Sycra Teeling

**Sycra** is a half-goblin bard, one of the major party members in Rebels of Kaoweth and Fall of Vaoweil, and a were-bat. Kaoweth is her hometown but she hasn't spent much time there since she was infected with lycanthropy by Sashes, an exiled huntsman (and her friend, for a time). When she did briefly return, her activist friend Clover Coh roped her into being the leader of a group of disenfranchised townsfolk. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the roll, but she accepted it because she did genuinely want to help them.

She and some other happenstance group leaders in Kaoweth confronted the Kua Toa general when he was attacking the town. Somehow that encounter ended with them becoming ambassadors for the Kua Toa, on the condition that they would kill Neth and Nando should they ever meet them. This was a promise Sycra did not intend to keep, especially once she actually did meet the two of them.

Following that incident, the chaos of the town was still raging, so she decided to lead her followers out of town and into a nearby forest. She was not aware just how deep the forest was, nor of it's magical properties, though she would learn of these things once her caravan reached the Dragonborn village and met met the rest of the main party for the first time.

She kept her lycanthropy a secret from her friends for a long time because she didn't want them to worry. But when it became clear that she still didn't have any control over her transformation, she explained everything to them. She transformed a few nights before the party were scheduled to leave, and caused many injuries among her friends and herself. Luckily no one died that night, though Sycra had to spend the rest of the time before departure recovering in bed.

In addition to wanting to prevent her friends from getting hurt, Sycra must now also grapple with wanting to not hurt the bat, since Brother Finn showed her that it was a consciousness separate from herself. At present Sycra is going to be on a boat with her party for the foreseeable future. Hopefully they can figure out a safe way to deal with her transformation before another month passes.

## Sycra's Backstory

**Sycra's Backstory**

Growing up as a half-goblin in Kaoweth Sycra was no stranger to prejudice. From an early age she learned how to detect the emotions of others, even ones they might have been trying to hide, and knew when to get out if a confrontation was about to arise.

Being half human, she didn’t have it off the worst. She was allowed to attend lessons and learned how to read and how to prepare food properly (though of course it was in a different class than the full humans).

Sycra was deeply empathetic and wanted nothing more than to help those less fortunate than herself. First she wanted to learn magic because it seemed like the easiest way to demand better treatment, but of course that was illegal. And if she had learned magic as a child she wouldn't have gone through with any rebellious plan anyway, she was too anxious for it.

So instead of magic, she aspired to help people in the next best way: to become a doctor. She started studying up on basic biology shared by most races, then getting into the more specific stuff. Or at least studying from whatever books she could get her hands on which, in Kaoweth, was not much.

She was nowhere near becoming an actual licensed doctor, but at least she could help patch up the younger kids after they got beaten by bullies she was too intimidated by to try and stop (Sycra herself was never bullied, mostly just ignored. She never had many long-lasting friendships).

By the time she stopped taking classes, at about 17, Sycra was pretty independent. She still lived with her parents but rarely interacted with them. Night after night of reading and re-reading\* her medical books (and novels, and a *little* music theory) delayed her sleep schedule so that she was practically nocturnal. With no classes to keep her on schedule, not really any friends, and her being able to make her own meals, there was really nothing preventing this.

\*re-reading was often necessary for Sycra. Though she didn’t and still doesn’t know it, she has below average eyesight.

Her plan for the future was not entirely set in stone, but she hoped to one day leave Kaoweth for some other city in Vaoweil where she could get proper medical training.

As autumn was beginning to transition to winter in Sycra’s 20th year, a mysterious human man came to town in a horse-drawn cage. He had the branding of a Huntsmen where his left eye used to be, and he was naked except for being covered in sashes with warning labels on them. “DANGER,” “WATCH AT NIGHT,” etc. He didn’t seem dangerous though, he seemed sick and hungry. He had no memories, even of his own name, so the townspeople took to calling him Sashes after the sashes he was found wearing.

The Kaoweth authorities kept him in the cage for a couple days, but after it became clear that he was not really a threat to anyone but himself, he was let free and rehabilitated. Due to his huntsman's brand, people respected and feared Sashes despite his somewhat cowardly demeanor.

Naturally Sycra was glad to help out the poor old man (Sashes was in his mid-50s, which to Sycra seemed old anyway). Before long he was healthy, though still not really confident or competent. Sycra would sometimes give him lessons on how to cook or how to tend to his own wounds, should he ever need to. During one such lesson, which happened to take place on a full moon night, Sashes was acting restless.

