Tiaumil - Questions of the Week

Question - What is your character's favourite childhood memory?

---

Situation - A new adventurer approaches your character, asking them for wisdom. What lesson does your character impart to the young person? [This could be a theoretical, something that actually happened or anything you feel fits here]

---

Question - What is something the party doesn’t know about your character? Is it something you wish they knew?

---

There are many people who claim to know Tiaumil.  Those that have travelled with him, who have traded with him, who have spent hours in revelry with him, and especially those who work with him.  All are likely to be of the opinion that Tiaumil's greatest character trait is his hunger for arcane knowledge.

This is a lie.

It is a lie he perpetrates, because no one wishes to show weaknesses to strangers, or even .  That is not to say that the trait is not one he has, for he does have a voracious hunger for arcane knowledge, spells, theories.  Yet that is not his greatest character trait.  While it influences his current path and life trajectory, in truth the one thing that is greater than this is Fear.

What it is he fears, and why, only one being knows the truth of this, and that is his patron.

Question - What does your character do to rest and relax after a hard day of adventuring?

---

In general Tiaumil doesn't do adventuring, at least historically.  But on the occasions he has gone out on something similar, it was for a specific purpose, usually to gather knowledge or spells that are new to him.  As such, when he returns, after having had a bath, some food, and generally put the events behind him, he will settle down with the items has has gained and delve into them, working late into the night by the light of many candles in order to scribe into his own tome what he has gathered.

Through this adventure many factions have made themselves know. What opinion does your character have on one (or more if you'd like) and how do they think they will interact with said faction?

1) The Dead Hand

2) The Court of the Bramble Queen

3) The Cult of Talos

4) The Lords Alliance

5) The Evergreen Conclave (or what remains of it)

6) The Heroes of Leilon

---

By and large Tiaumil has given little time or thought into the various factions.  He cares little for politics or warring factions unless he needs to extract something from them, or they offer him something significant to engage his attention.

I think he would be mostly irritated by the mention of the Dead Hand, mostly because it was their actions that had his patron lever him out of his comfortable and rewarding position in Candlekeep.  Likewise the Heroes of Leilon would certainly not have been on his radar if not for the situation they had got themselves into with the Dead Hand that he was now being sent to ensure they actually succeeded with.

The Evergreen Conclave on the other hand he does have some history with.  He was not alive when the Conclave was still around, but their history has echoed through his life in some ways.  His opinion on it is varied and changeable depending on his mood and what is specifically being mentioned.

The other factions he has had no real cause to care about.  Although he has gone out from time to time to gather more resources, spells, or knowledge, he is powerful enough that he has largely avoided being the target for any faction, or not for long enough that he hasn't absented himself when he grew bored with them. 

Situation - You are sleeping in a tavern - you are traveling alone. You wake hearing the room door that you locked creak open. How do you react?

(Feel free to be as detailed [spells used, things readied] or as vague as you want)

---

Tiaumil would not be surprised or caught unawares by the would-be intruders.  He always sets an alarm spell up no matter where he sleeps, but especially not in a place such as a roadside tavern.

With a soft sigh, not having been asleep, he would get up and merely wait for the door to open and the common bandit types rushed into his room.  They didn't take him unawares, and it had been a while since he'd had any opportunity to truly get in any practice with certain spells.  And so it was with a smile that seemed to unsettle the people that he stepped up close to them all, black sweeping up over his form until it lashed out in inky tendrils that decimated them in seconds.

Looking down at the fallen, he would rifle through their belongings but find nothing of interest.  With a sigh at the general smell, he looked to the one out of the three who had somehow clung to life.  A gesture and a few words from his lips and those eyes glazed over slightly.

"Take what remains of your companions out of my room and do not bother me again."

He watched dispassionately as the man struggled up from the ground, battered and barely clinging to life, but able enough when motivated.  Tiaumil had seen to that.  It wasn't long until he was alone in his room once more.  What a tedious interlude.

Question - What is your character's fondest memory of a celebration (religious/family/annual etc), or what are they most likely to do for enjoyment during one?

---

"Weddings," he would say without needing to consider it. "Weddings are by far the best sort of celebrations.  Young love, still in the vibrancy of hope, everyone determined to be joyful and either generous or wishing to show their position through conspicuous consumption."

The warlock gives a sort of wistful sigh, eyes watching the past rather than the present.

