Eldon was born into a family of a mother, father, and three siblings: Danver, Paeula, and Norric. Eldon was the second youngest, with Danver as the oldest, Paeula as the second-oldest, and Norric as the baby. The family often traveled, and stayed in a single place for no more than a year. They often stuck to forests and enjoyed making homes by burrowing into holes and creating grass to hide their hidey holes. Occasionally they would mold homes into hills (like Hobbits). However, they always created their new homes, rather than live in any homes created by previous halflings. The only exception to this is if halflings related to the family had created it.

Eldon got along best with Paeula, who inspired his desire for knowledge. Her best friend was a dwarf that she kept in touch with through letters, and so she taught Eldon how to read/write/speak in dwarven. It took a lot of work, but Paeula wrote to her friend so often that Eldon had a lot of letters to read as practice. After he became proficient enough, Eldon would write or speak to Paeula in the language instead of in halfling, so he could feel extra special and connected with his sister.

The nomadic life of the Shortwicks was enjoyable until Eldon was eight. They were living deep in a forest, in one of their ground holes. Eldon was playing with his eldest brother, Danver, who wanted him to play hide and seek with him. It was a game they often played, and Paeula tended to join them, but she was asleep after many long hours of studying. While Danver and Eldon were playing, Eldon was hiding, and he was quite good at it. Danver sought after him, going between trees and into familiar hideaways, trying to find him. While they were playing, a fire started. Eldon still doesn’t know what started the fire. But what he did know, was that it spread fast, catching on trees and bushes until quickly the entire forest was aflame—his house included.

All Eldon really remembered of that night was the amount of smoke that filled the air, how suffocating and dense it was. Eldon still thinks he sees visions in mist or smoke, as it reminds him of that day. Eldon never found out precisely what happened of his family, although he heard that halfling families had been found in various parts of the woods, burned alive. He had escaped with a couple of burns on his arms, but his brother had received the worst of it, with a severe burn that marred half of his face and left him blind in one eye.

Danver knew he could not support Eldon, as work was hard enough to find but was even worse now that Danver was crippled. But he also knew that his brother had an acclimation towards learning, and the best place to learn was the local monastery. After a few slow days’ travel, they arrived at the town and Danver dropped Eldon off. He provided Eldon with a few things of what to say, a weak explanation as to where he was going, and a broken promise that he would come back to get Eldon soon.

Eldon was raised by a gnome priest named Corlen. Eldon was confused and scared, but Corlen raised him strictly, with little regard for the story of what happened to him or what he had lost. Eldon soon learned to suppress the pains of the loss of his family and instead push all of his focus and concentration into his studies. Corlen was quick to teach Eldon gnomish when he learns of Eldon’s affinity for learning other languages, and gnomish isn’t far from dwarven, so it’s not difficult.

Corlen worshipped under the deity Vecna, and he specialized in the magic and knowledge domains. He taught Eldon well, primarily having him focus on languages of other creatures that worship Vecna (which was usually linked to goblins, so Eldon became well-versed in that language, as well as Infernal with demons and tieflings, although Eldon could not grasp that language as well and therefore only knows a few phrases). He also pushed Eldon hard in learning about various pieces of knowledge and magic, which has aided him in earning proficiencies in various areas of knowledge, as well as spellcraft. Corlen noted Eldon’s ability to absorb knowledge, and how he seemed to enjoy spending all of his free time studying, rather than being left to his own thoughts. Corlen began devising further plans to teach Eldon.

As he grew, Eldon forwent his physical training, and only spent the minimum amount of time developing his body. This allowed his body to heal and maintain health, but his muscles were never toned and thus his strength waned. But where he ignored his body as he grew, his mind only continued to grow sharp. Corlen began teaching him the ways of diplomacy and other forms of communication with others, and Eldon grew better versed in it. He studied and prayed and practiced speaking every day, trying to force the memories and regrets of what happened to his family to be pushed away, deeper and deeper, where he could ignore it.

Around when Eldon was fourteen, he began writing. He would write everything he could, so long as he could get it on paper. It began as a way for him to practice his various languages and keep them sharp, but he soon began using it as a way of passing extra time between his studies. When he went out with Corlen for diplomacy meetings and there would be long stretches of time to wait between sessions, Eldon would write down what he saw or what he thought. Sometimes he would write stories for himself, but normally he kept it within reality, making sure that everything that was happening around him was recorded. He would write about the monastery, the worship towards Vecna, even the things he was learning, and writing it down helped him learn it faster and better. He wanted to fill his mind with everything he could possibly know or see or hear.

But with more knowledge comes more independent thinking. Around the time he’s seventeen, Eldon has come to begin questioning the church. The number of evildoers within the church, or the number of bad individuals worshipping Vecna, had led Eldon to wonder what made the deity so good. He had learned a vast amount of knowledge, including learning about another deity, Yondalla. Eldon had vague memories of his parents believing in Yondalla, and worshipping her on special religious nights. The more he looked into her (secretly, as he knew that this would be seen as questioning his loyalty to Vecna) the more Eldon wanted to begin worshipping her instead. And, along with it, the more he began to wonder just how good Vecna, or those who follow him, are.

At one point, he voiced his thoughts to Corlen, who grew immensely angry at his lack of faith and blatant disregard for the religion that he had been raised in for the past near-decade. They argued, throwing faith and morals back and forth, until Corlen finally ordered that his title within the church be stripped away and he be cast out. Eldon took it in stride, packing up what little belongings he owned (most of it being a book of writings he’d made over the years) and left.

Eldon traveled for a few days and discovered a new town, which had its own place of worship for Yondalla. Eldon gratefully went and stayed there. He studied under an old elf named Ava. She took to him and was more than willing to help him learn the ways of Yondalla. Eldon learned elven while he stayed there, studying under Ava, and also learned celestial along the way. Despite its somewhat similar structure to infernal, Eldon learned it far easier than he had infernal, which was already fading quickly from his mind.

Eldon spent a decade studying under Ava. She strengthened his desire to learn knowledge, and she also taught him deeply about spiritual healing. Eldon took to it quickly and found a lot of enjoyment in learning how to mend things, cure wounds, and heal others. During those years of study, Ava requested that Eldon focus specifically on learning to be a cleric. Eldon accepted the request and began to study scriptures and verses and his loyalty to Yondalla grew more and more. Soon Eldon was praying to Yondalla for the sake of praying to her, for his own heart to be filled with his faith and know that he could communicate with his deity. The magic that came along with the worship was an added bonus.

When he was in his 28th year, Eldon decided he wanted to travel and see more of the world. He had spent the last decade writing all he could on Yondalla and the new monastery, the town he lived in now, and everything else, but he didn’t think he had anything more to write. He wanted to travel, whether it be for spreading the word of Yondalla to other towns, writing more down, or simply seeing the world.

While he traveled, Eldon met various individuals on his travels and wrote all the time. At one point, one of the individuals gave him a pan flute, and he loved playing it. Music was one thing that he never really learned how to do, so he isn’t exceptional with it, but he still enjoys it nonetheless. Eldon doesn’t have the best ear for music, but he enjoys melodies, so he often hums tunelessly when he isn’t/can’t play his flute.

Eldon met Remi and Jaceol for a simple job to get money and he ended up accompanying them for more jobs. He met Gorroc soon after and they all became The Fellowship, a group of travelers who do odd-jobs around Pyran.