I have little choice but to name the year myself, having lost all my brethren to shadows unknown. This will be the Year of Change...

While undergoing ritual magic, I saw a vision of a tree, growing deep within the bowels of the earth. I set out on a pilgrimage to find it, and discover the truth behind this vision.

What I found was not only a tree surviving under the earth, untouched by the Underdark's inherent evil, but a symbol that the world was changing.

Before leaving this scene of tranquility, I fashioned for myself a bow from a branch which the tree seemed to offer willingly.

Unable to comprehend the meaning of these symbols, I journeyed back home...only to find my tribe vanished, like smoke in the wind.

For a few years, I was alone...until I stumbled across a group of surface elves engaged in mortal combat with those vile duergar. I aided them with my illusions, and they accepted me into their group as one of their own. Viktas, their leader, was a good elf. He was my friend, until one day...he bore a strange amulet into battle, and he did not return as the same person I once knew.

He became maddened, and it spread like an infection through the rest of my friends. The madness finally took complete hold in a strange tower, where they proceeded to shatter and desacrate everything around them that they could lay a blade or fist to.

I pleaded desperately, but none would listen to me...Viktas himself turned on me in the end, and I would have been slain if not for the sudden appearance of several ghostly creatures and a ragged band of odd travellers.

The battle that ensued was furious; hot like the blood of a red dragon staining the earth. When the dust had cleared...Viktas was slain. My friends were all dead, to the last man. How I evaded the madness, I do not know...but I do know that it is time for things to change.

My people, the Eshin'Kar, have hid in the dark long enough. Our time has passed. My race is gone...and so I lend what strength I have to the endeavours of this strange group.

They do not trust me, and I do not expect them to...but in time, they will see my worth..and my race will not be forgotten.

~ Lioden Xilo'ness

Acting voice of the Circle of Shadows