The Keeper of the Grove by Vrynil on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Tell me where you've flown Are there mountains Behind the grand facade Foundations full of life

Junkie XL- We become one

By far one of the most awesome songs I've ever heard...it inspired this pic that I drew a while back. [dug up my scanner out of that box to throw some art at you guys one last time before I move out <3's]

I like making completely random characters and settings that merely exist in the world I've created and have absolutely nothing to do with the main characters, storyline, or even in the same region, but that I create and put in as a concept just because I thought it was a cool idea.

This is one of those things.

One of the forests that exists to surround the marshland as a border and "fence" for the temple that lies in the dead center of the swamp has a living Keeper, a rare occurance in Gaia's day and age. Most were "vanquished" long ago, leaving the forest to die away of its own accord and tend to itself on its own. Adventurers would go out looking to slay some poor, unsuspecting dragon, and in the event that none were found, they would end up merely going into a protected expanse of trees and kill whatever looked like a dragon [not many have seen a real dragon, so it's easy to just kill whatever and go along with it], thus bringing back some big, ugly creature's head to adorn some wall mantle back home.

This keeper is very wise and old. His forest was one of the first, sprung up for the sole purpose of caressing the newly built temple for a god long lost in time.

He is deaf like his trees, but sees all in and throughout the branches and bows via the orb that balances in nothing under his horn. He spends most of his days lazing around his rarely visited area of the world, thus what keeps him from being killed like so many of his brethren, and lives in the present, worry free and without any thoughts of the future and what will become of his beloved flora. He sits and waits for nothing, but with the knowledge that something will eventually come.

Forest Keepers are loners in nature [pun] and have the ability to completely disappear from any and all detection so long as they remain inside of their forest, the place from which they draw all of their power from. Inside of this place, they are quick, agile, and can phase through anything native to their land. Once outside of the boundaries of their expanse, however, they will quickly lose power as they wander away, until finally, a few miles out, they will lay down, crumble into dust and simply cease to exist...

Very few remain.

[Download offers the best view of what minor details I had put in ^^ ]

EDIT: OH YEAH!! And any crits on how to make this background work would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!! I suck so frakkin' bad at backgrounds it's unreal. >>;