Truadrin - Lorasia: The Shattered Isles (2024)

Truadrin
General Information
Patron deity	?
Average lifespan	Usually up to 750
Language	faeric
Favored climate	?
Favored terrain	?
Appearance
Average height	5′5″ ‒ 6′1″
Average weight	130 ‒ 180 lb
Skin color	White
Hair color	White
Eye color	Blue

The Truadrin, also known as Ghost Elves, are the descendants of eladrin who have settled on Moonbrook and survived the blight that occurred there. These learned and physically graceful folk are the remnants of a once-proud nation. For many centuries, their former strength as a nation has dwindled, as have their numbers, leaving their forested cities a twilight of empty relics and unoccupied streets with only a fraction of their former numbers to inhabit them.

Most Truadrin are found in Edragan.

History

An insular people who keep their secrets viciously, the Truadrin usually perceive outsiders as a threat to their existence. Travelers who violated their territories were swiftly hunted down and executed or else driven back into the wilderness. The most frequent contact the Truadrin shared with outsiders were bloody clashes with the barbaric human tribes, who fought them for control of frozen peaks.

Blightfall

The transformation of the eladrin into the Truadrin came to pass with little notice by the human kingdoms. The Dragonlord rained blood down on the mountains with his blight, he corrupted many thousands of them to his cause, and those turned on their remaining people. Thousands of free truadrin fled their mountains.

Rain of Blood just like the Satyxis.

Although Edragan has been a part of Lorasia for almost as long as human civilization has existed, the Truadrins originally came from a realm known as the Feywild. Not many non-Truadrins know it, but the few Truadrins they encounter are part of a dwindling generation facing the prospect of an extinction that might occur within their lifetimes. This existential crisis has led to xenophobia and extreme secrecy among most Truadrins. Outsiders who come to know Truadrins soon realize they are an intelligent and skilled people equally well versed in combat and the arcane arts. Truadrins are deeply private about religious matters, but when they discuss such topics, they do so with a mixture of deep devotion and great sadness.

Many Truadrin have been forced to find new homes in Lorasia. Life on the streets of a human city is neither comfortable nor without danger, but the collected strength of mankind’s armies, warjacks, and fortifications grant the refugees a degree of safety and security. Urban-dwelling truadrin must struggle to make a living, offering their talents as guides and mercenaries.

Appearance and physiology

Truadrins are physically similar to humans, with males and females standing 6 feet tall on average. They tend to have a slenderer build than humans but are nearly as robust. Truadrins live considerably longer than most races, which has given rise to a reputation for agelessness. Many enjoy lives over two centuries long, for they are not prone to disease and rarely show the ravages of time, even in their advanced years. Given the imminent doom their race faces, their longevity is not seen as a great advantage. Truadrin have pale skin to match their ashen realm and stark hair that's either jet black or very pale. Their eyes are like ice, cold and blue or sometimes violet.

Truadrin mark themselves with intricate tattoos called crairian, or “letters of the skin,” which relate to traditions that mark an individual as a member of a particular bloodline. Additional modifications to these tattoos express personal convictions, family history, noteworthy deeds, or religious, magical, or spiritual beliefs.

There seems to be a propensity for magic using elves to have no visible irises or pupils, leaving only white or pale green sclera. Skin tones are almost always very pale.

have an innate fascination with asymmetrical designs; mismatched belts, trinkets, and haircuts will give them a distinctive feel.

Blightborn

The Truadrin were born infected by the Blight. It has given them strange powers over undeath, unlike any other members of their kin.

The blighted Truadrin are the degenerate and corrupt servants of the dragon Everblight. Once members of a rugged race that inhabited the frozen north amid the imposing peaks of the Shard Spires, the blighted Truadrin have since marched to war in their master’s service. Already appearing markedly different from their Truadrin cousins, being taller and more physically robust and having black hair and extremely pale skin, the blighted Truadrin bear the signs of their unnatural origins. Their twisted bodies and minds emphasize their more predatory nature, prone to malice and cruelty. Their figures are leaner and their features distorted by blight. With unblinking eyes, sharpened teeth, extended jaws, patches of scales, and sharp bone spurs, they appear wholly unnatural.

Some, like the striders, are even more profoundly warped, with musculature and bone structures entirely unlike their original species. Such augmentations allow them to move swiftly and kill more efficiently. While many blighted Truadrin have had their sense of identity replaced by an ingrained loyalty to their draconic master, those called abbots have achieved serenity with the emptiness within them. They have embraced the emotional void to achieve perfection with the blade and are supremely deadly combatants.

