3/23/20 "Monday Character Spotlight" - Eræn (Part I)

Eræn. There's a lot to unpack here. Obviously Eræn is one of the main characters of Volume I of the Trials of Transcendence. He is the character we meet in the prologue which gives many of us an early and instant connection with him. But who is he really? Where did he come from? And how did he grow into the Ranger? Today in Part I we're going to focus on where Eræn came from. Next week in Part II we will look at how he grew into the Ranger.

When we first encounter Eræn, he is a fourteen year old boy from a nothing, no-name village on the the northeastern coast of the continent of Monorac. His parents are fisher folk and Eræn is soon to be expected to build his own fishing boat, take a wife, and become a fisherman as well. He is accepting of this fate, but we can clearly see it's not where his heart lies...

The continent of Monorac is inhabited mainly by humans, however it is split in two by the country of Crotaurr—home to the mysterious half-human croes. To the south of Crotaurr is the nascent Temparr Empire (which we will learn more about in future spotlights, including an upcoming spotlight on Terrin Korsing), but the lands to the north of Crotaurr are much more sparsely populated. This is mainly due to the fact that æons earlier these lands were home to most of the magykal races who fled from the humans in the Great Diaspora. The wastelands north of the Bornal River are where the elven home of Mystwood once stood. (They were forced to leave the forest behind when they fled during the Great Diaspora, but were later able to steal it away from Monorac and re-establish it in it's present location on Transcendence.) The Silent Peaks were once home to the orcs, the Northern Range was one of the dwarves' homelands, the grasslands were where the many nomadic Peoples of the Land (such as the People of the Straw) roamed, and the the Tundra was the domain of the Valkyr (there were many others spread across the continent, of course, but these were the majority of the races who lived north of Crotaurr).

Because these northern lands of Monorac are so uninhabited, Eræn's village is quite isolated. Twice a year—if the villagers are lucky—a small caravan of traders passes through the village (these traders make a circle of the northlands in the summer months, then slip through Crotaurr and spend the winter months to the south in the Temparr Empire—these intrepid traders will likely be highlighted in some future stories). This caravan is the full extent of the village's contact with the outside world since the next closest village is a week away by horse and the nomads of the grasslands don't venture so far to the east. And while their visits always bring excitement, Eræn looks forward to them more than most. Several minstrels travel with the caravan and it is the stories they carry that so captivate him.

Eræn was always just a little different than the other village children. Not in some special, destiny-touched way, but simply because he could never seem to keep his eyes from straying to the horizons and his mind from wondering what lay beyond. He was always the boy taking dares to venture farther and farther beyond the bounds of the village and the one most often scolded for leaving his hands idle as his mind went dancing far afield. And so it is no surprise that at a relatively young age he convinced one of the minstrels to spend the caravan's visits over several seasons teaching him to read and write in secret (something no one else in the village could do as they had no need for it).

And so, with his new skills, young Eræn began writing down the minstrels' stories and bartering with them for books containing more. And as he learned ever more about the wider world beyond his reach, he began to feel the lure of adventure more strongly. The truth is, had fate not intervened on the otherwise ordinary day that set our story into motion, it is quite possible that young Eræn would have found himself inexorably drawn to flee the quiet life his village held in trust for him by slipping away with the caravan some year...