Category: Akron

Wywold Sanctum, Renvar Point, Akron

2019-12-06

An illustration of a lonely respite by the sea. This particular place is located near the Wywold fishing village facing north towards the open sea of Akron Bay. A place of solitude and meditation Wywold Sanctum has been in near constant use for over three centuries. The sanctum is hard to reach. One would have to travel many kilometres from the nearest village Wywold in harsh rocky marshland in which horses are of no use and pack animals falter. Renvar Point is an inhospitable island at the northernmost tip of land when one has taken a direct north-east course from Wywold through thick woods and marshland.

But still the place has been travelled to by adventurers, common people and royalty alike for legends say that the sanctum is sacred and magical. It is said that whoever comes here for prolonged times of quiet and peaceful meditation and truly repents their doubtful deeds will find spiritual benefits. Old wives’ tales or not, the place will still grant beautiful and serene ocean view for the weary traveller.

The sanctum is not maintained by anyone nor are there any servants to attend to your needs. There are common sleeping rooms capable of housing about a dozen people at any given time and two large meditation chambers; one at the ground level and a smaller one at the second floor with vast thick windows offering a panoramic view of the surroundings. The place is usually rather damp because of the ocean but for some strange reason the entire Renvar Point island is hardly ever windy even if the ocean’s fury is at it’s mightiest just around the next cliffs. This phenomena can not quite be understood even by the hardy fishers of nearby Wywold who have generations of quiet knowledge of the adverse weather conditions of the sea.

 

Merlyn Merrick

2017-08-29

A fantasy character illustration for any fantasy -themed role-playing game settings. Initially designed for my own fantasy -themed world Cresia.

 

Name: Merlyn Merrick
Race: human
Location: Port Magalie, Witchlight Strand, Akron

Merlyn Merrick is an experienced adventurer with a base of operations at The Wyvern’s Nest Inn in Port Magalie where he is a regular and well-liked patron. Merlyn is a stout and easy going fellow with a hearty laughter and a jolly attitude towards life in general. He has a low, booming voice and a self-confident demeanor with which he uses it. However, he isn’t disrespectful to others and knows when it is time to listen and when it is time to speak up. Whatever the case, he does have a tendency to laugh out loud even when it is really not that appropriate; like when quietly following a group of orcs in the Bloodspires and you see one of them tripping over on a rock.

Stealthy operations are not his forte. Neither are operations where tight or narrow locations are to be expected. Nor is he especially useful if careful diplomatic cornering is going to be on the menu. But he is the perfect companion to have around for your average everyday wilderness survival needs, heavy lifting needs and jolly company. Merlyn is at home in the woodlands of Witchlight Strand and is well acquinted with the harsh terrain of the Bloodspires. He knows numerous safe off-the-trail locations that are ideal for secure and comfortable nights in the open and good for prolonged stays should there be a need to lay low for a while. He is in good terms with the elven people of Liaglades and knows ways to keep them from interfering whilst traveling through their lands. Even some notable hobgoblins and goblins of the Bloodspires region consider him as their friend and allow him and his traveling companions some leeway usually not reserved for humankind.

 

 

Miranda Lef, Enchantress

2012-02-09

Name: Miranda Lef
Race: human
Location: Port Magalie, Witchlight Strand, Akron

Although the practitioning of magical arts is frowned upon in many countries and truly feared and loathed in many rural communities, Witchlight Strand historically has a more liberal standing on the issue. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that the area houses many elven tribes who see magic only as an extension to nature’s might and thus have a long and natural history with magic. Miranda Lef currently lives in Port Magalie and she has become known as a promising enchantress. She lives in the center of the city with her house situated on a cliff facing the dock ward and the river. She lives by herself in a rather spacious cabin that now also serves as her shop aptly named Miranda’s Majicks – a recent effort for her to establish a better income by publicly providing enchanting services.

