Difference between revisions of "Roderic Cliché"

Roderic Cliché is a short, quiet, tubby little man who claims to be nearing sixty. He has spent very little time actually in Myrken Wood--merely long enough to establish a toy shop in the heart of town, meet and befriend Aloisius Treadwell, and then pass on the mantle of Father Winter, which the dragon turned human held for some time, to the fairy king turned Councilor. This passing of magic from one man to the other--something that ultimately ended up being temporary due to Treadwell's misuse of such--was the last that anyone in Myrken Wood saw of Roderic. He left his toy store in his successor's hands and simply wandered off, pale and ill, into the night.

In truth, there are a number of sides to Mr. Cliché; he presented himself first and foremost as a quiet, though jolly when met, toymaker. Secretly, he held the aforementioned role of Father Winter, a personage held in some esteem mostly by elven communities some distance from Myrken Wood; the tradition of such was only newly reintroduced to the town primarily by Aloisius Treadwell, although some older records of the Father exist in Altruian Mudd's Library of Mudd. Roderic was rumored to hold a great number of other magical abilities, many of them bestowed on his old self by adoring children.

Roderic, in the past, has delved deeply into one such ability when talking to those same children, though always in jest: he always seems to have one tale or another about his ability to turn into an ancient (and quite friendly!) black dragon that was long since thought dead or merely legendary. That dragon supposedly has an immense appetite and a neverending failure to land properly. That dragon is named Bracchus, though Roderic himself never gave anyone in town visible proof of being able to change into such.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that he really is the big dragon in question, and, as of late, he is spending more and more time as the great lizard, especially at night. Most evenings and nights, it seems that Bracchus can be found wallowing in the muddy shore and cool water of Silver Lake, occasionally taking his fill of passing fish. This real identity as a great old dragon merely brings one more fact to light: despite whatever age Roderic says he is, he certainly is not a mere fifty-nine years old.

As of July, A.R. 206, Roderic has made his appearance anew, returning to Myrken Wood. After having reopened his toy store--though this time out of his house and not from its former location in the middle of town--he comfortably eased back into everyday Myrken life. However, in December A.R. 206, the traveling toymaker found himself leaving Myrken Wood, heavy of heart and simply not feeling like he'd found a place he could call "home" again just quite yet.