Aeren

## Aeren Taeri

So we begin! Aeren was not always a Taeri since from what I found they take on the name of their patron and I think that's pretty dope. So she was born Thail Shal (431 or like 61) and Kyalear Phash (426 or like 60), (again from google but the names are pretty, I’m pretty sure its pronounced Th- ail as in rail, then shall like the clothing item, Kaileer, and Fash) so she was Aeren Phash. She was born on the 15th of Nymm in the year 851. She was the third with the order going Lae (342 or about 48) who’s a sword fighter like his patron, then Syraen ( 256 or 36) who is a cleric of Rillifane, Fianan ( 177 or about 30) who is also a sword fighter, then Aeren, and then Xaer (115 or about 22) who is a teacher. (I think they are pronounced Lay, Siran, Fa-nan, Z-ear. I genuinely have no clue if this is right but this is how I’ve been saying them. I should also mention that Kyalear is one of the higher-ups in the military and in that nobility position because from what I read it was the elders and the military who lead the elves and Thail is a teacher for the younger elves before they get their patron. Alright now that’s out of the way let’s get on with it,

Alright! So she is born! She is born into the Valaes Tairn line and is named after the Aeren (prophet) Aeren that lead them here, assuming that wouldn’t be too uncommon since names are like to connect an elf to elves of the past (?). I mean that’s what it looks like from the last name thing. At this point, Lae and Syraen had already received their patrons. Lae trained under her mother both having very similar viewpoints/patrons. Both see glory in battle as something everyone should strive for as long as the conflict is true, honorable, and necessary (Also not seeing the Last War as a necessary conflict, at least not for them to get themselves mass involved). Most in the family share this view, those two are just the most extreme. Syraen is more mild-tempered and trained under the Eldest cleric, she strives to make sure that the warriors are cared for and that they follow what Rillifane would want. Fianan also trained under Kyalear but was milder in their views. So where Kyalear and Lae would charge headfirst into battle the second it is announced, Fianan would look for strategy and then charge in. Then Xaer, unfortunately, Aeren had already left for Soaring Hand by the time her patron was announced, but they wrote to each other about it. Xaer and Aeren were the most similar out of the family, with their father being like Syraen. Xaer and Aeren spent most of their training before their patrons together, and both held similar views of there is still more out there but bringing glory in battle being one of them. Though Xaer did start to change a bit, at least in her letters, once she got her patron, but still definitely the most chill. A favorite pastime of hers was playing dragon chess with either Lae, Xaer, or Thail. That is why it was one of the few things she took with her when she left because of the good memories.

I’m going to elaborate more on how she feels about family because I don’t think I did it justice. So she does care about her family. If you asked her she would say she is close with them, she knows that they care about her and her about them. There are times when it feels like she is walking on eggshells around her mother specifically and whether or not she is making the right choices. She does care about having her family’s approval, but sometimes she feels their relationship is strained. Especially when things like the argument that happened before she left to the Soaring Hand. So deep down she cares about them and them about her, overall she considers herself close to them but currently, the relationship is a bit weaker, at least until they make up. Now the argument I probably should have made more clear, so that’s her current biggest regret. Before she left for Khovaire she went back home to say goodbye. She went to tell them that she would be leaving to explore and get more fulfillment out of life. Her family saw being in the monastery as fulfillment enough. Words were exchanged, both parties left unhappy. Aeren tries to keep herself distracted to avoid thinking about it. Family is a rougher subject at the moment.

Well since you gave me the go-ahead here's the recent conflicts! So obviously there was the ancient conflict with the giants in Xen’drik but that’s all I can find so let's go! So the first and largest one started in 843 and lasted until 867. The Silaes Tairn came to the Valaes Tairn asking for help in returning to Xen’drik seeing as they believed that Xen’drik was their homeland and eventually they should retake it from any giants still there. They came to the Valaes since they were the MOST concerned with battle in their day-to-day life. The Valaes didn’t agree stating Aerenal is their new homeland, Silaes demanded they help or to be met with force. Valaes didn’t so they were met with force. Since it was both home team advantage, and about equal with might it was a long and hard war. It ended only because neither side could seem to get the upper hand. Eventually, peace was made and neither side did end up going to Xen’drik, but the Silaes are still trying. Aeren lost an aunt in this war, since she was still pretty young, only about 11, she doesn’t remember her much. It was her father’s sister. Her father says her star tells the story of her final battle and the glory she accomplished. This was the worst war that she was alive for and more deadly one. After that there were like 4 decades of total peace, afterwards, there were occasional fights with the Skullborn, (the stillborn in 3rd edition). Since they were looking for a way to become undying looking into things like the old tales and patrons like the Tairnadal have. While all lines were included, the Valaes were at the forefront of the lines since it was a worthy cause. These were infrequent spats that lasted anywhere from a few months to three years. These are the main concerns when it comes to actual prolonged fights. Otherwise, the training boils down to prep for anything to come and hunt for food.

