Rhaguel the Feral Shapechanger, Pariah of Hillcrest

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Role

Chapter 1

He sits, curled up in his tiny burrow beneath a rock in the Weald, watching
the gloom of night darken the trees. The creature is quietly agitated--
tugging and twisting at his beard and dreadlocks, pawing at the clay with his
thick, dirty nails, softly mumbling and yowling and chirping to himself...

... perhaps Skryth was right. Perhaps I am not as pure as I thought...
perhaps I still haven't escaped the mental leash, the cage of the heart I
thought I'd fled...

(as he swore his allegiance in the Harbinger's presence to fight for
Thar-Eris and all her children, something unexpected came rushing and
blurting out of his mouth: "And may my life be stripped from me if I falter
or fail")

... spoken like a true Imperial. *yowl* This life of mine is a gift, is it
not? How could I swear to give up my precious life? It is that which defines
me, for without life there is no spirit...

The small beast quickly gobbled a handful of mushrooms he'd been hoarding,
and, with a new determination, abandoned the burrow in the Weald. He was
going to grow and molt, slough off all the still-hidden limiting
thought-patterns and "objective" worldviews, and leave the gnome Rhaguel shed
behind, just an empty, opaque vessel that society had tried to fill up. He
was heading towards harder places: the cruelest and merciless foes he could
find to hunt and fight, he would search out the harshest climates, to learn
to adapt, to evolve. With the strength of his spirit, and the blessing of
Sebeok, his instincts will finally dominate...

Role

Chapter 2

He travelled with elves, he travelled with anti-paladins, he cleared crazed
forest-torchers from the wretched ashes of the Forest of NoWhere, he plowed
through the musty crypts below Arkham, and he tasted the hearts of dwarves.
He remembered the few entries on the ancient Sebeok the Omnipresent he
learned in his past life... had heard whispers in the trees, and felt strange
pangs and stirrings in his heart. He saw blood on the boles of the trees, and
dead lawmen cut open to fertilize the ground. He saw the fires in town, and
heard the screams of anger at the Outlander brigands.... things were in
motion.

The only thing that puzzled him, that gave him pause, was after he had joined
a taglo-hunting party. With his regular gnomish neutrality, he had never
thought to examine his views of non-sentient creatures that had a moral aura,
that weren't balanced and neutral. They weren't balanced, so it wasn't a bad
thing to hunt them right? The experience and physical power he gained from
the kill and the consumption were part of the balance, the circle... right?
He frowned deep within his wild, dirty beard as he meditated in the
Silverwood, freshly clean by rain.

... I don't know whether bolstering universal balance is so important to me
anymore, but regardless of whether an animal is "evil" or "good"... I don't
care. It's a beast, and a beast in danger from the steel traps, pits, and
hunting parties from the ever-growing cities...

If I am going to be the beast I am meant to evolve into, I need to emulate
the animals, not slay them... I need stronger, smarter quarry... I need to
stop the spreading of cold logic, of sentient beings and their blocks of
stone wrenched from the living rock. I will hunt the "higher" *snort*
creatures, and my fangs will grow ever sharper. I will seek to know Lord
Sebeok, that I may hunt the path of perfection... I will seek these
Outlanders, for in the confederation of a pack there is nurturing and
strength...

He remained wary, however. He knows the duties that come with a pack, as
well, the obligations. He knows about roles that workers, drones, breeders,
and alphas play. I must be careful, if I do associate with them, or join
their band to NOT be confined...

Role

Chapter 3

So he ranged to and fro in the wilds, as he willed. Eating, killing,
sleeping, sunning himself, exploring as he wished. Eventually, he came to.
His gnomish personality returned, he began to recall dimly the details of his
life... only patches here and there. Not even his surname. He shrugged. Who
cares? He continued, delighting in fulfilling his senses with simple
visceral, but real and concrete, experience and pleasure. Mountain streams to
wade in, sunny meadows to bask in, other free creatures to study, to eat, to
accompany. He is growing lonely, as he knows many animals have societies and
packs... he doesn't want to go back to the grey shadows he was once enslaved
by... He has seen the destruction of the land, he has felt Thera's pain
through his shock at the alien, unearthly damages.

