Tulrun

Tulrun of the Tent was a weretiger or tiefling archmage of the Uthgardt Red Tiger tribe.

Description
When Tulrun was reported to be 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 reported to be 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 woolen 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, having never truly escaped the distrust of civilization inherent to his heritage. He didn't trust easily or make many friends for fear of losing them.

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

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

Abilities
Tulrun possessed uncanny strength and had a natural affinity for acts of acrobatics. He was also a highly adept spellcaster, specializing in the transmutation and conjuration schools. He was a skilled herbalist and, having lived there 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 favorite 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
Among his other possessions were a +5 bracers of defense, a ring of regeneration, a ring of shooting stars and a rod of alertness.

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.

Activities
Even before he 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 tribe, 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 honored ancestor in thanks for his work.

History
Tulrun was born Tallrunner Tigris to Chief Tawnclaw Tigris of the Red Tiger 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 the, Tallrunner discovered a golden scroll while exploring the lands surrounding Beorunna's Well and, against his father's wishes, traveled 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 traveling 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 traveling without Krustalonos in the center of Anauroch in the, 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 the, he discovered Myth Drannor in ruins and Krustalonos missing. 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 the, 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 the. 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 the, 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, for he was fearful of bringing harm to the city. In the, 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 civilized 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.

By 1370 DR., he had retreated to his tent, cutting himself off from the world and becoming a reclusive hermit, his only companions, a trio of beautiful "female" constructs he named Caerel, Elsara, and Tionele. He cared deeply for his few companions during this solitary period in his life and would do anything to keep them from serious harm.

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.

Appearances

 * Blackstaff (novel)