Loofen Sorthe Jezby was born before the Ash Dawn, a middle child in the House of Jezby, known for producing excellent diplomats and merchants but very rarely wizards of any talent. His father Amaloo was a talented ambassador who funded the best possible education for his children in order to follow in his footsteps, including tutors from the Fire and Starlit Creeds and the Kingdom of Asra. He was the third of the four Jezby children.
His eldest sister Chessa showed a fondness for elves of the Fire Creed even as a child. She befriended the daughter of the Blazing Expanse’s ambassador to the Dappled Haven at an early age. Their intimate friendship shaped the trajectory of her career, and her first appointment was deliberately to the Blazing Expanse, many years before the Ash Dawn. Intelligent, well-spoken, and beautiful, her presence on the Blazing Expanse as a public speaker and a writer attracted a following among the youth. Her philosophy of harmonious love was strangely attractive to the warrior culture of the Fire Creed, and, combined with her beauty, developed Chessa a celebrity status there. She was not heard from leading up to the events of the Ash Dawn and is presumed dead.
His next brother Lazud pursued an unexpected talent for magic that doubtlessly came of his mother’s blood. He advanced within the Strawberry Creed’s magical society the Nettles, and still serves as a liaison for the Dappled Haven with the Order of Arcanum. The youngest of the four Jezbies, Amap, abandoned his formal education to descend below and live among the Starlit Creed in Nimruil; he enjoys a life of leisure and dalliance there without regular contact with his family or homeland.
The environment of the Dappled Haven during Loofen’s childhood was one of outgoing friendship with the Kingdom of Asra. Loofen was still young when the Ash Dawn blotted the sun and coated the spires of the city like gray snow, when the battles began, and the human visitors from Asra dwindled and disappeared. His eldest sister lived in the Blazing Expanse; his elder brother, with the wizards; and his younger brother, a troubled teen by elven standards, had already departed to the darkness below. He and his parents faced the diplomatic burden upon their family together.
Loofen came of age in a changed and broken world with all his siblings departed. He had been groomed and educated for diplomacy and leadership without foresight of such doom, but his childhood fascination with the Asra people and culture drove him to make connections in the burnt ruins of their homeland. With the blessing of his father, he arranged missions to travel with scouts and rangers, seeking out groups of survivors in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
His missions brought different cross-sections of Asra society back to the forests of the Dappled Haven as refugees. Rich and poor, warrior and farmer – all were equally wretched under the holocaust of their accustomed world. Loofen worked over a decade to preach an egalitarian doctrine among the refugees, temporarily settled in the Strawberry’s forests, before sending them back into the regrown ruins of their homeland. At the same time, Loofen learned of the role that his kin the Fire Creed elves had played in the Ash Dawn. A grief and shame grew in his heart for his people’s betrayal, who had sent no armies into the conflict; but also for his sister’s disappearance. He felt a dreadful, angry guilt against the Fire Creed alongside a heavy responsibility towards the Asra Refugees, offering them the Strawberry’s doctrine of harmony.
Loofen believed sincerely in his teaching during that decade – a mere undergrad class for an elf, even if a generationally defining period for humans. He fathered five half-elves during that period with two different mothers, one noble and one common. All the children were anonymously funded by the House of Jezby while the Asra refugees were resettled after their decade of refuge in the Dappled Haven’s forests. Their lineage is traced by several noble lines in Lahan to the present day; although the name Jezby was erased by both elf and man. Loofen bore a significant and secret impact on the present-day Lahan, both politically and genetically.
During the period of Asra resettlement, Loofen met his wife Aster Tulusep of the Nettles. They shared a maternal great-grandmother, the bloodline most likely responsible for Aster’s and Lazud’s talents, as well as a compassion towards the broken world beyond the Dappled Haven. Loofen and Aster worked together for many tired years to ensure human stability in Lahan before returning to their home forests. They bore a first son, Labriz, who showed a great talent for magic and went to the Nettles.
Generations of man passed, and the scorched earth regrew. Refugees and migrants from a number of cultures resettled Lahan and formed a patchwork of balkanized kingdoms. Over time, the nurtured human relationship with the Dappled Haven dwindled, and the doctrine of the Strawberry Creed faded in old texts studied only by philosophers and scholars. Loofen travelled less and less abroad in a region that fell to petty disputes over resources, territory, and power. Commerce flowed along with violence; diplomacy did not.
