Ren-Ziran, the Wytche of the Wild Brew (Ren-Zee-Ran)

Summary

Born the third daughter of the Maetou family's fourth qaodu, her family's great demands shaped Ren's life from the very start. While lacking prestige or acclaim to rival better known jiuweihu families in southwestern Aochen, they carved out a name with their medicinal and alchemical wares. Ren and her siblings were burdened with learning the Maetou's traditional water magics.   Young Ren, however, only found her interests stirred by the abundant verdancy of Veltrona's wilds. The mysteriousness of life, and all its myriad possibilities, often captivated her wandering mind. It wouldn't be until she finally secured apprenticeship beneath Maetou alchemists did she truly find her life's passion. Braving the wildernesses, cataloging all she found, and then devising alchemical creations from them offered an endlessly captivating purpose she otherwise struggled to find.   Over the decades, Ren drifted away from her family's traditional business. Curiosity and a need to explore compelled her to seek lands beyond Aochen and see what mysteries could be found. With warm farewells and wishes to meet again, she left the Maetou and joined a merchant's fleet that carried her to the shores of northern Fauverngarz.   There she joined with a nomadic tribe of urni and traveled with their migrations between the warm north and cold middlelands. The nomadic lifestyle suited her better than she expected, forced to deal with constant troubles in often many great and small ways. The moment one problem appeared and was dealt with, another sprung up, and it offered a clarity of purpose Ren usually struggled to keep.   It would be, after some years of combing through Fauverngarz's wildernesses, that she happened upon a reclusive kind of lauraume: the wytches. Ren, being an agreeable sort, was welcomed by them and they taught her of their own ways. In turn, Ren's knowledge of foreign medicine offered new insights and solutions to some of the wytche's oldest conundrums. Her successes eventually caught the attention of Moratahn, Wytche-Queen of the Iron Woods, herself.   Set to work at the behest of the Wytche-Queen, Ren, henceforth by the given name of Ren-Ziran, commanded a respectable position in the queen's court. For two hundred years, and notably exactly two hundred, Ren-Ziran handled the bulk of Moratahn's medicinal and alchemical needs. Intimating with Fauverngarz's ways and its most powerful peoples, she learned much and catalogued even more. Still, a need to explore compelled her, and having felt she 'finished' with Fauverngarz, her eyes turned abroad. So, upon Moratahn's warm farewell and bid to return one day, Ren-Ziran departed, heading northwestward.   Crossing Dorvar's rich sands and arid plains, she landed upon Etzli Cuauhtla, and found herself enamored with its brutal primalness. Untamed wilds stretching for miles offered untold life and secrets waiting to be found. Yet, Etzli Cuauhtla pushed against Ren-Ziran's skills as an alchemist, doctor, and mage alike with deadly beasts and deadlier diseases ever ready. She welcomed them all, constantly racing to defeat one problem after another.   In a few short decades, her successes–and the peoples helped by her–drew Ren-Ziran toward Toi'drinn. There she'd met with the vampyr peoples and their esoteric, yet incredible arts of medicine and healing. Her work and singlemindedness enamored some of the Iyolili of Toi'drinn, and so Ren-Ziran became counted among their privilged friends. Rather than suffice for a life in yet another city, Ren-Ziran's gaze turned toward the jungles themselves.   Consumed by life's daily challenges in such an unforgiving place, decades passed, then centuries. Ren-Ziran's constant presence earned her legends and renown, if quieter and lowlier than many of the land's grander names. Many had gone in search of her talents, eager for trade or aide in their own struggles. So it was, her training as a wytche of Fauverngarz and a Maetou mage earned her the regard as the Wytche of the Wild Brew.   It would be, however, in recent centuries the normally aloof Ren-Ziran began taking public notice once more. Tlazohtzin, the Scourge-Maker, has ever been a thorn in her side as much as her in his. Though both are alchemists, their ultimate goals often differed greatly. Ren-Ziran, who lived in the chaos between problem and solution, ruthlessly solved every problem in her path. Tlazohtzin, obsessed with the unsolvable problem of the Relentless Herds and Packs, fixated on an ultimate answer to their eternal scourge. Unlike her, Tlazohtzin's methods might very well destroy the chaos that Ren-Ziran thrived within, even if she too despised the Relentless.   Their repeated clashes has sent shockwaves through Etzli Cuauhtla, stirring countless civilizations in the process. No one is certain which of them will win in the end, or which one may truly possess the 'correct' answer. For those who lived in the bloody jungles, victor and survivor were the same word.