Character in the Spotlight: Druiden Felshadow
By Jay Young
Posted 1/31/2007
A capsized rowboat can be flipped by wrapping a rope around it and pulling on one side. A rope twice doubled back on itself and properly wrapped on each end around a heavy rock can allow people on the top and bottom of the rope to more quickly lift heavy loads to the top. Strings tied from a door handle to a suitable object in the room can alert a sleeping occupant of intruders. These are just a few of the clever ideas that have sprung forth from our next character in the spotlight: Druiden Felshadow. From fixing wagon wheels to concocting escape plans, Druiden is the man for the job. His sharp wit and quick thinking have saved lives more often than I care to count, and he is walking proof that a good idea is more valuable than a good healing spell. In over a decade of GM-ing I have never seen such a consistent torrent of resourceful and sagacious roleplaying. But good ideas are not the only thing Druiden is known for.
Druiden began as a young farm boy working to harvest fields for his family on the outskirts of Minas Tirith long ago. His father, Damion, was a high-ranking spy employed by King Pelandur himself. Damion worked well with Druiden to teach him how to sneak quietly around the house and how nearly anything at hand can be made into an effective weapon. For a boy constantly working in the fields, this meant a scythe. Damion taught Druiden how to use his scythe as a deadly weapon if he was ever caught unawares alone while out in the fields, and exactly where to strike a man to bring him down. While much of Damion’s work was shrouded in mystery, Druiden later came to realize that his father taught him this on-the-spot defense because Damion was likely afraid that his enemies would one day come to threaten his family.
Damion’s worst fears were realized when Druiden was seventeen. Druiden’s father had accepted a particularly dangerous mission from King Pelandur to assassinate the brother of his cousin, Lord Aglarond, whom Pelandur strongly suspected had been plotting with the Haradrim. The problem was that, as cousin of King Pelandur and a powerful nobleman, Aglarond held much influence with the Gondorian parliament and there would be grave consequences if Pelandur’s involvement were known. Thus, like all of Damion’s missions, if he were discovered he was on his own. While Druiden never discovered exactly what happened to his father, he believes that Aglarond captured him after killing his brother and executed him immediately. Aglarond soon discovered that Damion had a family living on a farm outside of Minas Tirith and the Lord flew into a violent rage and vowed to wipe the Felshadows off the face of Middle Earth. He promptly sent his knights to the Felshadow homestead who then slew the entire family.
Except one.
While working in the fields, Druiden saw the smoke from the homestead and rushed to his family’s aid, but he was too late. The slaughter had already unfolded and the bodies of his mother and sister lie badly mangled on the trampled earth of their burning home. Druiden immediately fled Gondor. Aglarond, however, eventually learned that one Felshadow had survived and thinks that his life is incomplete as long as the last Felshadow walks the earth. Aglarond’s obsession with killing young Druiden has become somewhat well known among members of the royalty and many others in Gondor. Rough sketches of Druiden have miraculously made it back to Aglarond, and if Druiden is ever discovered, Aglarond will expend the last tin piece of his considerable fortune to make sure that Druiden’s blood soaks the ground he walks upon and, if it were in his power to do so, either make his soul eternally suffer or destroy it entirely.
Druiden has been in hiding for many years now, and has fallen in with the heroic members of the group. He tends to question his purpose for existence, since life never ceases to offer anything to him but callous pain and suffering, from the slaughter of his family, to the loss of many of his good friends, to his own wounds in combat. While Druiden has had his moments of clarity, such as his engagement to Alexia’s little sister, Cassandra, he remains the only character of neutral alignment. Still, despite his dark and cold-hearted ways, Druiden’s pain has been successfully passed on a hundred fold to his enemies, and he deals out death with his scythe much like the grim reaper himself. In many ways, Druiden has become much like his father, stealthy, agile, and deadly—the ideal magent. More powerful now than he was as a boy, Druiden seems to put his mind, his melee prowess, and his magic toward the destruction of evil as if each foe slaughtered would somehow bring back the lost loved ones of his past. Regardless of his unspoken motives, because Druiden is a priceless asset to the team, he is this issue’s Character in the Spotlight.
