Varis was born of a relationship between a male elf and a female human. The elf male (Varis’s father that he has never met) did not want to be known to have made this woman pregnant, as she worked in one of Varadins brothels, The House of Glass, which he was visiting and abandoned the pair. Possibly out of spite, or maybe just to remind this baby boy half elf of his heritage, his mother, Victoria Greenwood gave him an elven first name and gave him her own surname, thus the boy was called Varis Greenwood.
Varis had always been an intelligent boy, and knew he was the ‘man of the house’, always looking out for himself and his mother. And thus, they grew close, as close as anyone could be. They were poor, but happy. He lived with his mother at The House of Glass though he was sheltered from the seedier aspects of the work environment. He even did small jobs such as cleaning the kitchen and sweeping the porch, helping make ends meet.
This all changed one day when Victoria got sick. She was frail and could no longer provide for Varis. In a small stroke of luck, a soldier, who had taken a liking to Varis after his many visits offered to take Varis under his wing, and offered to take care of him, and eventually a career in the Varadin Army. Reluctantly he agreed, as did his mother, who was difficult to be apart from. A few days later Victoria died.
Years later Varis was excelling in the army. He had risen through the ranks via hard work and dedication to the point he became Captain of his own squad. He trained how to ride a horse and learnt magic to enable long distance fighting. He was especially good at night operations, where Varis’s natural dark sight was an advantage.
During one mission, Varis was ordered by the man who took him in, who had risen all the way to Colonel, Colonel Frank Kellor, to attack an enemy caravan and burn it down. He completed his mission as he usually did, but not before hearing the screams of children trapped in the burning caravans. When he got back to the city, he demanded an explanation from Kellor. It transpired that it was thought that they were spies, and we’re going to seek refuge in the city. When questioning the Colonel about how wrong it was to kill children just in suspicion, Kellor questioned Varis’s loyalty to Kren. He left the conversation there, but in his mind, he was thinking ‘if that’s what loyalty to Kren does then they can stuff their loyalty up their arse. People giving orders are doing it for their own end, sod who gets hurt.’ He was through following orders, especially from Kren and Kellor. He decided to quit, but he wasn’t exactly allowed to just leave. Varis waited until it was dark and left going into town for some “poon”, but he wasn’t coming back. Varis went AWOL.
After a year of avoiding capture he formed the group “Sword of Varadin”, a rebel group hell bent on removing Kren from power. They had a plan to invade Krens castle by plane shifting in and out and getting into the palace in a big group and taking over before anyone realised. With this band of rebels was a wizard called Nicolas Nick, who said he could shift the whole group. Yet when he tried Dr Nick miscalculated and sent everyone into the Astral Abyss. Varis saw all his band, one by one, succumb to the Astral sea, last to go was Nicolas, saying I’m sorry as he faded away. Varis, determined not to end his life here, used all his magical knowledge and strength of will to hold his astral form together. After surviving the terrible psychic storms common to the Astral plane, Varis washed up upon a strange shore. He had drifted far within the Astral sea, further than any before him, and through quirk of fate or sheer luck he had found solid ground once again.
Varis goal is now to find a way back to the Material plane, avenge his group if the wizard is alive somehow, and to dethrone Kren.
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Gunpowder, Treason, No Plot | A D&D Podcast 