Shangwyn was the daughter of Kerisa, the town healer, and was taught various medicinal uses for the native plants as she grew up. She was also taught first aid, and some limited healing. It was always felt among the village that Shangwyn was being trained to become the new village healer after Kerisa passed on.

Shangwyn’s village was located in the foothills below a large mountain range called “The Wyrm’s Teeth”. It had been peaceful for many years before Shangwyn was born. Consequently, the people had grown relaxed in their ways. As a frontier village, they still taught their children to fight and hunt, but their readiness for an attack was otherwise low, and a constant watch was not kept.

When Shangwyn was a girl of 14 disaster struck. Cloaked and hooded raiders swept down upon the village at night. The town was caught totally unawares, as the well-armed and armored raiders torched the town and then set about slaughtering everyone they could find. The villagers outnumbered the raiders, but this was more than compensated for by the total surprise of the attack, the inability of the villagers to mount a coordinated defense, the superior weaponry of the raiders, and the raider's fearsome battlemages.

When the attack occurred, Shangwyn had been out hunting by herself up in the mountain above the village, but had bedded down to sleep for the night. She was awakened by the sounds of screaming off in the distance. The first thing she saw was the flickering of the flames at the bottom of the mountain as the village burned - At first she couldn’t believe, couldn’t understand what was happening. Then she reacted, quickly grabbing her bow and arrows as she tried to run back down the mountain trail to her home. Elves are known for their exceptional night vision, but this was a moonless cloudy night, and in her haste and shock she slipped and fell, hitting her head and abruptly everything went black.

She awoke to the sounds of birds chirping. It was day. Shangwyn immediately sat up and felt a tremendous headache. She briefly communed with the nature spirits to restore herself to health before getting up and heading back down the mountain.

After examining the village from the disance, it became obvious that no one alive was there – the defenders had all been slaughtered and the raiders were long gone. She then cautiously walked down into Hirth. The village looked so different from the happy place she remembered. There was Ferido, the baker, and Arak, the village chief – all dead. Finally, she came to the blackened ruin where she had lived with her mother. After gathering herself, she looked inside, confirming her worst fears – her mother was dead – an arrow from a longbow through her chest. The arrow was unusual – containing 3 red stripes and 1 blue stripe around its shaft .... perhaps the unusual marking might denote the arrow of a particular noble.

Shangwyn fled the village back up to the mountains. For days, she lay paralyzed with grief. Finally she got herself together and began to live alone as a hermit. She became one with nature, learning to communicate with the spirits of nature and with the animals and other creatures. She was envious of the freedom of the creatures of the wild and of their ability to move so smoothly through nature and sought to emulate them wherever possible.

Shangwyn’s powers grew as she became one with nature. Her abilities to track and fight all increased.

Finally, after 5 years of living in the wild, Shangwyn decided to avenge the murder of her village and her mother by seeking justice against their murderers. She came down out of the mountains, experiencing nature in all its different forms as she went. She tried to avoid big cities wherever possible.

As she approached more populated areas, she started to encounter bandits who thought her, a young woman alone, an easy mark. Though skilled, she discovered that there were many others more skilled. After one particularly close encounter, she decided that if she was to properly avenge her village she must obtain more seasoning. She decided to go adventuring. Doing so would grant her the necessary experience, provide funds by which she could outfit herself with magic to fight the magic possessed by the slayer of her village, and could help provide contacts which might enable her to find the murderer’s identity.

Two things should be noted: Though Kerisa the healer was Shangwyn’s mother, her father did not live in the village and was in fact a foreigner. Shangwyn never met her father, but her mother once told her that her father was a nobleman from a far off land. Secondly, sometime after the raid while Shangwyn was still up in the mountain above Hirth, she communed with the old spirit of the wood who told her the surprising news that the raiders had actually searching for someone. Even more surprising: the raiders had been unsuccessful and had not found who they were looking for. Most shocking was that the The old spirit of the wood thought the raiders had been searching for Shan