Tulrun

Tulrun of the Tent (pronounced TULL-run) was an uthgardt weretiger archmage who was, for a time, cursed into the form of a tiefling.

Description
When Tulrun was a weretiger, he was tall and powerfully built, with pale skin that was covered in fine red and white hairs, striped like a tiger's. He had bright blue eyes, and wore his red hair long and unkempt with a red goatee beard that stretched beyond his chest.

When he was a tiefling, Tulrun was instead a short, slender man with fine features, red scaly skin and short white hair. His hands had turned into talons.

He tended to wear a thick, wolfskin jacket and bearskin leggings along with a woollen kilt. He was most often seen bearing a roughly hewn ironwood staff shaped like a large cat, a necklace of totems and a pair of mithral bracers in the shape of tiger's heads with sapphires for eyes.

Personality
Tulrun was bad tempered, argumentative and uncooperative but had occasional bouts of friendliness and cheerfulness. He avoided people when he could, never truly having escaped the distrust of civilisation inherent to his ancestors. He didn't trust easily or make many friends for fear of losing them.

This was because, beneath his almost hostile facade lurked a soft hearted, personable individual who loved easily and was sensitive enough to drift into a deep sadness when that love was unrequited or lost - angrily regressing into himself when those he was closest to died.

He never possessed even half a dozen close friends at any one time, but they saw his true self: a talkative man who laughed heartily and often; A man who enjoyed good food, strategy games, strong mead and wrestling. Tulrun's one true love though, was magic.

Abilities
As a weretiger, Tulrun possessed uncanny strength and had a natural affinity for acts of acrobatics. He was also a highly adept spellcaster, specialising in the transmutation and conjuration schools. He was a skilled herbalist and, having lived through much of its recent history, was an adept sage on the lore of the Silver Marches.

Combat Tactics
Tulrun preferred to avoid direct combat, instead employing spells that would force others to do the fighting for him. A favourite tactic was to use a summon monster spell to distract an enemy, teleport to a monster lair that he knew of and then use another teleport spell on the lair's occupant, sending it to the middle of the fight he'd just left. If the abducted combatants proved victorious, Tulrun would return them home with half of whatever valuables his attacker possessed.

Tulrun also kept imprisoned enemies deep beneath the surface of the Cold Wood. He would sometimes lure a foe to the location above where such an enemy was trapped, cast freedom and teleport away to scry on the outcome, re-imprisoning the exhausted winner.

If forced into a direct confrontation, Tulrun would cast several defensive spells upon himself and polymorph into another shape to battle in melee.

Possessions
Tulrun had access to a large number of magic items but his most iconic was his catstaff, which granted him the stealth and agility of a feline while he was in his human form, as long as he was in physical contact with it and could create supernatural shadows for him to hide in.

Relationships
Tulrun's enemies seemed numberless while his friends were few. He had managed to upset the majority of the powerful individuals he'd met in his life and in particular, was vilified by white dragons. He was frequently challenged to combat by his personal foes, monsters and ambitious wizards.

He would rather lose contact with a friend than risk seeing them hurt and rarely ventured outside of his tent to meet people. He had lost too many friends in the past to actively wish to make more and later lose them too.

History
Tulrun was born Tallrunner Tigris to Chief Tawnclaw Tigris of the Red Tiger Uthgardt tribe and "the Mother Tiger", a shaman of Chauntea. Tallrunner was a natural weretiger, a condition that he inherited from his father, but grew fascinated with magic, which was frowned upon by his barbarian fellows.

As a young man in 659 DR, Tallrunner discovered a golden scroll while exploring the lands surrounding Beorunna's Well and, against his father's wishes, travelled to Silverymoon to demand an audience with Ecamane Truesilver. Tallrunner offered his scroll to Ecamane in return for apprenticeship to a powerful wizard. Ecamane accepted the trade and sent him to Myth Drannor to study in the Incanistaeum. Tallrunner was apprenticed to Mentor Wintercloak, one of the Seven Wizards there and when the elves mispronounced his name (calling him TOOL-roon-AYE), Tallrunner adopted Tulrun as his new name. Tulrun was adept at his craft but struggled to find peace in Myth Drannor, instead quenching his wanderlust in Anauroch to the west, taking as his travelling companion a crystal dragon named Krustalonos, who also hailed from Tulrun's ancestral lands. Tulrun also tried his hand at teaching others, and was one of Elminster's tutors.

