines plant and animal features, especially fey. She also has an interest in architecture, although her skills are not usually very inspired. But nothing will get her attention faster than a tale of a fallen knight.

A little girl, the points of her ears seeming to gleam in the light of the rising sun, plucks a blue flower from near the wall just outside her family compoud. She isn't supposed to be there, not at that hour, but like many of her clan she doesn't keep what most would call regular hours. She is awake, and sneaking out to explore. Gladehome has been made safe for decades; her grandmother, who is watching in secret, is not truly fearful. She plans to give the child a swat when she comes back in, just to emphasize the rule, but she permits the child to break it just the same. She wants to see what the child will do with the flower.

Will she make something beautiful with it? Put it in water? Use it to cast a spell, a child's magic that will give some hint that the family is raising a new wizardess? A sorceress? Or maybe just a farmer or architect. That would be a nice change, for the Titansglade folk.

The little girl deliberately breaks off as much of the stem as possible - so much for putting it in water - and picks up a handful of dirt. She chooses the dirt more carefully than she did the flower, studying the ground as intently as her six years permit to find just the right loam for her work. Now she cups the dirt in one hand, the flower resting on top, tracing the fingers of her free hand around the flower's edge. She has seen me, her mother and her aunts and uncles casting spells in various ways. Will she cast? Will she try and fail? Or is she just making art? Will she chant? Dance? Mutter?

The little girl does none of these. She clutches the handful of earth, dropping her free hand to crush the flower in a tomb of dirt, her face squinched as she bears down. Oh please, in the name of mercy, let her not take after her grandfather. Let her not have my husband's blood.

The little girl, Ellie, flings her dirt and the crushed flower into the air, straight up, heedless of the fact that much of it will rain down on her own head. A swat and a quick bath for that one, her grandmother reflects, before noticing the most important thing that will happen that day. If the light of the dawn weren't so good, she might have missed it.

The flower does not come back down. But a tiny blue butterfly traces erratic circles in the air over the beaming little dirtspattered girl.

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The gnomes laughed with perfect abandon, a couple of them actually falling on the ground in hysterics. The ten-year-old child before them was only a little taller than they, but demonstrated just as much maturity as one might expect from gnomish mockery.

"It's not funny!" Ellie bellowed. "I could have hurt someone!"

"With magic like that?" One of the gnomes, Tongtokl by name, rubbed his eyes and got his chortling under some control. "Oh, we were in terrible danger, to be sure!" With that he said something in gnomish to his compatriots, who resumed laughing at the witticism they were sure would go over the half-elf's head.

"No!" said Ellie, then she also switched from her native Varisian to Gnomish, just to tell them properly. "I had darts! See?" She brandished a bouquet of iron-tipped darts, larger than mere toys, for emphasis. "I may have stir-fried runes, but I could've put someone's eye out!"

Far from quieting, the audience redirected their ridicule at Tongtokl who was only briefly nonplussed at finding that the girl had understood him, then he laughed along for a moment. Then he recovered himself more fully.

"Oh, forgot how long you've been our neighbor. Sorry child, didn't mean to be rude there. But you must believe we had some potions and antidotes and suchlike handy, just in case you actually did blast someone. We had little fear of that, though" shaking his head bemusedly. "You've shown no sign of knack magic, no sorcery, and for all that you have learned your arcane studies well enough, you've shown no facility for making your veritige contracts like a proper wizard. We even enlisted the aid of Lady Willow here, " he gestured to the treant nearby who had kept silent after playing her 'fearsome' role in the previous surprise test "to try to shock you into using some real power of some kind. And you did show us some power, all right. The power of dance!"

With that he broke into a kind of kind of backwards jig, flailing his arms in another imitation of Ellie that had the other gnomes in stitches again, and even Ellie almost cracked a smile.

"No, no!" said one of the other gnomes. "It wasn't nearly so much like a jig as a reel, and her hands were waving more like she was being peskied by wasps!"

"Give her this, though" said another, "she stood her ground well enough. Any other child her age would have taken to her heels until she got back to Gladehome, but she just tried to follow every page of the Big Book of Pejorative Gestures all at once!"