All truadrin carry with them a ”kit” of sorts for funeral rites to prevent from rising as a riven. In order to prevent this, either the truadrin's heart must be destroyed or they must die while on holy ground. Once the spirit has risen, however, only its destruction will stop it.

They react to blight as if they were bloodspeakers. Accrue blight as normal, but no signs are obtained.

For decades now, more and more Iosans have been born without souls. Such infants are marked by the silence with which they enter the world, the alien stare of their black eyes, and the eeriness of their emotionless manner. The Iosans have always seemed aloof compared to the other peoples of the Iron Kingdoms, but the soulless are so detached from emotion that they fill even Iosans with a sense of disquiet while also reminding them of the mysterious sickness that has been gnawing away at their people.

Despite being seen as a physical sign of the Iosans’ abandonment by their gods, some soulless have been raised as emotionless killers by the Retribution of Scyrah, a rogue organization that blamed human spellcasters for the death of the elven deities. Even though many years have passed since anyone last saw a member of the Retribution inside the borders of Ios, those who have ventured into the eerily quiet forests of that realm have seen the soulless. They stand watch near the gates of Ios now, their numbers too great to simply be the result of the Retribution’s actions. Where they have come from and what this means for the people of Ios—and for the rest of western Immoren—remains to be seen.

Riven

see Riven

Blighted truadrin rise again as riven.

Forsaken

see Forsaken

All truadrin share a fear of transforming into one of the Thréig. A permanent physical and mental transformation that occurs after times of intense stress, the forsaken lives a cursed life.

Grotesque

see Grotesque

The Gránna are the children of the truadrin. There have been no true born eladrin or truadrin in over a century. Once born, grotesques reach maturity in 15 years and are able to breed true among themselves. Most grow to resent the truadrin who abandoned them.

Culture

Elavass

Much of Nyss traditional life was lost in their flight from the dragon. They had to surrender their villages, their hunting grounds, their sacred fanes. Having lost so much, the Nyss hold tightly to anything that connects them to their heritage.

The Truadrin are traditionally skilled carpenters, leatherworkers, and smiths. Archery, hunting, and swordsmanship were the most respected skills

They constructed great halls of wood and stone.

The Truadrin practiced only limited mining in their homeland, making the acquisition of metals a high priority. The traditional courtblade wielded by their priests and warriors held sacred significance, doubly valued due to the scarcity of metal. The need for metal to work into weapons and armor was one of the few reasons they deigned to interact with outsiders, occasionally trading with outlying human settlements for iron and precious metals they used primarily to make blades and heavier armor.

Favored melee weapons among the Truadrin have always been the pairing of the thinblade and the lightblade, an ancient fighting form they call Fadagearr. Many Truadrin will only wield these weapons, although others have adapted to a variety of martial implements. Many of their weapons are covered in Sylvan runes with the names of past owners or famous ancestors.

Truadrin are not strangers to firearms. Although they have been slower to adopt these weapons than the dwarves, they do have pistols and rifles of their own design that are generally less bulky than human or dwarven equivalents. Among most Truadrin, the longbow is considered the most elegant and noble ranged weapon.

Grim Outlook

Truadrins have been reticent for as long as humanity can remember, but their isolationism has taken an extreme turn in the last few decades, during which the nation of Edragan has closed its borders and cut off all trade with foreigners. Its forests are a strange and silent place from which no Truadrins emerge, and intruders who venture beyond its borders are never seen again. Rumors circulate of some great downfall, perhaps matching the Cataclysm of ancient days, but neither scholars nor treasure hunters have returned to confirm the truth.

Despite all this, several Truadrins live among the human nations. These tend to be exiles, pilgrims, or well-armed agents serving vital missions. Two Truadrin religious sects have specific reasons to be abroad in human lands: the Seekers and the Retribution of Scyrah, with the former tending to be much friendlier to humans than the latter.

Blight

The surviving Truadrin have unbridled animosity toward the blighted legions of Davan. Unwilling to simply flee the dragon’s host, they search for allies to join in hunting down their blighted kin and destroying them.

TRUADRIN NAMES

Truadrin names tend to be consonant-heavy, and sibilance is common. Truadrins use y as a long vowel in many names, and most other vowels are unstressed.

