Watcher

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Watcher

"All the roads I travel lead back to She."

Relatives	Unnamed Mother, Father, and Siblings
Languages	Common, Druidic, Elvish, Primordial, Sylvan
Affiliations	Protectors of the People, Cult of the Under Rabbit
Aliases	The First Follower, Seer of She
Marital Status	Single
Place of Birth	Vestal Wildwood
Date of Death	Unknown
Place of Death	Unknown
Species	Harengon (current), Rabbit (former)
Gender	Male
Height	3'5 ft
Weight	50 lbs
Eye Color	Black

Circle of the Shepherd Druid. Life Cleric. Pronouns: He/Him.

Physical Appearance

Watcher is a Harengon with white fur that has brown spots--these spots are not visible due to the clothing he wears. He has glassy black eyes that always seem to allude to some sort of mystery. His long ears are usually covered by a dark green shepherd's headdress. He also wears reddish-brown armor made of fake leather that is covered by layered burgundy cloth and simple green trousers. Watcher never wears shoes as he sees no need for them and would have little luck finding any that fit Harengon feet. The clothes he does have are simplistic, but clearly well-made. There's also a faux-leather satchel fastened to his trousers: he keeps trinkets of questionable significance inside it.

Personality

Watcher is rather aloof, but not out of a lack of care. He's often attempting to interpret the cryptic visions he receives from Her while looking to destroy any evidence of the Moon Court's influence. Watcher believes his life is bound by destiny and that it is his duty to usher that destiny along. He cares for the members of the Protectors of the People and will assist any of them when asked unless he believes they're attempting something particularly foolish. As the current, assumedly temporary, Tail of the People, he feels that he should serve others where possible, but the value he places on humanoid life is... questionable. On the other hand, Watcher clearly values the lives of animals and will go out of his way to protect them, especially if he recognizes them as Followers of She. Watcher sees little value in money and does not care to receive monetary compensation for quests or missions. He would rather have something that can actively assist him in his endeavors.

History

Watcher led a simple life before he met Her. He was a rabbit and spent his days chewing on plants, keeping his ears alert for predators, and running whenever he spotted danger. Though he wasn’t aware of it at the time, the forest he lived in—The Vestal Wildwood—was on a thin border between the Material Plane and the Feywild. He hadn’t been born yet when Fey from the Moon Court ventured into the Wildwood to steal small animals, such as other rabbits, and take them back to be victims of experimentation. He was, however, around when a small black bunny wandered out from seemingly nowhere and collapsed in front of the burrow he lived in. At first, Watcher was weary of her because She smelled strange, but eventually he got curious and went to see if She was still alive.

Perhaps out of his own kindness, or due to Her subconscious influence, he brought her food and moved Her away from the open so predators wouldn’t find her. When She recovered enough to communicate, Watcher couldn’t understand Her. For a moment. Then, all at once, his world expanded. Suddenly, there was reason behind his instincts and a clear thread of logic connecting his every action—a thread that inextricably connected him to Her. Watcher went on to learn of the Moon Court’s exploits and, now that he was more than capable of it, he learned to despise them. She saw that She had his undivided attention and unconditional trust for bestowing the gift of intellect onto him, so She began to not just recount Her experiences, but to word them as valuable lessons for him to take to heart.

She eventually decided that She needed more than just one follower and went about bestowing her gift unto other animals, starting with the rabbits in the area and going from there. She conveyed the same tale of the Moon Court to all those who came to listen to Her and their fresh hatred of these Fey fueled her own loathing of them. Over time, that loathing combined with the power of worship to transform Her into a more beastly form. It was Watcher who first referred to Her as The Under Rabbit, though most of her children still simply call Her She. She went on to demand sacrifices in the form of humanoids and Her children, led by Watcher, were happy to lay traps for hunters who had no reason to suspect that the animals of the Wildwood could or would best them. As She grew stronger, they all turned to a new purpose: the avenging of those who were killed by the Court.

It was at this time that She gave Watcher another gift: a preternatural sense for things that would come to pass. Watcher became a seer who received cryptic visions of the future, sometimes in the form of images and in poems or short stories at other times. To mark him as the Seer of She, The Under Rabbit gave Watcher a wooden ring. Other animals were gifted with stronger forms to grant them strength for the oncoming battle. Watcher foresaw a fairy from the Moon Court spying on them and reporting back to their superiors, but he foresaw this too late. Although the Moon Court did not take this fairy seriously at first, they went to investigate the Vestal Wildwood out of sheer curiosity. Her followers thought they had no choice but to make their stand as soon as possible.

The ensuing conflict forced the Moon Court to temporarily retreat and retrieve reinforcements, but with backup, they were able to win a decisive victory against the Army of She. They killed several of Her followers and captured She, taking Her back to their home in the Cressida Weald for experimentation. In the aftermath, many of those followers who were left scattered to the wind and lost their intelligence without The Under Rabbit there to guide them. The few who stayed kept the tradition of Her worship alive.

Watcher, ashamed that he had disappointed both She and his fellow followers, locked himself away in an old cabin. Well, he didn’t exactly lock the door. If he had, maybe Agatha the old forest gnome wouldn’t have wandered in one day.

