Ardan / Stag / Wanderer

Name: Ardan (Gaelic, means 'High aspiration')

Nicknames: Dan

Herbs: 1 [Basic Level]

Crafting: 0 [No Level]

+1 herbs - starter bonus

+2 magic - lit (1000-1999 words) - Bring Life to the Music

+10 magic - Unlock token #1281
+1 Magic - lit - In The Heat of Summer

+1 Magic - art - In the Mist

+10 Stamina - Returned Character Boost #340

Mate(s): None

Sexuality: Gay

A child of the wind, Ardan is always on the move. As a lone wanderer, he's become very adaptable; you can't survive on your own if you are set in your ways. Despite being a bit of a loner, he still loves company whenever he temperarily runs with another band. Compassionate and caring, he will often put the needs of others before his own. His greatest joys can be found in something as simple as playing a new song for an isolated audience; he finds purpose in bringing happiness to others. Despite- or perhaps, because of- his past, he is very forgiving. He has seen what grudges and resentment do, and he never wants to fall back into those ways. He is a firm believer that a battle won in anger is a war lost, and he does his best not to hold grudges.

Unsurprisingly, he's very freewheeling and takes no notice of many of the more frivolous rules held by the herds. He believes in Molach, but does not worship him. He understands the importance of the traditional migration routes, but does not follow them. He recognises the divide between Allied and Loyalist, but refuses to pick a side. He's also very sensitive emotionally speaking, and can't stand to see anger and violence. If someone tries to get into a confrontation with him, he'll simply leave. Even more unsurprisingly, he's very fickle. Nothing and no one can tell him what to do, and he changes his mind like the weather. It can get to be a little challenging to track him down, as even Ardan is never certain where he is going next.

Ardan is also quite the escapist. He didn't choose the wandering life to worry about things, he choose it to never be responsible for anything again. If no one is relying on him, then there's no one that he can let down; his insecurity makes it so that he is always moving on from anything that might need him. Relationships, herds, friends....he feels he will let them all down in the end. It's better to have no one rely on him in the first place. If he does get forced into a position of responsibility, he becomes very anxious and will attempt to wiggle his way out of the position in any way possible.

Ardan has a classic Windbourne body- wiry and lithe, he's built for running over fighting. Even though he hasn't been training intensely over the past couple of years, he's still kept himself quite trim. This is mostly due to the sparse grazing and the kilometers he walks each day, more than active exercise.

Short, sleek, and smooth. While he's not super vain, Ardan keeps himself clean and shiny- he has standards, after all.

While not exactly vain, Ardan is still very proud of his hair. His mane and tail and luscious and long, and that's to say nothing of his beard! He often gets braids put in his hair when he visits other nomad bands, and will never say no to accessories.

Ardan has a large set of scars that go down the left half of his face to his neck. He tells everyone that it was from a Thylacine, but in reality he gained it after a nearly deadly fight with a Main Herd soldier. One of the scars has damaged his pedicile, and as a result his antlers grow in lopsided. He doesn't particularly mind though, though- an inch closer and he would have lost an eye. A rack's not that big of a deal, really.

Made from whatever Ardan has at hoof that will lend itself to a pleasant tune- this is usually hollow branches, conches or shed horns that Ardan will then work over himself to make rough instruments. He plays them through his magic, and sings along with them.

Keep his instruments and tools neatly tied up. Usually roughly made of wallaby or wombat hide.

Ardan's colthood was spent under the reign of King Morfinwe, when the herd was stable and prosperous. While he looks back on his childhood fondly, distance has let him see that it wasn't perfect for everyone in the herd.

Growing up, he knew only a little about the Splinter herds- just that they were does and stags that either didn't want to, or couldn't live with the Main Herd. But as a child they were of little concern to him. Energetic and possessed with a drive to explore, he was set to be an exemplary scout, and when he hit five years of age he quickly raced to become a recruit.