Ellie switched back to Varisian, drawing herself up to her full height and adopting a schoolmarmish tone. "For your information, I wasn't trying to be rude. I was attempting to open the hand chakramae for the perilous ablution of the horrified mind - stop laughing!"

The gnomes had doubled over once again, Tongtokl keeping enough of his composure to explain, "See now, you're giving us textbook talk again, and it's awfully plain you're not feeling or knowing it! You might make a spellcaster some day, you keep studying, but it's not what you are now!"

"Then what am I?" asked Ellie. "Why can I make dirt and water sort itself and do things?"

At this, Lady Willow finally spoke. "Llenselth ferthsen irannserrae, yva. Shullsanne irann humannishalvae oshvannia."

Ellie had only begun to study the sylvan tongue. She frowned, trying to trace the meanings of new words. "Irannserrae... blood of each? Blood in meaning... that the Azlanti started? ? I don't understand."

"I think I know what the great Lady is saying," Tongtokl said. "Some gnomes dabble in it, but it's sure it's a human art, and though it started long ago it's never really been in fashion, ostensibly because of it's danger, though I don't expect that to mean much to you. You Titansglades easily learn fearlessness, and that'll serve you well, for none of us are qualified to teach you. Much of what you learn, you're going to have to dare to learn for yourself. Come with me, back to camp. I have there a book you can have, gotten from Galduria. Had a feeling you might like to look it over, it's of human writing and it's all about the arts of practical alchemy..."

Later that night, after the gnomes had brought her back home and her mother had paid for the book properly, Ellie kept a candle lit, delving into The Unleashed Secret as if it contained the very answer to the question of her life. It was like a story, or collection of stories, but it spoke of what alchemists could do, the magic they could wake within themselves and their vials and bottles. She dipped a tiny quill into an inkwell near her bed and began to underline a passage, making the first of many, many notes...

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"Ellie!" She heard her name, but the rest of her father's speech was muffled in the cellar's echoes.

"What was that?" she yelled back. "I heard you say something, but I couldn't hear what."

He poked his head out of the storm door. "I said 'hand me the garblewarblefarble." Grabbing his entire toolbox he disappeared back under the house.

"It's a good thing I didn't hear you" Ellie replied. "That's a real thing, referring to the interstices of elemental patinas non-colored pollen. If I had handed you that, your closings would have opened and Morlaki's gel in the eyeball would have spumed vociferously..." She was capable of going on like this for some time if provoked.

Palos hustled back out. "Enough! I know you're my daughter, we have the same birthmark, so I can't figure out when you became half-gnome!" She saw that he was putting his tools away, and found herself suddenly sad. This is the last time I'm going to help him build anything until I get back. And any last time could be the last time ever.

She didn't have long to contemplate that, crushed as she was in her laughing father's arms. It was nearly impossible for someone of Eltanin's size to hug her father without being lifted entirely off the floor. Rumor had it there was orc in his ancestry; if true, it certainly didn't show in his daughter's frame. The half-gnome joke was a common one in the family, easy enough given her size and the prattle that had become only that much more incomprehensible after her Gnomish training.

"I know what you're thinking" said her father, neither putting her down nor letting her get enough air to interrupt. "Only a year back and you're going off again. This time with no bodyguard of cousins and such to walk you hither and thither. You'll be on your own mission, and you'll probably wind up somewhere uncivilized, and have to put some of your noisier teachings to good use. Just remember that Gladehomers don't have all the trusty people in the world. You'll find some on your own, and you'll be fine."

With that he finally put her down and held her at arm's length while she caught her breath. What he saw was a small and slender half-elf, much like the woman he had married, possessed of the unusual talent for rendering mundane objects and substances into magical ones. Perhaps someday she would be his true partner, 'improving' the works of his strength and his sweat with her own gifts, making Gladehome safer and stronger as had he and the rest of the family.

