Fernheart

It was night when the Riftwatchers came to Dartbron Wood. The villagers had warned them to avoid the forest until sunrise, but so dire was their need, the Riftwatchers pushed on. The wood was thick and treacherous. Its paths often led into dank bogs or turned back on themselves. The Riftwatchers tried splitting up, but when they called out to each other, the dense thicket swallowed their cries. By the time the sun broke through the canopy the following morning, most of them had been separated and were lost.

It was the young female sorcerer, Ravyn, who stumbled through the brambles and into a clearing of lush grass, her robe in tatters and her hands and face lined with cuts and scratches from the underbrush. An old man sat on a large boulder surrounded by an assortment of forest animals. When he asked what brought her to the woods, Ravyn told him she sought the aid of the legendary Kelvhan Fernheart in the fight against the Chaos Legion. The old man invited her to join him for breakfast. They ate a meal of berries and nuts, but he refused to speak of war, instead wanting to learn more about Ravyn.

They talked long into the day, until Hardel, the leader of the Riftwatchers' search party, stumbled into the glade. Upon seeing Ravyn and the old man, he glowered and chastised Ravyn for her idleness while her companions were getting lost, injured, and worse in the forest. She was about to apologize when the old man clapped his hands together, and it was as if thunder suddenly tore the sky apart. Ravyn squinted her eyes shut. When next she opened them, she found herself back at the forest's edge along with the rest of the Riftwatchers' party, as well as the old man.

He announced he was, in fact, Kelvhan Fernheart, and that Ravyn had convinced him to join their cause. Hardel was stunned into silence. The group started toward the village. Fernheart walked beside Ravyn. He smiled and whispered that he had planned to join them from the start; he simply wanted to enjoy her company over breakfast first. Folia is a world of vast forests and boundless woodland creatures. People are few and far between, living in small settlements or as roving bands of travelers. There is no currency other than hard work and good deeds; food, tools, and labor are traded fairly, one for the other.

Kelvhan Fernheart grew up among a wandering troop of bards and storytellers, living a life beneath the stars. His mother could peer into the future and tell people which paths to take. Their visits to the settlements were often highly anticipated and celebrated by the locals, who would eagerly watch their entertainments in spellbound awe, rewarding them with grand feasts and an assortment of gifts afterward.

Kelvhan was only six when he first wandered from his tribe and got lost within the forest of Dartbron Wood. He wandered for days, fascinated by the secrets of the forest and its creatures. When his parents found him three days later, they were shocked to find him not only unharmed but also well nourished. As he grew older, Kelvhan left the company of his people more often, choosing instead the tranquility of the forest and its creatures to the life of a traveling bard.

On a warm spring evening when he was fifteen years old, he left, never to return. He spent years living alongside the forest's creatures, and over time, the magic that had been dormant within him blossomed. Others called him a druid, a man who could speak with animals and have them do his will. Some even said they had witnessed him shift into the shapes of the woodland creatures, and it wasn't long before these people worshiped him and whittle small wooden idols in his image.

Although he carried a great axe made from bone and antlers, Kelvhan had never swung it in anger, using it mainly to fell sick trees so their diseases didn't spread to others. On rare occasions, it had tasted the blood of ailing and injured animals, sparing them the misery and slow pain of an inevitable death. Above all else, though, Kelvhan was a pacifist and intended to live out his life in relative peace and harmony. But that was before he heard of the Chaos Legion's atrocities, and he left the comfort of his forest to join the Riftwatchers.