Miranda specializes in items easing the life of travelers such as abnormally long-burning candles, special torches, magical sticks with which to start fires, salves to ease pain and such. She hasn’t got a huge array of items available at any given time, but instead she has cultivated a clientele who order things from her and collect them once finished. Sometimes these clients don’t show up and so Miranda has accumulated a small array of items on her shelves waiting for potential buyers.

Miranda is kind and good-spirited in nature, but she has a bit of a temper. Although she isn’t very competent in matters economic, her little shoppe is providing enough for her to make a decent living. Much of her extra money goes to new clothing items and jewelry – both of which she has amassed by the coffins in her home. An outgoing, liberally thinking and actively social woman Miranda has still not yet found herself her soul-mate with whom to share her life with. Although she isn’t in any way a practitioner of witchcraft, her status as a single woman meddling with magic has raised an occasional whispered sentiment of resentment and suspicion even in the more liberal Port Magalie. Good for her that witches are not actively pursued and burned in Witchlight Strand!

 

Kembo Ree, A Rogue in the Night

2017-03-18

A character illustration for any fantasy-themed role-playing game setting.

Name: Kembo Ree
Race: human
Location: Port Magalie, Witchlight Strand, Akron

Chapter Master Kembo Ree runs the infamous thief organization Sombra‘s operations in Witchlight Strand and is a close acquintance and a dear friend of Patricia Mael who heads the organization’s Akron operations. Kembo is of mixed descendance of a Ferrian father and a half-elf mother from Jaston in Witchlight Strand. He is thus well versed in the customs of both areas and this in turn has made his ascension to his current position much more easier as many Ferrian middle-men, couriers and mentors of the organization react well to anyone who show a familiarity with how the world works in Ferria.

His early life was that of continuous trouble: he was not a very popular as a youngster and rarely enjoyed the companionship of friends. Not that he was a particularly hard person to be friends with but his mother and father both worked beyond the allowances of laws and thus were persecuted by state officials and more shady characters forcing the family to both lay low or relocate ever so often. It was not uncommon for the family unit to flee into the mountains South-West of Lirio (in Gruenroth) for a month or to hide in the natural caverns acting as sewers under the city of Gaulle Sax in Witchlight Strand. And his elder brother Alecor Ree was much more favored by his father even to the point of neglecting Kembo. Alecor was the one their father had high hopes for and Alecor was the one their mother taught more submitting menial and demeaning tasks to Kembo.

Fast forward a few decades and now Alecor is the one rotting in a jail in Mayhill in Akron, their mother dead from a rivaling burglar’s accidental slingshot to the head and their ill father reduced to occasional purse-snatching and bread heists in the city of Bomert in Witchlight Strand. And Kembo is running the operations of one of the mightiest illegal organizations ever albeit his role is strictly limited to areas surrounding the city of Port Magalie.

This illustration is part of my Through the Ages series in which one character is illustrated in several different settings.

Alyssa Corma

2016-09-11

Name: Alyssa Corma
Race: human
Location: Groam

Alyssa is a loner. She has always pretty much shunned company and even avoided her own siblings as much as it was possible for a child in a family of six children. She grew up in a socially active family in a socially active city of Port Magalie in Witchlight Strand … and hated every minute of it. She eventually came at peace with her inner demons and learned to tolerate other people around her. But she frequently sought solace by escaping from the city and enjoying the wilderness that the inner lands of the Witchlight Strand offer to those daring to explore them. Her family did come after her many times and practically had to drag to her back with them but eventually it dawned to them that she greatly suffered living in the city and gradually accepted that her place was somewhere else than with them. They parted their ways when Alyssa was 14 years of age and while there were many tears and hugs involved, everyone understood that it would sooner or later come to this. Her family at least tried to postpone the inevitable until Alyssa would be old enough to cope on herself.

Nine years later and Alyssa has seen the unusual red cliffs that are responsible for the naming of Bloodspires and hold sacred meaning to the demihuman races living in there. She has seen the sparkling white towers of the mighty city of Bedelhaus in Gruenroth resting on the stern arms of Mount Bedel. She has played The Game of the Kings with the legendary champion Merenes Anfala in Jaston. She has bathed in the red waterfalls of Tarsolom and enjoyed her fair share of the relaxing steamy hot bubbling natural waters deep under the city of Illes. She has danced with the minotaur king Maruk in Dumang and watched the setting sun on the endless golden beaches of Sostas. Despite this she has found the time to visit her family at Port Magalie on two occasions.

