Elan Siannodel
| Elan Siannodel | |||||||
| Female Wood Elf | |||||||
| Player: Guitarbard | |||||||
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| General Information | ||||||||||
| Full Name: | Élan Siannodel | |||||||||
| Nicknames: | Wayfinder | |||||||||
| Age: | 128 | |||||||||
| Deity: | Sune | |||||||||
| Alignment: |
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| Occupation: | Cartographer | |||||||||
| Faction/Rank: | Sensates | |||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Reitheillaethor, The High Forest, Faerûn, Toril | |||||||||
| Physical Attributes | ||||||||||
| Height: | 5'8" | |||||||||
| Weight: | 135lbs | |||||||||
| Eyes: | blue | |||||||||
| Hair: | long and black | |||||||||
| Complexion: | light tan | |||||||||
| Physical Build: | lithe and muscular | |||||||||
| Physical Features: | Her face is quite expressive, and her eyes light up when she gets excited about something. She'll sometimes have a far-away gaze while tapping out a rhythm on her thighs | |||||||||
| Skills | ||||||||||
| The monastic arts, Shadowdancing, wayfinding, cartography, and creative problem-solving - sometimes too creative. | ||||||||||
| Equipment and Items | ||||||||||
| Her journals and parchment, calligraphy kit, and trusty quarterstaff. Her yukata and cloak are various shades of blue-green, and the cloak is embellished with musical notation. | ||||||||||
“Come to life, open mind, have a laugh at the orthodox
Come, drink deep let the dam of mind seep
Travel with great élan...”
— Élan, by Nightwish
Description
Elan stands tall and wiry, even for an elf. She is paler than her fellow wood elves, with striking blue eyes and wavy black hair that cascades over her shoulders. Clothed in shades of blue and green, she bears no weapons but her quarterstaff and her well-muscled limbs, honed over decades of training. Pinned to the collar of her robes is a small icon of the Lady Firehair.
She is kind to those she meets, but unafraid to stand her ground. She doesn’t start any fights, but has no problem finishing them. She is a stalwart friend and ally, but her only trust is in something deeper than herself - something that rises to the surface in an unfocused gaze and a tapped rhythm at her fingertips.
(Portrait by Dima Derzhavin)
Personality
For good or ill, Elan wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s very free with her emotions, no matter what mood she’s in. Thankfully, she tends to be fairly cheerful or content, and when her fouler moods do strike, she tries very hard not to inflict them on others. She is open and friendly with those she meets and welcomes new ‘walkers to Sigil with advice and a kind smile.
While Elan sees most issues of the ‘verse in shades of gray and is against any forms of extremism, she is still very firm in her moral standpoints and won’t hesitate to hold her ground or defend others. However, should a discussion become too volatile for her, she also has no issues simply walking away either until the topic is changed or she’s regained control of her emotions.
“Even the smallest moments are worth savoring.” — Elan to Maeve of the Sorrows
Elan is a devout Sunite, though she came to the faith very differently than others and has a different style of worship as a result. Due to limited access to Sunite texts and the isolation of the monastery from major houses of worship, the elf expressed her faith by keeping a journal of at least one beautiful thing she saw or experienced each day. She practices the sharing of beauty by pointing out the beauty found in everyday life, even when it's bittersweet or painful.
Because of this, she did not learn about the more explicit rituals, beliefs, and misconceptions of the Sunite faith until several decades into her worship of the Lady Firehair. The misconceptions especially frustrate Elan, for while Sunites are known for their passion, passion does not equate promiscuity. She argues that true passion requires a connection between two people: something absent from casual flings. Elan herself was chaste until she began dating her partner, and maintains that the truest beauty is found in love.
[More TBD]
History
Early Life
“Leave the sleep and let the springtime talk...be the first to greet the morn”
Élan Siannodel was born and raised in the Elvish village of Reitheillaethor in the eastern outskirts of the High Forest. Her mother, Ahinar, chose to focus on Elvish bureaucracy rather than her daughter, so Élan shadowed her father, Aust. Aust took her with him on his scouting routes and taught her the lessons of nature until she was old enough to attend school.
