The abbreviated synopsis of the Old Beshadowed Mage:
The rabbit, Chandlier.
“Might have been an Orc, as I’m not rightly sure what it was that befell Chandlier. He was an apt pupil and the sharpest wit I’ve seen leave the halls of Thay. He was an adventurer to be sure. He studied under my mentorship for some measure of twenty and nine years. I was given to liking to him despite his reluctance to consider Bane and his infinite wisdoms. He was venturing out into the Iron Claw under the initial signs of Cains return, some many years ago in the past. He was the first mage to grace Trinity’s request of help. I felt his spirit drift; it was in an offering that Bane gave me the foresight of his demise. “
The old mage adjusts his elven chain tunic and lights a pipe. “I decided to take up the torch and leave the planes of hell. Bane had been good to me, and still is these untold many years. I went to Trinity and brought a phylactery from my now lost keep. The Iron Claw was difficult to find at first but once I had wrought what information I needed from that so called leader of the bandits, it was like stealing blood from those pitiful Trolls.” The old mage laughs wickedly, “I found Chandlier’s body easily enough and without much effort was able to surmise how it was his spirit was still adrift. I think it was a necromancer or some such feeble mage in those desecrated buildings that left him in endless drift.”
The old mage ever so nimbly reaches down and snatches up the rabbit at his feet and begins to rub it’s ears. “I was only able to keep his essence long enough to make it to the edge of Trinity. I found the first being I could that was able to house a soul, and…” The old mage strokes his rabbit again as the animal glares with a beyond animal intelligence. “I found a rabbit. Not my familiar you see, he was lost in my keep and I still feel his call from some distant lost place. Chandlier and I have a long history. I have found that we do have a familiar like bonding though, since the phylactery was devised from my crafts.”