Esma

Beneath the clans that stretch the Cloudsong across the Windswept Plateau, one can find where the Sea of a Thousand Currents rushes between the Zephyr Steppes and the Reedcleft Ascent, the Bamboo Falls. Often, Maren pods will travel from the Sea of a Thousand Currents through the Bamboo Falls to reach the Starfall Isles and the far side of the Shifting Expanse for trade in other Maren occupied territories.
After the Maren species' forced conversion from brack water to the ocean, new generations of Maren have had a harder time returning to territories with lower salinity content. Those who can adjust to freshwater areas set themselves up in new pods to aid the passage of their brethren through the strait with fresh supplies in exchange for news of those they left behind. These pods are much friendlier to dragonkind than their cousins, due to their proximity to the fledgling clans that live against the strait's sides & provide regular trade during the months that go by without contact from the seabound Maren pods.
Esma, a young Maren born to a freshwater colony, found her way to the Whispering Falls clan when her parents brought her along their routine trade route. It was there that she was introduced to illusionary magic and charms, specialities that their draconic neighbors provided in return for food and protection from hostile Maren that sometimes stumble upon their hideaway. As she grew up, Esma found herself wishing for the ability to travel by land, to see more of the world than the water that her kind was confined to. After taking over the trade route from her parents, she made it her goal to find a way to explore the inland that the Whispering Falls clan had talked so much about during their trades.
Years continued to pass, with Esma building up her pod's reputation and her own with the clans surrounding the Bamboo Falls. Fond of their trader, the Whispering Falls Clan's priestess Katin, made a special request to Honeypot, to search out a charm that came to her knowledge in a vision from the Windsinger. The journey took months, in which time Esma began to train an apprentice to take over the trade route, feeling that she would have a better chance in finding her solution if she stayed closer to the Whispering Falls. She had barely founded a permanent colony of Maren that would serve as a protection unit for their draconic neighbors when Honeypot returned with the item Katin had requested.
A few months later after Esma had settled into her new position as leader of her own pod & Maren ambassador of the Whispering Falls Clan, Katin and Honeypot presented her with a locket on her birthday that would allow her to assume the form of a dragon, and breathe air for the first time in her life. Katrin warned her that the effects of the locket were temporary, two or three days at most, and would require a cooldown of a full moon cycle between uses, but that while in the draconic form, she was welcome to explore Sornieth alongside Honeypot's team of traders and cartographers, who would find freshwater spots of refuge in their travels for her safety in the future, if she so chose.
Overwhelmed with happiness, Esma graciously accepted the locket, acknowledging the commitment Honeypot's team would have to put in to have her accompany them on their travels, but knew her place was within the shores of Bamboo Falls, taking care of her new colony, in both Maren and Draconic form.
Lore by IndecisiveOCD!


Art by TazerPones!