The Order of Arcanum and the Starlit Creed of Nimruil were the first to discern the approach and inevitable trajectory of the Wandering Island, separately. The Order used the knowledge to work amongst the numerous factions in Lahan with a mind to uniting them, and halting the Island’s progress permanently for research. On the other hand, the Starlit Creed considered it sacred, and felt fondness for its strange goblin inhabitants. The Order of Arcanum prepared to assault the Island while the Starlit Creed prepared to defend it.
The Strawberry Creed first learned tangentially through the Nettles of the Wandering Island’s trajectory, due to that group’s regular contact with the Order. They learned also of the Order’s missions to bring together the human patchwork in and around Lahan to stand against it – although their plans to utterly halt the Island remained secret. Loofen, driven by his life of work with the humans, went out to assist the unification, along with his wife Aster, son Labriz, and brother Lazud, all influential Nettles.
Starlit Creed elves from Nimruil had already begun surgical assaults in Lahan: disrupting supply lines, damaging outposts, and spreading fear. The Strawberry’s growing involvement with the unification eventually brought them into conflict with these raiding parties. Humans were not always able to differentiate between elves, either, and the raiding hampered Strawberry diplomacy in a number of ways.
Nimruil appointed Ereevia Ecthel as Ambassador to the Above during this time. Her appointment was made partly due to the influence of Amap Jezby, who advocated for his people to be given the opportunity to prepare. She first met Loofen in the forests of Lahan, just as violence between his entourage and a Starlit raiding party was about to erupt. Fortunately, a diplomatic dialogue blossomed instead.
It was the first of many meetings. Loofen counselled for peace, for unity, and to help the humans not be ruined by the Wandering Island. Ereevia counselled for elven solidarity, the sacredness of the Wandering Island, and to never trust the Order of Arcanum. They seemed to reach an irreconcilable stalemate and the situation grew close to a boil with the impending approach of the Wandering Island.
Ereevia invited Loofen to meet her atop the Wandering Island along with the goblins there, imploring him to learn the truth. The Goblin King Gavlax showed them the records they had from the Order of Arcanum detailing their research and plan to halt the Wandering Island in its tracks. It was impossible for Loofen to deny the sacredness of the Wandering Island after touring the exotic wilds on its back with Ereevia: he perceived that stopping its passage would be blasphemous. The plan she suggested, on the other hand, meant a complete betrayal of his human allies, the subjects of his life’s work. The choice was immensely difficult: but Loofen decided that avoiding violence among elves was more important, as was preserving this truly sacred force of nature. The humans could be convinced to withdraw and resettle, he thought.
After the meeting, Loofen gathered his wife, his son, and his brother to share the information, and persuaded them to follow Ereevia’s treacherous scheme. They too were shocked to learn of the Order of Arcanum’s full plans. Aster had worked with Loofen during the days of the Asran refugees, and felt some of his sympathy towards the humans who would be abandoned; his brother and son, less so.
Ereevia bore a child from Loofen at this time, whose story is not known to the Strawberry Creed. Their diplomatic dialogues were lascivious from the beginning. Very likely, Loofen speculates, the child was conceived on the Wandering Island. This part of the story was kept secret even from his wife, Aster.
The tale of the destruction left by the Wandering Island has been amply told already. Afterwards, the Dappled Haven turned inward, forsaking diplomacy with other elf and man alike. Official records of the events were altered; the truth was buried deeply. Loofen was stripped of his role as diplomat and the House of Jezby reduced in its noble stature and august dignity as a result.
After the War of the Seven Tears, Loofen and Aster bore another son: Fonlap, who took after his father greatly in charm and social skills. Loofen even instructed his son to go among the young Strawberry elves who advocate for reconciliation with the Lahanites, slurringly nicknamed the Fasookies, and brought him on a “field trip” of sorts to the Seven Tears, that very site of wholesale grief and slaughter. Fonlap seems promising and remains a source of hope for the restoration of both the House of Jezby and future relations with the Lahanites... even other elves.