The Storyteller

Arrival

The Storyteller, Rawina, was called to Firchardea by the great wizard Poetsfall of the Climantics. The Climantics were known for their tendency to settle while the other tribes were nomadic. Poetsfall wished to call forth a great warrior to save them from their enemies, the Huntics.

Not much is known about the way in which the wizard Poetsfall transported Rawina to Firchardea, but in the legend a great light was seen on the top of the wizard’s tower home and a being of pure light appeared into the sky, falling like an angle cast from the heavens. She fell onto the ground and was surrounded by an unearthly glow. The people were afraid of her and shouted for the wizard to descend from his tower to speak with the being.

The wizard came down from his tower and saw the being he had brought to their world. She was a woman with delicate features and a dress made of silk-like spider’s weave that barely covered her. The wizard took her in his arms and carried her into the tower. There he nursed her back to life.

As the wizard had meant to call one, in her first days she was called the Great Warrior. After she woke, she was met with the shock of arriving in such an extraordinary way to what was like a fairytale. The wizard treated her with a reverent fear that she found unsettling.

As she moved amongst the Climantic settlement, they would bow to her and look away paralysed with their terror of her origins. Rawina was highly intelligent and rational, a keeper of lore and mythology in her own world, a leader in her field of academia. For a while, she tried finding out a way to go back to her own world, though she was not inclined to as her life had not been a happy one. When the search turned out to be futile, she came to terms with the fact that she would have to stay and live, and could not do so as an ordinary person due to the way she came to the Climantics.

Some years, she had been known as the Great Warrior, but now she finally spoke to Poetsfall her name:

"I am Rawina, a storyteller. My words are powerful in this world and my deeds will change this world as they have changed mine."

In the writings, Rawina is portrayed as the Storyteller, even though she expressly called herself a storyteller. The division was made two hundred years after the Enlightenment, since the Storyteller was clearly different from other storytellers. It is also written in later history that the Storyteller always speaks some form of the truth and can never lie straight forward, when other storytellers can.

She agreed to deal with the Huntics, but denied the Climantics the use of an army, requesting she would go alone.

So in the spring, some years before the First King was chosen, Rawina the Storyteller set out from the Kingdom of Rainy Mountains and Sunny Forests where the Climantics lived, crossed the mountains and came to the Forests and Plains of Rich Hunting Grounds, lands that have always belonged to the nomadic Huntics. A Huntic can never live in one place for more than a few years without losing his mind. It was written to be so by the Firchardean God of Heaven.

Rawina was captured by the Fox Clan on the invisible border between the Climantic and Huntic lands. She walked into the Forest of Rich Hunting Grounds when a band of Huntics surrounded her with spears and arrows. Their leader came forth and asked:

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

She remained calm, introduced herself as Rawina, a storyteller, and asked to meet their leader.

He wanted to know Rawina's business with his clan leader, but she kept her silent, telling him it was only between her and his leader. They then took her to their camp, where the Fox Clan Leader, Gerar, was surprised to meet the seemingly young woman who wanted to speak with him.

He took Rawina into his tent and bid her to sit down on a piece of fur. He also sat and looked at her curiously.

"Why have you come here from the direction of the Climantic lands?", he asked.

"I answer to you as I answer to your men. I am Rawina, a storyteller from another world, o Leader of the Huntics."

He laughed.

"You know nothing about us, young one. I am only the leader of the Fox Clan."

Gerar was a very likable man. He was humble and polite like most of his tribe, but he was also humorous on a level that not many of his own people understood. Rawina and Gerar became great friends and for a few years she put aside the mission she had set out to accomplish. After a time, Gerar trusted her enough to take her to the Council of Clans and there she found it best to speak of the Climantic tribe's agenda. Rawina spoke of it first to Gerar and after he had heard what she had to say, he spoke of it in the Council.

"My fair lady Rawina has something to bring to our knowledge," Gerar said introducing her. The clan leaders were surprised. They had seen Rawina with Gerar and thought of her no more. The Huntics respected women, but rarely a woman took part in the politics as Rawina did. It wasn't easy to accept her as an equal, especially as she wasn't one of their own people. Huntics were all dark, but Rawina was blond.

"On behalf of the Climantics, your neighbors, I come to you with a troubling matter. The Climantics called me someone they thought of as a great warrior, for they are afraid that you will wonder to their lands and kill them in an attempt to make your kingdom larger. I have taken matters into my own hands since my help was requested and I find it important that you assure the Climantics' new king of your peacefulness that I have seen among your people."

"But the Climantics have no king," the Golden Bear Clan Leader objected to Rawina's plea.

"Not yet, my noble sir," she answered to him. "But as soon as I return, they shall."

"And why will thou maketh such a decision?" wondered the Black Deer Clan Leader.

"Their ways are different than yours. They build houses of wood and rock, unlike your tribe. If they have no shepherd to guide them, they will not think wisely. I hope to prevent war and they will start war because that is the nature of men. They will say: 'We act in self defense', but they will become greedy and want more land to be under their power. Then they shall have all of Firchardea under their power and they will become quarrelsome and fight amongst themselves until humans are no more than a memory. Power is scary and begs wise, sane people to hold it."

She spoke well to the clan leaders, appealing to their want for peaceful living, because after the Council of Clans went on their separate ways it turned out that Gerar had been commissioned to set his son as an ambassador to the Climantics and their new kingdom-to-be. Rawina and Gerar's son Beror traveled to the town-sized village in which Poetsfall's wizard tower was located. The village was named Poetfalls after the wizard.

It is written in the history of the Kingdom of Rainy Mountains and Sunny Forests that Beror, the first Huntic ambassador, and Rawina the Storyteller came to Poetfalls and lived with the wizard in his tower. After epic negotiations that would forever be secret, the three came out and declared that the Ambassador, the Wizard and the Storyteller were going to set a king to rule over all of the Climantics and their lands. The Three Powers traveled all around the land and finally found a young baby boy called Ashtaron that was going to be king. The Three Powers took Ashtaron, who was an orphan, and raised him to be the first king of the Climantics. Ashtaron and Beror became great friends and the young king was intelligent. Beror became more than an ambassador, he became the Advisor and Ashtaron set out a law that only those from the family of Gerar and Beror could be the advisors of the king of the Climantics. And Ashtaron set his capital as Poetfalls for it was between the Sunny Forests and Rainy Mountains.

And that is how Rawina the Storyteller became part of Firchardea.