If Great Forks could be considered to have mean streets, it was these that you were born on. It was in the North Quarter, and you were the seventh son of a street sweeper and a fruit vendor. Your home was pressed between two wealthy merchant’s slave pens; technically each of the slaves had more room than the people in your family did, but you were free and they were not, so you always could hold your head high. You could read too, but then so could they. There were people less worse off than you, but not too many. Seven was a lucky number and you were born on the 400th year since the founding of the city, but you were also the thirteenth child too; three times lucky, but not all of it good.
Lucky Leaf you were known for the first part of your life, going where the winds blew you and trusting to your luck. Sometimes the winds blew you into a dark alley or into a tavern brawl you could not win, but mostly it blew you into good fortune. You studied in school and you learned what you could and when the winds stopped you found yourself on the doorstep of the great temple to Spinner of Glorious Tales or Talespinner. For a half dozen years the wind blew you nowhere and you studied and prayed. You met your wife and married her and over the course of time she bore you three fine children and three also being a lucky number, you stopped there. The wind picked you up then and moved you and your family to a different place. The vocation of telling stories became your bread and butter and you grew wealthy from it. You children were born in the opulence of the Temple District, but they were raised in the shadows of one of the great playhouses, yours.
As lucky as a Leaf became a turn of phrase for awhile and you slowly grew old. You remained the picture of health, money can't buy happiness, but it can afford you the very best of drugs for staving off the effects of aging. You forgot that luck can go both ways and in your 53rd year you were reminded of this fact quite harshly. FIrst, your wife sickened and died of an illness suddenly. Second, all of your children, with promising careers in the military, died in the Battle of Mishaka against Thorns. Lastly, a freak gust of wind overturned a lamp in your playhouse and the building was consumed in flames. It was all just bad luck, the illness was sudden and unexpected, the battle losses were felt across the city, 100 returned from a force of 3000, and the fire. Your fortune was lost paying fines and families for people and property lost in the fire.
That was nine years ago. Since then you have taken up your old vocation as a thespian, but this time travelling Creation attached to Guild Caravans. It has been a hard end to your long life, but it has brought a measure of happiness back to your life, but the days are getting harder for you: the heat of Summer makes breathing difficult, but the cold of Winter cuts through to the bone and when it rains your joints hurt something fierce. It is at night that you feel most alive, a new village and a new crowd where you can once again take the stage and tell great tales about King Justier with Three Fingers, The Prince and the Piper, or Three Gods in a Fountain. Nine years after the tragic year you were happy again.
The day you realised that you made your own luck, started out as any other day. The caravan was just outside a small village north of Cho-Huloth and the caravan was going to spend the night there. Trading in the village was not especially good but the caravan master wanted to be well rested for the next leg of the journey to Chaya, so we were going to stay the night and there was an opportunity to practise a play before a new audience. The first act went well and the second was well underway when the disturbance blew into town on a foul wind. They were marauding Rakasha or Fair Folk in the common vernacular and they had come to feast on the villagers.
The guards were mismatched, the villagers more so and we the players had only prop swords, so it was clear that if we fought we would die or wish that we had. I noticed then a small glimmer of a chance, the body language of the beasts was that of curiosity.
Damn them! Let the Play go on!
Whether by inexperience or because the lanterns lighting the stage, my fellows did not notice a thing. The play was coming to a conclusion and one of the Fair Folk joined you on the stage. He was tall and regal looking; he was close to seven feet tall, dressed in fine silk robes with a light suit of white armour with a sword made of the same white metal, upon his head was a thin circlet of silver, but it was the way he held himself that struck you most as regal. He appeared not to like the way the play was ending. The younger players stumbled with the break in the lines of the play and they faltered as the Fae delivered a line that was not in the play. The illusion that the play had created was about to fail and then the Fair Folk would slaughter everyone. Taking the initiative you moved on to the stage and began to deliver an improvisational soliloquy to counter the move of the Rakasha Lord.
The battle of words was one sided from the beginning, but still you fought on using the words of your craft to create a contrasting picture to the idea that the Fae Lord created, but your words were like paper against steel. As you faltered from his onslaught, your mind cleared, like a ray of sunshine breaking through a cloudy day. “Leaf, I, The Unconquered Sun, Exalt you. Oppose the enemies of Creation and subdue them.” You stood tall then, the infirmities of age left you, and strength returned to your voice.
Inhaling deeply, your mind cleared of the cobweb of words and the speech you uttered staggered your foe. Your quick series of words lashed him and brought him low. When he realised his failure, he gripped his blade and drew it forth. Your anger grew at his insolence, your new caste mark glowed and light blasted him as you parried his blow with your sword of wood. A few blasts into the crowd dispersed the rest and the spell lifted from the crowd.
Since then things have been better, you know now that luck does not happen, it is made. As such you have to be careful or you will attract bad luck. Making sure the lamps are all out before closing down; things like that. Making sure the Dragon Blooded don't hear about your exploits and send a Wyld Hunt to check you out . . .
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