Things went well until his seventh year, when the Splinter alliance was declared. Suddenly, those renegade fawnlings were no longer a bunch of mad stags and selfish does living in the middle of nowhere; instead, they were a threat to the Main Herd itself. Ardan quickly got swept up into the panic with the rest of the herd, and when war was declared he felt nothing but hate for those megalomaniacs. He made a snap decision and became a Soldier, throwing himself into training.

As time passed, he grew angrier and angrier; fellow soldiers came back wounded from skirmishes, and for what? So some fanatics could worship their delusions openly? So some does could play at being soldiers? Rage and frustration became normal feelings for him. Even as a small voice starts questioning if what he's doing is really right, he kept training. Even when a mass kidnapping is staged, he pushed down the voice that shouted louder every day. Those children will be safer in the Main herd, away from the insanity of the rebel alliance. They can grow up being taught the right things, instead of whatever nonsense their parents would shove down their throats. This was for the best.

He grew more uncertain as time goes on and the Main herd looses more ground. The skirmishes got worse now that the Alliance has something to really be angry over. And in the herd, more and more voices start dissenting over the Captain's actions. Ardan couldn't help but feel like he was making a terrible mistake, but he's set in his path. People were relying on him to keep them safe. He couldn't go back now.

In his tenth year, everything reached a boiling point.

The rescue of the captured fawns was complete chaos. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what was the right thing to do any more, so he blindly followed the other guards as they chased down the fleeing fawns. In the midst of the madness, he found himself separated from the main crowd, drawn by the sounds of a crying fawn. Not knowing what else to do, he followed the cries. He froze when he finally saw the source of the crying.

The fawn was wailing on the ground, terrified and lying in a shadow cast by the stag standing over it. Ardan vaguely recognised him; a veteran nearly ten years his senior, double his weight and whose shoulders were higher than Ardan's rack. While not in his unit, Ardan could recall the day his son had been gravely wounded in a skirmish, and the champagne stag instantly knew what was going to happen next.

The stag would rear; hatred written in every line on his face. In his eyes it wasn't an innocent child that lay before him, but a viper that would grow up to be a constant danger. An enemy, from the same herd that took his son but expected there to be no quid pro quid for his loss. His tines would come down with crushing force and silence the squealing fawn, and that would be it. He would head back to the herd, and might have to deal with a few awkward comments about 'maybe going a bit too far' or 'really, we were told to bring them back...', but ultimately would face no punishment for the atrocity he had committed. Not when every able-bodied stag was needed in this fight.

And somewhere in the Splinter herds, a mother would be waiting for a child that would never return.

Ardan didn't realise what he'd done until the left half of his face was on fire. His rack snapped cleanly in half from the force of the stags blow, and over his own pained bellows he could hear the child still screaming. Half-blind from the blood and the pain, he threw himself at the older stag, roaring in fury. He was swiftly knocked down as the older stag thundered at him.

Curling up, all he could do was scream back.

It's sheer dumb luck that more soldiers found them before the stag beat Ardan to death. He was helped to his feet, half-blind and in shock. The fawn, frozen in fear, was gently ushered back to the herd, while Ardan was taken to the healers. He sat in silence as they treated him, and some of the other guards spoke in hushed whispers. Is Ardan a traitor now? He's a soldier, and worked with them during the escape, but he broke rank to save an enemy. But he did it to save a child. Was it betrayal? Does it count?

He waited for the fallout of his actions. His sergeant eventually came to talk to him, but he just stood quietly for a moment before speaking.

He didn't wait. Before dawn broke, Ardan left the herd.

He spent the next few years walking and healing. It took him a long time to accept the madness he had gotten swept up into, that his herd had fallen to. His physical scars healed quickly, but his emotional wounds took a lot longer. He turned from violence entirely, and focused instead on spending his life bringing joy to others. He learnt how to make simple wind instruments, and now he spends his day wandering between nomad bands and singing old songs from the Main herd so that they can live on in the next generation. He's learnt how to forgive, and now is just glad to see peace returning to his homeland.