"There is always dancing and revelry, drinking and food, good music and abundance.  Yes, weddings are by far my favourite.  There are few cultures that manage to make them a dour time.  You do have to be careful to ward against pickpockets, of course, but that is the same for most places these days if you are a person of means.  Or even if you aren't."

Question - Write about a time where your character had the most treasure/coin and what they did with it.

---

Tiaumil considered the question for a long moment, absently lighting the long slender pipe with herbs as he did so, unhurried.

Question - Would your character keep their word no matter what? If not, what's their limit? What do they think of people who do (or don't do) so?

Optional: Think of a situation where your character's trustworthiness (or lack off) led to an interesting situation. Did it make you change your mind?

---

In general, Tiaumil will keep his word so long as it doesn't inconvenience him, or if there is a practical reason for him to do so, such as dire consequences for breaking his word.  He is less likely to give his word than merely talk his way around a situation and give a generally more ambiguous statement around it that someone cannot hold him to, though.  

He will continue to work for his patron and do what he is told by his patron because to not do so would both have a situation that is very detrimental happen to him, and it would not help his own wants and needs.  

His agreement to work in Candlekeep as a scribe is a different sort of agreement, for it is a give and take that he readily accepts and likes.  He does work for them, and he gets something he values back.  If he doesn't do the scribing for them, he will lose more than he gains from that.  There is no reason for him to go back on that agreement though, as it is a standing agreement that he can take time away from and come back to when it suits him, as his work is well established.

Outside of things like that, people should be more wary of trusting his word.  He is not a fae to be bound by such things.

Question - What’s one place your character has visited that they never want to return to and why?

---

The Shadowfell, because it is the Shadowfell.

A more detailed explanation is not given.

Question - What is one way that someone can earn your character's trust, or an event that did so in the past?

---

"What can I do to earn your trust?"

"Trust," the elf said, contemplating the person who had asked, pondering the word as he watched her.  She was one of the many people hoping to eventually make their way to Candlekeep, hoping to learn from the knowledge there, and hoping to gain Tiaumil's favour to help her do so.  If hope and enthusiasm was all that was needed, she would already have been there, but that wasn't the world they lived in.

"Trust is not something universal, nor should it be.  I may trust a shopkeeper to have decent prices, but I would not necessarily trust them to defend me in battle.  Trust is circumstantial, limited based on where it is found and with whom.  You wish for me to trust in you, but that likewise is limited.  You would not wish for me to trust you with a task you were ill-equipped to supply, for that would not end well."

He would pause and watch her, and she sat there and waited, knowing well enough the timbre and inflection of a teacher enough to understand her silence would be a boon currently.  She had insight and intelligence, but she did not have the experience or circumstances necessary to get what she wanted.  Yet.

"Reliability is the hallmark of trust," he continued, easing her into the conversation in a way that would linger with her, rather than alienating her.  She might well be useful in future, if she weathered the truths he was going to give her.  "There are many ways a person can be reliable.  They can say they will do something, and follow through on that successfully each time.  That would build up the notion of being able to trust someone with similar tasks.  But there are other ways.  Coercion and leverage can be used to cement a person's life alongside one's own.  A person is generally more trustworthy if they have a reason to push past their own wants to do so in your favour.  If I said to you 'I have what you need to get into Candlekeep, and I am the only person who can give you it, but you must do this distasteful task for me,' I would trust you more to do that task.  But there is also fear.  Fear makes someone reliable, if the fear is great enough.  People act in predictable ways when pushed to such limits, and that makes them reliable.  It is less effective than coercion generally, however, as it is a balance between despair and rebellion that is more given to influences outside.

"But I don't think your wish is for me to trust you, no matter your words, but to believe in you.  You wish for me to believe in the future possibilities that your presence could bring.  You see in me a gateway to where you wish to go, and hope that I believe in your usefulness and capability as an investment for the future.  What you have failed to realise, and this shows a detriment on your research abilities, is that it is not my word, given or taken, that would see you in Candlekeep.  It is material goods.  They are an archive that constantly hungers. In order to partake, you must first give something of like value, and without it you will never gain entrance.  I am not a trader in artifacts, Camila, I am a scribe, and the challenge of getting where you wish to go does not land on a word of mouth, although that will help if you have the necessary item to ask admittance with, but of planning and executing a way to get such an item.  Turn your attention there, and you will have a far greater success."

He looked at her, and could see the way she tried to hide how downcast his words had made her.  She had likely coasted through her early wizard training on such word-of-mouth, but her early schooling was over.