Sycra wanted to calm him down but all she could do was watch in half-horror half-interest as Sashes’ body slowly morphed from that of a human’s into a huge, monstrous, bat-like beast. Then he took to the sky and began wildly rampaging around kaoweth, navigating about using a sound that was not unlike birdsong, but much more intimidating. This would be Kaoweth’s first werebat attack.

Despite his primal violence, bat-Sashes actually didn’t cause much harm to people, because he spent a good amount of time in the sky, and all of Kaoweth’s people were on the ground; he did however cause some destruction of buildings and statues. Sycra followed him as best she could, and whenever he did come to the ground, she would damage control where possible. Near the end of the night this resulted in her getting bit on the shoulder, hard.

The pain made it difficult to keep up with him, but luckily as the sun rose, so did Sashes’ consciousness, and the beast within receded. Sashes didn’t remember what had happened that night, but when he saw that Sycra was hurt he helped get her home and healed. Of course it was Sycra herself who did most of the work.

Obviously the townspeople knew a monster had been here last night, and it had attacked a young lady! Luckily, no one but Sycra knew that the monster’s identity, because they were beginning to make preparations for if it ever returned. Violent, inhumane preparations. Even if she hadn't known the werebat was Sashes, Sycra would have felt that the people were overzealous about revenge. The animal lover in her knew that it was only acting on instinct and was lost and confused more than anything.

Sashes and Sycra talked it out in private and determined that this was what the warnings on Sashes’ sashes had been referring to. After spending a few days researching bat transformations in Kaoweth’s libraries and finding nothing useful, they had to make a tough decision. It would be safer for everyone here if Sashes left. No matter where he went he would be treated well thanks to his brand, and bigger cities were more likely to have better protection against monster attacks and more available research to read.

And so he left the next morning. Sycra might have gone with him, she *did* want to find someplace with better medical writings after all, and this *was* a decent chance to finally do it… But, no, she had hardly known this man for a month, and her home was Kaoweth. She wanted to stay and help repair the destruction, even if she would hardly be thanked for it.

The next month, however, when she awoke one morning in a ditch after Kaoweth’s second werebat attack, Sycra realised the danger hadn't left with Sashes. She was covered in injuries because this time the people *had* been prepared for the monster, and had ran her out of town. She came home and played it off that she had been attacked again, and thought about what she should do next. Once she was fully back to health, she was determined that the only solution was to leave until she had this under control. She couldn’t risk a third attack.

Saddened that she wouldn’t be able to spend one last Gale day with her family before the next full moon, she left in a hurry. Away from any civilization, into the woods was the only safe place. She had lied to her parents that she had been contacted by a real medical school and needed to go immediately to make it before the term started. In the coming months, Sycra would regret this lie because, she realised, she would in fact have to give up on her dreams of being a doctor. Or at least put them on hold until she could be trusted not to unwittingly maul her own patients to death.

Sycra’s time in the wilderness shaped her more than any class ever did. She already knew the basics of survival but now she was becoming an expert. She had to be, or she’d be in serious danger. Even the non-magical wildlife in Vaoweil could be dangerous.

Of course there were peaceful times too. Sycra quite liked spending time with animals as long as they weren’t on the offense. She had always wanted a pet back home, but could never afford the cost of one. And having some company was nice, even though it was always temporary. Just like with friends back home, Sycra never bonded with any one particular animal. But she always treated them with respect, even when killing them for sustenance, she tried as best as she could to use every part of its body, to show how appreciative she was of its life.

To keep herself entertained Sycra began teaching herself music, based on what she remembered from her books. At first she was terrible, but she had a lot of time and little else to do, so she improved quickly. She improvised her way up from a grass whistle to a handmade lute made from treewood. Though it may seem counterintuitive, instrumental music was more comfortable for Sycra than singing with her own voice.

In town, she never liked singing out loud because she was self conscious and afraid of judgement, but now it was for an entirely different reason. When she sang she got flashes of memories of her nights as a werebat, forcefully “singing” to find her way around and kill whatever was nearby, without mercy, and without respect. It made her very uncomfortable.