While travelling without Krustalonos in the centre of Anauroch in 692 DR, Tulrun rediscovered the lost Abbey of the Moon and encountered one of Selûne's Shards, who led him through a portal to Ysgard, where he spent more than a century.

When he returned to Faerûn in 811 DR, he discovered Myth Drannor in ruins and Krustalonos seemingly vanished. He spent most of his time as an insane tiger in the north for the next quarter-century until he met Lynnàsha Nharimlur, who calmed his bestial spirit and became his lover. The two lived in Silverymoon together and, after a failed attempt to resume teaching at the Lady's College, retired to a tower outside of the city. They thereafter both accompanied Elué Dualen and her apprentices to the Outer Planes to battle a tanar'ri lord with designs on northern Faerûn but Lynnàsha was killed in the fighting, leaving Tulrun inconsolable. He transported himself to the Beastlands and resumed his life of bestiality as a tiger.

An avatar of Selûne appeared to him to once more calm his spirit in 937 DR and he returned again to the Material Plane but refused to go near Silverymoon again. Instead, he decided to search for his lost friend Krustalonos, a search that took three years and ended in the discovery of his friend's skeleton in the lair of Sneighfanglen, a powerful white dragon. In a rage, Tulrun slaughtered the Spawn of Auril, her mate and all but one of their children, a hatchling named Arauthator, who managed to evade the furious archmage.

Tulrun retreated to the Cold Wood to study transmutations for the next three centuries and created his famous tent until finally being drawn out of seclusion by the battles between Alustriel Silverhand and Shaloss Ethenfrost in 1235 DR. Tulrun led an army of orcs to Alustriel's aid in the Battle of Tumbleskulls and aided in Silverymoon's reconstruction once Alustriel had consolidated her rule. Although he refused to join the Spellguard, Tulrun was a reliable ally in the face of danger for the next four decades until suddenly, in 1279 DR, Tulrun severed all contact with his friends and allies. Two weeks later he repelled the first of a decade's worth of attacks against his tent. Despite offers of help from Silverymoon against the waves of foes he faced, Tulrun faced every one alone and won, fearful of bringing harm to the city. In 1289 DR, Tulrun contacted the one he had long known was responsible for the attacks, Arauthator, now a mature adult dragon who hoped to remove the danger posed by the one who'd killed his entire family. Face-to-face with his foe, Arauthator agreed to leave the civilised parts of the Silver Marches alone if Tulrun extended him the same courtesy.

Tulrun was convinced that some greater evil was manipulating Arauthator and spent the vast majority of his time attempting to discover that entity's identity. Towards that goal, he took to exploring Anauroch once more but while doing so, triggered a powerful Netherese curse that transformed him into a tiefling. He retreated to his tent, cutting himself off from the world and becoming a reclusive hermit, his only companions, a trio of beautiful flesh golems.

In 1374 DR, Tulrun numbered among the many powerful mages Khelben Arunsun brought together in order to restore the denizens of the lost city of Miyeritaar and cleanse part of the High Moor. He also regained his true nature as a weretiger.

Activities
Even before he was transformed into a tiefling and became a recluse, Tulrun had delegated his investigations into Arauthator's alleged controller to a network of spies who looked for any clue they could on his behalf in the western realms. He also took personal responsibility for the welfare of the Red Tiger Uthgardt, making sure that Luruar (a project he supported), when it was in the process of being formed, did not encroach on his tribe's ancestral lands. The tribe venerated him as a particularly honoured ancestor in thanks for his work.

Appearance
Blackstaff (novel)