Grandmush

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Grandmush

Relatives	None
Aliases	Grandmush
Place of Birth	Forests of Isonhound
Species	New Dryad

Grandmush (they/them) is a New Dryad druid who harnesses the power of their slain ancestors to help them in their endeavors. Grandmush frequently goes by other random names they've heard or picked up such as Aman-Tia, Morrie, Mushie, Morel, Belle, etc.

Grandmush was schooled at Katharda Academy (featured in Season 2 of the campaign First Class) and then chronologically partook in the events of Into the Greedy Green, reuniting with their former headmaster on the battlefield in The Battle of Five Lights

Physical Appearance

Grandmush has a shambling, stooping form with the semblance of an elderly human with a walker. However, the bark-like skin that one might expect of a New Dryad is dark, rotting, and covered in various fungi and mushrooms so that hardly any of the bark beneath is visible except on the traditional mask that they wear. While most new Dryad frequently stand at above seven feet, Grandmush's bent form rarely crests five.

Personality

Grandmush is a quiet, constant presence in any space that they inhabit. Their shambling, mushroom covered form is impossible to ignore, but their quiet love of anything that thrives in the forest, or lives of the land is evident. However, when it comes to the protection of forest life - especially trees - Grandmush does not forgive and does not forget.

History

In the year 692 PR, Keckless Racoba unleashed a plague designed to wipe out the Old Dryad race of Isonhound. During this year, the dryad now know as Grandmush was being developed in one of the few remaining Old Dryad settlements in Isonhound. As the plague wiped out their race, it took the Livewood tree that Grandmush was being born of as well. The tree fell with their brethren, Grandmush within it.

Some time later, the clearing that once buzzed with the peaceful life of millions of creatures, insects, and Dryad lay quiet - the once proud Livewood tree that stood at its center, felled and rotting. The clearing had now been overtaken with the numerous mushroom and fungi species which thrived in the soft, shaded loam created out of the remains of the previous inhabitants. The surrounding trees were now covered in creeping, crawling vines and thorn bushes skirted the clearing's edge - the last attempt of the dying inhabitants to keep the invading and infected at bay.

Eventually, a New Dryad by the name of Millettieae, or Millie, came to the place to search for any survivors. Finding the Livewood tree dead, Millie attempted to restore it to its previous splendor. She failed, but her efforts had an unintended consequence.

Out of this death, the dryad now known as Grandmush came to be. Their low and stooping, fungus covered form didn't quite match that of their New Dryad brethren, nor that of their Old Dryad ancestors - but it had the last memories and moments of their fallen family engrained in their very being. The last vestiges of their lives and the plague that took them surround Grandmush in a sporous haze that eats at anyone who comes too near.

After they came to be, Grandmush took the rotting, crumbling bark of their once livewood tree, as had been done before, and formed their mask and armor, so that they may travel beyond the limits of their birthplace. One look past this mask will reveal the haunted eyes of one born from death itself.

With no family left to guide them, but Millie at their side, Grandmush spent the next decades traveling the forests of Isonhound, seeking the power that might bring their family back to them. Eventually, they resigned themself to the fact that this power was outside of the material realm of possibility and accepted that although they were gone, they live on through the forest - through themself - as is the will and power of Mielikki.

This lifeforce - the blood of the forest - could still be used, however, and Grandmush taught themselves to call upon the remnants of their family to feed and shape their magic. The fungus and other life that have since formed from their family's remains grasp at Grandmush's enemies, stealing their senses to give them a sense of their mortal existence, and calling them to their final resting place.

Millie and Grandmush remained together, until Millie was ensnared by the wiles of a young satyr and the two fell in love. Eventually, Millie gave up the traveling life to settle with the satyr. At that time, Millie and Grandmush parted ways as lifelong friends, and Grandmush retreated into seclusion.

Involvement in First Class:

Grandmush eventually broke their seclusion after they received an invitation to attend Katharda Academy - a school in the Underdark dedicated to training adventurers to fight the onslaught of dragons as part of The War of Many Names. If they were to learn more about life, death, and the powers that control it - it would be at Katharda. There, Grandmush was known to pen an advice column in the Katharda Chronicle, doing their best to guide the much younger student base while attending classes. It was the staff of the Chronicle that that taught Grandmush an unexpected lesson, however. They may once have had a thriving culture of Dryad of blood relations who Grandmush can never know, but now, they could choose the family to spend eternity with.

While at Katharda, Grandmush was notably known for protesting the use of bat wings, frog legs, etc in potion making and spell casting. They taught the bat colony on campus to break into classrooms, steal the bat wings back, and hold funerals for their fallen brethren. As part of this protest, Grandmush worked with classmates Igor and Morcella to create a species of bat that reproduced through the production of a flower called a Bat Lilly as part of a school project. One can pull the center of a fully grown Bat Lilly to release the young batling inside.

During their time at Katharda, Dr. Venaleth was the Headmaster of the academy. Grandmush and friends frequently had run-ins with Venaleth during their adventures and they would eventually come to respect him for preparing so many students for the fight ahead. Many years later during the finale of Into the Greedy Green, Grandmush would be re-united with Venaleth - who they now knew to be an Amethyst Dragon in disguise. During this crucial moment, Grandmush would use what they learned at Katharda to protect Venaleth from an onslaught of shadow monsters created by The One That Waits, so that they could resurrect Sadior and reclaim their old seat in the Ruby Court.

Involvement in The Greedy Green:

After graduation, Grandmush joined many of their classmates fighting back the dragons, and other evils now lurking in the woods of Isonhound. Now the forests are being threatened again, and Grandmush has come out of their second seclusion to investigate and protect the forest dwellers.

During this time, Grandmush would partake in a slew of wild adventures protecting those as small as an Amethyst Dragon Egg, and as big as Ancient Dragons themselves.

Of particular note, they would work with other adventures after the arrival of The One That Waits and the falling of Isonhound to Shadow to collect and protect powerful artifacts which drive back the shadows. On one such adventure, they would find the Astrolabe, and be gifted with power from Sardior becoming a Harbringer of Kristang.

Months later, they would then travel back 1000 years in time to discover that the dragon Feredimius had trapped Kristang in a space between The Shadowfell and material plane, using Kristang's own lifeforce to keep the portal open thereby filling the realm with shadow energy. They saved Kristang and closed the portal, but during this process, a bit of the Shadow energy seeped into them, and it was from this experience that Grandmush themselves learned to summon the shadows to suck the strength of anyone who dared threaten the realm.

Later, they would transport the same astrolabe that once granted them Harbringer status to the mountains in order for the ceremony to resurrect Sadior to begin, slaying a white, blue, and ancient black dragon (Tiamat's minions) in the process. They would also protect the Amethyst Dragon Venaleth (their old headmaster) while they completed the ceremony to resurrect Sardior and claim a seat on the Ruby Court once again.

After:

The resurrection of Sardior did not stop Tiamat and even without The One That Waits threatening Isonhound, Tiamat's minions continued to terrorize the realm. However, Grandmush felt that perhaps they had finally gotten too old for Dragonslaying. Instead, they took the advice of Sro - the first dragon they met after leaving Katharda. Instead of joining the fight once more, they returned to their old Academy to pass on the fate of their risen Headmaster -- and to ask for a job.