Eionelthaniel silentheart
| Eionelthaniel Silentheart | |
|---|---|
| Status | |
| Race | Elf |
| Gender | Male |
| Guild | Bard |
| Instance | undisclosed |
Overview
Eionelthaniel Silentheart, later widely recognized by the honorific “Bard of Stars,” is an Elven Bard distinguished by the breadth of his repertoire, with works spanning satire, comedy, historical balladry, dirges, and love songs. Rather than adhering to a single musical temperament, he has long been regarded as a performer capable of meeting the emotional needs of a room — whether lifting spirits through humor, preserving memory in solemn verse, or capturing wonder in song.
Known in earlier decades as Babble, the name endures primarily among his oldest companions and the Halfling family who raised him. In later life he reclaimed the birth name unknowingly carried since infancy, restoring a connection to a Bardic lineage nearly erased during the Dragon Priest persecutions.
Though never counted among the Guild’s political voices, Eionelthaniel is often regarded as both performer and chronicler — a bard whose work reflects not only memory, but the full emotional spectrum of Elanthian life.
Quote
“Song is the oldest truth in the world. Even before words — before gods or grief — there was rhythm. I do not cast spells; I remember them. The air already knows how to heal, how to weep, how to burn. A bard’s task is only to remind it.”
Appearance
You see Bard of Stars Eionelthaniel Silentheart, Iron Chronicler of Elanthia, an Elf. He has a bold slash of a scar crossing diagonally over the nose, pointed ears, observant violet eyes and a crooked nose. Your blue-black hair is short and straight, and is worn loose. You have pale skin and an athletic build. He is a bit over average height for an Elf. He is mature. He has a tattoo of a bardic-blue naga spiraling up the arm from hand to shoulder, its scales inked with scattered stars that fade into paler blues along its tail. Musical marks subtly woven between the coils recall a quiet summoning refrain. The naga's tail circles the wrist, and its poised head rests at the shoulder as if keeping silent vigil over the stars scattered below on your left wrist.
You are holding a ghostspine lute carved to resemble a naga with glittering Gemfire ruby eyes in your left hand. You are wearing a weathered smoi leather minstrel's hat adorned with a lute-shaped sapphire, a deep crimson starlight velvet greatcloak that shimmers with constellations of the night sky, a battered cherrywood sheath wrapped elegantly with supple icy blue smoi leather, an onyx-hide back harness with a flame-bladed zweihander strapped to it, a luxurious silverweave shirt ornamented with bands of blackwork embroidery, a bardic blue faelight leather armlet inset with sungold music notes, a tel'athi engagement ring set with a dusky orange thealstone, some dark blue titanese fighting pants and some chitinous beetle-winged boots latticed with bloodfire shell droplets
Early Life
Eionelthaniel was born in 285 AV, in the lingering shadow of the Dragon Priest persecutions.
He was left as an infant upon the doorstep of a Halfling Silentheart household in Arthe Dale, wrapped carefully in blankets and accompanied by a note written in both Elven and Common — a plea that the child be loved and protected, warning that his parents would likely not survive the night.
The Halflings named him Babble, raising him with warmth, music, and unwavering devotion. For many decades, he believed this was the entirety of his story.
It was not.
The Ka’vill Line
Eionelthaniel is the son of Thaniel of the Ka’vill line and Eionenya, Bards remembered in fragmentary accounts as wielders of unusually potent enchantes. Their combined abilities drew the attention of Dzree’s Dragon Priests during the purge that sought to silence influential Bardic bloodlines.
Marked for eradication, the pair fled with their infant son.
They did not survive.
Their lineage did.
The Reclaiming of His Name
The truth of his parentage emerged years later during an encounter in Fayrin’s Rest with the aged Bard Kaeltharion Veylin, once a companion to his parents. Recognizing echoes of both Thaniel and Eionenya in the grown Bard before him, Kaeltharion revealed the significance hidden within the name pinned to the child’s blanket.
Among certain Elven traditions, a child’s name may carry the lineage of both parents.
Eionel-thaniel — child of Eio and Thaniel.
When he departed Fayrin’s Rest at dawn, it is said he carried not a burden, but an inheritance.
The Sleep Song
The Sleep Song
Rest, little one, the night grows deep, The stars above their watch still keep. Though shadows press and dark winds moan, In song you’ll never be alone.
Dream, little one, the dawn will rise, With golden fire across the skies Though blades may hunt and fires consume, The morning always breaks the gloom.
Hush, little one, your heart beats true, Our love will walk each path with you. So long as verses still take wing, No hate can silence what we sing.
Scholars later remarked that no sigil nor blood-mark could have proven his lineage more clearly than the melody he carried unknowingly into adulthood.
Restoration-Era Bard (349 AV)
Eionelthaniel is counted among the generation of Bards who emerged in the years surrounding the reopening of the Crossing Guildhall in 349 AV, when the Bard Guild formally returned to public life following its near destruction.
Accounts of that pivotal moment — including the death of Siryn Mistbringer on the very day the guildhall opened — are preserved in The Restoration of the Bard’s Guild in Our Time, housed within the Bard Guild Library. Eionelthaniel (Babble) is referenced among those present in the early restoration years, remembered less for prominence than for ensuring that Bardic song did not vanish from Elanthia.
