1. No racism, sexism, homophobia, or anything of the like in this campaign. When I say none, I mean none. I know none of you will, because you all are great, but I've met people before who think things like these are jokes. All be told, those people and I usually end up brawling --- sometimes in that sense, sometimes not. Secondly --- no 18+. I'm fine with minimal cursing (although you might want to put it in (GP)), but keep those things to PMs, alright?

2. Honestly, that's it. All I had. I know it's only one rule, but incorporate the word "Autumn" into your first post to show you've read these rules. It's a standard RP thread thing (Gato and Aspen, see? Adohand's is rubbing off on me. 

Oui, je sais que je suis un peu fou, mais je pense que ce information est importante. 

Anyway:

For the technical, nitty-gritty blurb -- 3rd-level characters, stats rolled (if so, in the forum thread) or standard array, 2014 or 2024 rules -- they're mostly compatible, so pick your poison. Campaign lore is below for backstory purposes. I'm not expecting a lot, just enough to get me started with your character (so something like this):

PC Name:
Species/Class/Subclass:
Ability Scores (if you're rolling them --- if you roll bad stats here, then take standard array): 
Backstory (anywhere from two sentences to two paragraphs to two pages [if you really want] is fine):

Cool! Excited to meet your heroes, no matter who they are. 

A world split into two parts --- that of Faerie, and that of Woman and Man. Creatures --- humans, elves, dwarves, and the like --- dominate the southern parts of the world, where they were birthed from flame long ago, while the faeries are beings of frigid cold --- of dark pine and fiery candles, of faery tales (if I am to use the reference). 

Your adventure begins in the small border town of Lyrey. Set on the windy moor and in the towering forest that shadows it, it is a place where all converge. You can see dragonborns working as blacksmiths, faeries shopping in the human part of town --- a peaceful place, more peace between the two groups seen here than anywhere else. "Tis a beautiful place, one where everyone coexists. 

But what happens when something threatens it all --- threatens to break this peace?

Aydlott was born of common folk in a remote settlement named Mare that had formed around a defensive garrison that bordered the kingdom on the edge of a great forest. Aydlott's father, grandfather, uncles, and cousins had all been soldiers and guardsmen. But it was a peaceful time now, and the faded garrison, dutifully maintained yet little occupied, spoke of a time when faerie invasions were a dire threat on the kingdom's border. No longer, now, for times had changed, and such battles were nearly the stuff of legends.

Aydlott was not a youngster who maintained much curiosity about those strange old legends. He far more admired the noble knights who occasionally patrolled the garrison with their grand warhorses and colorful tabards flying with the arms of their prestigious houses. As untouchable and untaxable as the clergy, they maintained a far more magical place in the head of young Aydlott. Whom, knowing he had no access to that realm, and having it rather beat out of him by his father and his ridiculing cousins, learned to accept his lot as a commoner, stand up for himself, and follow in his father's footsteps to become a guardsman. It promised to be a tranquil life, taking bribes, occasionally roughing up a few drunkards, and he set aside his dreams to enjoy the relative stability of his fate.

But he had barely been initiated into the ranks of the guards when he was chosen for an expedition beyond the walls. Youth and low rank made him a ready choice to investigate an unexpected event that had the whole town of Mare in a stir.

Parthenia, a girl of noble birth, had gone flower picking by herself and was seen being taken away by men on horses that rode straight into the great towering forest that bordered Mare. Such a kidnapping stirred up the wild legends of old about fae marauders, and, for the first time in anxiety about the safety of his chosen life, Aydlott prepared himself to make the mission a success, spending much of his savings to purchase supplies and to repair and polish his armor and sharpen his sword. With oiled leathers and steels and thoroughly bathed, Aydlott set out with a knight and a troop of men to track the abducted girl.

The following days were a blur. The tracks seemed to lead them in circles, the sun and moon cared not for their normal cycles, and strange noises, mist and eerie silences put the men on edge and caused many a horse to panic and bolt into the never-ending woods. When the knight's expensive warhorse--usually so calm and well-trained--bolted off, Aydlott gave chase, a stir of his childhood dreams reawakening in a thin hope to impress the knight. But the horse's tracks led him down a strange way, under gloaming branches and down a ravine that he couldn't quite seem to climb out of, but kept directing him farther and farther downward. The air became still and stuffy under the close press of the trees, and Aydlott found his throat burning with thirst. He drained his waterskin, but it was not enough to quench his thirst.

