Sparrow Moondancer - @ALoyalMonk
Age: 32
Race: Tabaxi
Occupation: Monk (to the goddess Chandrani)
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Personality: Loyal, passionate, easily distracted
Home Region: Valara
Powers/Abilities/Skills: Mastery of ki (a force that monks can manipulate), speed
Other Associated Regions: None
Face Claim: Clouded Leopard
Childhood:
Sparrow grew up in the Gryphon Cliff clan, a clan of fifty or so tabaxi who live peacefully among a massive flock of gryphons. As the name suggests, the clan lives high up on a cliff outlooking the ocean- a seemingly precarious place to be, but it had always been their home and they saw no reason to leave.
The tabaxi are a race of fleeting ideas and fancies, which is made clear by the construction of their town. Many homes are carved directly into the cliff-side, of various styles and designs- whatever the tabaxi had been into at the time of creation. More than half of the homes are incomplete, left partially built when the tabaxi creating it thought of a different idea. Other homes line the top of the cliff, and still more can be found in caves carved from the cliff-side by the gryphons long ago. The setup of their town may seem precarious (it is), but the agile tabaxi don’t seem to mind. After all, gryphons can help them get to any of the tricky places.
Nearly all of the gryphons dwell within the small cave system they’d carved, inside of which lies Chandrani’s Gryphon Cliff Temple, which is believed to be the first temple ever dedicated to her. While it lacks the magnificence of the Raoist temples, it makes up for this by its timeless quality, as every aspect is carved from the rock itself. Chandrani’s rituals tend to involve great pits of fire, loud music, and much cheer and drink.
Like all tabaxi, Sparrow was a curious young cub, and she’d often find herself climbing along the cliff’s edge, exploring the nearby forests, flying on the backs of gryphons, and reading everything she possibly could about the world. She was deeply devoted to her goddess Chandrani but would often spend periods in deep fascination learning about the other deities of the world. A bit of a treasure hunter, she kept a box beside her bed filled with random trinkets- gemstones, bits of wire and twine, interesting looking sticks, rare coins, and miscellaneous objects given to her by the occasional traveler she’d meet during her explorations. Most of it, by and large, was junk, but not to Sparrow. She loved it all.
She keeps with her a jade figurine of Aketecha, Chandrani’s dire winged leopard, which was given to her by her temple’s holy leader, honoring her for an act of bravery when she saved a random traveler from a group of roving highway bandits. As an adult, she now uses this figurine as her holy symbol, and she often sets it before her during prayer.
Her second keepsake is a fragment of a beautiful song, written as musical notes on two pieces of parchment. This is by far her most sacred possession. She had a brother, Comet. He was only a few years younger than she and they spend a lot of their childhood playing together- until the day that he left. When Sparrow was a young adult, her brother came home from exploring, chattering away about an amazing group of people he’d met. Necromancers were recruiting in the area, and they were seeking new members to join them on their journeys. What they promised sounded fun and exciting- to see new places, and to learn about the world and about strange new magics. He wanted in.
The clan urged him not to go. It was dangerous, they said, and necromancers were good at deceiving people to bring them into their cult-like society. Comet didn’t listen, and a week later, he had left with them in the night.
Sparrow was heartbroken. She’d tried everything she could think of to convince him not to go, and now she’d lost him. The song written on the pieces of parchment was one of his- music was his great passion, and that song was one of the last he’d written. Although Sparrow can’t read music very well, from time to time the melody still comes to her, like a ghost from her past. She hopes to one day find her brother and liberate him, but she knows not where he could be.
Adulthood:
Upon reaching adulthood, Sparrow became a monk serving Chandrani and traveled to Rao’s primary temple to study his ways, feeling that to understand her own religion she had to learn about the other major religions of of the land (and Rao's religion was of particular importance, being her own goddess' father). She had intended to return home soon after, however, as is the tabaxi way, she got swept up in another interest, and then another, and another, leading her all across the land, and she found herself learning everything she could about the world as she did. She would return home once or twice a year to commune with her people and say hello to her parents and be on her way again. On her travels, she spread the teachings of Chandrani to all that would listen, and loved visiting temples of friendly deities to pay her respects there as well.
She is a fierce fighter, manipulating the world's energies to bend to the sway of her claws. She has the might of Chandrani behind her and she uses this blessing to smite the evil of the world and spread the message of hope and peace. Despite her intensity and depth, you may find her become distracted from time to time- she is still a tabaxi after all.
