About FaemCulture: Hobbits of the Anduin Vales (+2 Dex, +1 any two other scores)
== Combat == Inspiration: no
Weapons
== Saving Throws == Strength -1
*Untroubled by Shadows — When in a blighted area, you must make a DC 5 Wisdom saving throw to avoid Shadow instead of the regular DC 15. == Proficiencies == Armour: Light Armour
== Skills == Acrobatics +3 (Dex)
== Equipment == Ornately carved Pipe (gift from Hár the dwarf [pg2]) - Given a chance to smoke it, the pipe grants the smoker +1 to a Riddle check once per long rest.
== Class Features == Proficiency Bonus: +2
Cunning Action
Expertise
Night Vision
Sneak Attack
== Culture Features == Untroubled by Shadows — When in a blighted area, you must make a DC 5 Wisdom saving throw to avoid Shadow instead of the regular DC 15. Hobbit Nimbleness – You can move through the space of any creature who is at least one size larger than yours. Clever Beyond Compare — You have proficiency in either the Investigation or the Riddle skill. Hobbit Elusiveness — You have proficiency in the Stealth skill. Languages — You speak the Vale of Anduin tongue, an archaic version of Westron that is also spoken by Beornings and Woodmen. == Background == Lure of the Road
Specialty: Fire-making You can make camp anywhere. Hope: If you only live at home, then you have never truly lived. Despair: My travels are simply my excuse for getting away from problems at home. == History == "What is it?" "Daa calls 'em Gobbies," Faem answered her younger brother. "We're supposed to run if we see one." The blackened corpse floated idly at river's edge, face down. A tear in the flesh from shoulder to hip festered in the cold water. "Why ain't we running, then?" Gael brushed always-dirty hair away from his eyes, squinting into the perpetual fog of the marshes, should the thing that did this one in be prowling nearby. "It smells worse than the bog." Faem poked the body with her fishing pole to try to push it off. "Come on, we'll catch nothin' here." She led her brother upriver another mile before casting her line among the rocks in the quicker action in the middle of the current. There, the Gladden narrowed and the waters rushed over large round stones where trout waited for smaller prey. It wasn't long before Faem felt the familiar tug on the end of her line. The fish lept from the water, a good catch that would feed her entire family for the night. "Faem!" Gael's cry stole her focus and the trout spit the hook. Before she could muster a curse, her eyes followed her brother's unblinking stare. Across the river, not ten strides through the shallow water, a Gobbie glared back at them. Blood dripped from the fingertips of one arm, flowing from a nasty gash at the base of its neck. It glowered with a dark hunger. For the first time in her young life, Faem knew the face of evil. She grabbed her brother's hand in hers and they ran as fast as his six-year-old legs could turn. Faem didn't dare turn to look until Gael's hand pulled out of hers. The Gobbie was on them - it had her brother! She had forgotten to drop her fishing pole, and so she swung it at the vile creature, snapping it off against its head. It leered at her, spitting in some wicked language. The thing picked Gael off the ground and looked as if it were about to take a bite out of the skinny lad. Faem kicked at the side of its knee and the Gobbie buckled and hissed, dropping Gael and reaching for her. She fell backward and it pounced, but another kick hit the open wound at its neck and the dark thing howled and spun, grasping in agony. It rolled toward the river, cursing and spitting, and if it gathered itself up once more, Faem knew it would kill them. The young hobbit sped past it and pulled a stone from the rocky shore with both hands. In one smooth motion she swung it high and brought it crashing down on the Gobbie's head, smashing its skull. Over and over she hit it until nothing resembling a face remained and she was sticky from ears to toes in black blood. At last she dropped the stone, stumbled into the river's edge, and sobbed while the glacial whitewater of the Gladden rushed over her. Quick tempered and capable, Faem chipped daggers from stones and whittled her first bow at age nine. Haunted by that day at the river, she taught herself how to fight, for there was no place in the Vales more dangerous than the fetid marshes of the Gladden Fields. She learned to be quiet, and to shoot rabbits, snakes, and large burrowing rodents which poked their unsuspecting heads up. She was a provider for her family and grew into a proud and well-regarded member of her scattered clan. During the spring of her twentieth year, Faem and Gael were out hunting in the lowlands near where the Gladden flows into the Anduin. As the floods recede, thousands of fish are beached, attracting birds of prey, rats and other vermin, and the occasional badger or fox, which are difficult to catch but good eating. It was there she saw him - it - the tall man in the black cloak. It reached for Gael, having appeared out of the very mist, and when its bony finger touched her brother, Gael fell to the mud. Faem was too far to do anything but scream and throw her spear, but the black thing only looked at her with red eyes like death and then vanished as quick as it had come. She did not know it was one of the Nine that had visited her that day, in search of Isildur's Bane, The Enemy's Ring. While Gael did not die that day, he was stricken with weakness and mute therafter, finally