The Gorbesh War (354 AV)
Eionelthaniel came of age during the uncertain years following the Guild’s restoration and was among the young Bards present when the Gorbesh War reached Crossing in 354 AV.
During the invasion, he aided in the city’s defense through Bardic magic — lending his voice to healing efforts, strengthening defenders, and standing among those who refused to abandon the provincial capital.
He rarely spoke of the war thereafter, though some scholars believe the experience shaped his enduring view that song is not merely performance, but protection.
The Heralds’ War (450 AV)
Eionelthaniel was present in Crossing during the opening crises of the Heralds’ War in 450 AV, when celestial forces and Immortal designs brought unprecedented peril to the province.
As danger mounted, he was counted among those who gathered at the Temple, lending mana to reinforce its protective wards while the city sought refuge within its walls. When those defenses ultimately failed, he retreated with other survivors into the tunnels below.
In the turmoil that followed, a portal manifested into what later accounts would describe as the Celestial Expanse — a realm still violently unstable in the wake of divine conflict. Eionelthaniel entered alongside a small company of companions; by their arrival the primary battle had already passed, yet fragments of star-matter continued to fall in deadly silence across the expanse.
There the group encountered a carefully arranged picnic basket, widely attributed in later recollections to Allye. Whether the moment inspired disbelief, gallows humor, or simple distraction remains uncertain, but the pause proved costly. Several, including Eionelthaniel, were struck by falling star shards and suffered mortal wounds before the expanse collapsed, returning the survivors to the Temple where healing could be rendered.
Among Bards, the episode is frequently cited as the likely origin of his composition A Picnic in the Stars, a work notable for balancing cosmic danger with disarming absurdity.
In later years, some observed that the celestial imagery surrounding Eionelthaniel did not end with the war, but quietly threaded itself into the life he built thereafter.
The Bard of Stars
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title “Bard of Stars” entered quiet circulation only after the Heralds’ War and the composition of A Picnic in the Stars. Initially little more than bardic shorthand, the title appears to have arisen from the convergence of lived experience, artistic response, and the celestial language that increasingly accompanied his work.
Its endurance, however, is often attributed to more than memory alone.
In later life, Eionelthaniel formed a bond with the Trader Couri Fearfly, a practitioner of Munar magic whose craft is tied to lunar influence and distant light. Those familiar with the pair have long noted their shared habit of parting with the phrase, “Meet you in the stars,” a quiet exchange believed by some to have anchored the title within both private devotion and public perception.
Over time the association deepened, and what began as a passing bardic reference endured with the calm persistence of something that no longer required explanation. Eionelthaniel has never publicly claimed the honorific, yet neither has he discouraged its use.
Bonding
Eionelthaniel affirmed his vows before the Immortals with Couri Fearfly in 454 AV. Though the two met only in later years, their companionship is widely regarded as steady and enduring.
Listeners have occasionally observed that compositions written after this period carry a warmer tonal undercurrent.
Performance Style
Eionelthaniel is known for maintaining a repertoire suited to nearly any gathering. His performances move comfortably between humor, lament, romance, and historical remembrance, reflecting an older Bardic tradition in which the performer serves the full breadth of communal life rather than a single emotional register.
Fellow Bards have remarked that he seems less a performer of songs than a keeper of them.
Notable Works
- Guild Reborn — historical ballad
- A Picnic in the Stars — cosmic satire inspired by the Celestial Expanse
- Just Got Off the Ferry — humorous arrival ballad
- The Bard Who Tried to Summon a Naga — comedic cautionary tale
- The Night the Yaks Broke Free — lively performance piece
- Under the Willow Tree — romantic remembrance
Eionelthaniel, formerly known as Babble, is recorded among the Crossing Guild’s scrolls of renown.
Timeline
- 285 AV — Born to Thaniel and Eionenya
- 349 AV — Bard Guild reopens
- 354 AV — Defends Crossing during the Gorbesh War
- 450 AV — Present during the Heralds’ War; survives the Celestial Expanse
- Later years — Reclaims his birth name
- 454 AV — Affirms vows with Couri Fearfly
Historical Interpretation
Later Bardic commentary has at times placed Eionelthaniel among the Restoration Generation — those who came of age in the decades following the Dragon Priest persecutions and ensured that Bardic tradition endured not merely in memory, but in practice.
Never counted among the Guild’s political voices or public leaders, he is nonetheless regarded as emblematic of a quieter continuity: a bard shaped less by prominence than by steady presence across multiple defining eras.
Scholars have observed that his body of work resists easy classification, leading some to situate him within an older artistic tradition in which the Bard serves the full breadth of communal life.
His reluctance to speak at length about wartime experiences has drawn modest academic interest, with several historians interpreting the silence as characteristic of restoration-era survivors — those for whom endurance itself was sufficient testimony.
Whether remembered primarily as performer, witness, or keeper of songs, Eionelthaniel is frequently cited as an exemplar of the Bardic belief that endurance, rather than acclaim, allows a voice to carry across generations.