Staurois Ranidae is the flotilla Oarmaster. His role is to lead the people, organize the flotilla, and keep the rafts on schedule together. Staurois a young leader, and fought at Litoria’s side in the war as one of the healing druids attached to the hipporiders. He was pushed into the position of Oarmaster when the flotilla regrouped in the chaos of the sacking of Skaplyndi and found that none of the people who would have been qualified for the role could be found. Whether they all died or were lost remains to be seen.
Chosen for his patience, his kindness, and his willingness to listen to others before making a decision, Staurois is a gentle leader. Under his guidance, the flotilla has begun the process of rebuilding their barges, replacing the hippopotamuses with turtles, and seeking out a new location for their Winter Quarters. His fellows are glad to follow his kind leadership, and he is a true servant leader.
On occasion, Staurois can take too long to make a decision. His desire for input and expert advice makes him a terrible leader in an immediate crisis, but his calm nature and his patience makes him a skilled healer of hearts and souls. He leads through compassion and guides with gentleness.
His raft bond wife, Nyctibatrachus, is a steadying presence in his life. She is their Family’s current Oarsman, and is a capable soldier when duty calls. They hope to have children together now that the war is over and the flotilla can reform and wander where it wills.
High Concept: Servant Leader
Staurois’s leadership style is to convince others that they should follow his course of action by example, by gentle guidance, and by convincing others of the action’s correctness.
Trouble Concept: Choice Paralysis
When presented with too many options, Staurois will struggle with selecting the right thing to do. He prefers to take his time with decisions and confer with subject matter experts before setting anything in stone.
Litoria Hylidae, one of the last remaining hipporiders, is in charge of what remains of the flotilla military. She is bitter about the results of their victory at Skaplyndi, and still mourns the loss of her beloved war hippopotamus. Litoria was second in command riding into the battle and attrition promotes faster than it prepares. She knew that her commander was aware of the danger they rode out to face, and she could see that their charge was a doomed suicide mission. When they acquitted themselves better than raw statistics could have hoped, it became obvious to her that no other force in the rebel army could have managed to turn the tide as the behemoths had. But it is still a great wound on her soul to know that they gave up so much, so many friends and comrades, and all their hopes for returning to their lives from before the war, and received in return something that feels so little.
Like many veterans of the sacking of Skaplyndi, Litoria suffers from nightmares and terrible flashbacks. She has trouble connecting with people who are not combat veterans and does not cope well with civilian life. Knowing that she needs some hope to lean on, she’s been given the last hippopotamus of the flotilla, a baby that was born on this side of the continental divide. The two are never apart, and while the little hippo will not replace her faithful old friend, it is a great comfort. She’s named the baby hippo Sauver, the Swamp-Sylvan term for ‘to save.’
All acknowledge that she would be a poor choice for the role of Oarmaster, but none in the flotilla would argue against her continuing to lead the military. Her cool head under pressure and quick tactical thinking make Litoria the only river elf who others trust to the task leading the remaining military to keep their safety. Before the war she was one of the laborers charged with building forts for the Lycans. An accident with a falling piece of stone scarred her face.
She’s currently living on the raft that is shared by what remains of her once-large family, and does not feel safe when alone. She cares for her family very much, and even though she’s often butting heads with Smilisca, would be completely lost without them. Her parents were in charge of a behemoth.
High Concept: Vicious Victor
Litoria learned a lot from fighting against the Lycans, and much of it involves just how bloodthirsty one must be to overcome armies that slaughter all who stand against them.
Trouble Concept: PTSD
And in her education in violence, Litoria also acquired nightmares, panic attacks, and a tendency to overreact.
Edalorhina "Eina" Leptodactylidae is the only cleric left on the flotilla, and that is because the only surviving cleric present during the sacking of Skaplyndi committed suicide shortly after. Eina is an optimist, even when there is no cause for it. She was not present for the loss of the behemoths as she was hard at work keeping the fighters’ rafts with their elders and children safe from harm. She did not succeed at her original task. Infighting among the rebels caused a dissolution of the flotilla as families left to try and find loved ones who were lost in the battles where the Lycan forces were retreating.
Ever an optimist, though, Eina sees that their place at the bargaining table when Locke and the other rebel leaders were divvying up the liberated territories could only be a good thing. Certainly, they did not get what they truly wanted, but this new territory to grow into and explore may instead be exactly what their shattered spirits need. And spirits are her realm of expertise. Eina is a devout cleric of Calestros, and a firm believer in the ideal of elven Family. It is her job to keep the flotilla from suffering morale defeat, and she excels at this new task.
Eina had a river bond with a tinker named Physalaemus, who is among the missing. His flotilla was in a different river when the chaos happened, and they have not yet been able to relocate where they could have gone. She is certain that he is still alive and that they will see each other again someday. Because of this she is not willing to accept a raft bond with any other.
High Concept: Optimistic Devotee
Eina wants to see the good in every elf, and she tries very hard to find the silversheen lining in even the most grim of situations.
Trouble Concept: Last Cleric Standing
With no one else on the flotilla for her to turn to for information on their religion, Eina sometimes finds herself with no other choice but to make educated guesses. Not all of these are correct, and sometimes it’s noticeable.
Smilisca Hylidae is Litoria’s cousin, and eldest remaining member of their Family. He’s a self-taught mud wizard, and one of the few who is trained in cartography and stellar navigation in the flotilla. His job is to both keep their progress on the rivers on course with the changing seasons and to train the next generation of navigators and cartographers to replace him when he is gone. There aren’t long lines of people interested in becoming mud wizards. It’s not a glamorous choice of magical niche. So he only has one apprentice at the moment, his orphaned nephew, Acris Hylidae.
During the war, Smilisca rode with the behemoths, and was at the sacking of Skaplyndi, but he was not a fighter and was not on the front line. As a support wizard, tasked with guarding their troops from early detection, Smilisca stayed behind in the river, left to watch with horror all that unfolded in the battle. His spellcasting spent, he was left with little options for being useful. It is his secret shame that he watched from the sidelines and did nothing to assist until the battle was over and he was running in every direction to collect the wounded, organize the survivors, and identify the dead. He sees ghosts in his dreams, and has a dozen little rituals to try and appease them.
Smilisca has previously served as Oarsman for his Family raft, and has an excellent track record for organization, attention to detail, and avoiding collisions. With too few trained navigators available, he has to give up the duty he enjoys serving for his Family to serve instead for the Flotilla. He had a relationship with a blade elf for a while, but when the flotilla disembarked duty kept them bound to their own cultures.
High Concept: Mud Mentor
Smilisca is the most educated elf in the flotilla, and that’s not saying much. He works to pass his knowledge on to those willing to learn.
Trouble Concept: Nervous Habits
Smilisca’s frequent little rituals to appease the ghosts of the dead have no bearing on reality. He burns incense on his raft, lights candles in their memory, and nearly worships the fallen with nightly prayers for Calestros’ intervention.
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