1. Cloudforester (1/2)

okay, disclaimer: i didn't make up teiflings, elves, or the other dnd races, but my characters are my own. i love them, and they are mine, and kidnapping is bad!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the

cloudforest is a jungle forever cloaked in fog. the world is green

and gray, wet and dim from the mist that surrounds all the world.

the trees are tall and the ground is alive with verdant plant growth

and every kind of creature imaginable. dew is a way of life in the

mystery-shrouded cloudforest. the world sparkles like diamonds, and

when misty rain falls, life is cool and shadowy.

there

are secrets in the shadows of the clouds. soft, indistinct beasts

move like dreams through the riotous growth. the mist muffles all

the sounds, and a world full of life becomes as solitary as

unrequited love. each bush, each bough, each leaf hides an intruder

in the lonely life of the cloudforest.

family

does not matter. the cloudforest is a solitary place, and it harbors

a unfrequented life for those born into the rushing stillness of a

place time has forgotten. a beast is born, and shortly after the

pain is gone, lost.

this

is the world i was born into. despite all of the life, it is hard to

eat. to eat, one must disturb another, and that is the most

difficult thing in the world to a cloudforester. surrounded by life

i could have eaten, i nearly starved to death. i am not like others.

i look different, and i am willing to kill. still, the utter solemn

lonesomeness of my world seemed to steal things away from my grasp.

i would reach toward a fruit to find it was farther away that it had

been.

my

salvation came in the form of white, pointed men. they had silver

hair and eyes, and they wore many cloth leaves on their bodies. they

came in a group, unlike even the tribesmen who drove me away from

their waterfalls and villages. i was terrified at first.

figures

parted the curtain of concealing mist with hands like moonbeams.

they wore metals and gems such as i had never seen. they were

strange, so strange, and they had lumps of cloth and food on their

backs. they did not carry spears, but i let the mist hide me anyway.

i

have seen myself in pools of water. i know i look different from any

of the other things in the world. i have a naked, forked tail and

bone horns protruding from my skull. my feet are cloven hooves, and

my eyes are a dull, glowing red. in other respects i am like a