succumbing to the sickness on the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday. Dispirited by the growing evil in the marshes, Faem packed up her few belongings, bid her Mother and Daa farewell, and set off on her own, across the mighty Anduin, toward the forest in the east. Something about the lure of the road attracted her - a persistent restlessness rather than a sense of adventure, but a compulsion to travel nonetheless. Faem only knew the Great Greenwood from afar, so far that from the west bank of the Anduin she could see only the dark green line marking the veil of trees at the horizon. In the mornings it appeared as a black cut separating the earth and sky. In the evening, when the rare sun pierced the marsh fog in winter, it was like a chain of gold resting atop green fields. It looked very different now. Approaching for several days, she knew that was where her future lay - inside that dark tangle. Tales of the clever wizard that lived somewhere amongst the trees had seeped through the bog to her home and told to children for countless generations. She decided she would find this wizard, and then ask him about the best way to settle her spirit. From the tales she knew of a place called Rhosgobel, nearly due east, and perhaps only a little ways off the Old Road. Faem camped along the edge of the forest for many nights, probing for a trail - not too well trodden but not obscure as to be easily lost. Imagine her disbelief when she spied a dwarf coming, striding confidently into the wood. Well, clearly, this fellow traveler was afflicted with purpose and a sense of direction, so she followed him, discreetly. By the second day she realized the dwarf was lost. When he made camp, she did the same, far enough away to remain hidden, and she took up following the next day and the day after. When she was hungry she'd nibble small chunks of smoked trout, bones and all. She considered whether to approach the dwarf and tell him he wasn't going straight, but how would that conversation go? What if he wasn't friendly? He seemed friendly, but lots of people seem friendly until you meet them. The spiders removed her choice. When the dwarf got caught, Faem lit a quick tinder fire and fashioned a poor torch, should they come for her. Why didn't she run? Because running had never saved her before, and against those overgrown critters it would not save her now. What spooked them she didn't know, but she pushed away fear and stepped quickly with weak legs to where the dwarf was suspended in webbing. "Yur lost," says Faem in a terse whisper, the words accented by her mild brogue."So who's the greater fool, you, or I for followin' ya?" But the dwarf was already afflicted by the first sting, the one that numbs, and his mouth hung open and his eyes, did not focus. With a stab from her torch the webbing burned and the the dwarf fell, but he was much too heavy to carry or even drag. If she wanted to save him, she would need to stay, fending off the spiders until he recovered enough to join the fight or flee. Her mind raced back all those years to when she saved Gael from the Gobbie. She could not run away; what was there in this world for her if she fled from danger when others were helpless against it? But she was no match for the eight-legged monsters, and when they returned she was felt the sting, and then all went dark... When the light returned to her eyes, Faem was in a bed - the softest she had ever known. The smell of leaves scented the space around her, and the sound of songbirds carried in on the breeze. She lay there in the light for some time, until a woman walked in. She was tall and beautiful, with rosy cheeks and well-earned laugh lines etched at the corners of her green eyes. Faem tried to sit up. "Be still, child," said the woman. She brought cool honeywater to sip. Faem's strength returned over the next few days. She learned the names of the people who had saved her from the spiders webs - a company of Foresters who had been working to maintain the Old Road and were coming to inspect a known nest site. Of the dwarf, they found only the empty remains. His death meant she would be spared for the precious hours until the Foresters arrived. She knew not his name, but would never forget the poor lost fellow she traveled behind, if out of sight. Soon after, Faem worked her way into the hearts of the locals through her many stories from the Western Vale, They seemed enchanted to learn of Hobbits, and she was well-cared for. She was allowed into the fine kitchen of Rhosgobel - first as a rogue sampler of sweet things, and then later as an assistant, where she demonstrated her knowledge for the preparation of fish and root vegetables in simple broths. The Woodwomen and Foresters spoke the Vale of Anduin tongue fluently, but they sprinkled in foreign words that sounded high and lofty to Faem's ear, but quick enough she picked up some of the language of Men, enough to understand its meaning, if not be fully conversational. A year passed. The hobbit had ingratiated herself in the community. But she longed to travel beyond the Hedge. She had made a life for herself in Rhosgobel, but accomplished nothing for the loved ones she left behind, and had done little for the memory of her beloved brother Gael. She picked up her sword and bow once more and returned to a regimen of practice in the evening. Through the next winter she sharpened her blade and her wits, until she felt she was ready to set out once again. |
