Tev Culein's page

About Tev Culein

Tev Culein

Tevran Huaan Sandalem Culein was always an inquisitive young elf. Though he had fun with his young friends exploring outdoors growing up in Arsmeril, he spent long periods of time alone, often at night, looking up at the stars. The elves knew a lot about nature, the world, and the stars, but Tev's gaze yearned to penetrate deeper into the void. Because he was so curious about nature and stuff, they thought he would grow up to become a Brightness seeker, but he surprised them one day by replying when asked, "I think I'm becoming more of a Darkness seeker."

He was unquestionably a bright kid, but magic came especially easy to him, so he apprenticed to the local hedge wizard. It was during that period when his natural talents as a sorcerer became clear. It was also at that time when Doctor Lorrimor visited Arsmeril. The young elf's penetrating questions about the outer planes impressed the professor, who did what he could to stimulate Tev's pursuit of knowledge. When the professor moved on, he pointed Tev toward the Academae of Korvosa, so that was where Tev began his adult life. Even though he had grown up mostly among other elves, his self-isolation back then mixed with immersion in human culture now made a Forlorn out of him. It didn't bother him much, though.

Tev managed to learn before getting into the Academae that it wasn't for him, but he was able to learn a few things about magic and about himself (including the source of his bloodline) at the Theumanexus in Korvosa. The experience confirmed to Tev that he preferred to study on his own, so he traveled across Varisia and visited various schools like the Cypher Mages of Riddleport and the Bloatmages of Kaer Maga. No school of wizardry appealed to him more than simply looking within for his power, though, and had an easy enough time making a living as a hedge magician wherever his studies took him.

Tev’s life changed forever on the night he (and the small caravan he was traveling with) was attacked on the road back to Arsmeril by Shoanti raiders. Tev was actually walking back to the caravan from relieving himself when the raiders jumped the caravan, so they didn’t see him until he drew his bow and started firing. His first shot at a shorn-headed barbarian missed, but the Shoanti only had time to look in the direction it came from before Tev’s next arrow went through his neck.
Just then, time stopped. It stopped so Tev's memory could take a picture of what lay before him. He had always known this moment would come; the moment when he killed for the first time, which would change him forever. If his spirit wasn't truly strong, he would become disgusted with what he did and would never be able to fight for anything again. He knew that his shot had been a lucky one, but if he was going to become a powerful sorcerer, he would acquire and use other means of slaying those who would rise to challenge him.
The moment took control, focusing on the face of the man that Culein had just shot. This Shoanti was not an evil or depraved man; just someone whose life choices put him on the opposing side of the mortal clash of arms. It was the face of a man who did not want to die. The face of a man who was doing this to provide for his tribe and wanted to survive so he could experience life and take care of his family and see his children grow up and become men and women who would one day join the tribe and make him proud. And now it was the face of a man from whom it had all been stolen in a fraction of a second.
And in that one instant of life he had left, his face became the avatar of abject pain and despair. The agony of having a sharpened wood shaft stabbed through his neck, and the unimaginable anguish of having one's life reduced to this. Cut short. All that he had worked, striven, believed, and hoped for in all his years, turned to nothing by a wandering elf. Eyes clenched shut, tears already starting to escape only to be frozen in place as the ducts stopped functioning. Mouth wide open, waiting for the scream that would never make it past the new hole in his neck.
As Culein stared into this face he stared into the face of Death itself, in all its terrible glory. And Death asked him, "How do I look?"
When Tev Culein saw what it was to inflict Death on another being, he found it, “Strangely alluring." He didn't actually say the word out loud, because not enough time had passed for him to make the sounds.
Now time started again, but slowly. As Tev watched the Shoanti keel over and fall face-down on the ground, he saw his own insecurities, his fears, and his doubts about himself dying along with the man.
Tev Culein had killed, and he had liked it.
The Shoanti did not let up their attack after losing one of their own. Tev joined the fray in trying to help his comrades get the caravan clear of the attackers. One of the guards, a man named Hubradan with whom Tev got along well, ran a Shoanti through with his sword only to be cut down by the savage’s three kinsmen. Tev saw the look on their faces when they slew Hubradan. They looked like Tev felt when he killed his first man: eyes glaring piercingly, one corner of the mouth turned up in a sneer and the other frowning with hate. It didn't cause another stop in time, but it taught Culein an important lesson: as alluring as Death was, it was imperative that he not get himself killed so that he did not become the man with the face of agony. He knocked the Shoanti off their balance with a color spray spell, then rained minute meteors down on them from the night sky until they crumpled to the ground. After that, the caravaners drove the surviving Shoanti off. They hailed Tev as a hero, but he hadn’t done it for them.

When he got back to Arsmeril, his kinsmen noticed something different about him, and they shunned him for it. He had always been somewhat aloof, but now it was like he was a stranger to them. Tev didn’t hold it against them. He always knew that his destiny was not here, but somewhere out there.

Such was Tev's life until he got the word to come to Ustalav. The opportunity fascinated him, not because he was interested in its superstitions and boogeymen but because of how it related to that unfathomable Void.