Cereus Starflower

### Early History

Cereus Starflower is an earth genasi who was born 40 years ago into a unique and somewhat cloistered community of religious forest dwelling Genasi known as the Riodhr. The Riodhr make their home in lush untamed forest of Seda, on the plane of Muruganda, in the shade of the ancient trees whose divine wisdom has guided them for centuries. A druidic culture, the Riodhr worship Sadabahar, the goddess who according to their most sacred songs created all the flora and fauna of this uniquely verdant biome they call home. While contact with outsiders is not in any way forbidden, in practice the Riodhr are fairly isolated, preferring the wild and sacred aura of Seda to the more domesticated world in which connection to the ancient trees feels broken, and where the songs of the fauna are drowned out by the din of commerce.

While her abilities come from her father, an earth genasi named Ewan, Cereus bears the distinct blue coloring of her mother, an air genasi named Aella. From a fairly young age, Cereus was seen as a prodigy of sorts with her spell casting abilities and her connection to the divine wisdom of Sadabahar. So, it was at the age of 6, Cereus was made one of the youngest novitiates in the Riodhr’s history. (Novitiates are a group of apprentices who serve the high priestess of Sadabahr, training so that one day they might be selected to serve as her replacement.)

And yet, as strongly as Cereus felt a connection to the ancient wisdom of the forest, she found herself equally drawn to another ancient wisdom - one she could only seek outside the edges of Seda’s protective shade. On many a clear night, Cereus could be found sneaking to Seda’s edge to gaze at the stars in the heavens. Somehow, without being told, she simply knew how to make sense of the patterns - how to see the connections and track the paths and changes of the various heavenly bodies in the sky. She began to draw star maps in secret, as her past questions about the heavens and the potential of sacred wisdom outside that of Seda’s trees had…. not been well received. Her place as a novitiate meant her mind was to be committed to Sadabahar and her earthly domain alone.

On her 16th birthday, her parents gave Cereus a travelers sack that Aella had sewn. Inside the sack was all the provisions Cereus would need for a journey, and the money to pay her fare to travel to a distant plane. Her parents tearfully explained that during the recent festival of Beltane, they had both received the same vision when communing with the Hawthorn tree. A beautiful starry goddess had appeared to them in this vision, and had told them of a powerful connection to the stars within Cereus, a gift that could only be fully realized if their daughter was sent outside the safety of Seda’s shade. The goddess showed them a fated path, stars lighting the way as if they were stepping stones, with Cereus stepping gracefully from light to light, growing in wisdom and ability with each plane she touched along the way. As Cereus continued to follow the path and fade further from their view, the goddess picked up the the first plane Cereus had touched on her journey, and handed it to Aella. “Eberron” the goddess whispered. She reached into a pocket in her skirts and pulled out a small scroll, handing it to Ewan, before turning to fly away among the stars. As the vision ended, he had opened the scroll to find the words, “University of Wynarn.”

Hearing of her parent’s shared vision, Cereus knew there was a reason she felt the stars calling to her all these years. She loved her parents deeply, and was reluctant to leave the aura of the ancient trees and the songs of the fauna behind, but she knew her fate lay somewhere amongst that starry path. She set out on her fateful journey the very next morning, and travelled the long way to Eberron where she would begin her studies at the University of Wynarn. And Wynarn was truly just the beginning, as Cereus went on to travel to numerous planes, studying and researching at some of the biggest libraries and universities the universe had to offer. Something had been awakened in her from the very first text she read at Wynarn, and she craved knowledge the way the trees crave sunlight.

### Joining the Serendipsticks

Cereus first appears in the Serendipsticks’ story just as she was returning to Muruganda for the first time since leaving home. She had planned to visit her parents, of course, but her path had grown foggy and unclear to her and so she also longed to commune once again with the ancient trees and to seek out new wisdom from Sadabahar. Ships coming into Muruganda dock with a small inn that orbits the plane, and when Cereus stepped inside to get something to eat before the journey into Seda, she was surprised to see some familiar Genasi faces inside. Four of her cousins had come to intercept her and warn that while her parents desperately wanted to see her, word of her impending visit had reached the high priestess, who had made it clear that Cereus could not simply abandon her oaths as a novitiate (as this had literally never been done before in the history of the Riodhr,) and that if she returned to Seda she would not be allowed to leave again. The cousins told Cereus that the high priestess had nearly banished her parents from Seda for enabling her to leave the first time, and begged her not to risk having her parents cut off from the ancient trees forever. It was clear in the way they spoke that they didn’t understand how or why Cereus could have left the Riodhr, and that they definitely didn’t approve of her new life away from the ancient trees. Nothing mattered more to the Riodhr than this holy forest that Sadabahr herself had created, and losing that connection was a fate they believed to be worse than death. Cereus was heartbroken, but she knew from experience just how painful losing communion with the ancient trees really was, and couldn’t bear the thought of her parents losing everything they held dear. The cousins were extremely anxious to get back to Seda, but Cereus convinced the party to get rooms at the inn just for the night, so she could have time to write two letters to send back with them. The first one of course was for her parents, expressing how much she loved and missed them and how desperately she would work to find a solution to this someday, but the other was to the high priestess herself, begging her to understand the path Cereus now found herself on and imploring her to consider the possibilities of equally sacred wisdoms found outside the boundaries of the trees alone.

When she awoke in the morning however, the inn was strangely empty. None of her party were anywhere to be found. Perhaps, Cereus thought, they really could not forgive her for leaving Seda to follow her path into the stars? Perhaps they had abandoned her here the way they had felt she abandoned the Riodhr? Would her family really have done that though, agreed to bring back her letters and then sneak away before she could finish writing them? In the midst of her hurt and confusion, the Serendipsticks had entered the scene. Cereus didnt know for sure what had happened with her cousins, but she knew she couldn’t return home to Seda. Not as long as it put her parents in jeopardy. Without a home to return to, Cereus felt lost and adrift. So when the Serendipsticks offered her a chance to ride back to Bral with them, she really didn’t know where else to go. Plus Bral had a great library she had always hoped to visit someday anyways. Maybe, she thought, Bral could turn out to be another stepping stone on my starry path. At this point, she didn’t have any better ideas.

(PS: Before boarding the ship with the Serendipsticks for their trip back to Bral, Cereus paid a newly docked traveler heading into Muraganda to bring her letters into Seda for her. She hasn’t received any correspondence in return, and she’s been pretty occupied with everything that’s unfolded for the Serendipsticks since. But whenever it’s time to rest and things quiet down for a moment, her first thoughts are always of her parents, of Seda, and of the ache of longing she still feels to commune with the trees and feel Sadahabr’s wisdom pour into her once again.)