Asura — Roleplayer Guild

Nathaniel Brightwood

Who I Am

Nathaniel is the quintessential bard: charming, eloquent, and always just a little dramatic. He believes in living life to its fullest and without regret, his formative experiences teaching him a painful lesson in its fragility and transience. Such a belief has led him to a life of hedonism, something he is rather unapologetic about, though he never allows himself to devolve into uncouth debauchery, if only out of pride. For all the stories and songs he espouses of great heroes and mighty triumphs, Nathan is something of a cynic. He understands how the world works in actuality, and that there are never enough heroes to rescue every backwater from every owlbear. Perhaps that is why he's dedicated his life to singing their graces—to uphold the illusion that help is always just a horizon away.
My Story

Nathaniel's birth was something of a scandal in Ardenfeld at the time—while most children in the town were born of couples from the town, only one of his counted themselves among the populace. His mother, Sabitha Brightwood, served as the local tailor, and his father had been a passing adventurer of some sort. To hear it told, his father had been a brave man, who had left his lover and son to continue on his heroic journeys, saving damsels and battling evil witches and all the other tales that were spun to keep curious children from ruminating too much on the circumstances of their birth, or why gossipy hens seemed to whisper whenever he wandered the village markets. In the hindsight of adulthood, Nathan realized the truth of the matter, that he was the product of a simple fling, but as a boy, the stories had inspired him. He loved them, loved telling them, and when he was big enough, he wanted to travel the world like his father did, and come back home with first hand accounts.

Unfortunately, fate had conspired to crush that dream, in a way. Ardenfeld fell, and with it, Nathaniel was left without a home. He was shuffled off, like so many other surviving children, to the orphanage at Sarinan. Like most, he did not adapt well. To have his world view so thoroughly shattered left him melancholy and despondent—what happened at Ardenfeld wasn't how the songs went. The bad guys were never meant to win. The heroes always came and put them down and the townsfolk would cheer. He spent most of his days moping about the premises, taking what little comfort he could in practicing with the lute he had received for his eighth birthday, something to occupy his mind. 

That proved to be his salvation. During a paltry show of charity, the seneschal of the local lord noticed the boy plucking at his strings. The lord, as it was explained to him, had always been a patron of the arts, and kept his court well-staffed with musicians and storytellers. The tune Nathan had been diligently plucking away at since arriving at the orphanage was a favorite of the court, and perhaps out of pity or an eye for potential, the seneschal offered to let Nathaniel return to the court with him, that he may practice his skills in a more productive environment and make something of himself. While most joy had left his heart since, the opportunity to leave the oppressive atmosphere of the orphanage was more than enough for the young half-elf to agree. 

From then forward, he lived as a courtier at the lord's pleasure, serenading knights and ladies-in-waiting alike, honing his craft over the years. He traveled from castle to castle with his lord, seeing the world and indulging in all its beauty. Until the tenth anniversary of the sacking.
Going Forward

As far as Nathaniel is concerned, he has already gone forward. He's filled the void left by the loss of his home with song and stories and women and the world. His desires remain rather ethereal, shifting to-and-fro with his whims, a never-ending string of distractions to keep himself from plunging back into the melancholy that permeated most of his early youth. The return to Ardenfeld is an event he had tried long and hard to push out of his mind, kicked further and further down the road until he could no longer avoid it. In truth, he almost decided not to return, to simply allow the others to imagine he had disappeared entirely. Ultimately, though, honor won out over reason. He had made a promise to return, so return he would, to prove to them all (and in actuality, himself) that the shadow of the tragedy no longer hung over him.
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