As she practiced her music she began noticing that it could have some unusual effects, both on herself and on the environment around her. Sycra was practically gleeful that, through music, she was finally learning the magic that was forbidden back home. She couldnt be a doctor, but… maybe she *would* be able to use magic to help people after all.

Sycra thought she noticed that she was becoming batlike in her normal body as well as her were-form. She had long ears, was basically entirely nocturnal, and slept in caves whenever possible. Or… was it that she had always had some somewhat batlike qualities, even before?

Despite her inward observations and learning magic, Sycra couldn’t do anything about her transformation under the full moon. By the changing of the seasons, she could tell it had been about a year since she had left Kaoweth, and still no progress.

Sycra was sitting in a cave playing a wistful melody when she heard a voice for the first time in a year. “Sycra? Is that you?” It was Clover Coh, a half-drow girl Sycra remembered from some of her classes. Clover had been out under the guise of collecting fruit and maybe a rabbit for a [thanksgiving equivalent] feast, but actually collecting ingredients for an illegal magic ritual.

Sycra didn’t want to give away too much information about what she had been doing or why she had been gone for a year, but it was surprisingly easy to talk to Clover (even if her voice was dried out from underuse). Clover managed to convince Sycra to come back home. If it had been someone else, Sycra wasn’t sure she would have been convinced so easily, but she *did* used to have a crush on Clover, and if she was being entirely honest with herself, she might still. Plus, Sycra reasoned to herself, she had made no progress controlling her werebat nature, maybe some help would do her good. The walk back to Kaoweth didn’t even take the better part of the afternoon. Had she not travelled far, in all that time spent wandering…?

Now back home, Sycra couldn't bring herself to meet her parents and tell them the truth. She crashed on Clover’s couch, who otherwise lived alone. Sycra also couldn’t bring herself to tell Clover or anyone else about her werebat problem. She was too afraid word would spread and the whole town would turn against her. It wouldn’t be unlike them.

So Sycra followed Clover around her daily activities for a few days. She was involved with a surprising amount of underground activists groups, fighting for the rights of all kinds of non-human races, as well as magic users. That is, fighting as much as they could while staying under the radar of the Huntsmen. Which Clover failed to do, and she was sent to the prison on the edge of Kaoweth. At least now she’d be reunited with her parents. Sycra, for her part, managed to sneak under the radar. (She always knew about that prison, but since she returned it seemed bigger? Or more intimidating? Sycra wasn’t sure.) She just bid her time in Clover’s now-empty house.

Since Clover had been somewhat of a prominent figure in the activist community, their activities died down for a couple weeks. UNTIL news of a prison break began to spread hope amongst them.

Because she had been hanging around with Clover, lots of activists knew who Sycra was now, and she somehow found herself leading a faction of them when the town was in utter chaos during a seemingly unprompted invasion of Kuatoa. They managed to draft a treaty [um, I think? I don’t really know/remember how that one shot ended?] but the chaos didn’t die down. There were anti-kuatoa riots, and ant-riot riots, and illegal magic, and the Huntsmen were still busying themselves trying to convince everyone by force that the prison break never happened.

Sycra decided that it was in the best interest for the people who now trusted her to lead them to get out of Kaoweth. So she took them to someplace she now knew well, the forest. Though, this particular forest was one she had never breached into before. It was *very* dense and dark, and frankly easy to get lost in… which should act as good cover from any Huntsmen who might have been on their tale.

The forest itself ended up being a bigger challenge than expected, though. The caravan might not have made it much farther if they hadn't happened upon a village of dragonborn who, though they were deep in the midst of their own political problems, offered food and shelter. And Sycra bonded with a group of travelers who claimed to be Hunstmen, though Sycra saw through that lie. Together they helped the dragonborn make peace with the changelings, and then left the terrible forest behind, with a lofty new treasonous goal in mind.

THE END - UP TO DATE.

P.S.: Sycra is 21 years old now. Also she still hasn't reunited with her parents. They still think she’s at doctor college. In case you were curious no I have not decided which one of them was goblin.

This backstory catches up with the Fall of Vaoweil campaign at Season 2 Session 5, and the story was told to the party members in Season 3 Session 5.

## Trivia

* This is the second iteration of Sycra. She originated as Sycra Tending, an NPC in a session of Ruins of Glenmar.
* She was named after the artists Sycra Yasin.

## Gallery

Sycra's Roll20 iconher old icon that isn't used anymoreher old icon but wearing sunglasses and a collared jacket