So I want to go into training and stuff because it’s cool. From what I have found elves still reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, so I am basing this off of that. So combative training begins around 16 years old, physically strong enough now to do most things, and almost at the peak for physical maturity. Before this, they spend the time teaching elvish and common. Aeren’s parents also made them learn sylvan as heads of the military force and a teacher they thought it was important they learn the language of the fey as well. They begin to learn the basics of proper care of weapons and armor. They learn their history and legends as well as the geography and people of Aerenal. They will sometimes help out by cleaning the gear of the hunters or the older trainees. Once they reach 16 that’s when combative training starts. First, they start with hand to hand, since you won’t always have your weapon on you. Unfortunately, this training doesn’t go into depth too much, only what you may need to buy time to grab a weapon or pin an enemy. This is about a decade worth of training and is only reviewed to keep skills up as they get older. Next, they go into archery. They make sure they know how to use a bow, or at least the mechanics. That they could hit a target if they tried with decent accuracy. The idea is that they could hunt for food on their own and fighting in general at long distances. This is about a decade. Then finally sword fighting. They train first with longswords and then with short swords. For close-range combat. This is where the rest of the time is spent in training. Funny enough she’s proficient in all the weapons from her monk class anyway!

Finally, onto her life story, I may ramble in between as things come to me. So she is born! We already knew that. She goes right into training at the ripe age of 6. Geography was never a strong suit but she got there, eventually learned what she needed to know about the people of Aerenal as well. She was definitely more suited towards the languages which she actually quite enjoyed. For a portion, she did have her father as her teacher, which definitely didn’t put her at an advantage but it did mean at home he would only use sylvan to talk to her while she was learning. Further into training was the combative portion. As mentioned in the questionnaire she preferred hand-to-hand combat over anything, just more the personal feeling of being in control and being less than lethal. She didn’t hate the other types of training, she still keeps a short sword and darts on her just in case, but there was a heavy focus on sword fighting and archery but to a lesser extent. It had been more obvious that her older sister wouldn’t be the fighting type, so no one was surprised when she was chosen to be a cleric, but it was different for Aeren. She had the energy and spirit to be a fighter and everyone just assumed it would fall under sword fighting like her brothers. No one was disappointed, just surprised. It wasn’t long until Aeren was on her way out to the monastery. She didn’t really think much about it, more so wanted to make her parents proud of her, I mean by elf standards she was still young at this point and that was her biggest concern. She had always just slipped under the radar, never being incredibly fantastic or so bad that someone took notice of her. She saw this as a chance to stand out a bit from her siblings and rushed right in. She never stopped to think about if she really wanted to do this, just that it was expected of her so that’s what she is going to do. Now she did enjoy the environment in the monastery more than the one at home, but it's the kind of thing where she could have just made her environment better and didn’t NEED to go to the monastery to accomplish that. She arrived with a letter from her parents and joined the monastery right away. It was definitely a shock. Changing from one kind of vibe to another but she got used to it. It definitely got better when Garret Goodbarrell, her halfling friend mentioned in the questionnaire, joined the monastery. He joined about a decade after her, so not too long after at least from Aeren’s perspective. Garret was looking for a great monastery to join because of stories he had heard as a kid and while traveling in Aerenal for his family’s business, brewing ale, he heard about Soaring Hand. He set his business in order, got his sister to cover for him, and ran off to go learn. While the two differed in reasons, personality-wise they were pretty similar. Garret is definitely the one responsible for getting Aeren out of her shell or at least the being constantly prim and proper. They had great times together, always did training with each other. When they were both younger they would sneak out to either go on the roof or just explore the immediate area or mess around in the river. Then came Polly Williams the half-orc! She arrived only a decade ago but she became quick friends with Garret and Aeren. She had been traveling across the continents and came to Aerenal. She heard about the Soaring Hand, she found she liked it quite a bit, and decided to stay for some time. Polly was more reserved than Garret or Aeren at this point but she was also great for making sure they were never caught. Polly was also the one to teach Aeren and Garret Riedran just because! Aeren and Polly briefly shared feelings for one another but they decided it was best just to stay friends just in case. Polly was her first girlfriend though. She left the bounds of her monastery about two years ago, (I don’t know if that makes sense like she is still a part of the order (?) but just not physically there anymore). I should also mention, I do know that the Tairnadal are nomadic so I had assumed that it