Nophilliander Q’t’tambra Thornflower

Write the first paragraph of your page here.

Appearance
As a youth Phil was a looker, with straight blond hair most of the way down his back and an aristocratic look. He often used this to his advantage on his assassinations contracts. He usually wore all black leather, a hooded cloak, and generally exuded an air of mystery as intensely as he could manage.

Of course that was then, and now Phil's most obvious feature is his age; his skin is wrinkled and a pale, blueish color. His ears extend above his head by several inches. There are a few tufts of wiry white hair left around his ears but he is completely bald on the top of his head. Most of his hair appears to have migrated at some point to his eyebrows and beard. Both are long, white, and scraggly, hiding a mouth with a majority of teeth missing and blue eyes. His nose has been broken more than once and has a pronounced crook in it.

''Elves, even at advanced ages, do not suffer the same ravages of time upon their bodies that men do. To see an elf like Phil, with age spots, a skeletal frame, balding, swollen joints and hunched back, is a very rare sight. He, unlike most of his kind, has aged without grace. Some might not believe he is even an elf; perhaps a particularly pointy and bluish half-elf? An exceptionally tall goblin? But those who know what abuse can do to even an elven body can read it upon him. Years of starvation, chronically poor nutrition, periods without exercise, and decades spent curled against hard stone, are all written in his twisted bones and across his wrinkled skin. Coupled with the glassy look of an elf who has spent too long within, it all paints a clear enough picture of his past.''

In a "fun" twist, Salzus looks very similar to him when he was younger. Phil is still planning on how to exploit this: current options include pretending to be Salzus from the future come back to kill his past self, pretending to be the ghost of dumbass future, or claiming to be a distant relative to get into his lab.

History
Nophiliander Q't'tambra Thornflower was born nearly a century ago as the third child of Ascalialyn B'sa'dril Swanflower and Vynliaus Q't'tambra Bluethorn. His elder brother Lordranlinson Q't'tambra Blueswan was the heir to the Q't'tambra family, one of the major noble families of the Elven Kingdoms.

The Elven Kingdoms were backwards, out of the way, incredible xenophobic, and obsessed with political maneuvering to get the throne. Younger sons and daughters of noble families were trained as duelists; they also doubled as assassins for their families. If an heir was killed the spare could be pulled out of the academy but otherwise they were merely pawns. Nophiliander began training to fight around age 38 (3/4 years old) and was a fairly skilled fighter by the time he was 120. He was persuaded by a distant relative to start "accidentally" killing his opponents in training if they were obstacles to that relative, instead of obeying the orders of the family leaders. This eventually included fabricating the pretense for an honor duel with the heir of a different clan: Phil killed him and the resulting backlash prompted him to be disowned from House Q't'tambra and banished from elven lands. Only 132 (~14) he began working as a mercenary and assassin, eventually catching the attention of the Shadows' Blades, an assassin's guild.

Phil enjoyed being a member of the Shadows' Blades: he felt that finally there was a group willing to look out for him that valued his skills. He tended to take incredible flashy jobs: killing a king where everyone could see, statement kills, deaths to send a message. He did botch one job and, heavily wounded, was found by a travelling caravan of wood elves. They nursed him back to health over a few months. During this time he began a relationship with Ulagwyn Greenwind, an older elf. They were never incredible serious and Phil continued to take jobs but would meet up with the caravan at various points along its route.

Then, when Phil was 183 (~19), Ulagwyn became pregnant with their daughter Thia. She was not granted the Q't'tambra name since Phil was still banished from his clan and they decided to follow the wood elven tradition of childhood names.

Fatherhood changed Phil. He was still an active assassin but he loved his daughter, and he and Ulagwyn became an actual couple. Only 28 years after Thia's birth he agreed to another assassination contract where he was captured and imprisoned. While he hoped the Shadows' Blades would negotiate for his release, they instead cut all ties with him and abandoned him to his fate. He was shipped to a mountain fortress which served as a maximum security prison. Over the next 500 years he suffered, his mind fracturing, and when he was finally released he was an entirely different elf.

Now 719 (~95) Phil is forced to confront a new reality. Everyone he knows is dead, with the exception perhaps of his daughter. He doesn't know what her adult name is or how to find her, so he is more or less wandering around looking for leads and trying to get the most out of his sunset years. He realized he missed so much of the world that he wants to explore as much as possible. Unfortunately he still hasn't dealt with the traumas of his adolescence or his confinement and considers it almost a lost cause at this point.