"Research the types of items they have typically accepted, and then plan and execute an expedition to find it, if you have not the coin to buy one of them, as most do not.  The land is filled with items of value, but finding and retrieving one that Candlekeep will accept, that is the challenge.  

"Now, unless you have something further to bring to my attention, I have work to do.  You can see yourself out, I trust."

Tiaumil would hum thoughtfully when posed the question, absently lighting a long bone pipe from a nearby taper while he did so, tiny intricate designs of leaves carved into the item that soon sent small curls of smoke from his lips.

"I would halt myself from eating the stew offered at an inn I stopped at some years ago.  I was ill for days in the aftermath, as were a number of others.  But other than the discomfort, my travelling companions at the time, who had been far more interested in carnal pursuits over eating that night, had to deal with some local nerdowells.  They were likely the same ones who had rendered the stew into the concoction it was in order to make thievery easy.  The problem was that my companions utilised one of my scrolls to do so.  Obviously the scroll burned away in the process, which ordinarily would have been fine, but it was one I had not yet transcribed, and I have never again found a replacement by which to do so.  A vexing situation that lingers."

He took another draw of the pipe, and although he was relaxed and at rest, there would be hints or at least memories of his more fearful visage while he recalled that loss.  It wouldn't last long, merely a moment or two, before he smiled, the image dispelled as he did so.

"I really need to find another vial of antidote on our travels, for that was indeed a rather displeasing few days."

You have all been in the Shadowfell for a couple days and the place is already leaving a mark upon you. Some of you have been here before but I am interested; how is your character finding the experience right now?

(Focus more on how you feel about the land rather than events that have happened)

—

Sitting in the camp in the ruins beneath the top layers of the Shattered Lands, Tiaumil looked down at the book on his lap.  Within it lay fears and living nightmares each time he opened it, ones that were all too easily realised now that he was there; once more in the Shadowfell.

He had never wanted to return here.  He had done everything he could, once upon a time, to escape it.  Every skill learned, every spell and scrap of knowledge plumbed, but nothing had worked.  Not until he had traded his soul and his servitude to a patron that had granted him that wish.  The Shadowfell wasn't easy to escape, even when you knew the exits, even when you knew the spells, and sitting there near their campfire with the spellbook of Ularan Mortus in hand, there was a part of him that still feared that.

Looking around at his travelling companions, he didn't think they truly realised what they were in for, in a place like Merdelain.  All of them but Arya had always lived on Faerûn, and so none of them could truly imagine the insidious threat that the land itself caused.  Oh, he had tried to warn them, in comments here and there, but the Shadowfell was like a slow drip of pain and hopelessness that slowly filled a person over time.  He had already seen the start of it in Siax.  Tempers would shorten, depression would set in, fears would escalate, retaliations and cruelties would seem more normal, more justified.  Siax had already pressed a dagger to Effie's throat when a stern comment would have done just as well.

He looked down at his own hands, laying on that book, his own tome resting against his hip, waiting for pages to be transcribed upon it, the pen tucked neatly in the groove made for it.  Centuries he'd used that pen to perform his task for Jergal.  Centuries he'd used the pen to stem his own cravings so as to not succumb to his very nature.  It had been almost easy to hold back those thoughts, the need, and focus only on the pain, the work, of using it.  But the Shadowfell breathed around him once more, so familiar, and he knew that he was perhaps the most likely to succumb to being what he had spent centuries trying to forget.  

Or perhaps he would be the most resistant, knowing what to look out for, having been brought up with that knowledge from birth.  Who could tell?  

He didn't think that his patron was deliberately cruel in his decision-making sending him in particular back here, but perhaps lacking in the empathy to choose another if Tiaumil was best skilled for the job.  Jergal wouldn't lose out, of course, no matter what struggles Tiaumil went through in his task.  In the end, he would get his soul, but that was also the reason that he'd agreed.  Even if he should perish there in the Shadowfell, the God of the End of All Things would collect.  He would not be left in this place, to be consumed or enslaved by others after death.

It didn't make it pleasant though.  There was little about Merdelain that was pleasant.  Knowledge, perhaps, was the only thing that it was good for in his eyes, and if he could help his patron end Merdelain for good?  Well, that had been the other reason he'd agreed, the other reason he'd chosen that God in particular when he'd made his deal.  What this place had twisted the elves into compared to what they had been in ancient history, it should not exist.  If Tiaumil could help his patron end Merdelain as a whole, that was a task he could get behind, especially when he could already see the start of the fall of the elves happen in front of him as Siax absented himself from the rest of the group.