was the other elves that inhabit the continent, their name is slipping my mind but they are the ones that worship the undying court. She first made her way to Aramore , the nearest town to her monastery and a half a day’s walk south. It’s a small town, but it is known for their wood carvings. They have some very talented carpenters and carvers. She spent her first few months in this town and spent this time working as a woodcarver. It was nice enough, definitely not what she was looking for so she was back on her way. She made her way East to Garen’s Well, a small fishing town on the coast. She spent time here doing odd jobs, dealing with monsters that messed with fishers or a giant rat infestation \*shudders\*. Oh let me go into that fear actually! So yes this is where it starts from, so this town had a storage house for their extra fish for drying and preservation in case there was some disaster and the fish were driven away, unfortunately, every night more and more fish would be eaten or go missing. So our always intelligent Aeren decided to just camp out inside as one does, no setting up traps and checking in the morning, no waiting outside to watch whatever was entering, no getting a bigger group. Nope, she thought the wisest decision would be to sit inside with the food, so when it got to like 2 in the morning and nothing had shown up she went into her little trance state to get those four hours in before dawn, so imagine her surprise when giant, clearly disease-ridden rats show up and start climbing over her and the food. She has never woken up faster. The sound of the eating, the missing patches of fur, and the gross greenish color of these sick rats were just too much. Immediately she took out her sword and killed as many as she could, definitely didn’t help that they smelt worse once they were dead. She ran right out of that barn and explained what happened to her employer, on the bright side, those rats never came back! She wouldn’t eat fish for a month after that encounter and she left pretty quickly back south to a new town called Damerel and this is where Vanir comes in. So to preface, Vanir was one of the few humans Aeren had met with, she rarely spent much time with them, most of them being traveling merchants or a few store owners so few pleasantries were exchanged or when they were they fell more closely in line with elvish customs because of the elvish population. Now had Vanir been the only human she had ever come in contact with she would have thought more poorly of them, but many of the ones she had met with before him were at least pleasant so she gave the benefit of the doubt and went to assume it was just a Vanir thing, then people like Gin, Cal, and Selena really reinforced that idea. Anyway, back to Damerel. It was a town that wasn’t known for much but did do a bit of farming due to the fertile lands, but funny enough only a few weeks before Aeren arrived an old cave was exposed when a new building was being constructed. They had been looking for people to explore it to see if it would be of any use so Vanir and Aeren both volunteered. They split up to cover more ground more quickly and Aeren, being the lucky duck she is, found some gold from old travelers who went down in these caves long ago, otherwise, the cave was fine. She, however, did not mention the gold to Vanir because she assumed that she found it so it’s hers, Vanir did not agree. So it started a small verbal argument that escalated pretty fast. It was tough but she did kick his butt and went off with the gold, she has made a note to try and avoid Vanir as best she can just in case. Then her last stop on her trip was West to Solaris. It was another woodcarving town, she spent time there helping with the odd jobs. Making sure shipments got to where they needed to, making sure no one got too rowdy at gatherings, you know the usual. There wasn’t much here and she took that as she had seen all that this continent had to offer so she went back home to say a goodbye and head off to Khovaire. So as mentioned before her parents were not pleased. They thought she should either be here with them or at the monastery, no in-between. That she was making a terrible decision and would never reach her true glory. Aeren didn’t react well to this, she left without saying goodbye for the nearest port that could take her to Khovaire.

Alright now onto Vylae Taeri, cause he slipped my mind before! So this will just be more her relationship with him, but I’ll do his life story too just after because this is taking so long to get to you. So! Aeren gets her patron Vylae and at first, she tries very hard to be like what her parents would want her to be, you know very much that uptight very respectful I don’t deserve the time of day from you kind of thing. Vylae wasn’t like that though nor did he expect her to be. That wasn’t really who Aeren was just who her parents wanted her to be so of course, she wasn’t going to get a patron who made her act like someone she wasn’t. From the messages she has gotten from him, he is a very easy-going person. He didn’t even say Aeren had to become a monk, but she so badly wanted to make sure her parents were proud he let her do as she wished. During her time in the monastery, he helped her see that maybe making her parents proud wasn’t the only thing that mattered. Of course, there is always that nagging voice that says that is the only thing that matters. Now sometimes his easy-going nature is too easygoing. He doesn’t tend to see an urgency in most things or doesn’t put as much thought into things as he should. This has started to bleed over a little into how Aeren views or does things. And definitely is that kind of person that doesn’t quite think things through as far as they should.