Cordelia – Druid of Spores

The land of Grans, home of the small-folk, is renowned across central Tharador for its lavish and vibrant gardens. Seemingly ordinary to its locals, the well-tended and quaintly packed gardens of Grans provide a contrast to the cobble-stone and mortar cities that most surrounding lands have become used to. Brilliant hedges wreathed in thousands of different vines of flowers act as natural walls and barriers around the land, as well as the fencing between blocks of houses as well.

This was the land that Cordelia grew up in, and always she was fascinated with the majesty of these sights. Never did Grans appear in the adventure books she would read as a child, and only as a footnote in most historical books about the Draksborne Empire. Often she would explore the woods beyond her house near Grans’ outskirts, frolicking in the wild beauty that sprung there too – so different from the tamed gardens of her home.

It was here that she discovered her penchant for fungi, able to quickly and easily identify them at sight from her encyclopedic knowledge gathered from her many days and nights in the Grans Library. She came to know what went great in a stew, what would be great to brew a remedy of health, or death, and the many different affects that they would have. Spending so much time around them she came to notice that those she had planted in her house seemed to grow at exceedingly large rates, and her curiosity piqued. With more reading she discovered that she may have the innate powers of a Spore Druid, and finally confirmed it when she grew a mushroom to the size of a child right in front of her eyes.

Her parents, astonished, sent applications to Draksborne’s University of Canos and Belfrie’s University of Ardris. Belfrie came back more than willing to accept the young druid-to-be, so Cordelia at the tide of her youth left home to attend the University. She learnt many things of her powers there, guided by powerful loremasters, wizards and druids. After many years she rose through to became a well-respected and talented academic and druid. Wanting to learn more about the ecology of the World Trees (or Four Pillars as some call them) and of the wildlife around them, Cordelia penned a dissertation based around the unique species of fungi that grew in their shadows. She journeyed west to Brel Alda, south to Brel Harmen and then found passage on a Dwarven trade ship to the city of Halvoy in Alimroth, where she walked to Brel Vardra.

Though unfortunately for Cordelia, soon after her arrival Brel Vardra came under siege by the Alimrothi Military, and her passage home was blocked. Now she must face the industrial fires of the advanced human kingdom, for her kind are now wanted across all Alimroth.