Zanith and our stories

Zanith Quickweaver

When I was born, I had only four siblings. All older, but only two years later the younger siblings started to arrive as well. I enjoyed having so many siblings, it was less pressure on me. I was okay in lessons, I could read and write, I was good at climbing and had control over my magic. I wasn’t anything special though.

At six, I left for a holiday away from the islands and that was when I first started to notice things. I couldn’t leave Neveah, a quarterstaff that has been in my family for seven generations. I was able to understand animals. Not their voices, but everything else. The twitch of their ear, the tilt of their head painted a clear picture. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting of the mainland, but this wasn’t it. There were so many different kinds of people! Elves and orcs and tieflings and humans. It was a great way to learn about the rest of the world.

When I got back, I started practicing with Neveah more. Only one or two a generation could bond with her, and she seemed to have chosen me. I practised and practised until she was like an extension of my arm. Around then, my parents left for a long boat adventure people called a “cruise”. I didn’t mind, I was never too close with them. My loyalty lay in my siblings.

Everything went fine for a while, but after two months we received an owl message. It mentioned a tsunami that had savaged their ship. The only survivor of the first wave wrote that message shortly before drowning. We didn’t know how long we had left. I had the foresight to grab Neveah, but water is quicker than it seems. My whole village was destroyed.

I was washed out to sea, and it took two days to paddle back towards land. I poked through the wreck of my town, but there was nobody left. There wasn’t really much left to do there, so I decided to travel to the mainland in search of my siblings. 

I suppose I could have just moved to another village, but as nice as palm trees and beach huts sound, it had been my whole life. I liked the diversity and chaos of the markets crowded with people and smoke, and how everywhere looks completely different on the mainland.

My first few years on the mainland, I couldn’t find a job, or a brother, or a sister. I lived in little forest tents I built, and moved every time someone found me. It wasn’t great, but it was better than living in a shipwreck. On maybe my fourth year there, someone decided to hire me. It was a pretty easy job, I just had to tail someone for a week and write down what I saw. Tezca knows why he needed that, but it was a paying job, and I was a sneaky Tabaxi who couldn’t talk to utter a word of it.

After a little while, and another two bounties, I was gaining a reputation for my various… skills. I was offered a hard task, but one with a reward I couldn’t turn down. I saw a small group camping nearby. As they say, “curiosity killed the cat”. It didn’t kill me, but after collecting my money, I hunted the group down again. They were a strange bunch, a cleric, a rogue and a sorcerer. As I approached them, they immediately asked my name. Wonderful. About three minutes in and they want me to talk, for Tezca’s sake! I made some signal for “I can’t talk”, and hoped they understood it.

Turns out, they did. I stayed with them, for some reason, and got roped into an investigation for a magical gem. I was getting good at these kinds of jobs by now, and of course, found it extremely fast. Ready to collect the gold, as always, I encouraged the group to head back to the Halefaxx guy they needed to give it to. Somehow Sileth managed to grab it, and be simply insufferable about it as well, I might add.

That was the most normal part of this story, unfortunately. A conspiracy to reincarnate the Litch King was sneaking up on us, and fast. One thing led to another, and suddenly there was a lot more water in my life than I’d like. We were stuck in a castle. In the middle of the ocean. In a huge magical storm full of evil king summoning magic. Great. Even better, there was a secret pool of water right below me, which I fell into. Now I was soaking wet, and very angry. It seemed like the right moment to scream. I pretty much missed the whole confrontation with the evil summoming people stuck in that stupid pit.

I finally got out, and we went to another town. I bought my owl, Parliament, along with a message carrier for her. I also developed the ability to turn into pretty much any animal I studied closely enough. Lulled into a false sense of security, I went about my merry way, until we left.

Apparently the stupid evil king summoning storm hadn’t gone away, and it was moving all over the mainland and spitting out monsters. So then we had to fight them. We attacked creatures in the mountains, meadows and swamps (which I hated). Yeah. Swamps suck. They’re all damp, and you fall into pits of muddy water, and there are no interesting animals, and you’re also very prone to DYING. I nearly DIED. And I was not very happy about that, for the record. 

In summary, becoming friends with Valorous, Sileth and Kyra has brought nothing but trouble. And bounties. And gold. They’re fun to kick at least.

-Words by Archie Holden

Zanith Quickweaver, a Tabaxi Druid. Image created by Archie Holden using text prompts to artificial intelligence image generator MidJourney

Publisher’s note:

Archie and I were recently chatting about family histories and autobiography. Autobiography is an account of a person’s life, written by that person. I really enjoy learning about people and their stories in autobiography, biography and memoir form, but also documentary film and photo essay too. Lately I’ve been listening to podcast conversations, or conversation based podcasts, and they’re great as well.

Archie’s grandfather has written an account of his life and that and other things about him are exhibited in the migration museum in the town where he lived. Archie had found the excerpt after digging around online and shared it with me. Check out some history by reading about Sharing the Lode: The Broken Hill Migrant Story. I won’t pass on personal details here, with respect to digital footprints etc, but if you’re interested to connect some dots, catch up with Archie and family.

It made us wonder about our own stories and how we can document them. It also prompted Archie to think about writing an account on behalf of Zanith Quickweaver, of Dungeons and Dragons fame. Zanith has their own stories to tell too! Archie has given greater depth to Zanith by creating a detailed backstory that adds interest as to who they are now.

Archie has previously documented a written introduction to Zanith as well as the contents of their pouch and portraits through digital illustration.

Archie is very creative and writes, amongst many other things. We talked about processes of writing fiction narratives and how the detailed backstories of characters, inspired by real or imagined people or events, may assist the creative process. It quite likely adds value to the experience of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns too!

Thanks for inspiring us, Archie!

-Aaron