Brevyn Oakbender

Appearance

Brevyn was a tall and muscular woman with brown eyes and blond wavy hair pinned up with a gold hairpin. She had a butterfly tattoo in her chest.

Personality

She cared about her friends, and about her family, even when she didn't show it to them. She had a temper and found it hard to give up control, but her charisma allowed her to command respect in others.

Biography

Brevyn was one of the three children (and the only woman) of Chidra the Blue Rose and Lazak Oakbender, known as the Dark Forge, a goliath who, despite living in the Greying Wildlands, was known even in the Menagerie Coast. Brevyn grew up in Shadycreek Run and loved to spend time in the forge with her father, who told her a lot of stories; however, Lazak was a violent man who beat his wife, and Chidra, eventually, poisoned him, causing the goliath to fall into the forge, burning to ash. Brevyn and her brothers, Narath and Vik, were sent away.

She spent time in the Marrow Valley, with Karem Ferentus of the Claret Orders, and started learning hemocraft; she still visited her mother, who by 822 PD called herself Auntie Mama and was surrounded by children and teenagers who did missions for her. One of them, Lucien Tavelle, was hurt after opening a trapped box, and Brevyn healed him. At some point before 829 PD she, Lucien and Cree Deeproots helped a local woman, Everleen Gorbus, who was in an abusive marriage, but when the husband, Gundabol, threatened Auntie Mama to know where Everleen was, the woman was so angry with her daughter and her friends that she kicked them out. Even though Brevyn stood strong before her mother, she cried and vomited, dismayed by the event. She and her two friends traveled to the Marrow Valley, and Lucien and Cree joined the Claret Orders as well.

By 829 PD they had learned and trained together (Brevyn learning from Elias de Corvo and usually drilling the new learners) for at least two years, although they (as well as other members of the Orders) did not like the authority and strict attitude of some superiors, such as Sarenne de Chastain. She helped Lucien in his first mission investigating undead activity, and he helped her and Cree taking down a fiend in Berleben (he saved them, and according to the tabaxi, the the half-goliath began to fall for the tiefling in that mission).

In 831 PD Brevyn and several members of the Orders traveled to Rexxentrum and spent there several months, even meeting with Vess DeRogna from the Cerberus Assembly to present her with a relic at some point; the archmage secretly paid Lucien by giving him information about where his sister Aldreda lived, and since Brevyn didn't trust the archmage and her information, she made Otis Brunkel follow Lucien to ensure his well-being. Despite the spying, she and his friend were intimately close in Rexxentrum (even sharing an elf lover), and at the end of their stay in the capital, both, along with Cree and Otis, decided to return to Shadycreek Run.

In her hometown they came across other members of the Order, Zoran Kluthidol, Tyffial Wase and Briyakar Jurrell, who had been living in Auntie Mama's house for a while after she was killed by Reese Jagentoth for smuggling for the Mardoons, two years before. Despite Brevyn's desire for revenge the group ended up deciding to recover Auntie Mama's remains instead, in order to give her a proper farewell instead of having her where the Jagentoths kept those who betrayed them. That adventure started their group, that would be known as the Tombtakers, and although they lived for a while in Brevyn's house (Auntie Mama left it to her in her will), with Brevyn and Zoran even doing a brief job as bodyguards for a halfling collecting debts, eventually the Jagentoths tried to attack them, stopping only because Vess DeRogna appeared and bargained for their lives, so she could hire the Tombtakers herself. One of their missions was in Molaesmyr, were they fought hags and reached the tower of Caes Mosor.

The Tombtakers eventually accompanied the archmage in an expedition to Aeor. While exploring the lost city under the ice they found a room with a corpse and an old journal that somehow started to speak to Lucien in his mind; when the hall began to collapse the group began to withdraw but Lucien, prompted by the voices of the journal, wanted to retrieve the object. Brevyn decided to go find it for him, but the collapse crushed half of her body, and she died giving Lucien the journal, her last words to him being: "Remember? To venture forth. That is the mandate of the soul." Vess DeRogna tried to claim the item as part of the artifacts recovered from the expedition, but faced with the outrage of the Tombtakers and the high price Lucien had paid for the journal, the archmage gave up. Since they weren't able to recover Brevyn's body, the Tombtakers honored her in a lake near Balenpost, in which Zoran offered a moving prayer to the Matron of Ravens.

In 836 PD, after Lucien, killed by Vess DeRogna, was resurrected and traveled to Aeor pursuing the power of the Somnovem (the voices that spoke to him from the journal) with the Tombtakers (minus Jurrell, who had been executed), he tried to keep Brevyn out of his thoughts, seeing her as a weakness from his past. However, Cree ignored Lucien's attitude and searched for the place where their friend had died, finding her dead body, and getting the impression that Brevyn was glad to have them around. At that Lucien forced the cleric to shut up using his powers, forbidding her to speak of the half-goliath again.

Later, while arguing with a fragment of his mind, who kept mentioning the half-goliath, Lucien remembered and recognized Brevyn's beauty, hating himself for it. When Lucien was about to be transformed by Cognouza he remembered Brevyn and her butterfly tattoo, which inspired him in the form he took next.