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Haven’t sketched Ahlia in forever.

I’m finally getting somewhere with my backstory for my new character!

Her name’s Ahlia and she’s a half-elf bard. She’s the youngest of five kids, Dad’s an artist and Mom’s a fantasy lawyer. She was always musically talented. Her grandfather, a Druid, sang her a lute of living wood when she was very small. She loved it more than anything - she called it Arfaen, a pretend Elven word she made up to describe the sensation she would often get of feeling music physically.

She left home when her closest brother went to Wizard College™. She set up in a Human town a little ways from home and started playing regularly at the local inn and tavern, The Whistling Pig (borrowed from a friend of mine who’s character owned a tavern by the same name).

This particular town was presided over by an exceptionally disliked lord, about whom Ahlia may have written a slightly disrespectful tune. The people loved it and it quickly became very popular - so did Ahlia.

Until, that is, some of the lord’s men showed up at the Whistling Pig and handily apprehended a very drunk Ahlia. (Apparently writing scathing satirical songs about a disliked ruler is a great way to get people to buy you ale.) After being presented to the offended lord the next morning, a now hungover Ahlia made some perhaps... unwise comments which prompted the lord to sentence her to be publicly humiliated and imprisoned.

With a little cunning, a bit of improvised weaponry, and a lot of luck, Ahlia was able to distract and dispatch several guards allowing her to escape a rather unpleasant evening just by the skin of her teeth. She left the town in disguise and charmed her way aboard a small merchant ship headed west.

Dumb luck had been on her side this time - chance and some carefully batted eyelashes were the only things that stood between her and a lifetime in a squalid dungeon. By the time she made landfall several days later, she had resolved to buckle down and focus her bardic abilities. She always had an affinity for magic, not to the extent that her brother Valmar did, but she had a talent for it nonetheless. She wrote to him at the college and asked for his help honing her skills.

“... Write me as soon as you can.

The bastard still has Arfaen.”

#long post #backstory #ahlia