Anastari

The cries of Anastari’s first breath in this world attracted a small audience of night-black ravens, who watched curiously from an open window. In an almost melodic way, they croaked along in unison with the newborn babe. From that day forward, they would ever be at her side, shadowing over her like dutiful omens one could never escape.

 

The child of two elven druids, Anastari was born in Umbar; a community of forest-folk secluded along a river that wound its way through a deep, realm-spanning wood. Umbar’s citizens were of mixed race and origin, its people revered the tenants set by the druids that founded the community by tradition–sharing in their aims to maintain balance between both civilization and nature. 

 

To this end, Umbar is governed by a council of oracles. Each oracle, a diviner in their own right, held the uncanny ability to peer into the maddening skeins of fate itself and decipher its myriad of possibilities. By translating these potential futures into prophecy, they guide Umbar’s people by steering them toward the best possible outcome for both their community and the natural world around them.

However, some skeins speak of futures that occur in distant lands, futures that threaten a rippling effect that would reach all the way back to Umbar should they come to pass. To avert these disasters, the oracles hand-select small groups of warriors and mages best suited to the task at hand, and dispatch them onto journeys to guide uncertain futures onto suitable presents. 

 

These elite groups are known to the Umbar people as Fatebreakers.

 

For nearly the entire first century of her life, Anastari had dreamed of going on such a journey. Countless daydreams were spent traveling the far-flung world on a heroic mission to alter the course of history and returning to the uproarious applause of all who knew her name. Until such an opportunity arrived, Anastari dedicated herself to training in the art of the hunt and honing her inherent connection to the natural spirits of the forest. All along this time, the ravens followed her everywhere, casting shadows down from above in every waking hour and perching at her window when she bedded down for the night. 

 

Such nagging consistencies did not go unnoticed by Anastari’s peers, who began to worry if some ill fate had attached itself to her. Despite these whispers behind her back, Anastari herself only drew comfort from their constant companionship.

 

Not long after her hundredth birthday, Anastari’s parents brought another child into the world: Ráka. Though she was a rather frail girl, Ráka demonstrated an uncanny knack for manipulating the Weave’s magicks even at a young age. She and her elder sister got along famously, each learning from one another’s talents while pushing each other toward further greatness. 

 

Then, one particularly cloudy morning, everything changed.

 

Ráka–who was barely into her twenties–approached Anastari with tears streaming from her eyes, complaining of a visceral experience in her latest trance. The way she spoke of it sounded eerily of prophecy–but unlike the oracle’s malleable skeins, this future was one set in certainty. 

 

Ráka spoke of a precise time and place in which an event she described in detail would take place. And there, in its aftermath, a lifeless body would be found. Anastari’s.

 

Abject horror overcame the elder sister as a chorus of raven calls swelled in mourning above her. The shock of unwillingly learning her ultimate fate shook her to the core of her soul, leaving her dreams and aspirations shattered like jagged glass upon a cold, uncaring void of certainty. For weeks thereafter, Anastari was inconsolable, cycling through fits of depression and anger as her hair began to turn white from the immense stress she was forced to endure. The discovery of one’s talents as an oracle was an event to be cherished within Umbar, but Anastari despised the very hour of Ráka’s revelation. 

 

Not long thereafter, Anastari took wing from her home, bringing only her bow and the ravens that followed her, pressing against a wind of cold certainty. She put herself on a quest for answers to a myriad of deeply personal questions. Her travels brought her to the sword coast, aimlessly traveling between its great cities for nearly half a century. She hunted, attuned to nature where she found it, and undertook small-time quests for coin out of necessity during this time, but so despondent was the elf that she found very little happiness in her adventures. 

 

As fate would have it, one of Anastari’s quests brought her to cross paths with a small band of Harpers. At the time, they were seeking to bring a corrupt merchant to justice and finally had compiled enough evidence against him to make a confrontation. It just so happened that Anastari had recently traded with this individual on a whim, taking him up on an offer to trade her elven-crafted cloak in exchange for a set of healing potions–potions that the elf later discovered were severely watered down and all but useless.

The plan to apprehend the devious merchant and his co-conspirators was elegant in its simplicity–an ambush of the merchant and his traveling caravan along one of the more secluded sections of the High Road. When the time to spring the trap finally came, Anastari and the Harpers worked in concert, descending upon the few surprised guards the caravan had employed.

However, as the ambush seemed to be proceeding apace, a frightening bout of deja vu struck Anastari. Events suddenly began to unfold just as Ráka had described, and the elf was stricken with a paralyzing trepidation. The corrupt merchant himself, desperately attempting to flee from the back of his wagon, capitalized on this moment of hesitation and lunged forward at her with a dagger aimed at her heart.

Only, the lengthy green cloak he wore–the same he had cheated Anastari out of–had gotten snagged on some splintered corner of the wagon, stopping the blade short of piercing her. Swiftly sobering up from her near-death experience, the elf seized this reversal of fortunes, and delivered a debilitating blow of her own to the merchant, ending the fight.

As the reality of what had just occurred gradually set in, a surge of renewed confidence surged up from the deepest recesses of Anastari’s heart, and a grin began to tug its way across her lips. The Harpers were victorious, but *she* had found victory over fate itself, and was left marveling over how the smallest decisions can bring such lasting consequences.

With her business with the Harpers concluded soon after, Anastari decided to finally return home. Amidst saying her goodbyes, her allies presented her with a Cresent-and-Harp pin of her own, which the elf gratefully accepted as she wished the Harpers well on their future endeavors.
 

At last, Anastari returned to Umbar with a new sense of purpose. She reconciled with Ráka and her parents, and finally congratulated her sister on her awakening as an oracle. In the years that followed after Anastari’s return, she continued her training as a ranger and watched with pride as her little sister was mentored by the governing oracles of Umbar. Numerous Fatebreakers left on and returned from their missions, preserving the natural order across Faerun with their work and ensuring a period of tranquility for life in Umbar.

 

Thenn the day of Anastari’s 210th birthday, the oracles called upon the now fully-fledged ranger to serve.

 

Once more, Anastari left Umbar behind with little more than a vague mission, her bow, and her ravens… but this time with a confident smirk alighting her face against the uncertain winds that guided her forward.