Short Bio: Arathyr is the son of a disgraced Gondorian soldier, who flew his homeland to live among the Dale-men after his Dunedain lover died in childbirth. Having never been told of where he was truly from, Arathyr grew up in Dale to be musically inclined from a young age and was put on the track of becoming a minstrel soon after he reached puberty.

Life was simple until the day that Arathyr's father was convicted of murder. Despite believing his father to be innocent and having a plan in place to stage a rescue attempt, Arathyr gave in to his fear and doubts and fled his home of Esgaroth on the morn of his father's execution.

The bard has traveled for nearly fifteen years since, and endeavors to bring music and charitable acts to those he meets in order to make up for failing his father in his time of need years ago.

Arathyr is generally jubilant and compassionate, even in times of strife. His capacity to smile in the face of darkness is rivaled only by his strong desire to see others smile in turn.

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Detailed Bio:

Arathyr (Originally spelled Arathir) was born to a Gondorian soldier, a man by the name of Sarothir, and a Dunedain ranger by the name of Lothraen. The romance between Sarothir and Lothraen was but a passionate dalliance, and Lothraen's pregnancy put strain on the relationship. Eventually they settled their differences and planned a life for themselves; Sarothir was to leave the army and become a farmer to support the family. However, when the time came, Lothraen died in childbirth, leaving Sarothir was a single child and no work to speak of.

Having alienated his proud family by departing from the army, Sarothir found Minas Tirith to be no home, and thus departed with a trading caravan headed north to the Rhovanion; specifically to Dale. The young Arathir, a babe of hardly a month old, was wet-nursed on the journey by some of the caravan staff.

Eventually Sarothir and Arathir arrived at Esgaroth, formerly Lake-Town, where they were sponsored entry and residence by a sympathetic family of native Dale-men. Sarothir took on work as a low-level guardsman for the city, eventually moving to serve King Bain. Though he and his infant son were distrusted upon their arrival to the city, Sarothir's hard work ethics and reliable nature made the doubt give way to general acceptance.

In his youth, Arathir was often left home with with his step mother Astrid, who Sarothir married two years after his arrival in Esgaroth. Astrid would oft sing to her stepson as she took care of him and their quaint hovel; this enamored the young Arathir early on with songs and tales, and before long the young lad was conjuring up his own fanciful tales; childlike tales usually involving a gallant hero slaying a foul dragon single handedly. This fascination became talent, and though his father was loathe to allow it at first, Arathir began taking lessons from local tavern minstrels and honed his craft.

As he developed his talents, Arathir would spent a great deal of time with his father when he was off-duty. The duo would spend their time together fishing or fighting with practice swords. In time Arathir came to idolize his father and his lessons of goodwill and honor, and though his path in life differed so from Sarothir, he often harbored thoughts of adopting a martial profession as a 'backup'. Sarothir, on the other end, was proud of his son for displaying such aptitude for song and tale and came to accept fleeing Gondor as the right choice. Still, he never told his son of where they came from, or anything of Lothraen.

Arathir's first performance was at a dive-bar on the city docks at the age of fifteen, where the hardly literate barkeep misspelled his name as "Arathyr". The young, eager bard took the misspelling in stride and indeed found it humorous, and decided to adopt the spelling as a sort of moniker.

The performance was a success, earning Arathyr a spot as a weekly performer to the adoring, inebriated public on the docks. This arrangement would last for five years, until disaster struck when Arathyr and his stepmother received grim news; Sarothir had been convicted of the murder of another king's guardsman.

All of the evidence seemed to point towards the conviction, and despite Sarothir's pleas to the contrary, he was jailed to await execution. Arathyr, conflicted over his idyllic portrait of his father and the letter of the law, found himself the subject of the same suspicion that had hounded his father nearly two decades prior when he first arrived in Esgaroth. The day that his father was to be executed, a number of Arathyr's friends from the tavern offered to storm the execution platform to attempt a rescue. Though he considered it, Arathyr eventually declined and left the city, unable to bear his cowardice in the face of his father's plight.

Arathyr somberly joined a number of travelers seeking to make passage to Bree. Weighed down by the thought that he had failed his father, Arathyr aimed to perhaps reinvent himself far from home.

The traveling group went south and then west, passing through Rohan and then over the Fords of Isen; then further north to Enedwaith, and at last the town of Bree.

However, Arathyr had a realization during the journey, spurred by the sights of the many locales of Middle Earth; Bree was but an escape, and the open road provided an alternative that would spur him on to greater sights and adventures. Perhaps, at last, he could become the dashing hero he envisioned as a child; braving the wilds of Middle Earth and adventuring far beyond the safety of home. As his traveling companions stopped to settle in Bree, Arathyr continued on west to Ered Luin.

Arathyr was stricken in awe by the grandiosity of Thorin's Hall, and was thus compelled to assist the dwarves he met in defending against the ever-present goblin-menace there. He was assigned to the Dwarf soldier Kornar, and was given leave to aid dwarven forces in their strikes against the goblins. He became renowned among Kornar's party of soldiers as a Warrior-skald, and was even welcomed into Kornar's home on several occasions. He was given the nickname "Star-Song" by Kornar, and the name stuck as a surname for the bard.

Though he would depart and travel the breadth of Middle Earth many times over, Arathyr would return often to his friends in Thorin's Hall; so often that he was offered residence in the nearby homesteads. Though he accepted the home, Arathyr continued to wander, only using the home as a place to hang his head as any other inn might serve.

Arathyr's wandering days numbered nearly a decade when the troubles with Mordor began to brew. Still he continued to act as both a sword and song to those he met; always looking to put a smile on the faces of those he met so as to not fail them as he once failed his father. To this day, Arathyr has not since returned to Esgaroth.

During his time in the Shire (usually to attend festivals and revelries), Arathyr met a sprightly young hobbit lass named Nepetha. As general trickster and upstart, Nepetha had been thrown out of the bounders for her malcontent attitude and was looked upon by her fellow hobbits with disdain. However, her familiar situation caught the attention of Arathyr, and together the two ventured to Bree, talking the whole way. Arathyr told the curious hobbit about his adventures throughout the land and the people he met. Nepetha, unable to remember so many grandiose tales in one sitting, suggested that the bard might pen a book on the people he met and the adventures he shared with them.

Thus was born the 'Guide to the Free Peoples', a collection of stories and 'interviews' penned by Arathyr and Nepetha both. Though far from substantial enough to warrant an entire book, the collection of papers and notes is a constant mainstay in Arathyr's travel pack.