Dark Sun: The Scorched World of Athas
Avor Firesworn
Avor Firsworn appears to have been the leader of an elven band charged with the protection of a seed from a Tree of Life during the ancient history of Athas, from a time before the world was a desert. He returned from death to guard the tree until he was destroyed by Vinara and her companions.
Some his history was uncovered by Gwyn as she deciphered stone tablets found near his corpse…
I, Avor Firesworn, do make a record of the end of my days. House Lubar’s foul defilers even now besiege our refuge; we shall not last the day. They are driven by hatred we do not understand to eradicate our people from the land. I do not know if other non-humans live still. After the battles in the Fields of Moriaton, I led my band here, where we have lived as beasts, hiding in the ground. We have prayed to Taraskir for guidance and protection but He has not answered our prayers. I no longer believe that He watches over us.
Instead, I have chosen to fight evil with evil – I have entered into the blood oath with the Dark One from the Gray beyond. It shall have my eternal soul and those of my brethren but it will grant us the power to protect our sacred Seed even after our deaths against any who try to possess it. Furthermore, I shall literally hide it within my own body and even when I fall in battle it will be protected; indeed my body will serve in death to nourish it.
I will hide this record according to the ways of my people in hopes to speak forth to the future as with the voice of dust from the earth. If you find the Seed or the tree of life that springs from it and I am not there to protect it, I exhort you to meditate upon the great cycle of Life. I exhort you to ask whether it be wisdom to protect the sources of Life. If you ponder these things in your own heart, with sincere intent, then you will know the truth of them and you will know what to do with the Seed. I, Avor Firesworn, do thus end my record and seal it up.