When Kobold Press launched the Tales of the Valiant RPG, we also launched six pre-generated characters for people to be able to start playing right away. These characters showed “iconic” representations of these classes, and provided some art that appears in Tales of the Valiant products, showing these iconic characters in action.
But who are these characters? We know their heritage and background, but how did they get from there to the character you can play?
Today, we find out the story behind the elf rogue, Elaizon Hailsigh.
Elaizon Hailsigh (Elf Rogue)
Class: Rogue (Enforcer)
Lineage: Elf
Heritage: Cloud
Background: Criminal
Born one the background cousins in an obscenely wealthy noble line, Elaizon’s life seemed destined for perpetual ease. The Hailsigh family enjoyed all the fruits of noble elven lineage ruling over expansive estates within the sun-kissed faerie realm of the Summerlands. The first Hailsighs won favor with their crafting prowess, creating exquisite magical crowns, rings, and amulets that delighted the fey lords and ladies. One opportunistic archfey soon relocated the entire family to his faerie plane, ensuring that such talent would benefit his kind through generations.
Elaizon and his siblings studied under renowned masters from across the realms. Attended by servants and girded by magic and wealth, he grew up among abundance, trained primarily to navigate an ongoing series of courtly events.
Steeped in the privilege of unending certainty, Elaizon was bored. When the time came to choose a vocation, Elaizon begged his parents to put him in a position outside the estates and workshops.
To appease their son, Elaizon and his cousin, Imlidan, were apprenticed to their uncle Elro, who oversaw the family’s widespread trade interests. There, Elaizon learned logistical complexities and studied the trade routes that allowed their ancestors to source mystic gems from across many worlds.
Together, the cousins learned Primordial trade vocabulary to deal with the ruby-mining azers on the Elemental Plane of Fire. They learned rituals to open mystic roads to the Shadow Realms, where sparkling black opals filled the sunless depths. They learned names of dwarven kings, which pirates to bribe for safe passage across the Astral Sea, and ten thousand intricacies of the Hailsigh trade.
This wealth of worldly knowledge intrigued Elaizon, but the real thrill came when Elro allowed the young elf to accompany him to other realms. After years of studying, Elaizon and Imlidan were trusted to sit in on the meetings with the family’s many contacts and accompany caravans of precious resources pulled, flown, or sailed between worlds.
Of the many places they routinely visited, Elaizon was most intrigued by the Shadow Realms. The lands and people of shadow were everything the elf’s dull world was not. A dark, new reality called to them in a way Elaizon didn’t fully understand. While the fey of light and shadow enjoyed an uneasy accord, most people of the Summerlands still regarded the Shadow Realms with fear and suspicion. Elaizon was curious rather than cowed, and his openness to the Shadow brought new wealth and resources to the Hailsighs.
When the aging Elro announced his impending retirement, Elaizon was assumed to be the favored candidate to take over. But Imlidan, who had also trained and worked the same long years, had kept a close eye on the elf’s fascination with the shadow fey.
As Elaizon’s star rose, so did the fortunes of his homeland. To further cement the peace between the fey of light and dark, a fey lady of the Summerlands was to wed a lord of the Shadow Realms. The Hailsighs were commissioned to create the most exquisite piece they had ever wrought to signify the bond—the Blackfire Crown.
Days before the royal wedding was to take place, Elaizon and Imlidan were assigned to personally oversee the caravan delivering the crown and the multitude of lesser dowry treasures, ensuring its safe arrival to the lord’s castle in the heart of the Shadow Realm. They planned discrete routes, plotted backups, secured magical and mundane defenses, and accompanied the caravan began its multi-day journey.
As the wagons passed through a secret gateway between realms, a swarm of shadow fey bandits hired by Imlidan attacked. Armed with Imlidan’s knowledge of the caravan’s defenses, the scoundrels overwhelmed the guards and seized the crown in moments. As Elaizon fought alongside the guards, the elf suddenly felt steel in his back, and then the creeping cold of paralytic poison froze each muscle.
Elaizon could only look on as two bandits threw a cloak over him and carried him into the woods, allowing the chaos of battle to disguise the elf’s real fate. He watched as the rest of the bandits retreated into the forest with their stolen treasures, leaving Imlidan and a handful of surviving guards alive to report the travesty.
Luckily for Elaizon, the bandits immediately turned to celebrating. Deep in cups and rowdy merriment, they didn’t notice the paralyzed elf shrug off the poison’s effects. After grueling hours willing digits and limbs to move, Elaizon disappeared into the shadows of the ancient wood. And the bandits, reward in hand, didn’t care to follow.
With the help of discrete acquaintances, Elaizon reached a safe house in the Shadow Realm. He tapped his contacts to learn what transpired following the bloody ambush. He quickly pieced together the scope of Imlidan’s betrayal. Elaizon had been framed as a traitor, a conspirator with their Shadow Realm associates to steal the crown and foul the Summerlands’ attempt to forge an allegiance. Imlidan used Elaizon’s ease with the Shadow Realm as “proof” to help convince the biased Summerlands fey of his betrayal.
Elaizon spent the next decade as an outlaw, living under a false identity or none at all, evading agents of the Summerlands and the shadow courts. He made criminal contacts across the realm, finding his mercantile talents equally profitable on the wrong side of the law. All the while, he listened for news of the Blackfire Crown. Elaizon knew that finding and returning the Crown to the Summerlands was his best chance to clear his name.
After years of dead-end leads and false rumors, the elf caught news of the Crown’s sighting in the Material Plane. This time, he intended to leave the faerie realms—both light and dark—truly behind. He determined to start a new chapter, find the Crown, and live the noble legacy he had resented in his youth. Upon reaching the mortal realm, Elaizon discarded his false identities and, for the first time in nearly a century, adopted his given Hailsigh name once again.
Elaizon’s search for allies to help navigate the strange mortal lands and redeem his once-proud origin led him to join the heroic organization known as the Valiant Six. Their journeys allow Elaizon to continue his search for the missing Blackfire Crown. But more importantly, the good he does reminds him that no heart is too shadowed to let light in.