Lore Wiki » Epic Weeks » Epic Week 2023 » Research Library » Sylviornis

In the late summer of 1999, a clutch of three eggs were laid to the Struth couple Bambolinetta and Lyall in Trope City. All three eggs had the special sheen to their shells that the Struth believes indicates a special blessing from the Genres, and usually presages extremely long life and health from the resulting chick. The fact that the entire clutch was so blessed sent ripples of excitement through the exiled Struth community, as it was believed this meant the entire clutch would successfully hatched.

On September 5 1999, one of the eggs from the clutch hatched. The rest never did. Even though any Struth chick being hatched off of the Struthian Isle was usually seen as a miracle, the anticipation had been built up such that it was a paradoxical let-down when only one hatched. That only one of the marked eggs hatched shook the faith of some Struth in the community.

However, the parenting couple recovered quickly, naming their healthy chick Sylviornis.

By 16, Sylviornis was apparently a charismatic leader in her peer group. She made the local paper when a local werewolf sanctuary, where those afflicted by lycanthropy could go during "risky" times of the month to relax during the day and be safely contained at night, turned out to have a hole in its fence. Sylviornis was with a group of friends walking home from the library when they were confronted by several rampaging werewolves. Sylviornis fended them off with "powerful kicks," then led the teens and the chasing werewolves into a net factory near the docks, where they managed to successfully restrain the werewolves until morning through a series of capers. This saved the teens' lives, and likely countless others.

The following year, we know that a 17 year old Sylviornis attempted to convince her mothers to let her take part in the events of Epic Week 2016, arguing that she had already been on multiple adventures that proved that she could handle herself. She also insisted that assisting to de-haunt and re-plant Forum Forest would look good on a college application. However, her parents remained firm and insisted that she stay in school that week instead. By this point in her life, Sylviornis appeared to consider her future career would be in adventuring, and was visiting the library frequently to research skills and information she thought would be useful to have as an adventurer.

In 2021, Apteribis wrote to Sylviornis to tell her about Moa's wild plan to train walruses into a fighting force and use them to retake the Struthian Isle. He apparently asked her opinion on whether the plan was feasible, and if so, asked if she could help with it. She responded,
Without waiting for Apteribis - or Moa - to confirm what sort of help they wanted from Sylviornis, if any, she immediately began drawing up plans for where she thought it would be best to land the walrus army, as well as logistical analysis of how best to feed and care for the walrus army. She also rejected Apteribis' attempt to honor Moa's insistence that the Struth solve the issue without depending on any outside peoples, insisting that it would take more than just those Struth who were still young and healthy enough to participate in the scheme if there was to be any chance of success.

Knowing that Moa was the real reason the citizens of the RPR were not being included in the plan, Sylviornis wrote directly to Moa, assuring her that although Apteribis had many doubts about the plan to utilize a walrus-based fighting force, Sylviornis did not and thought it was genius. She described in detail why the plan made sense to her, but concluded that to make it work, the walruses would need direction, and would need to be handled in small groups.

However, it turned out that Apteribis had not told Moa that he was conversing with Sylviornis about the plan, and Moa reacted with anger to Sylviornis' letter. Moa wrote back not to Sylviornis but to Apteribis, admonishing that Sylviornis was "a literal child"

It took 11 months, but eventually Apteribis and Sylviornis argued Moa down, and in December 2021 Moa finally agreed to allow Sylviornis to act as a general and to liase with the citizens of the RPR. She wrote to them, "We are beginning our trip toward the Port of Tropes, via several metropolises on the way where I’ve commissioned special walrus weapons and armor. There’s enough ground to cover, and enough equipment to bring, that the cross-continent trek will take us a year at best. Whatever else you want to add to my plan, you two now have that long to get it ready."

Sylviornis immediately began to contact her allies, and by June 2022 was able to give a presentation to The Birthday Adventure Commission, pleading with them to make the retaking of the Struthian Isle the officially sponsored "Birthday Adventure" in April 2023. Even when giving such an important presentation, we see flashes of how young she still was.

Apparently Sylviornis' presentation was convincing, because helping the Struth to retake their homeland was indeed the officially sponsored birthday adventure of 2023, gaining the Struth a huge number of additional allies and resources.

Up to and during the week-long battle to retake the Struthian Isle, Sylviornis continued to assist in planning logistics, landings and conducting coordination between groups, sometimes even micro-managing operations down to the minute.

Parents

Lyall, she/her, was a trainee baker at Let Them Eat Lembas, an elvish bakery by the port that exclusively produced lembas bread for sailors going on long voyages.
Bambolinetta, she/her, was a mural painter.

Trivia

• The name Sylviornis comes from a species of extinct flightless birds from New Caledonia.