Male Names: Alcyr, Avross, Bres, Callael, Callis, Cinsyr, Cyvross, Erryll, Felcyr, Glyssor, Gossyr, Laconfir, Lani, Lissor, Neriwhen, Pelyth, Rillis, Sarlos, Shas, Thale, Tryiss, Tylth, Vyros, Vystral

Female Names: Aesha, Alyssa, Caelyth, Cytyss, Dahlia, Edrea, Falcir, Feen, Gaelyr, Hellith, Lorimir, Lothwyn, Meryll, Miir, Renyll, Sacyl, Shael, Sillith, Tanyr, Tathir, Tenae, Velwhin, Veryth, Ystith

Surnames: Alcyan, Alcys, Alcyss, Asir, Breir, Brese, Ellith, Ellithyr, Elloth, Ellowuyr, Ellyr, Faeryr, Hallith, Hallyr, Heryllith, Larir, Larisar, Lloryr, Lloryrr, Llothyr, Luynmyr, Luyr, Lyoryr, Lyorys, Lyoryss, Menellyr, Menellyth, Raefyll, Raefyllyr, Reyvas, Reyvreir, Reyvrese, Ryssyll, Ryssyllyr, Ryssyllyth, Steyr, Syvas, Syvreir, Syvrese, Vrir, Waelen, Wyldiss, Wyllyrr, Wyllyth

Enslaved truadrin

The blighted Nyss are the degenerate and corrupt servants of
the dragon Everblight. Once members of a rugged race that
inhabited the frozen north amid the imposing peaks of the
Shard Spires, the blighted Nyss have since marched to war in
their master’s service. Already appearing markedly different
from their Iosan cousins, being taller and more physically
robust and having black hair and extremely pale skin, the
blighted Nyss bear the signs of their unnatural origins. Their
twisted bodies and minds emphasize their more predatory
nature, prone to malice and cruelty. Their figures are leaner
and their features distorted by blight. With unblinking eyes,
sharpened teeth, extended jaws, patches of scales, and sharp
bone spurs, they appear wholly unnatural.

Some, like the striders, are even more profoundly warped, with
musculature and bone structures entirely unlike their original
species. Such augmentations allow them to move swiftly and
kill more efficiently. While many blighted Nyss have had their
sense of identity replaced by an ingrained loyalty to their
draconic master, those called abbots have achieved serenity
with the emptiness within them. They have embraced the
emotional void to achieve perfection with the blade and are
supremely deadly combatants.

The blighted Nyss have been irrevocably changed in
body and soul through their association with Everblight. The
fell magic worked by these creatures is the result of an unholy
union of innate ice sorcery and the raw energy of dragon blight.

The elves were well protected by their
dense forest realms, which shielded
them from the lunar rain for some time.
Although the forests were eventually worn
down, they bought time for their residents.
Even so, the elves suffered hard. The
elven lifespan is long, and their traditions
are strongly cemented. While humans had
short memories and several generations to
adapt to a new world, and the dwarves at least
retained the vestiges of their former realms,
the elves have had every last woodland village
utterly destroyed. Tens of thousands of years
of advanced civilization have been reduced
to a few portable libraries, the occasional
rolled-up painting, and remembered songs.
Humans give birth to children who never
knew anything different, but barely half an
elven generation has passed since the lunar
rains began. Each and every living elf is painfully
aware of all that has been lost. To make
it all the worse, they are now forced to live in
confined spaces, a condition which is anathema
to the elven psyche. A deep sadness
permeates elven society.

Nonetheless, elves welcome the mechs
with open arms. From the perspective of
those used to woodland groves and high
forest homes, living in a tall, mobile mech
is a monumental improvement over living
underground. Although the mechs were
invented by dwarves and developed by
humans, the most advanced are the product
of elven magic. They have taken the denuded
ancestor trees that were once the centers of
their villages and magically recrafted them
into still-living mechs. These wooden mechs
must root in the earth for one hour each day,
but they are still far more powerful than any
others, wielding barrages of fireballs and
other spells at their fingertips. They carry
with them the villages’ traditions.

Elven characters are sad and distant, but
among all player character races they are the
most hopeful. They have a seven-hundredyear
lifespan — more than sufficient to use
their mechs to eradicate the lunar dragons,
use their magic to shield them from the
lunar rain, and re-establish the culture they
once had. They adventure with very longterm
goals: to recover the artifacts and icons
their villages lost, seek new sites to reroot
their ancestor trees, establish alliances with
others who would help them fight the lunar
creatures, and find magical solutions to the
world’s problems.

Blighted eladrin – now considered paraiahs by their own kind and locked out of the feywild. They now seek to rid themselves of the blight. Some become too corrupted and are beset by a condition that drives them mad and violent.

Miners and lovers of gems. Their city lies atop Rosalee Hill. A race in decline. Some are born cursed. Perhaps their fey essence stripped. They are seen as anathema by the rest of the Eladrin.

