PCs:Toova Ju'Eir

Overview

Name: Toova Ju'Eir
Race: Half-Dryad
Gender: Female
Age: Mid 20's
Class: Druid
Animal Companion: Juju
Faith: Verossa
Birthplace: Somewhere in Tyedu
Current Residence: Somewhere in T'Nanshi

Affiliations/Notoriety:

• Serves the Dark Trinity
• Consort of the High Priestess Francheska of the Second Circle

Description

Tall and slender with a pale complexion reminisces of a silvery oak. Her hair is cropped and free; in the color of the clouds or the leaves of her tree when they first bloom. Her eyes are the color of a mountain spring water, and a blissful smile always graces her lips. Now and then little leaf buddings appear in her hair.

It seems a small victory that she adapted to wearing clothes around others.

History

Toova was born to an overly possessive mother after a winterlong mating with a stranded hunter who found shelter in her grove. Her mother named her after what she desired most—a good daughter. Over the years, Toova was taught the ways of the Dryads and nature. Her mother taught her to commune with the trees and helped her plant her own Silvery Oak, making Toova believe that her life was entwined with the tree. This kept her from leaving the secluded grove, next to a nameless creek frozen for most of the year, in Tyedu.

When other Fey traveled and found the secluded grove, Toova was allowed to visit and speak with them but had to hold her mother's hand, even as a teenager. If men stumbled upon the grove, Toova had to hide in her tree without argument. As she grew older and bolder, she spied on them to understand why. She began to wonder if one of them was her father. Each time she brought it up to her mother, it was met with outrage and anger, fearing she would leave to live with men.

It was perhaps her seventeenth or twentieth winter when her life would change forever. Fall had shown all signs of being shorter than normal, and a harsh winter was upon them. The two made their preparations to survive the harshness. However, her mother, preoccupied with keeping her daughter in the grove and away from everything else, had neglected her own tree. Disease had set in: the leaves had yet to fall, and the once silvery bark was yellowing and weakening. The tree would not live through the winter, nor would it support her mother. Her mother showed the same signs of the disease, causing Toova a problem, as her mother's plan was for them to survive together within Toova's tree.

As her mother made the final plans, she retreated into her own sickly tree to gather the essence of the Heartwood from deep within, to use in the spring when she would plant a new tree. As her mother did so, Toova looked to the clouds and beseeched Verrosa to set her free from her mother and to remove the taint of disease from the grove. In turn, she promised to be Verrosa's instrument without question. With that, a single bolt of lightning came crashing into her mother's tree, splitting it in two and scorching it completely. She praised the curing of the grove and then merged with her own healthy tree.

The next spring, Toova emerged from her tree and was greeted with the rotting and decomposing remains of her mother and her mother's tree. She was pleased, as it had returned to nature and allowed new life. She tended to her own tree, and upon the first acorns forming, she picked them up and did as her mother was doing when the lightning struck. Once she knew the acorns would survive travel, she departed her mother's grove, where her mother's corpse and tree were decomposing and returning to nature, along a mostly frozen stream that still had no name, in the lands of Tyedu.

Beliefs on Nature and Verossa

Describing Toova as a zealot captures only a fraction of her devotion to Verossa. To Toova, Verossa embodies both life and death, having given her life by removing the unnatural taint from nature—her mother and her tree. On that day, Toova didn't merely accept Verossa; she came to see her as her mother. She follows the Storm Mother without question, fulfilling her desires. To her, nature must be free of the sickness and taint caused by people. Nothing angers her more than seeing crafters destroy a herd of stags for skins or cut down trees to make goods to sell. In Toova's eyes, people are the taint of nature and must be dealt with.

While Toova despises cities, towns, and villages, she has found a measure of respect for many in T'Nanshi for living in harmony with nature rather than destroying it. This isn't saying much, as she would love to be unleashed to destroy civilization and force a return to nature and harmony. Francheska holds her in check with the promise that day will come. What truly disgusts Toova is how some imprison nature for their own desires in wooden or stone structures that are unnatural to plants or animals.

Juju was such an animal. Captured and imprisoned in the city of Elysia, Juju had forgotten her true nature. Toova saved her from that life and taught her to embrace her true self and be one with nature. Since then, Juju has walked with Toova as a friend, not as an imprisoned and trained animal for others' amusement.

Ritualist and Blessings

Toova is known among Verossians for performing rituals including blood rites when it is required of her. These are not for public display but a private matter between her and Verossa. The blessings she bestows are never small or harmless. She is known to ask for destruction and destruction is given to her; with no concern for bystanders.

Illiterate

Toova doesn't read or write any languages as she does not need them. All her correspondence is read and written for her by a trusted Verossian sister. She speaks in a combination of low fey, tribal common, and a language that only she and her mother could understand. She is known to create druidic and fey runes to express her desires and feelings.