Willow Ufgood

Willow Ufgood

Willow is a Nelwyn, born in Ufgood Reach to the simple farming family of Schnorr Ufgood and Trada. He was named for a fallen willow tree near the River Freen.

He showed magical talents as an infant, and the High Aldwin declared that he was special upon his birth. Willow's father however insisted that his son would follow the simple life of a farmer. However, during a festival, little Willow was impressed by displays of magic and stagecraft from the traveling entertainer Pesto the Magnificent. He decided to study magical trickery and even pestered High Aldwin to take him as an apprentice, but he was reticent to take on a new learner. Willow practiced only festival stagecraft but was ambitious of someday becoming a sorcerer.

Trada died when Willow was six. After Schnorr died, Willow's sister Soreen moved to another village.

Willow married Kiaya Ufgood and raised his two young children, Ranon and Mims. One of his problems was the surly Prefect Burglekutt, who kept Willow toiling in the fields to pay his taxes, and threatened to send him to the mines should his upkeep ever fall short.

During the Spring Festival of the year 1342, Willow was one of the hopefuls that the High Aldwin would choose as his next apprentice. He asked his initiates to identify which finger held the power to control the world. Willow felt like pointing his own finger, but not trusting his intuition, he chose one of the Aldwin's outstretched digits.

Soon later, Elora Danan was rescued from the River Freen by his children. The village was afterwards raided by Death Dogs. The villagers were angry for the one who caused the disaster. Willow wanted to keep the baby secret, but then it was decided that he should take the child to the Daikini crossroads and be given to a Daikini human. Meegosh would accompany him

The trek was lengthy, until they met a captive swordsman, Madmartigan, to whom he gave the baby, only to find it a short while later captured by mischievous Brownies. They led Willow to Cherlindrea of the Forest, who explained the child's fate, the future empress of Tir Asleen and vanquisher of the evil Queen Bavmorda whose forces were conquering all lands. The fairy tasked Willow to take Elora to the sorceress Fin Raziel, held captive on an isolated island. She would lead them to Tir Asleen, where a great army awaited to repulse Bavmorda's forces.

Willow soon crossed roads with Madmartigan, who joined him in his quest. Eventually they found Fin Raziel shifted in animal form by a spell, and Willow failed to dispel. Upon finding Tir Asleen, they discovered that it was cursed, and no army waited to repulse Bavmorda's forces. Tir Asleen was invaded and absconded with the baby.

The survivors of Galladoorn, recently decimated by Kael's army, arrived in time to join the team. They took the fight to Bavmorda's castle keep at Nockmaar. As the battle raged Willow restored Raziel and entered Bavmorda's citadel. The two sorceresses engaged in a magic battle while Willow rescued baby Elora Danan from the sacrificial altar. Using a simple trick, Willow made it seem as if he had teleported Elora to safety. Bavmorda lost control of her roiling spells, and was consumed by her dark powers.

With Bavmorda eliminated, the dark pall she cast over the world vanished. Raziel restored Tir Asleen, and Elora Danan was delivered to foster parents. Raziel gave Willow her book of magic, and Willow returned to the Nelwyn Village.

A year later, as Willow fell asleep, distraught over not being able to attend a party for Elora, he dreams that night of riding on the back of Calan Dineer a great dragon, who drops him off at Tir Asleen. After bantering with Madmartigan and Sorsha, during which Sorsha bestows upon him a new name, "Thorn Drumheller," he continues on to see Elora and give her a gift that he has created: a teddy bear with crystal eyes that Willow says will protect her when he is not there to do so. Leaving the sleeping child with her gift, he converses with the two brownies, Rool and Franjean, and leaves.

He wakes up the next morning to find two Brownies sitting at the end of his bed and that a horrific Cataclysm has wiped out 12 areas in the world, including Tir Asleen. Places of Power suddenly erupted in terrible blasts, leaving only rubble behind.

Devastated, Willow shed his past, adopted the name Thorn Drumheller and spent the next dozen years wandering Andowyne, searching for answers behind the Cataclysm . With the brownies and some eagles he encounters a pack of death dogs trailing the Daikini warrior Geryn. Thorn saves him, and the two travel to see the Ascension of Elora Danan, at the far land of Angwyn, where Elora ruled as a Sacred Princess but try as they might, chaos ensues.

An intense Shadow War rages, spearheaded by the evil Mohdri and his dread Black Rose commando assassins to capture Elora and Thorn. They start a perilous journey to a land undisturbed since the dawn of time that will end at the unbreachable citadel of the dragon, where a chilling betrayal changed the fate of Elora, Thorn, and the Thirteen Realms forever.

Elora Danan slew the dragons that were the embodiment of the soul of Creation to save the dragons from the Deceiver, who would have used them to rule the Realms. To protect the eggs, Elora spellbinds herself to Thorn and Khory Bannefin, the long-dead woman warrior whose body is inhabited by a demon's offspring. It is a dire spell that ensures none of them will betray their cause...even at the cost of their lives. And if one of them dies, the magic of the eggs is lost forever.

Pursued through a land of shadow predators by the dreaded Black Rose, Elora and her allies went to the free city-state of Sandeni. There they met the brownies Franjean and Rool, the eagles Anele and Bastian, and the young warrior-scribe Luc-Jon. But Sandeni is besieged by mighty armies fueled by the Deceiver's sorcery, warrior wizards, and engines of evil magic.

With defeat all but certain, Elora convinced the Sandeni people to continue the fight. What she doesn't tell them is that the greatest enemy lies within her. For the Deceiver is her own dark twin from a potential future of unimaginable evil...an evil that lies dormant in Elora's soul. And the only way Elora can stop the future is to befriend an enemy whose insatiable appetite for destruction could destroy all of Creation.