Traveller: Slither Elkwood, Gator Raised By Squirrels

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Slither Elkwood, Gator Raised By Squirrels

As I am easily amused by many things and spend way too much time looking at silly memes (mostly about cats but gaming ones as well. Enough bad things happening in the world and I'll take my escapism where I can) and this one meme showed up and I thought, I could make a character from that.

The original plan was to use it to replace my dead Ursa Major (see last post for the death stamp) in the random RPG game we were playing. But then we switched to a non-random game so the character showed up there, alongside the river of regrets (we killed off a bunch of slavers who were trying to take Slither as a slave, my character came into session 2 or 3 of the game. They kept falling into the river realizing they had made regretful life choices).

At the River of Regretful Life Choices

the origin

Mine also combines the Squirrels from Lumberland as well as a vague connection to my interdimensional library. Which fits nicely with the description of the squirrel city:

The city’s inhabitants are a combination of fairly intelligent mundane squirrels, sapient talking squirrels hailing from more than one dimensional realm, and the aristocratic clans of the Nutkin — squirrel-kin tracing their descent directly to one or more deities of various realms. Baudekin is also home to squirrel-like refugees from a hundred worlds, including chipmunks, marmots, flying squirrels, and beyond.

And my library of worlds (stolen from a lot of stories but most recently this series of the Invisible Library (which I've only read the 1st 3 or so books but greatly enjoyed them. As I just like libraries in general. In high school I was a page at the public library and had the Dewey Decimal system memorized. Thought I'd be a librarian in life but got interested in computers). From our groups RPG thing a day challenge:

The Library of Gnoth is an interdimensional library that connects to libraries across the planes, dimensions and universes. Not only does it hold an untold wealth of books, parchments, scrolls and other written items of its own, but connects to other libraries across reality. And while there may be some order and design, only the Librarians know how to safely navigate this space. Many adventurers have found the Library to never return, lost in another world or plane. Infinite knowledge may be found here, as well as infinite danger. If one were to simply enter the room one can see bookcases stacked high with books, scrolls and tomes of every sort, ladders and spiraling stairs reaching to the upper floors. The walls and ceiling appear vague, cloudy or a piercing view of infinity. Nooks and rooms are visible, though to enter one you may not be able to return to where you came from.
The Library is guarded by the Librarians, no two ever looking the same. From many races, and many planes of existence, these Librarians are both guard and keeper of the knowledge in the infinite Library. Often the Librarians will leave the library to search out new books or scrolls to add to its collection. These Librarians can use any Library to return to the Library of Gnoth.

The entrance to the Library of Gnoth varies from world to world. In the world of Cidri, there is an entrance in The Elemental City of Athukthad, at the north of the Kalor Desert. There is a small library there that, in the special collections room in the cellar, one may find the entrance to the Library of Gnoth. The head librarian is also a Librarian of Gnoth, but prefers to stay on this plane even though she is aging. The Librarians do not age while in the Library, and some are more than a thousand years old, and have accumulated much knowledge and wisdom.

All of my worlds are somehow vaguely connected. Anyway, the background for Slither.

In the Squirrel City of Baudiken, a librarian squirrel found a basket outside the library entrance, high in the treetops. Thinking someone had returned some overdue scrolls or books, the basket proved to be heavier than expected. Looking inside, Hiccuptail found not books or scrolls, but a small baby lizardfolk. A note inside said that he would be safer amongst those with knowledge, and one day he would return the axe to its rightful place. Looking up, Hicciptail noticed a huge rune-encrusted great axe sitting against the branch. Looking around, he could see no-one around, and dragging the basket inside the library, called for help from the other librarian, his wife Caperknot. Between the two of them they managed to drag the great axe into the library.

Despite access to other libraries from other realms (there are many portals in Baudiken leading across various realms and worlds) they never found a translation of those runes. There was a similarity to some runes from the far north, from a city in the mountains full of Men. In the meantime, the librarians decided to keep the little lizardfolk and carefully raised him. Barriers had to be put up as he would slither all over the floor and threaten to fall off the great branches. Which is where is name came from, and he took his last name from the great elk tree the library was in and on.

Years went by, and Slither read everything he could, and often read and re-read that note left behind, looking for clues as to where he came from. The great forest bordered swamps, and while he started making trips to those swamps as he got older, he never found another lizardfolk or any information as to who he was.

Finally a young adult, he decided to leave the village, taking the great axe to find that city in the north, hoping there would be clues as to who he was, and why he was safer with the squirrels.