She travels throughout the vast kingdom of Groam now seeking new natural wonders, experiences and riches that the great nature can offer her. She has become much more composed and confident during these years and can nowadays even enjoy the companionship of others. Larger crowds and packed cities still frighten her but no longer render her unable to enjoy life in such places. Still, she much more prefers wilderness to cities.

Alyssa is an experienced traveler now able to find food and shelter in the  wilderness, procure and mix healing herbs to cure illnesses, protect herself against drunken bullies and find hiding places if need be. She doesn’t actively pursue companionship during her travels even while traversing the more dangerous routes but she wouldn’t turn down an offer to join small(ish) groups if they would share the same route. When with others Alyssa is relaxed, composed and natural but somewhat shy. She enjoys the little things and keeps a remarkably positive attitude often mixed with hearty laughter. The elves of Witchlight Strand taught her the valuable skill of writing and on occasion she writes down chapters of her experiences on the road.

 

 

 

 

Kate Fendale

2008-12-06

Name: Kate Fendale
Race: human
Location: Akron

Kate Fendale was born and raised in the capitol city of Akron – Mayhill. Her early life was dominated by her mother’s affairs with several members of the upper crust of the city. Her father was a local teacher of youngsters up until he died of a heart failure when Kate was merely six years of age. Her mother somehow fell apart mentally and started a decade-long binge of drunkenness and sexual affairs which eventually took her to an early grave. Initially the family was quite well-off financially, but since not a single coin was coming in anymore, the wealth started to melt gradually in the hands of Kate’s mother.

When Kate was 14, she and her mother were practically broke and her mother was seriously ill from impending liver failure. Kate was pretty much forced to deal with the situation, but her means were very limited. She had, however, years of practice on how to sneak around quietly and hide in the shadows due to her mother’s abusiveness and mean spirits when she was drunk. Kate used her developing skills successfully as a petty thief, but soon graduated into full-blown thievery. She was amazed at how easy it was to gain wealth this way. When Kate’s mother died, she had enough money to pay for her funeral – in which she was the only attendee. She was only 16, but competent enough to make a splash in the criminal circles of Akron.

At the age of 24 Kate was already a hard-core member of the Sombra which is a notorious Ferrian -born organisation of rogues and thieves spanning dozens of cities and towns in Akron, Gruenroth, Ferria and Groam. She was severely entangled with complex inter-guild rope-pulling and power politics of shady outlaw characters wanting to restrain the influence of the organization in Akron. Even though she was close friends with Patricia Mael – who runs the organization’s chapter in Mayhill – she was not able to stay in the city. She decided it was time to let things cool down a bit. The next few years Kate traveled around Akron and made acquaintances with other thieves in every city, town and village she stumbled into and under instructions from Patricia Mael she secretly bonded alliances with them in an effort to expand the organization’s tentacles to more and more cities. Finally she ended up in Groam only two years ago and started working as an information gathering specialist regarding trade routes working for the Sombra‘s Groam -based affiliates. She has the skills to sneak into locked warehouses, sniff around a bit and report her findings to whoever pays her the most. Such skill sets as Kate has are highly sought after by other thieves but also by rivaling merchants who want to gain an edge over their competition.

Kate has little tolerance for complex plans and rather goes by her wits. This mindset is especially dangerous when it comes to thievery and burglary, but so far Kate has never been caught – although she has been suspected of such activities several times both in Akron and Groam. Kate has mood swings, a spicy temperament bordering lunacy and a general loathing of all intoxicants. She hates pubs, inns, taverns and public festivities with equal fervor since they all tend to send her to an emotional roller coaster back into her childhood and right into middle of violent drunkenness. Thus she can’t really be reached from these typical locales but instead through common acquaintances only.