At first glance, Flavian may look like a regular halfling. However, to those who have eyes to see, this peculiar hero has a strange aura about him, almost like a magic creature not belonging to the world of Daren. The truth is not so exciting, though. Flavian is every bit a halfling from Hearth. Being born and raised there. What most people do not figure just by looking at him is his aptitude for magic.

The elder shaman of Hearth realized that aptitude on the young Flavian as soon as he was able to walk. It was almost like the forces of nature wanted to make Flavian’s life easier by bending ever so slightly into his childish will. Seeing that phenomenon of a kid, the shaman took it to himself to train the young one to be a druid, a shaman, or even though he did not like the taste of the word, a mage. Flavian, however, had other plans for himself.

Flavian could not take the whole studying and getting in touch with nature’s forces, at least not the way the old shaman wanted him to. Instead, the young halfling would flee from his studies to lie down on the grass, hop on a tree, or sit by a stream and just close his eyes or stare into nothingness. That is, whenever he was not playing pranks on everyone in sight. Their laughter, their cursing, the sounds of his village was what Flavian was after. “The sounds,” he said once “it’s like the whole world wants to tell me its story”. The shaman understood it as another sign that Flavian was born to be a druid or a shaman and invested even further in his studies. It was by that time that he realized his mistake.

A roaming troupe was passing through Hearth once and stopped to make a few presentations. Halflings do not turn away from an opportunity to sing, dance, and have fun, Flavian included. The sounds those people made with their instruments were completely different from everything he had ever heard in Hearth.

A minstrel, upon seeing that amazed child, invited Flavian closer. The man then played a dark and chaotic song he said was from Umbral, a great city at the shores. Although the young halfling had never seen the city, he experienced it through the song. Amazed, Flavian wanted the man to experience Hearth through its sound, the same way he did.

Flavian was not familiar with a lute, though it just took him a few minutes to understand how to make the sounds he wanted. It was then that Flavian played his first song. The song of Hearth. The song of every stream he heard, every tree he climbed, every breeze. When he stopped, a crowd had gathered next to him, speechless. Among them, the shaman realized his own mistake as he felt Flavian’s magic through his music.

Feeling defeated, though also wiser, the shaman decided to send Flavian with the troupe. Hearth had already told Flavian everything it could and now the rest of the world needed to tell Flavian its story, a story he would pass on with his music.