The learned and physically graceful people from the nation of Edragan are the remnants of a once-vast empire that has long since collapsed. Though Edragan has been bordered by Katuvaak almost as long as human civilization, these people originally came from eastern Lorasia. The disaster that destroyed their old civilization led to other problems. While few outsiders know it, the race is dying; its numbers are dwindling, and the current generation faces a looming cosmological catastrophe that might occur within their lifetime. This has led to most Eladrin being xenophobic and extremely secretive. Those who come to know them realize they are an intelligent and skilled people, equally well versed in combat and the arcane arts. While private about religious matters, most are deeply pious in their worship for a goddess named Scyrah.

Eladrin live considerably longer than most races, which has given rise to a reputation for agelessness. Many enjoy over two centuries of life, for they are not prone to disease and rarely show the ravages of time even in their advanced years. Given the imminent doom their race faces, Edraganan longevity is not seen as a great advantage. Eladrin are generally pale and have a range of hair color, with some dying their hair exotic shades. Certain sects wear tattoos as a way to show solidarity, and a number have also chosen to shave their heads.

The Eladrin have been reticent as long as humanity can remember, but in the last few decades their isolationism has taken an extreme turn. The nation has closed its borders and conducts little trade with outsiders. Not all Eladrin have retreated to their homeland, however, and a number live among the human Nations. These tend to be exiles, pilgrims, or wellarmed agents serving vital missions. Two Edraganan religious sects have specific reasons to be abroad in human lands: the Seekers and the Retribution of Scyrah. The former tends to be friendlier than the latter.

Great numbers of Nyss quickly succumbed to the blight and turned to the service of Everblight. Some chosen few were granted fragments of the dragon’s athanc and so became warlocks, capable of spawning and controlling a multitude of dragonspawn. Meanwhile, those Nyss who had remained uncorrupted or had resisted the transformative blight died by the hundreds. The rest were forced to flee their homeland. Many of the stalwart defenders of the Fane of Nyssor perished in these battles, but others endured and managed to safeguard the marble vault of their god and flee south with it.’

Elves are native to the lands known collectively as Rhim. Ulleran understanding of this faraway place is ephemeral at best, and most elves of the Feral Expanse remain tight-lipped about their homeland. Perhaps this is because they are only too happy to be away from it, or they are unwilling to share their history and secrets to those who would misconstrue them.

Elven wayfarers originally washed onto the western shores of Ullera when their fleet was driven aground by a tsunami riding the Sun Current (“Taiyousira,” in Elven, is the ocean that lies west of Ulleran shores). The survivors settled in the forests up and down the western coast, known as Gom Shao—misinterpreted by Ulleran natives for its similarity to “other world” in Undercommon.

Elves have a strong affinity with ecological cycles and nature. Elf cities are more sprawling than eastern cities, with room for private yards and gardens between buildings. Elves make extensive use of wood both living and dead in construction, and favor curves rather than sharp corners in their architecture. They also use bamboo, an exotic wood that they brought to the Feral Expanse in their ancestral ships. Traditionally, elves are fond of transmuting wood into an iron hard substance to replace iron and steel components in equipment.

Nyss are the proud but greatly diminished elven race that once inhabited the frozen north amid the imposing peaks of the Shard Spires—a region so cold and inhospitable that even the hardy Tremanans ceded it to them. Though slender, Nyss are tall and physically robust, with black hair and extremely pale skin. They are long-lived even by the standards of Edraganan eladrin, to whom they are distantly related.

The Nyss are a tribal people who live close to the land as superlative hunters, trackers, archers, and swordsmen. Inheritors of a long and ancient line, they know the forging of superior weapons as well as the crafting of supple leather armor. The Nyss have an affinity for cold. Sorcery is common among them and is seen as a blessing that allows them to manifest the powers of cold against their enemies. Even those without this power comfortably endure extreme cold without requiring much protective clothing, though they are correspondingly uncomfortable in the extreme heat.

More than a thousand years ago the Nyss left their more civilized cousins and undertook a spiritual exodus to the frozen wilds and adopted a new way of life. This experience forever changed them. Traditionally the Nyss were a strongly devout people who saw themselves as chosen by the god of winter, Nyssor. Their culture was recently shattered by the arrival of the dragon Everblight, who enslaved the majority of the Nyss to serve as his legion. Those who escaped the dragon’s blight fled south as refugees and now eke out livings as mercenaries, hunters, and brigands. Even as they have tried to preserve their old ways, they have had to adapt to survive. Whereas once the Nyss preferred to remain isolated from outsiders, desperate circ*mstances have led them to enter into unusual alliances.