He is a very feral gnome, trying to rebuild his mastery of the magical
school of shapeshifting. As he ranges, lives, and fights, more and more of
his former training comes back to him as instinct, as intuition. His spirit
is finally free, unchained by the ridiculous traditions and restraints of his
former culture. He no longer views himself as a gnome... not really. He is
just himself, with no strings attached.

Role

Chapter 4

He studied all his life, he could shift quickly and perfectly, he was an
expert on all manner of animal lore, he was gifted, he was brilliant. Rhaguel
was next in line after the aging (and mentally atrophying) Master Warritz to
be Master Shifter of the Gnomish Academy and Fellowship of Magi. He had
always wanted to be a shapeshifter, he had read all the histories of the
famed ones, even non-gnomish shifters, and learned of the possibilities for
depravity and corruption, or sentimental morality embraced by shifters of
other races.

His love was simple-- as a child, he had always ranged far and wide, to his
mother's unending worry, in the woods and wild lands, observing the animals
and insects in their natural habitat, in their natural play and hunt, the
primal struggle for survival. He disliked being small and weak, he never
fully appreciated his own considerable mental gifts, many said, and wanted to
possess the grace and power of the animals. And something else, too... they
didn't have to live in houses, or wear clothes, or be nice to stuffy old
guildmasters...

So he rose quickly in his guild, and the further he climbed, the more
disquiet grew within him. He would often abandon his studies prematurely to
go to the quiet places he had found in his youth, and meditate, just enjoying
the sun moving on his face, the wind in his ears, the buzzing of insects and
trills of birdsong. This was true wisdom, he thought, here is MY happiness.
So his studies lagged, he began to show infrequently to classes, if at all.
His appearance began to show less care (if by that, you mean walk about caked
in filth), and he would rave to his few close friends about the
spirit-crushing nature of the city, of academia's white tower, of endless
study and books...

Then one day, he lost it. He was a true beast. He threw off the shackles of
"civility" and bounded, free and radiant, into the wilds. He always was an
odd (but very lovable, they hastily added) gnome, his friends and family
reminisced at a memorial service they held. He had an uncommonly sharp mind,
seeing through people's unconscious intentions, to their heart of hearts,
slicing through fallacious and circumlocutious logic swiftly and surely. He
was noble, in a peculiar way, they agreed. His no-nonsense style and
realistic approach were refreshing in the classroom, his professors agreed.
If only we could have noticed and cured his illness before it warped his
mind...

Role

Chapter 5

"Well," sputtered Wiskengrael sadly,"this is what's left of the room."
They were stunned. A gathering of 4 of the most prestigious, most learned,
most brilliant gnomes looked at the large (by gnomish standards), opulently
furnished (by anybody's standards) room with expressions varying from quiet
shock, to disgust, to incomprehension on their small faces. Their esteemed
colleague, Rhaguel, had been exhibiting signs of disturbance lately, but he
had submitted to an interview and assessment by two prominent transmuters,
who had pronounced him, with some perplexity, more sane than any gnome they
had ever studied, which directly contradicted the scene they now surveyed:
furniture broken to matchsticks, humble (but finely woven, and terribly
expensive!) robes shredded to fluff and arranged in a common mammal-nest
formation, all the fine books, artworks, trinkets and precious knick-nacks
piled in the middle of the room, and defecated upon. On the wall to their
immediate right, was scrawled, in crazy, looping letters (very unlike the
famous shifter's decisive and careful penmanship) "He who makes himself a
beast, gets rid of the pain of being a gnome." They looked through the wreck,
salvaging a few tomes and devices not chewed upon (or worse), and slowly
filed out, shaking their heads. The invoker, last in line, took a final look
at the mayhem, and tried to understand-- what made him break? He had it
all...
He muttered the incantation (Rhaguel wasn't coming back to Hillcrest, that
much was obvious),and the flames began to devour the now-mysterious dwelling.
In the surrounding wilds, one pair of nostrils sniffed the caustic smoke, one
pair of bright eyes watched the blue-black plumes twist into the heavens...

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