-Born! His parents are happy to have another child to love.

-Spends his time running amok.

-Runs wild and gets into trouble. Makes friends and is blissfully unaware of the tensions in the herd.

-Starts to wander more from his parents, and watches the army with envy. Especially the scouts- imagine the adventures they must go on!

-Decides that he wants to be a Scout when he grows up. His parents are proud that he's already so determined at such a young age.

-Officially becomes a recruit! It's one of his happiest memories.

-Spends his time training. Hears more and more about these splinter herds, but is pretty apathetic about them.

-The Splinter alliance is declared. An uneasy mood is prevalent in the Main Herd; what does this mean for them? Ardan keeps training.

-The official declaration of war. Ardan is furious- what, these maniacs aren't happy with the land they already have? Will they only be sated when the Main herd has been pushed into the Burrel Scrublands? Makes a snap decision and changes from Scout to Soldier. If it's a fight they want, it's a fight they will get.

-As the year draws on, Ardan grows angrier while a voice in his head starts questioning if what they are doing is right. Was kidnapping these fawns the right thing to do? And that strange, storm-touched stag...was there truth to the madness about gods that the Cape herd kept banging on about?

-After the kidnapping of so many fawns, Ardan's conscience starts outright stating this isn't right. He ignores it; it's better for these fawns to be safe in the Main herd then out with those lunatics...right?

-A rescue is staged for the captured fawns. Gets maimed saving the life of a child, and leaves the herd the next day. None of this is right, and none of his fellow soldiers can be trusted any more.

-His physical scars heal, but his mental and emotional wounds are still raw. Avoids other fawnlings as much as possible.

-Tries to wrap his head around how everything could have gone so wrong. Does it still count as insanity if it affected the entire herd?

-Finally hears that the Allied herd won. He's quietly grateful- maybe now the land can know some peace.

-Can't understand how anyone could try hurting a fawn. Was someone like that broken from the start? Ardan could never have done something like that. He clings to that fact; he would never have done that.

-Starts to fashion musical instruments from reeds and bones. Ardan is pleased to re-learn what it's like to use his magic for something as simple as making music, instead of using it solely as a weapon.

-If he'd been a bit older, if he'd been in a few more battles, if he'd been that bit more scared of his loved ones getting pushed out of their homes, if he'd seen a few more deaths...would he have been in that stags place? Would he have seen it as the only option he had?

-Learns to forgive. It doesn't make what happened right, but he can finally stop carrying that weight. Breathes a little easier, and starts going out of his way to talk to Nomad herds. Learns more music and shares it with those he can.

-When playing his music for a nomad band, the fawns present giggle and laugh at him and his cheery songs. Not a single one of them is scared to be near him, and something that was broken inside him for a long time finally heals.

- Focuses on practicing and perfecting some of the older songs from the Main herd that were in danger of vanishing entirely. He's happy to share the best bits of the past with the next generation.

- Gives a young hind some lessons in music and in life. Bring Life to the Music

-Spends his time traveling and playing his music. It's a good year.

-Teaches more fawnlings music. So many of them don't carry memories of the war, and he's glad for that. Let the past stay in the past.

-A dry summer and a drier autumn see Ardan get into a spot of trouble; luckily for him, a kind traveller comes along and helps him out. In The Heat of Summer

- Starts to really focus on charming some of the rarer songs and more obscure lyrics from the far flung mobs that cling to their last secrets. Such things should be spread, lest they fade from existence entirely!

Y773 - 23 y.o
-He first year where he spends more time happy than sad. He can't quite believe it took so long, but he's happy to have made it, regardless.

Y774 - 24 y.o
-Reflects on the world during a foggy night. It's good to have some peace, as his body beings to age. In the Mist

- Ardan's Old Reference

- Ardan's Older Reference