Élan came home sobbing from her first day, having been mocked by her classmates for being a "loony" who hears voices. When Élan recounted the day to her parents, her mother scolded her for indulging in flights of fancy and passing off the imaginary as real. After Ahinar stormed off, Aust asked his daughter to explain further and Élan told him about the Song: an undercurrent to the world she constantly felt and heard echoing in the corners of her mind. Sometimes the Song was only a whisper; other times, it deafened everything else. It was a fast-paced song full of love and life, rich with harmony and beautiful vocals of unknown words. Aust didn’t doubt that the Song was real and his daughter could hear it, but he cautioned her not to speak of it to others, lest they react the same way her classmates did. Élan achieved this by not talking to anyone, eschewing the company of other children in favor of roaming the forest, either with her father or on her own.
Exile
“Finally your number came up, free fall awaits the brave”
Fifty years later, she was on one of her night routes as an apprentice scout when the undercurrent of the Song changed, subconsciously redirecting her path. Élan, who by now had spent her life tuning her soul to the resonance of the Song, accepted the change as guidance and followed the new direction without hesitation. The next morning, one of her fellow apprentices was found dead on the route Élan was supposed to take. Though the Song had saved her life, it did not save her - the only other scout assigned to that sector - from being accused of murder. After a month-long trial full of wild claims against the elf (including from her own mother), the actual culprit was identified and condemned. But by then, the damage was done, and Élan had gone from being “that odd one” to a complete pariah.
During this time, the halfling monk Seraphina Fastfoot happened to be visiting Reitheillaethor. The monk saw in Élan the exact spirit and potential needed to join the Duskdreamers: a monastic order known for being powerful oneiromancers and dreamwalkers. After a long discussion with Aust and Seraphina, Élan decided (with the guidance of the Song) to pursue her destiny at the Duskdreamer Monastery.
The Duskdreamers
“The answer to the riddle before your eyes is in dead leaves and fleeting skies”
After a month of travel, Seraphina and Élan reached the Duskdreamer Monastery, carved into the southern foothills of the Spine of the World on the River Mirar. Though Élan’s initial lessons at the monastery were grueling, even with her previous training as a scout, she settled in quickly. She took the Duskdreamers’ lessons to heart, appreciating her mentors’ dedication to teaching the balance of the conscious and unconscious mind without bias.
Due to the nature of the Duskdreamers’ studies, the majority of them were worshippers of Selûne or, like Élan, of Sehanine Moonbow. But Élan’s worship of the Elven goddess had been through duress - dictated by her mother during childhood and reinforced by the community. She had renounced her faith in Sehanine the day she left home and remained Faithless for a time. One night, when her spiraling thoughts nearly went too far, the sunrise led her to Sune. From then on, the initiate cherished the simple wonders of the world around her and paid tribute to Lady Firehair by appreciating one beautiful thing each day and loving others with all her heart.
Grandmaster Yansen was the first to observe that there was something different about Élan, and after a great deal of coaxing, got the elf to explain the Song. Yansen was the first person to encourage Élan to continue to follow the Song’s guidance, and to truly embrace it as part of her. As the elf trained and meditated over the decades, she wove the Song into her studies until she was able to guide its flow as truly as it guided her.
The Planes
“Come! Surf the clouds, race the dark...Meet me where the cliff greets the sea”
Seventy years after beginning her life as a monk, Élan prepared for her journey to the River Mirar basin. A job and a rumor waited for her in Luskan, and beyond that, adventure. As she stood in the entrance to the Duskdreamer Monastery and appreciated one last view of the Spine, a new initiate asked her if she was scared by how much of her quest remained unknown. “Nope,” she replied, grinning. “That’s what makes it more fun!”
Little did she know that the quest would take her from Toril to Sigil and across several Planes and that her party would abandon her on a cliff in the Beastlands. The first path she discovered as a wayfinder was the one back to Sigil, where a new adventure began…
Relationships
[TBD]