STORY TIME :
I would like to share this picture, which i just noticed is too futuristic but is the picture for one of my favorite characters ever, and his story. His name is Maxwellis Sorenza Mazeras, Maxwell Soren Mazer for short. But people call him Max or Soren, or the rare Zera.
He’s actually a High Elf, living in a place called Fortran Minsendre, a floating island in a world called Ieyhines. This world was ruled by dragons, and the high elves of Fortran were afraid of being attacked by dragons pre-emptively before they were prepared, so they erected a magical barrier that made the island constantly covered by wind,mist,fog, and cloud and pretty much any aerial natural force to cover and safeguard our floating island home.
In this home, was a natural fortress mountain that bore precious metals. This is why the High Elves, alongside their gift for magic taught by the Avatar of a God named Verde. The High Elves then came to invent Steel Skyships, sharing this knowledge with halflings and ensuring their safety from dragons. TL:DR the halflings were attacked by dragons and the main army of the high elvens consisting of elite swordsmen died, they however managed to buy time for the halflings underground, and the city that commemorated the High Elves and Halflings friendship was burned down to the ground. Now the High Elves are left army-less and with only the Archmagi to discuss among themselves. The High Elves have figured out that the strongest mage belonged to the Dragon’s faction, a Dracean general named Kross who was a humanoid looking man with draconic features.
So to counter him they tried to breed the strongest archmage, resulting in much power-struggle and discrimination to rise. One of those spawn was Maxwell, he was however a very speculative and curious elf. And instead of pursuing his magic fully, he played with swords,practiced alchemy, and through alchemy learned how to cook and brew alcohol, and he practiced medicine as well. All in all he was very well-rounded, and his magical talent was enough that if he pursued it he would have been a splendid archmage indeed. But alas he fell in love with his arcane tutor, a High-Elf older than anyone there who loved the first leader of the High Elves. She was called Piatro De Vaza, an enigma among the elves for living a lot longer than all of them. She was obsessive and curious like Maxwell, for which he admired then suddenly became enamored.
While they were doing some experiments Piatro turned to Maxwell and asked if he could try something out. Maxwell accepted despite knowing he was going to be a guinea pig because he can’t deny Piatro’s request. When he came to, he realized his face had changed. That to of the old leader whom Piatro loved, Harrow Sky.
From this point, Maxwell was then magically charmed by Piatro to go ahead and find a dead dragon body and return it to her.(Because Piatro is a Lich, a goddamn beautiful elven one, and she wants to make an army) So he does that, and seeks out to dragon-infested lands.
Except it isn’t as war-like as he expected, the war has long ended by human heroes who killed the oppressive dragon emperor(those heroes were our previous characters, my character died reviving two of our party members, thats a story for another day) so he wandered the desert the dead body of the dragon emperor left behind and he found two girls. These girls were descendants of those heroes, and the dracean soldier whom he met confirmed it.
Time passed and Maxwell was absolutely scarred and insane to the point of experimentation, such as cooking some human meat with shadow essence of assassin-like shadow creatures and feeding it to a person, then laughing as the person who ate it became a monster. He then finds himself the constant hatred and accusations of reckless behavior from the dracean named Sind. He was reckless and he didn’t care. But as he met people such as the human shadow dancer who tried to capture the kids but Max and Sind both captured with their efforts. And a sorceress named Emma who had hints of draconic blood within her. And a necromancer trapped in a child-body and a halfling mage trapped in his skeletal body. He slowly warmed up to the group, and his emotional and mental trauma dug deep into his mind.
Once they were trapped by a trap from Wood Elves, because the leader was an asshat apparently who wanted to revive their God by using one of the kids who was the descendant of a sorceress as a sacrifice. So they were in a large detainment complex underground, my character disintegrated the door to dust because he can transmute substances easily to other things(not as effective en masse as it affects him if its too much, like turning a wooden door to stone may make parts of his arm tense up with stone) so they went along as he stole a sword from a disintegrated golem.
Then the shadow dancer, amazingly tried to charm a golem with her looks. A golem, yes. The golem obviously attacked her, and she had no weapon so Maxwell logically made the decision to try and help her, he rolled spectacularly low and the golem rolled balls to the wall high. So i lost an arm. Great. But Maxwell doesn’t seem all that mad about it, it seemed like something that made sense. Fucking character development.
And when they arrived at the exit, they found the kid hostaged and Maxwell more concerned about his steel plague doctor mask(gift from piatro which is significant later on), and when the leader showed it. He snapped and desperately asked him to give it back, rambling like a madman. That’s when the other characters started to see just how broken Maxwell is. Not insane, merely obsessed about something, no, someone. After that they never mentioned it again, who would when someone reacted like that yeah?
So a lot of sessions later, Maxwell found himself making a wraith after finding a lingering spirit within his mask. It was a person definitely, that had vague memories. He had his suspicions, and one time while they were setting out in a steel skyship the halflings made it was confirmed. The group was discovering the need to finding the cup of curses, and the wraith’s memory came back to him in a flood, he went off, and with that so did Maxwell determined to find out the truth.
They arrived in a forest, finding a teleportation sigil Piatro made for travelling to sites to gather materials or make experiments outside her home. Teleporting back he meets Piatro in a disheveled, mansion of an insane lich. As Maxwell tries to receive from Piatro for reviving the spirit in the mask, Piatro embraced the Wraith known as Harrow Sky. Maxwell was livid, and hates himself all the same, and Harrow Sky actually still has a conscience despite being an undead and called out Piatro for her selfish and evil acts just to reunite them, and when Harrow asked for the cup of curses Piatro twitched in fear, with the efforts of both Harrow and Maxwell they defeat Piatro despite being an ever-so powerful Lich.
It was impressive as someone as formally untrained as Maxwell defeated a Lich in a raw battle of will, and he succeeded. When Harrow used the cup of curses it was made clear to Maxwell that all memory of him will fade, but the Wraith shall remain as normal. And when everything cleared, Piatro was normal again, and he set free the undead, knowing that some of them are better off and that the High Elves are well-guarded enough to not fall prey to low-level undead. And as he meets Piatro, the true Piatro, not the one she knew, the corrupted one who used him, he fell in all love all the same.
There was a rift that appeared in the sky, the same rift that the dragons used long ago to destroy worlds beyond, where the heroes from another world(our previous characters) came to kill the dragon emperor and become the rulers of this world, those guys were called Skyweavers(neat huh?) and Piatro knew they were none of them coming back after for so long, so they decided that the elves with their massive amounts of magical power will close the rift, while Maxwell goes back to the others with the cup of curses.
I’m proud of this moment because i managed to get a story-item, developed my character, and accomplished an arc on my own. (It was a side-quest the DM prompted, would have let others join but there’s no justification for them to even do that)
And by then Maxwell was friendly with everyone, and they were all surprised. And as the characters beat the Big Bad Evil and release the soul of the dragon emperor who was corrupted by the cup of curses and a descendant dragon who wanted to become the next dragon emperor, the rift closed, with maxwell’s home and Piatro with it. One of the few times Maxwell showed his real face, the face of the elf that does not look like Harrow Sky, he wore his mask to hide his sorrow, and Sind, whom he had butted heads with in the start. Actually became his best friend. Maxwell realized that the teleportation sigils were still there, so he made hasteful goodbye’s to everyone and went on. He’s still travelling across worlds, to find his people someday.
And as much as how sad that the human characters of that campaign won’t live til Maxwell comes back, Sind and the Draceans who live as long as dragons, went extinct after using the cup of curses to make the world peaceful again. And that’s his story.