Agatha was a bit off her rocker: rather than speaking with plants and animals, she often spoke for them—giving them their own voices and saying what she believed their innermost desires were aloud. Fortunately, she was a druid, so she was right about everything at least half the time. She was obsessed with finding out about Watcher’s past as she considered him her most interesting friend. Watcher found her annoying but tolerated her. Agatha also liked to randomly tell stories about the world around her, such as the tale of the dining room chairs. She was a gifted storyteller, and Watcher often found himself thinking she should have been a bard. Slowly but surely, over the course of several years, Watcher opened up to Agatha. Surprisingly, she was able to offer him advice: she told him not to run from the source of his shame, but to embrace it. As a sign of their friendship, Watcher gave Agatha the wooden ring She had once given him. Soon after she advised him, Watcher foresaw Agatha’s death in a dream. When he woke up to warn her, the gnome was gone. The only trace of her was an old wooden ring he had given her.

Watcher slipped into a depression at Agatha’s probable death, feeling that he had once again failed to prevent a bad future from coming to pass: this depression caused him to lose his ability to foresee events. The cabin went on to attract several more druids as time went by, but none intrigued Watcher as much as Reylendor Aspenmorrow. He could sense that Reylendor had been reborn from the soul of a fallen follower—Torrin the otter—and immediately took to assisting him whenever possible. He took Reylendor’s presence as a sign that She had not been defeated. With his faith in Her and himself restored, Watcher grew to believe that he was on a path set before him by destiny and stopped mourning his past failings.

He learned that Reylendor was a member of the Protectors of the People and accompanied him back to their base during a crisis one day. It was there that Watcher finally had another vision. She told him that if he made Reylendor’s heart an offering to Her, She would gift him with a new form. By this point, Watcher knew the nature of Reylendor’s soul and that, at this point, it had fused with a piece of an eldritch god. He knew Reylendor could survive without a heart, and so advised Feyjin Elderhearth to venture into Reylendor’s soul scape to retrieve said heart—theorizing that doing so would free those who had been subsumed by the eldritch deity, including her brother Foremir.

The mission was a success. With the subsumed souls no longer weighted down by Att-Annalo’s and Reylendor’s fused heart, Reylendor allowed Foremir to temporarily take his place while he went about fixing up his soul. Watcher performed the sacrifice, offering up the heart alongside the Her gifted wooden ring. Watcher was transformed into a Harengon and the ring became a wooden shield She said would always offer him protection.

For a few weeks, Watcher served as the temporary Tail of the People while the council waited for Reylendor to repair his soul. Watcher happily took on a more passive role when Reylendor returned, turning his efforts to spreading the word of She to local animals, trying to keep Shnek from hoarding small creatures, and using the visions he received from She to benefit those around him. All the while, Watcher continued to plan for the eventual downfall of the Moon Court, though he kept his plans close to his chest. With the invasion of the Shadowfell, Watcher’s wants were put on the back burner. Still, he remained steadfastly assured… until he had a vision where he foresaw his connection with She being abruptly severed. Thankfully, the vision hasn’t yet come to pass.

He is likely hundreds of years old, but Watcher gives a different answer every time someone asks his age.

Languages

Due to being made part Fey by She, Watcher has been able to understand and speak Sylvan for years. Despite the language's Fey origins, it is his favorite to speak--he enjoys its mystical nature and how effortlessly it rolls off the tongue. Watcher learned both Common and Druidic during his years in the cabin with Agatha. He picked up Elvish with ease as he considers the language to have an inherent connection to Sylvan. No one knows where he learned to speak Primordial, perhaps not even Watcher. He also has no problem communicating with beasts as he used to be one himself.

Powers and Abilities

As a Circle of the Shepherd Druid, Watcher is adept as summoning onslaughts of animals to pressure his foes in combat. On other occasions, he enjoys ensnaring opponents in weeds and vines with the Entangle spell or having a raging Tidal Wave knock them flat. To further trip people up, Watcher can commune with the plants in an area and ask them to shroud a place in undergrowth, making the terrain harder to navigate. As someone who's part Fey, he has learned to charm or magically distract people with spells like Charm Person and Silvery Barbs as well. Watcher is also known to Misty Step away from dangerous situations, though his impressive hops can carry him out of harm's way too. His knowledge of natural remedies makes him a good healer who can keep people on their feet, though he's not a cleric and healing is not one of his priorities. In some situations, he will use Shillelagh to bop people on the head with his wooden staff: he mainly does this when he thinks someone would benefit from a smack upside the head. Watcher has regained his ability to peer into the future, though his visions remain cryptic. He also receives commands to carry out from She.

Attacks and Weapons 

Cantrips: Guidance, Mold Earth, Shillelagh, Spare the Dying, Thorn Whip, Toll the Dead

1st Level Spells: Absorb Elements, Bless, Charm Person, Command, Cure Wounds, Entangle, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Ice Knife, Inflict Wounds, Sanctuary, Silvery Barbs

2nd Level Spells: Lesser Restoration, Misty Step, Pass Without Trace, Wither and Bloom

3rd Level Spells: Conjure Animals, Revivify, Speak with Plants, Tidal Wave