Caelynn Silverleaf

Raised as a poet and scholar, Caelynn learned the classic history of the Grey elves and embraced it fiercely. He often wondered why the other elves in the land seemed to dislike his race but at that time he put it down to their envy. His father, Jaenys, was the Minister of Agriculture for the city and as such was considered a minor nobleman. His mother was a teacher at the elementary school of wizardry, a place where young elves would begin to learn about magic and how to manipulate it. Caelynn had one sister, Ellenis, who was his elder by fifty years. Rumored to be among the most beautiful in the city, she had married an elder son of the Minister of Special Defense, the branch of the Celene Military, which commanded the awesome brigade of bladesingers.

Ellenis and Caelynn were very close, as is normal among elves. She saw in him the potential to be a great asset to his father’s political future as he was tall, strong and impressive in his appearance. He found politics boring, however, and secretly dreamt of becoming an adventurer roaming the lands outside the forest while gaining magic and power vanquishing the enemies of the elves. This ambition led him to storm out of a cabinet meeting against his father’s wishes one fateful evening, not realizing it would change his life…

His father had been opposing a bill, which denied other races, including other elves, from access to the eastern edge of the forest for agricultural expansion. Jaenys had a majority of the cabinet members’ votes but the night of the secret ballot, he unexpectedly dropped his opposition to the bill after a private meeting with his wife. Caelynn could not understand what would make his father stand down like that, as he was always a proud and honorable elf and he failed to see the pain in his father’s eyes when he spoke harsh words to him before storming out. To this day, only his parents (as well as certain others) know the truth [here you may insert what you want as the secret that was used to blackmail his father into backing down, I was thinking that maybe Caelynn had a different father, hence his strength and height, when his mother was visiting at another Grey elf city. They never told him but someone found out and used it against Jaenys].

The next day Caelynn applied to the Academy of Bladesingers and moved to his own quarters near the Academy. His relationship with his parents was shaken although it soon returned to normal after Caelynn immersed himself in his training and forgot about the world of politics. For the first time, Caelynn felt in his element. Always chided by his family for being so tall and strong, he now became the fiercest warrior, a whirlwind of shining silver with his sword. As is normal training for bladesingers, he spent half of his time training magically; learning offensive spells to best aid his fighting prowess. On border patrols, he was noted to be courageous, cunning and fearsome. Among the bladesingers in his unit, who had taken to calling him Orcsbane after he almost single-handedly destroyed a unit of twenty orcs and their leader, he became the unofficial leader and spokesman. However, the bladesingers are highly hierarchical and the fast rise of this brash young bladesinger was found to be unacceptable to many of the senior officers.

Caelynn was nevertheless promoted to lieutenant after only twenty years in the service. His conquests were numerous and his future was very bright. Unfortunately, as is Caelynn‘s way, he was very outspoken at briefings and officer’s meetings and he vociferously disagreed to many aspects of Grey elf society. Believing in reaching out to extend the Grey elf power base and even to ally with the other elves (whom he was very curious about actually) to destroy all evil in the land, he often found himself disagreeing with his orders. On one occasion, he discovered an evil drow encampment located near the edge of Grey Elf lands. Very disturbed by this, he reported it to his superiors although he already knew what his orders would be: continue to observe the encampment and under no circumstances attack them unless they enter Grey Elf Land. By this time, the war against Elvandar was well known and Caelynn bristled as his people stood by and watched as another beautiful elven city fell to the foul black elves. After hearing of the fall of Elvandar, he secretly led his unit to the encampment and laid waste to it. The battle fought was a hard one and Caelynn lost three of his twenty men although the drow only numbered ten. He came to realize that there were very many powerful enemies out there and orcs and goblins were simply fodder.

When he returned from the raid, he was severely reprimanded for his actions and there was talk of a court-martial. However, public opinion seemed to be wavering as the people learned of Caelynn Silverleaf and his beliefs. Thus, instead of a court-martial, the decision was to send Caelynn on an expedition outside the borders of Celene with any members of his unit who chose to go with him. He realized this was a way to get rid of him but the prospect of leaving the city and seeing the rest of the world was too great and he chose to leave. All of his remaining unit accompanied him.

As soon as he and his men left the forest, they were waylaid by a large force of drow. Half of his unit was lost in the ambush and the rest, including him, were taken prisoner and taken into the underdark. He learned over the next weeks that the magic-using prisoners were to be sent further down with human mercenaries while the others were simply kept by the dark elves to be taken to their city to be enslaved, tortured or killed. His moment of escape came when his simple-minded human captors stopped to rest on their first night. He magically unlocked his wooden cell and then aimed a weak, thin arm at the captors’ tent. A moment later it was engulfed by a ball of brilliant white flame that burnt them to cinders. After freeing the other prisoners, he sent his remaining men back up to the city to report the news. Fearful and also curious as to the stories he had been hearing about what was happening in the city of the Glass Pool and beyond, he decided to venture on. It was a few days later that he met the rest of the Scourge of the Underdark; Gorath, Tempus, Tanamier, Akira, Griften and S’Thiss.

• dancing, flowers, singing, spinning, twirling, laughing
• Highlight #2
• Highlight #3

• Delivering the plans for the Towers of Domination to Queen Yolande
• Detonating a Fireball spell on himself and subsequently blowing up his Necklace of Fireballs, killing Tanamier
• Shaving his head and asking to be referred to as that Star Trek guy