"Oh sure" she finally said. "I will. I'll be back in a while, and I'll write, and everything will end up fine. I just have no idea who is going to drive nails once I'm gone." Another family joke, little-girl Ellie had refused to let anyone else use the carpentry hammer. As a matter of tradition, she had been his nail driver for most of her life.

He sighed. "Your grandmother says she'll step in again. She taught me, after all. It's just not the same."

Ellie looked mollified. "Oh, it's all right then. She'll learn. For a sorceress, she's a good scout."

"Speaking of which", her father's craggy face suddenly looked more serious "she wants to see you. Before dinner. It won't wait, that's why I'm cleaning up now. Your mother and I'll be there while she fills you in on a little family lore, but I won't be saying much. It's her story to tell."

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Canali Titansglade looked scarcely older than she had eighteen years before, when she had watched her little grandchild Eltanin send a flower soaring skyward with just a little infusion of her growing power into a handful of dirt. Now that same child was sitting in sturdiest chair in her study while her parents sat on a sofa nearby, inheritor of a remarkable skill at building and knowing, and of a family whose history began three generations before but already included a few secret chapters.

"Ellie, your sojourn begins tomorrow. While it will start in Sandpoint I am hoping it will go further, and I am certain that it will not go in completely plannable directions." Canali eschewed the seat behind her desk, instead sitting on a tall stool near the window. This permitted her to guard against eavesdroppers, at least in their more mundane forms.

Ellie was comfortable but anxious. Her grandmother had a way of getting a person's undivided attention. Tall and willowy, she could go from almost innocuous to fearsomely imposing in a heartbeat. Eltanin fancied that she had gotten her grandmother's expressive face but little else. Her hair might have been a similar shade but it never grew so long, it's darkness contrasting brilliantly with the paleness of her skin. Ellie, on the other hand, had what her classmates at the Twilight Academy had called a farmgirl's tan. It just made her short and dark hair look - short and dark. She wasn't terribly critical of her appearance, knowing that wasn't where her gifts lay, but she did rather envy her grandmother at times. Canali's life was easier, in some ways, than her unprepossessing grandchild.

But seeing little flashes of old pain in her grandmother's eyes as she struggled to say something more poignant, Ellie knew that she had burdens that Ellie would be glad not to have.

"In the course of your journeys, you might find yourself learning more about The Blackgilt Knight, Savelle. You know already that he tried to destroy Gladehome shortly after we build it, and that we beat him though at great cost."

Ellie had a glimmer of intuition, guessing what might be coming next. "I know about the demons he led, and the people he killed, and how much of the keep had to be rebuilt when he was finally dead. But I know he did more than that, didn't he? Evin and Taranost write songs about him, but you and Uncle Isao and others of your years keep glancing at each other when they play them."

Canali nodded. "Oh, there is more. The most important thing to know about him is that his body was never found. The oracle from Whispersong said that the 'blackgilt blade is broken,' but that doesn't mean the man is dead, necessarily. You should most assuredly be on your guard. We took the name Titansglade to cut ties with those who knew us under old names, but there might very well be those abroad who mean ill to that name as well."

"But that's not the real secret. Part of the reason we took a new name was to hide from my husband. Your grandfather. A shining soldier, armored in golden light when we were first married, We deliberately refrain from speaking of how he died, and why he never joined us here in Gladehome. The trouble is, he did."

Ellie nodded, her eyes wide, her voice calmer than she felt. "Oh. Yes. We sometimes talk about the loose ends in the stories. Now it makes sense. He fell, somehow. Grandfather became the Blackgilt Knight."

Canali nodded again, glad that Ellie had gotten there quickly. "Somehow, yes. That is another reason to be on your guard. We know that power like his does not curdle into what he was without some sort of fiendish influence, but we have no real idea of where it came from or what was at work in his life. He deliberately kept himself aloof from me for months at a time. After our children started coming, it was easy for him to keep his movements secret from me. My spells are more vigorous than perceptive. But he couldn't hide the fact that his edges were growing sharper with the years; even our youngest, your mother, saw it. But I supposed that it was just a cool few years, not a deep change, just something we could work on."

