A Boy and His Mother written on the 2nd of Nov, 2015 by me A Boy and His Mother (A character introduction by mbncd) A mother was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, crossing a large and empty plain with her baby boy, when a really nasty storm rolled in. Seeking shelter, she decided to hide in the arching roots of a great tree in the middle of the plain (she wasn't too bright) and predictably the tree was hit, not just once, but several times. It was a really nasty storm. Anyhow, both mother and baby were toasted, while the mother held the baby close and prayed for it to be safe. Many, many years pass. The remains of the two are no longer there, carted off by animals or floods or other things. Someone came across the tree and decided to use its wood to make a cupboard, a wardrobe. Big and open in the top half, with large ornate doors, and drawers in the bottom half. The night after the wardrobe was complete, there came from it the sound of a baby crying. The carpenter decided that the piece must have been haunted so he tried to burn it, but as he approached it with the torch, the wardrobe winked out of existence as though it had never been. The poor man went slightly nutty, burned down all the left over wood and his home in the process, and spent the rest of his days as a homeless man, ranting whenever he saw anything made of wood. Not the greatest life for a carpenter... Anyhow, after the wardrobe disappeared, it reappeared on another plane of existence. After a few moments, it disappeared again and reappeared somewhere else again, and again, and again. It seemed as though the cupboard was "looking" for something. Finally, the cupboard appeared in the house of an old witch, right in front of her. She simply blinked at it and then gave a warm and welcoming smile. "Dear one," she said, "why don't you rest here a while?" Carefully, the witch approached the main doors of the cupboard. "May I?" she asked. The cupboard did not move so she opened them gently. Inside lay a baby. The witch recognised that the baby had been reborn and formed entirely of magic. "Let me get your son something to eat," the witch said, gently reaching for the child. The cupboard doors slammed shut to stop her approach. But the cupboard did not leave. "Very well," said the witch. "You need not fear. I will not take him away from you. I shall bring the food to him." The witch watched the doors gently begin to open again, seemingly more trusting of that idea. She went to fetch some thin broth and brought it to the baby. The kid seemed delighted and the cupboard doors opened much more freely, as if a mother was giving a sigh of relief. The cupboard and the infant had found safety at last. Over the next few months, the witch would talk to and read to both the cupboard and the child within. The "mother" had her own ways of responding to things and they became good friends, while the baby grew steadily into a strong and healthy toddler. Every now and again, townspeople would come up to ask favours of the witch. She was a midwife and a healer and they feared but appreciated her services. The wardrobe would sometimes go on brief trips, but always be back before the day was done. This seemed to assuage the child's curiosity about the outside world for a day or two, which was good because his exploring hands would fade away when outside of the cupboard for more than a minute or two. The witch said that it was because the baby was not of this world. The cupboard was protecting him but if he ever left that safety, he would cease to exist. Eventually, a few years had passed. The boy was speaking and would frequently request his mother to take him to the other worlds they would explore to ease his cupboard bound boredom. They had a good home with the witch though. One day, the two returned to the witch's house to hear angry shouting from the front door. The villagers had come with torches to punish the witch for betraying them and killing off their crops with the current drought. The cupboard knew that the witch was a good woman who, with her animals, had suffered just as much as any, but that she had still shared what little food and drink she had with the little boy. Unable to communicate by speech, and the boy not even understanding what was happening, let alone knowing what to say to fix things, the wardrobe went on the offensive. She appeared before the villagers, between them and the witch. In an effort to scare them off, she slammed her drawers and doors open and shut with a vengeance, while the sound of a confused and upset child cried from within. Instead of being frightened away, this only seemed to confirm the villager's belief that the witch was evil. They brandished their torches, shouting that a cupboard would burn just as well as any witch. The mother froze, unsure of what to do after just making things so much worse. The witch gave the cupboard an understanding but sad smile and whispered, "Get inside!" They retreated inside the house and the witch slammed the door shut behind them. Outside, the villagers roared and jeered as they threw torches on the roof, against the walls and through the windows. The witch opened the wardrobe's doors and drawers, and began frantically filling them with all sorts of things, from food and water to magical tomes and crystals. "I'm sorry," the witch said sadly. "I didn't do what they say I did but they will not stop until I am dead. You cannot stop them, and they'll destroy you and kill your son too. Take these things and escape from here. Maybe one day your son can learn magic. Maybe he can interact with the outside world that way. Find a good and kind person to teach him and you'll both be fine. Now make haste! Be gone, my loves!" The cupboard and child escaped their burning home in a blink. They reappeared on an adjacent hilltop and watched the house go up in flames as the townspeople roared and cheered. The mother and child then blinked out again, reappearing in another plane of existence, far removed from the evil people who had just murdered their only friend. Meanwhile, the little boy opened a magical tome that had been stashed beside him. As his hands traced the strange letters, those letters began to lift off the page in electric, glowing, magical runes. They spun around his head and then returned to the page. The little boy giggled as the written words spoke kindly to him. ================================= I would play the boy as a man with no memory, ripped from the cupboard at some point since this story (and corporeal, despite what used to happen outside the cupboard when he was little), but with an innate closeness with magic itself. He doesn't know why but instead of reading letters on a page, it's as if the magic itself speaks to him, and he feels it calling him. He's an innately magical being so he's likely to be more affected by magical and anti-magical things than most, but he might also have chances to negotiate with magic where others cannot and he'd usually sense it unless it was excessively well hidden. If the game uses a wild magic or misfire system, this would be more representative of the magic getting in an argument with him than the magic just being completely wild without reason. This is most similar to fairy magic or magic calling on elementals/spirits to help achieve things. As he levels up, he remembers little bits from the witch's book. If he learns spells by levelling or is supposed to study books to learn them, this would probably be better achieved by communing with magic itself and the magic bestowing these other spells on him if it feels like it. Maybe he figures out where he came from, maybe he doesn't. His past isn't really a driving force but he is curious about it. He's just kinda a wanderer, no roots, and was only recently found with no clothes, no belongings, and no name. Maybe the other PC's find him themselves, maybe it's a local NPC. He tends to go with the flow, happy to learn what he can, starting as a pretty blank slate.
