The Bard

**The Bard** is a wandering Immortal most known for her involvement in the Inisfall Confederacy. She was last heard from in the Goran lands.

## Story of The Bard

She fell upon the ground more alone than ever before.

She had never liked being alone.

When she realized she was immortal, she realized she would lose memory of her former life. To combat this, every day she would work a clay tablet and inscribe her lover’s name upon it. When she acquired hide and ink, it would be paper. She drew his face every day.

Throughout the years, she would stumble upon tribes and ask them if they had seen the man she drew, but they had not, nor were they particularly intelligent. They were horrible company. She would linger in the tribes for a few years, attempt to show them advanced technology and engineering and art, but to no avail. Their language was too strange for her to learn, and her language was the same for them. She even tried the smatterings of other languages she knew, but again, too advanced.

In a way, she found lower creatures more interesting. She could talk to them and not expect much back. A few years passed and she had trained a variety of creatures. Her wolf and falcon would collect food for her during the day while she worked on a longboat to take her somewhere else. The hides of beasts became her sails, and soon she set to the ocean to find someone to talk to.

She had spent many years mastering the constellations. A learned astronomer, navigation on sea without sight of land was simple, so she shoved off with her companions on a journey.

As she knew the land she was in was quite cold, the south should hold land. She sailed there. There were traders, many traders. They found the art of her lover, as well as the incredibly detailed map of the island, intriguing and gave her food and pigment in exchange. Some spoke a broken form of Her language. But none were intelligent enough to appease her.

She continued sailing.

She sold her maps, star charts, scientific writings, art, and other bits of scribing as she went. She wrote stories, music, and poetry to bide her time in the boat. She rewrote drafts of democratic constitutions to remember her home country, and those sold as poetry. But once done trading, she left.

In calm waters, the creatures of the sea would gently push her boat to the tune of her songs. She never stopped moving in the waters. She mapped the coastline and spread culture in the wake of her journey.

The peoples would ask for her name, but all she would say is, “I am just a traveler looking for her love.”

Though all the cultures had their twists on Her language, her name always sounded something like “The Storyteller” or, if they had read her works on the strange mythical land of Eire, “The Fili”.

One day, she came upon the source of all of Her language she had found – the Family Hearth. They spoke a more advanced form of Her language, and so she found her home. Her art and writings were so foreign and interesting that she set up shop and lived there for years, becoming quite prosperous. She entertained children with her impressive displays of falconry and wolf training. Having no taste for her former name, she finally decided to take on a new name: Fili.

She learned of the Goran and had a distaste for the nation. Disgusting genetic engineering. “Breeding cities”. She admitted their government structure was more sane and sound, and their name had more gravitas than their neighbor the Circle, but the free, poetic soul of Fili could not stand the idea of choosing who lives and dies and breeds based on the ideas of a king.

Fili decided it would be best if she found a way to stop it, and memes were a powerful tool. A giant manatee that she had tamed long ago returned to her and a new boat she crafted herself using fine woods and silk. She set sail for Gor to gently stop this sickness of an empire from spreading.

She still wrote down his name. Every. Single. Day. She still drew his face. Every. Single. Day.

However Fili knew at this point that he was lost to time. None had seen the face she painted, and they likely never would.

But she would continue, because he deserved to be remembered.

She traveled along the coast, resuming her usual duties with a kindled fire. Fili stayed longer and told more tales. She spread the meme of freedom of mind, body, and spirit, that all men and women were equal and deserved a right to representation, that no religion should chain their souls.

Eventually, she reached Gor. She was guided to the trade cities and, as usual, sold her wares. But this visit was different. Fili went to the church to do more study on Goran religion, and she learned of something very interesting.

The Rite of the Immortal.

She talked to the priest and asked to engage in the Rite of the Immortal. She was brought to the Golden City to speak with Gor himself.

And thereupon she saw the face she drew every day, the face of her lover, in the body of a deluded god-king.

Now she was Fili, the Goran Goddess of Arts and Sciences, and she would do everything in her power to get her lover back.