"But now I'm going to tell you what I saw one night, what my husband did and said to make it clear that the change was deep indeed, and why we and many others fled Taldor even as young soldiers and leaders were claiming that a new rulership was arising. And I'll tell you what I suspect about why the revolution happened in Galt, but never Taldor."

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And the next day Eltanin Titansglade began her sojourn, as had many in her family before her. Starting in the Acadamae of Korvosa, her public mission was simply to learn, although quietly finding trading partners and opportunities for her tiny village of Gladehome. Privately, she was to study history and stories, trying to find the beginnings and the final fate of her grandfather (though surely that would be a long journey indeed, but she had the time and her family's blessing.)

But her true mission, the one in her own deepest heart, was to explore the phenomenon of Symbiosis, especially the connections of plants and animals. She had already, unknown to others, begun work on achieving more plantlike features in her own person...

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It hadn't taken long , less than two months, for almost all of the plans she had to come to a nasty halt. Eltanin had taken to studying near Aerie Street on off days; one day a small squadron of the Guard arrested her for murder, upon the witness of a fisherman she barely knew. She managed to get word to one of her professors, a gnomish teacher of history who hadn't looked askance at Ellie's focus on alchemy and her out-of-town letters of recommendation.

Professor Ettinmoor managed to prevail upon the fisherman's conscience; the man had been coerced into accusing Eltanin by a nasty underworld character named Gaedren Lamm. He had managed to tell the professor that much, but was himself killed before he could recant.

Ellie was freed because there was no case against her, not because she had been proven innocent. The Acadamae took the position that suspicion against her was intolerable and expelled her. This unfortunately precluded her only local room and board. She deliberately refrained from involving her family; some of her hotter kin might have done something rash, and the people of Gladehome numbered little more than fifty. War on Korvosa would not end well for anyone.

Still, Ellie was in a tight spot. The money she had been sent with was good enough to keep her going long enough to find a job for herself(as a cook) and a room at an Inn (cheap enough that she has seriously considered heading for the Shingles.) Professor Ettinmoor might be helpful in the trials ahead, presuming he didn't get too distracted. In the meantime, Ellie had begun to look at other possible assets.

The strange dark man, a messenger and subtle spy, whose shadow doesn't always move the same way he does. The tall huntsman that even the Guard comes to when they wanted someone found. The dwarf, the armorer whose sigil, a silver band in a perfect circle, seemed to give him divine power despite being a symbol of no god. And the tall golden-haired human, the man with the sword, who stands straight and seems to shoot light even in the darkness.

Ellie has scarcely met any of them, but along with Professor Ettinmoor she has given them a standing invitation to come by her Inn and chat with her after hours...

Draw from the Deck of the Dead: The Inquisitor in the suit of the Juggler.

Masterwork Darkwood Armor, +3 AC, 12 lbs, no armor check penalty, 250 gp (Not worn yet)
Masterwork Spear, +1 to hit, loot value 302 gp
Earplugs (box) 1 sp
Smoked Goggles, 10 gp
Alchemists Lab, 200 gp
Scarf (Varisian)
3 Daggers
4 Darts
Alchemy crafting kit, satchel
Travelling Formula Book (The Unleashed Secret)
2 Bandoliers
4 Belt Pouches
2 Wrist Sheathes
Flint and Steel
Hip Flask
25' Hemp Rope
10 Glass Vials
Scholars Outfit
Artisans Outfit
Travelers Outfit
Smoked Goggles
Earplugs
Ioun Torch, 75 gp
Wealth Remaining - 600 gp, 10 cp
Typically, Eltanin wears a dagger in one wrist sheath and a dart in the other. Her bandoliers hold vials, smoked goggles and earplugs, and her ioun torch in a small leather wrap. One of her belt pouches holds about 20 gp in various coins while another holds chalk, chalkdust, and another 10 gp for emergencies (her argument being that no one would try to steal chalkdust.) Her other darts she keeps in a tiny hip quiver while another dagger is sheathed on the opposite hip. The last dagger she keeps in an ankle sheath. Her alchemy satchel hangs from one bandolier, and her hip flask is full of water.