The Life of Kelani, the Kitsune Druid

Kelani grew up in the Kryndall Grove, an isolated forest that is home to many magical races. She rarely left the forest except to visit a nearby fishing village for trade. When Kelani began showing a talent for nature magic at an early age, she joined the druids who protect the forest. She grew up learning the secrets of nature as well as how to love and revere it. The kitsune believes that nature is the only authority that matters. 

During Kelani’s training she learned about other aspects of nature that did not exist in her forest. She grew curious about hills, plains, jungles, oceans, and even this strange thing called civilization. She wanted to see these things, and understand why the others spoke of civilization with such disdain. Kelani harassed everyone who had been outside with questions about what the world beyond was like. She felt a need to see what the rest of nature held, and thought that she could not completely love nature without seeing the rest of it.

She one day encountered a velociraptor nest, full of shells of hatched eggs, except for one that was shaking, trying to hatch, to no avail. Kelani helped the young raptor out of her shell, and named the hatchling Arden, the word for forest in her tongue. Arden has not left her side since, and has become her loved companion, who fights alongside her and protects her. 

About a year ago, a group of adventurers entered her forest and were attacked by a group of moody werewolves. Kelani came on them shortly after the fight, and found one of them was badly injured. She offered to heal him and, after some confusion about her also being a humanoid animal and not trying to eat them, did so. Kelani began peppering them with questions about what they were, where they came from, and what their homelands were like. Eventually they offered to take her with them to show her the wonders they had been telling her of. Her family and grove tried to convince her to stay, but her curiosity won and she left.

Kelani decided to come to the New World after spending some time in a port city and seeing imprisoned animals coming in on the ships, as new "exotic" pets. She felt that Mother (Nature) was calling her to cross the ocean and come to the New World to champion for the animals against this travesty.

Even after spending so much time in civilization, Kelani still doesn't understand it, or the bewildered looks she receives for being a multi-tailed bipedal fox wearing leaves and being escorted by a velociraptor. In an attempt to understand cities better, the kitsune has equated them to bee hives, because that is the closest analogy she sees to how cities function. Her companions have tried to alter this perception, but the druid refuses to see cities in any other way. She is still more comfortable sleeping in a bed of leaves under the stars, and still refuses to sleep indoors in a bed; it just doesn't feel natural to her.