Thalanil “Fizz” Starpetal
Strange Sparks and Fey Deals: The Tale of Thalanil "Fizz" Starpetal
Among the many curious figures wandering the roads outside Greyhawk these days, few have raised as many eyebrows—or questions—as a silver-haired elf who answers only to “Fizz.”
Born Thalanil Starpetal, he was once a student of illusion magic at Grey College, one of the more promising apprentices in his cohort. Known for a quick mind and a steady grasp of theory, his future looked secure—until a routine arcane experiment went very wrong.
Fizz had been researching dimensional echoes in planar ley lines, part of a supervised exercise meant to simulate minor conjurations. Whether from overconfidence or error (accounts vary), he attempted to tap into a transplanar fluctuation far beyond his skill level. The resulting backlash tore open a rift, not to one of the known planes, but to a strange and undocumented offshoot of the Feywild.
Fizz disappeared for three days.
When he returned, he was changed. He wouldn’t speak of where he’d been at first, but his notes were full of unfamiliar symbols, and he’d taken to speaking in riddles during spell assessments. Professors noted residual fey magic clinging to his aura. A disciplinary review deemed him unstable, and he was formally expelled under Article Seven: “Introduction of unknown extraplanar influence into institutional space.”
Later, through quiet conversations and erratic journal entries, a clearer story emerged.
Fizz had stumbled into the Whimsical Vale, a minor but distinct realm of the Feywild. It was a place of chaotic weather, talking beasts, and arcane phenomena that defied traditional laws. There he encountered Lady Orlana of the Rose-Mist Court, an Archfey known to a few fringe scholars—a lesser noble among the fey courts, associated with illusions, tricks, and ephemeral delights.
Whether she saw something promising or simply found him amusing, Orlana offered Fizz a pact: power in exchange for being her agent in the Material Plane—“to stir up moments of delight, confusion, and low-level panic,” as Fizz later put it. He accepted. The pact marked him in subtle ways: a faint glow behind his eyes, an occasional sparkle to his shadow, and strange motes of mist that drift around him when he channels magic.
With nowhere else to go and the College doors closed to him, Fizz drifted through Greyhawk’s River Quarter, scraping by on minor magical services—fortune reading, lamp-lighting, and once serving as a magical consultant for a noodle vendor. But trouble found him again when a miscast hex meant for a pickpocket landed instead on a magistrate’s prized goat. Facing charges for “Arcane Disturbance of Livestock,” he slipped out of the city the next morning.
The Delivery Job
Fizz signed on with the DiGiorno supply caravan not for coin, but for anonymity. To most, it’s a routine escort job—moving preserved rations and emergency provisions to Hommlet and other outposts in need. But Fizz suspects otherwise. He claims to have sensed layered enchantments clinging to one of the crates, and more than once, he’s spotted woodland creatures acting oddly—watching from treetops, whispering in odd tones. He believes that hidden among the frozen goods is a Fey artifact of significance, perhaps smuggled out of the Vale or drawn to his presence by design.
Whether this is true or another product of Fizz’s overactive imagination remains to be seen.
