Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

This might be a shorter post than the others.  Within the pages of Legends of Windemere, Timoran Wrath stands out at being the most stable character.  He doesn’t change much over the course of the adventure in terms of personality.  There is a major revelation of his past and evolution of his future, but he never suffers from doubt or wanders from his path.  Funny thing is that I never considered this a problem and would carry on like this is normal for a character.  He became the calm eye in the storm of bolder, more fluid personalities.  That was very different than the game.

Timoran has a unique growth when you include the Dungeons & Dragons game.  Unlike the other champions, he began as a Non-Player Character.  He was designed to guide us when we needed it and cover the brute force that our team lacked.  At the time, it was Luke Callindor, Nyx, and Sari who were all rather immature.  Timoran became the wise and noble big brother to them, which is how he remained in the book.  Eventually, a player was assigned to him and things went awry.  For some reason, the player focused on his drinking and made him a brutish booze hound.  For example, there was one point where we cleared Luke’s temple and the first thing Timoran did was run off to drink the rarest liquor in the ancient vault.  I decided not to include this evolution because it felt like a step back and only caused friction.

Through Timoran, I developed the barbarians of Windemere and went in a very different direction.  Typically, these are stupid characters who resort to violence for even the smallest problem.  That didn’t work with the wise and calm Timoran, so I made them powerful warrior philosophers.  They live in harsh terrains such as swamps and mountains with some tribes being more primal than others.  Yet, they all have honor instead of being bestial in their connections.  As for the rage that barbarians are known for, I had it that they have established control over it.  It’s like an internal fire that they can access for extra strength and durability.  All of them are born with this and they learn control at an early age to prevent accidents.  The truth is that unleashing their full theory is dangerous to everyone, including the barbarian.  All injuries are ignored and no caution is taken, so they can easily get themselves killed.  It’s considered a move of desperation that nobody comes back from.

Going back to the man himself, Timoran does stay in the background a lot.  I had him more of a listener during the group conversations and he’d only speak when he had something solid to say.  There wasn’t a lot of chitchat from him when important things were being discussed.  This fit his milder personality and I could easily imagine him taking in everyone’s thoughts before voicing his own opinion.  Unlike the other champions, I don’t think there was ever a time he was truly a jerk or made any big mistakes.  Even when his secret past was revealed, he spoke with respect and only lashed out once when he was provoked by a friend.  For those curious, read Tribe of the Snow Tiger and enjoy his time to shine.

I bounced around with Timoran’s core because I kept thinking he was too close to Delvin Cunningham at times.  Part of this was due to me not knowing what to do with the latter, so the former was being affected.  In the end, I realized that I had Timoran established from the beginning.  He is the symbol of loyalty because he never leaves his friends behind unless he is told to go ahead.  Since the cores give their champions power and affect the specific virtue of those around them, Timoran was the secret glue of the group.  Being around him, the others felt an increased loyalty for each other.  Keep in mind that it was there, but he hardened it against outside influences.  Since Timoran was always loyal and raised to be that way, he never dwindled in power.  He’s actually the only champion to avoid a dip because he never strayed from his path.  I believe this is pointed out in the last book, but it’s been a while.

So, that’s Timoran Wrath.  The series wouldn’t have gone as smoothly without his stability.  I couldn’t even break it when I tried, so that tells you something about his level of power.