This is an unfinished narrative backstory to my character from a QUEST campaign that I did with my friends a few months ago! I would have loved to finish it, but unfortunately I was dealing with some health issues during Fletch Fest 2026 and didn't have as much energy as I would have hoped.

_{art by @edenflux}

Arcane sparks of purple energy danced to life as Flower drew a final rune on the stone floor of the wizard's dormitory room. The trap was set. Now Flower needed to hide.

A deeply curious and energetic goblin, Flower was frequently seen wandering the halls at the prestigious Wizard School. Although not an official student, Flower was granted special access to audit classes that he wanted, after helping save the town just a few months prior. However, not being able to read or write (or focus, for that matter) made most classes too advanced for Flower. Rune studies were much more approachable.

Not so different from drawing small critters and mundane plants in his field journal, Flower quickly took to the form of magic that was essentially just scrawling pictures into surfaces. He certainly couldn't read the arcane glyphs or decipher their meaning, but Flower's innate understanding of the Natural world made the glyphs somewhat more intuitive to him.

Bruelevue - a pompous and annoyingly self-important wizard - strode into the room, stepping on the runic circle Flower had finished just minutes before. A loud pop! resounded as the floor was suddenly populated with a thick layer of lush grass. Giggling delightedly to himself, Flower darted out from behind the wardrobe, under the legs of his victim, and down the hall. He heard his name and a few choice curses echo down the hallway after him. It was hard to run while laughing so hard. Pestering Brue - Mielo's wizarding "rival" - was one of Flower's favorite ways to pass the time.

It had been a few months since Flower had helped a burgeoning adventuring party defeat Crestor the Crooked. Under the guidance of the wisened, now-retired Galdenow of the Adventurer's Guild, Flower had joined forces with Kudzu, a powerful plant cryptid; and Mielo, a wizarding student. Together they saved the Wavewood Isles from one of the defected archmages of the Wizard School, who had come to exact his revenge (though no one could quite say what Crestor wanted or why he had returned to the Isles specifically).

Usually, Flower spent his days in a hovel in the woods, happily taking care of the forest. There was just so much to learn, and Flower wanted to take it all in. He'd often spend long hours on walks through the trees, scrawling pictures of mundane critters or commonplace clovers, treating each one like it was a special and exotic thing.

Flower loved the natural world, which was somewhat unusual for a goblin. Goblins are not typically Whismical creatures. They were bred and raised as cheap workforces to support the logistics for long wars and large armies. Flower spent most of his childhood running messages between commanders, while his parents slaved away in the iron mines far below the surface.

The Wavewood Isles provided the perfect spot for Flower to hide from the Dark Lord's reach. Most goblins spent their entire lives in servitude to one evil master or another, resourcing the endless thousand-year wars that raged between lichdoms in the Frozen Wastes. Undead kings of ages gone-by still fought with one another. It was difficult to win ground and claim victories when both sides were comprised of unnaturally begotten monsters or undead armies or such.

Nearly all of the Good Folk just simply moved away, leaving the undead to clash with one another for eternity while they themselves lived out a less turbulent existence elsewhere. Occasionally, some brave (or foolhardy) merchants would trade ancient artifacts of unknown power to the undead armies, and it was one such merchant that Flower had stowed away with to leave the northern continents behind.

When Flower wasn't spending time in the forests or drawing runes out of Mielo's books, he helped out at the Adventurer's Guild, running well-water or washing clothes. Flower's goblin nature served him well doing mundane tasks, and Galdenow frequently rewarded him with little trinkets from former adventurers. Flower loved storied objects from distant places and felt deeply curious about them, often making up his own stories about what they were and how they came to be in Galdenow's possession.

... (unfinished)