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A sketch of a young Tel Than, when he was still known as "Groaner".

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Age:
Tel Than is roughly 800 years old.

Species:
Tel Than is an enchanted Olive Tree.

Title:
Eld Uum
[Old Thinker – Sage]

Job:
Philosopher & Court Healer
Tel Than is a prodigal healer which was practically grown for the job. While things didn’t go exactly as planned, he’s still on the castle grounds, and his olives (on top of being tasty) are great for one’s health. Because he is a tree, and cannot move, he reads a lot, and over the years has digested enough philosophy to talk about it at length.

Powers:
Ren Than
The olives which grow from Tel Than are more than just a healthy snack.



Oul Than
The roots which run underneath Tel Than are mostly peaceful.



Likes:
Sunshine
Rain
Reading/Being read to
Esoteric lore
Plants
Water
Conversation
Clean air
Art
Music
Healthy soil
Teaching

Dislikes:
Axes
Lumberjacks
Bad soil
Being unable to turn the page in books
Deforestation
Nosy squirrels
The fact that he cannot move
Explaining his perceptions to people
Bad writing
People who misinterpret his teaching
Too much sun
Monsoon season
Fire
Winter

Talents:
Tel Than is a very talented speaker, especially given the fact that he is a tree.
He is a very skilled teacher.
He creates poetry in his down time.
He can predict the weather.
Given his long lifetime, he has lots of advice.
He is very well-versed in the lore of the world, even esoteric lore.

Personality:
For a tree, Tel Than is very impatient. He hungers for knowledge insatiably, and gets anxious when he is not learning or teaching. He does not display this impatience directly, preferring a guise of stoic contentment, but the truth is that he is fearful of his mortality. It’s a strange thing for a tree, fearing death, but it is a part of who he is. While he loves to converse with people, he is very hesitant to reveal much information about himself, but from the way he speaks of ideology, politics, and the like, it is clear that his branches stretch to the sun itself. He is also very ashamed that he did not live up to his intended purpose, which is why he is so devoted to fertility magic. When Tel Than was first learning to speak, and understand, language, he was taught an esoteric dialect, which he still sprinkles into his speech. When he is not talking, and his thoughts are not too heavy, he occasionally hums to himself. The melodies are not any music that has been written, but they are clearly untrained. While he expresses a desire to learn musical theory, he does not believe he has found someone that would fit his style.

Background:
Tel Than was planted during a famine, an experiment by a Runelord to provide food unending to those who needed it. When he was still a seedling, his shell was delicately carved with a series of fertility symbols which read, “Bless this one’s growth”. Of course, the vague statement allowed much more room than mere agricultural interpretation. The seed sprouted quickly, grew quickly, and the like. While it worked, it did not provide the infinite food that the Runelord had hoped for, and so it was passed on to the ruling king instead.

Tel Than’s could not be kept in a pot for long, his growth being rampant, and so he was planted in the courtyard, and his bark was engraved with symbols to slow his growth. He was lucky to preserve the growth of his intellect, but found himself disappointed that he could no longer imagine the day when his olives would rain from the sky. His intelligence went unnoticed by most, and he feared that he would expire before it was. And so, he tried his best to understand the language of the flesh.

Understanding the language of the flesh was difficult. They had mouths, he did not. They gnashed sound together with tooth, tongue, and lip. He lacked these things, and could barely understand the concept. He moved his leaves as he thought their lips would move, but it did not work anything like they would. He could rustle them ever-so-slightly, but it was meaningless when it came down to it. He rustled to try garnering attention, but most people attributed it to the wind. Of course, he was baffled when the wind was nowhere to be found. He developed patterns next, but none would hear him out. He groaned, and whatever latent energies within him were released. It was not much, but it was audible, and it brought a few heads to investigate. And of the heads he reared, none found him. He sighed at the fact, and allowed a rumble through his bark once more. Again, a few more heads, but no willing ears. It was this way for some time, and he even earned the nickname of “Groaner”, which he hated.

“Groaning Olives” became a delicacy in the castle, as his dedication to sorrow instilled a bitter flavor into his produce. This proved to be the catalyst to understanding, as he now had a regular attendant. Occasionally the attendant would speak to Tel Than, expressing some of the woes of his life. Occasionally, he would rustle his leaves contentedly, sometimes even dropping an olive onto the attendant’s head. They never would quite understand one another, but the time they spent together taught Tel Than the value of the flesh, and so his resolve was strengthened.

When the attendant perished, Tel Than let out his loudest groan. He was quite upset about the whole thing, and the combined woes of his situation fled from him. It was a visiting Magus who discovered the source of the groans, and so it was that the Magus gifted Tel Than with speech. His voice was unnatural, and hard to wield. All he was taught was to control his groaning: the temper, the pitch, the velocity, and so on. His voice was, and still is, unlike anything flesh can produce, wheezing, and sighing with the stretching of bark.

With voice in trunk, he could learn, he could ask questions. He became apprentice to the Magus who gave him voice, but did not follow his path. Instead, he chose to pursue fertility, in honor of his attendant friend. He wanted to surround himself with life, so that he would not have to groan anymore. His olives stopped coming in so frequently, but they were much worthier of the delicate status they were given. Soon, he had turned the courtyard into a place of beauty. He stands tall enough now to see over the walls of the castle, and is constantly lost in thought.

When his Magus friend passed away, he requested to be buried underneath the tree, and the curious Tel Than could not help but letting his roots try to extract the knowledge within his former friend. What he learned appalled him for a time, and he wondered how much of their relationship was built upon lies. But after a few oliveless years, he understood that who his friend was before did not matter, and that he appreciated him for who he was. Of course, he refuses to speak of what he learned, though if pressed about his necromancy (which he is hesitant to admit to in the first place), he confesses that the two things are related.

Regardless, Tel Than is regarded as a superb healer. His constant communication with mages of any sort, as well as his history as a part of the castle, has earned him some degree of respect. In the few hundred years since his teacher of language died, he has had much room for studying Biomancy, as well as elaborating on the hints of Necromancy he knows. While he’s managed to have a few people read books to him on the subjects, much of what he knows is self-taught, and so his magic is rather unique. Then again, Tel Than himself is a rather unique specimen.