Taking a breath and letting it out steadily to center himself, he opened Ularan's book once more.  Knowledge didn't transcribe itself, after all, and he would need to rest if he was to keep his mood temperate.  That, above all, was going to be necessary for all of them.

"Did you go to school when you were young?  You must have, surely, to be a scribe, right?  Where was it, Waterdeep? Neverwinter?"

In Candlekeep, Tiaumil looked up from where he had been absently listening to the young scholar who had taken up residence in his room during the remainder of their break.  The youth had been peppering him with questions that, when he was feeling more generous, he might answer.  But those particular questions were more than scholarly interest, more than learning.  It was about learning, certainly, but there was a curiosity there that hid a deeper threat of poorly hidden avarice for knowledge unearned.

"No," he said, not bothering to specify what he was denying, letting his gaze fall more fully on the annoyance in front of him, to better remember someone who wanted to raise in the ranks by any means possible.  All he saw was a poor attempt at looking innocent and curious.  Nothing to see there, the persona said, but it tasted like lies that Tiaumil was, amusingly, schooled to watch out for.

Schooling when he was young was not about books or writing.  It was about survival.  Childbirth was already rare in the Shadowfell, but made all the more catastrophically dangerous because babies and children did not know how to regulate their emotions.  They were creatures of feeling and needs, and that was dangerous for everyone.  That any children and families that managed to conceive them survived, was frankly astonishing.  They had some small magics to help, certainly, but there simply weren't the protections they had in the city.  Children brought danger to everyone.

So early schooling had been about having your needs met promptly, or managing them without complaint or distress.  It was about meditation techniques, about hiding, about knowing what to hide from.  If you survived to four years old, you got taught other things; of the physical threats.  The monsters.  Of the first training with weapons to see what small skill might be gleaned even from such a young age.  What you might learn proficiency with.  After that, well, you had to learn of other monsters.  Of the people.  Of the lies they told in every look, every gesture.  Of the cruelties and how to avoid them.  Of the word games, the dance of culture and society, of who to avoid and why, and who might be worth currying favour from.  They were taught to form groups of friends for safety, of never being out alone if you could help it, no matter what form the monsters took.

He let his gaze fall back onto the scrolls in front of him, ignoring the follow-up questions that came from the youth on the other side of his desk.  It had been a pathetic attempt at verbal prodding and investigation, and he wouldn't reward anyone for such a pitiful offering.  

Eventually, the youth left his room, and he focused more fully on the scroll in front of him.  He needed to copy several of these before his day ended, and he preferred the silence to the yapping of pups.

The situation with Ularan's spellbook lingered in his thoughts, remembered because while the book's defences and detriments had been overcome, Tiaumil was still paying for that helping hand, and would be for a while.  It was, perhaps, one of the first times that Jergal had ever granted him a deal, a piece of aid, that he did not feel to have been a particularly fair one.  An entire month undertaking scribing for the dead in the Shadowfell was not a small task, especially considering the fact that any decent cleric could have removed the curse from him.

And yet despite that, if he was ever in a desperate situation, it would probably still be Jergal he would reach out for.  Who else could he trust, after all?  His people were not given to trust; were taught not to rely on others and to always be wary.  Even after many centuries on the material plane, trust was not something he ever gave inherently.  Trust, even in small portions, had to be measured with a deal or a threat that could be relied upon to hold true.  The group he was travelling with would surely at least make some attempt to aid him, should he fall into trouble, but he did not know them well enough to trust them implicitly.  Everyone had lines they wouldn't cross for another, or reasons to withhold themselves whether moral or situational.  Only Jergal, who was beyond such concerns, could be relied upon, but only if there was a deal to be made.  That trust was always based on the transactional nature of their agreement, and he wasn't entirely sure that he could continue to afford those deals if removing one curse cost him a month's worth of toil.

It was just as well he was a lot more powerful than he had been the last time he'd been in the Shadowfell.  Hopefully he would not need to test out the group's ability to protect him, if they could avoid the worst of the trouble.  In truth, with what he had seen so far, it was far more likely they would rely upon his power and knowledge to see them safe.  That was, after all, one of the reasons Jergal had sent him with them in particular.