Lythor Fleetfoot

Original art: https://mmmoryo.tumblr.com/image/188138635721

**Lythor Fleetfoot** is a dragonmarked human courier from the world of Eberron. He rifted into Daleos on December 20, Osterian year 901.

## Description

Lythor is a young adult human male of slight build, toned by several years' worth of travel across Khorvaire. His head is topped with scruffy tufts of tousled brown hair which appears perpetually in need of a trim — itself frequently stuffed into a squared green-gray hat lined with warm fur and emblazoned with the logo of his family's wing of House Orien's parcel delivery service. A pair of thick goggles, intended for use in all manners of adverse weather, is strapped snugly to the hat when not being worn. His dragonmark of passage which marks him as a member of House Orien — still in its minor form — lies etched into the right side of his torso by his ribs.

The youth's work as a courier saw him travel across the breadth of Khorvaire before his sudden rifting; at the time of his arrival he was traveling to the continent's frigid northern climes, and as such appeared in Osteria sporting a thick, green-grey patterned coat; a cloak of fur wrapped around his shoulders; well-worn brown pants; and fur-lined boots for trekking through the snow. For the young man still unused to this strange new continent, the hat and coat have become a comforting reminder of home and the family he inadvertantly left behind — rare are the days when he can be seen heading out to work without them.

Despite the distressing circumstances of his rifting, Lythor manages to maintains a remarkably pleasant disposition; a cheerful, eager smile rarely departs from its resting place upon his countenance, stretched between his cheeks. Likewise, the courier rarely manages to sit still for long. More likely than not he is on the move, having found another parcel to deliver to one of his clients, and even during those scarce few moments where he has nothing pressing to do, some part of him invariably remains restless — whether he's tapping his foot to an unheard tune or drumming his hands and fingers, some part of him is always on the move.

## History

Lythor was born into a minor family within the great House Orien, masters of transport, delivery, and couriership on the continent of Khorvaire. He, like his mother and father, were frequently hired to transport small quantities of sensitive material — letters and parcels, mainly, with exceedingly few exceptions — across the continent's far reaches where the lightning rail had never been constructed, fallen into disrepair, or been destroyed in some manner of conflict. It was a job to which he took exceptionally well: from his first job as a child at his father's side to the fateful job which ultimately saw he himself become delivered to another world, Lythor developed an unflagging sense of wanderlust and wonderment at the places and peoples he had the privilege of meeting on his journies.

Lythor's final job in Khorvaire was simple: an anonymous client — an uncommon, though certainly not unheard of occurence — paid a sizable sum of a few hundred gold for his family to deliver a single parcel: a map-case, inside of which appears to be one single chart... or at least, so Lythor presumes by the faint sound of the parcel's contents rustling within its still-sealed container. The instructions delivered alongside the parcel were to have it brought to the the far northern tip of the Eldeen Reaches — well within the realm of the freezing climes which produced the freezing Frostfell — where it was to be deposited into a secret cache hidden outside a remote village, all within the span of a few hours during one of only a week's worth of days. The young man was ecstatic and proud to have been trusted with such an important task, and he set off at once. And so, it was with great dissatisaction that the client to whom Lythor was supposed to deliver the all-important parcel discovered that the task for which they had hired the Swiftstrides had failed.

This is not to say that such events were the fault of the man in whom their trust was placed — quite to the contrary, Lythor had been making good time before his disappearance. It was the simple fault of a broken-down lightning rail track which ultimately led to the courier's rifting: when he begain to head down a by-then long-abandoned side trail made obsolete by the invention of the magical locomotive, Lythor sought to rest his legs by a fire before continuing his journey. Alas, upon doing so, he made a critical mistake: the clearing in which he settled himself was a deserted faerie circle, overgrown with moss and foliage which crept over the carefully-laid stones which comprised the circle's border and channeled the latent magics poured into the site long ago. All he had to do was pluck a rock — a small, unassuming grey stone around which he sought to build his fire — from the circle for its magic to erupt in a whirling, iridescent torrent of wild magic, untethered by mage or rune. Perhaps the magic of Lythor's dragonmark saved him, allowing him to instinctively shape the surge of energy into a form which whisked him away intact instead of scattering him into dust. Perhaps the magic — sensing an intrusion upon its domain — banished him to the far reaches of the planes, never to be seen again.

Regardless of the reason for his disappearance, however, so it came to pass. And upon arriving in Osteria, after overcoming the initial shock, just one question managed to remain in his head: *"How do I get back?"*