Ancient Tides: A Tale of Sea and Sky

Name: Jarden Springwater (Leshy - current name) / Granbwa 'Gran' Louquo (Eidolon)

Description:
Jarden Springwater is rather 'normal' for a Leshy; his appearance is that of a small, humanoid-shaped tree, covered in vines. The largest have intertwined to form woody limbs, while others sway with the breeze. He doesn't generally wear clothing and doesn't feel like he needs to, but does carry some rather flexible outfits with himself if the need arises for satisfying some strange fleshperson cultural norm. His 'crown' of broad fig leaves overlap into a green 'hair' of sorts, while the rest of his facial features are a bark-carved mimicry to allow for limited facial expression.

Gran appears as one might expect for the ancient, rueful spirit of a long-deceased druid. Her body manifests as a harrowed, elderly female half-elf with ice-blue eyes and auburn-grey hair, held together by sickly foliage and amber-black sap. She appears dressed in green robes and bark-soled sandals, with some trinkets of her living self visible on occasion.

Place of Origin:
Jarden originates from a garden island that was engulfed by The Sun, but their nature spirit resided in the Sea for millennia before its binding. Gran's heritage and past prior to his creation are unknown to him, other than she was one of the adventurous mortal souls that entered the Astral Plane.

Bio:

Show Content

SpoilerIn their original Nature Spirit form, Jarden's story predates the fall of the Gods, though his ancient name/s are long forotten; he chose to discard many of his oldest memories during and since becoming a Leshy. In service to ancient God/desses of Nature, Regrowth and Flowers, they were one of many Guardians of sacred groves on a plane created by their patrons. - Until the downfall of the Gods. Without any Divine guidance and power to maintain it, the Garden could no longer be kept whole and split into many fragmented 'islands' that wandered across the void. Jarden's isle quickly become overgrown and floated aimlessly for seemingly forever. as mortals began occupying the Astral Sea, the island was subjected to several attempted occupations, with limited initial resistance from the Guardian Spirits until the interlopers began to destroy and defile its vegetation.

Many of the Spirits perished over time; either from skirmishes with interlopers, the fading of their essence into that of the Garden as a whole, or perishing outright when their soul no longer had an 'anchor' to bind them to this plane. Whether any survived is unknown to Jarden but given what happened next, it seems unlikely.

Jarden's Spirit Form resisted these calamities, but due to its bindings and his refusal to reject its duty to the Garden he was tied to the Garden's fate. As the isle wandered, it eventually found itself drifting towards the Sun. It passed Too Close to the bright orb and slowly pulled towards an inevitable fiery death. One by one, the plants in the Garden withered and died as all surface moisture evaporated away and the souls in the Garden were stripped and boiled from its surface - now as dead as the Gods they served. When the Druid arrived, all that remained was a scrap of vegetation in a protected crevice on the far side of the island; hidden from the initial heat and preserved by a groundwater spring, yet as doomed as the rest.

The bargain that the druid Granbwa Louquo gave Jarden's spirit as it hid there was this; she would craft out of the remains of the Garden a body and guide his spirit into this living vessel, in exchange for serving her as a loyal Familiar and becoming a vessel for her own soul when she too found herself faced with mortality. Agreeing, Jarden's form was sculpted around the last living tree in the garden; a small fig. He would serve the druid for many years on her quest to rescue other remnants of nature on the Seas, before eventually being asked to carry out the second part of his deal.

Gran bound her Soul to Jarden as she died, preventing it from passing into the Afterlife. The process was imperfect and much of her former self's powers appear to be either 'lost' or suppressed in the process. What remains is a devoted, vengeful Spirit driven to seek revenge in some small ways on those that might continue to exploit and ravage the blessings of nature. Jarden doesn't really understand why her Spirit is so angry and bitter but out of respect for who She was, he agreed to help with this desire of hers.

Ambition:
Jarden lacks much ambition on their own, other than a boundless curiosity for the worlds and peoples beyond the small island their spirit once called home. He has gradually learned some things about the world on his travels, but such mortal concerns as greed are something he has only seen second-hand, or felt through his connection to Gran. Instead, he often finds fulfilment via helping friends or beings similar to himself either in form or origin. The closest thing he has to a true desire is a hope to one day find and bring together the other fragments of the Gardens of his dead godly masters, wherever these fragments might be.

Contacts:

Druids of the Most Noble and Ancient Green Circle - An order of Druids that Granbwa once belonged to, but later split from. They are internally split between Traditionalists (focused on revering and preserving nature in its present forms) and two Radical movements; Revivalists (pushing for the recovery of Nature where it has been extinguished or diminished) and Resurrectionists (pursuit of various means of bringing Goodhood to nature, either via bringing back dead Gods, helping Nature Spirits rise to Godhood, or the creation of a New God).