He might have lost hope, but suddenly the ravine sloped downwards and opened up onto a vast lake. His relief was tinged with a strange and eldritch terror, though, for the structures that dotted the shores of the lake looked like nothing he had ever seen before. Half plants, half artistry that seemed to defy the sensible rules of masonry or carpentry, there appeared to be a city in the middle of nowhere which had, by the looks of it, grown out of the ground. No sooner had he recovered from his shock, then Aydlott was knocked unconscious.

When he opened his eyes, he was not alone. A crowd of fae looking beings, strange, and beautiful or terrible, were gathered around him. He was bound tightly with ropes like vines that looked like they had grown over him as if he had laid still and cold for weeks. Aydlott cast around desperately at the sea of strange faces as a woman speaking in a strange tongue pointed at him. He felt his feet tingling strangely. And then, he spotted her--Parthenia. The missing girl, unharmed in the crowd. She looked scared.

Terrified, and grasping at a long chance of not ending his life here, Aydlott shouted, "I demand justice! You took my wife from me, and now you've taken my freedom! You have no right, not by any law of the kingdom nor even by your own laws!" For he had heard since he was a child of the strange rigidity of the rules that fae folk must follow in their interactions with the mortal world.

One of the fae folk, a man with long silvery hair and piercing white eyes with no apparent pupils to them, spoke up, not in the strange tongue, but in Aydlott's own Common. "This is your wife?" He reached out a spindly hand and took Parthena's delicate one, lifting it high. "Well, human, she is also my daughter. You have taken her as your bride with no dowry. This is a crime, in your kingdom and mine, and the penalty here is death."

Aydlott felt the color drain from his face. "Wait! I will bring the dowry, a gift worthy of her beauty." And indeed, now that he looked at her in the gloomy twilight, Aydlott saw that Parthenia had an unnatural beauty he had never seen before that made him wonder how she could ever have lived among humans unnoticed for so long. She must have been taken when she was a child and been sheltered from the eyes of common folk.

A long moment passed as the white eyes bored in Aydlott's. Finally, the fae spoke. “Very well, go forth and find a worthy dowry. You shall have ten winters time to fulfill your promise. But, mark my words, should you not return, should your gift not suffice, or should the time run out… it will mean your death.” And Aydlott knew it was the truth, for he felt an indescribable magical power wrap around his heart and squeeze.

“Hence forth your name is Sir Guillem, a name worthy of your bride to be. You will speak our tongue, and you will return in due time to pay your debt.”

Next thing he knew, Aydlott was walking through a thinning forest onto a road. His sword was again at his waist, his shield in his hand, his steel and leathers well-fitted and ready for action. As if it had all been a dream. Ahead of him wound a trail of hoof prints that faded with the rising sun that began to spread its rays across the sky that opened up through the thinning forest branches. Had it been a dream? For a moment, he dared to hope that it had. But then he noticed something glinting on his hand, and lifting it up, he saw a silver ring on his finger, bright and glistening--a betrothal promise ring. He grabbed it, tried to pull it from his finger, but it rippled like mist under his touch and wound not budge. A terrible sinking feeling rocked the pit of Aydlott's stomach, and he felt that magical vise grip his heart once more. He knew then in the depths of his being that it had not been a dream, and he had only ten years before it would become a nightmare, if he could not fulfill his promise. What had he done? A lie to save his life had become a greater trap than he had ever imagined.

Hopeless, Aydlott could not bring himself to return to Mare. It seemed easier to let himself be thought lost, as likely the whole company sent to pursue Parthenia had been. Mare would shutter its doors and windows, looking askance at the dreaded forest, and patrols would be revived. Clergy would be sent to invoke blessings of protection. Knights might throng the garrison for a while and patrol the edges of the forest. The threat of the fae would awaken again in the hearts of the townfolk of Mare. But in his own heart, it was not just a threat, it was a doom.

Aydlott traveled as far as he could, and worked whatever odd jobs people would give him. He forgot the name the fae had given him, and he forgot their tongue--or tried to. He drank and swindled his way through the world, hoping against hope he could steal an artifact or something of great value from a monastery or keep, but faced with the odds, quickly gave up on the idea whenever he was struck by tales of magical objects. There seemed nothing he could gain, no money he could earn, that would be a worthy enough gift to forestall his fate.

Until one day, in a tavern, he heard a tale of a place where the lands of Man and of Faerie were not at war. Where they existed in harmony. Perhaps someone there could help him find concord, or break his curse. So north he traveled to Lyrey, stopping to drink whenever the tightness in his chest felt too suffocating, whenever the thought of his quest loomed too heavy in his mind, as it had since the day of his improvised proposal.