Chaïa Pomala's page

5 key concept elements:
Wrong: Chaïa is, as almost anyone who knows her will tell you, complicated, difficult, or – to those less inclined to be charitable – simply a mistake. She’s nice enough, and means well, but there’s something weird about her wide blue eyes and the way they focus on things no one else can see short of invoking a cantrip to detect magic far more often than any normal person would ever think of doing, and, even more alarming for a child of the temple, magic behaves strangely around her. It’s not just that she’s a neophyte and started her training late: it affects even the blessings and spells her tutors place on her. Maybe there’s something to the rumours that her cantankerous father is under a curse after all?
Curious: Despite the unique challenges she faces in her studies, Chaïa remains undaunted, and happily discusses spellcraft not only with clergy of a variety of traditions, but also lay mages. Although her notes and scribblings have yet to coalesce even into cantrips, she is never seen without the beginnings of a grimoire, and often at least one other book or scroll on magical theory or any of a number of subjects that interest her: magical creatures, the planes, and the worlds to come.
Devout: Chaïa’s inspiration to pursue the full breadth of her magical studies regardless of her father’s express displeasure date to an ecstatic moment of self-awareness that she connects both with the elven esoteric philosophical doctrine of the Brightness (and its promise of reincarnation) and her faith in Yuelral. Although she is not a paladin of the goddess of the sort that smites evil and wears glorious shining armour, she keeps their code as earnestly.
Morbid: Her piety and her disagreement with her father are both connected to some vague disaster prior to her family’s arrival that her father refuses to talk about, but that still occasionally haunts her dreams with nightmares of clutching hands and unimaginable forces pulling her into impossible places. She is both terrified of death and determined to meet it on her own terms, in her own time.
Shy: Growing up in a small elven town as the resident magical freak does not lend itself to the development of normal social skills, and that goes double for societies less magically inclined than elven. Chaïa has had few close friends in her life, and even fewer inconclusive flirtations, when she thinks to consider such matters. She is most comfortable with other elves, and mortifyingly drawn to the sort of outgoing young women she wishes she could be more like (The age old question: be or be with? ;) ), and who might remind her of the vivacity of the closest friend of her youth, a magically gifted rogue who wasn’t frightened off by Chaïa’s unpredictable magic.
Goals:
(IC): Chaïa was actually on her way to Magnimar, by way of a wide loop through other forests and points of interest to an elven spellcaster from the Mierani Forest, so she’s honestly a bit surprised to find herself in Diamond Lake. That said, the wizard Allustan was kind enough to take a wide-eyed, haunted innocent under his wing upon her arrival in town, and in the ensuing discussions about their respective dark dreams and forebodings, Chaïa decided the least she could do is look into some of the things that the Bronzewood Lodge is worried about, on behalf of the more urbanized magic-users.
(IC): Visit the Forest of Wild Apples and Wilder Magic, in Elysium. That seems like it might be useful both for understanding her own magic and – perhaps – banishing the rot that’s threatening to set in in her infinitesimal part of the Material Plane.
(IC): Although she fully expects it may have to wait until she’s dead, Chaïa has a desperate dream of one day standing before her goddess and asking, simply, “Why?” Why has she been haunted by the forces that twist her magic the way it is, and why did she end up in the world she did (see Secrets, below)? She doesn’t expect a straightforward answer at all, but if anyone can offer her any marginally satisfying explanation, it’s probably the Wise.
(OOC): Probably play her advancement by ear: most of the time I have a fairly good idea of a particular class I want to stick with for a character and what sorts of goodies would be helpful for that, but for Chaïa, while I think she’ll probably end up either a mystic theurge or some sort of mage, I’m now interested in letting her develop more organically, especially on the divine side. Getting her hands on a rod of wonder sounds like it might be fun, though.
Secrets:
1) Chaïa is terrified of the forces shaping her magic, though she puts a brave face on it. While she has long since reconciled herself to her defiance of her father’s wishes, she didn’t go out of the way to do so. She was willing to spend her life without looking too closely at the secrets of magic, resisting the impulse to learn even the most basic divinations that would set them clearly before her eyes, but the gods, it seems, willed it otherwise, and her eyes were opened willy-nilly.
2) The disaster that definitively shaped Chaïa’s family occurred when she was too young to remember it, and her father is vague about the details. She does know that they lost her mother then, and that they settled in Crying Leaf after her father accepted a ferocious geas never to use arcane magic again. What she doesn’t know is that this was a punishment for hacking, from the far side, into the aiudara that connects Kyonin and Sovyrian. The only clue she has is the vaguest memory of different stars and the occasional inexplicable minor discrepancies between the world as she and her sister learned it at her father’s knee and the history and ways of things that literally every other elf she has ever met take for granted.
Important people:
Mélinde: Although Chaïa has a cordial, nodding acquaintance with the local priestess of the Lady of Mint, since that goddess’ interests overlap with hers and her own goddess’, she gets along a bit better with the easy-going Iomedaean paladin she sees occasionally at Lazare’s House. Apart from discussing theology together – the pair still differ quite a bit on the value of rules, law, and tradition – Mélinde is the closest thing Chaïa has to a guide to ordinary human life, especially in Diamond Lake.
Effeflin Nirgassan: Chaïa’s childhood best friend, who taught her most of what she knows about the more social side of life, how to have a good time, and encouraged her not to let her father squelch her dreams, if only by keeping how much her tutors were willing to teach her about all forms of magic quiet as long as possible.
Lanliss and Medefa: Chaïa’s estranged father and her dear younger sister are all that remain of her blood family, ekeing out a humble life from the forest on the fringes of Crying Leaf society. Although Lanliss’ daughters are not bound by his geas, and he initially was grateful for the interest that the local clergy took in Chaïa’s potential, that came to an abrupt halt when he realized that her interests in arcane as well as divine magic were being encouraged. Medefa quietly took her sister’s side, and, as a bookish but nonetheless woodcraftier woman, managed to stay in their father’s good graces and continues to mediate between them.
Quirks:
Collector: Beyond spells, books, and lore, which are only to be expected of a curious, magically-talented young elf, Chaïa collects things well-suited to her devotion to Yuelral: gems, naturally, but also finely-crafted daggers, her goddess’ favoured weapon.
Gardener: In keeping with the precepts of her religion, Chaïa maintains an interest in the uses of herbs. However, that doesn’t mean that she’s particularly fond of scrabbling about in the depths of the forest or what have you, though of course she can, if necessary. She just much prefers a garden box beside her home, and is rather squeamish about the sorts of pests that can beset one’s horticultural efforts. She’d rather carefully tend a few plants rather than have to deal with keeping beetles, worms, and such from a plot relying on the strength of numbers.
Starchild: Chaïa, when detecting magic, perceives the network of magical fields that run through the multiverse as a perpetual kaleidoscopic shower of tiny stars and jewel-like flowers. This makes analyzing magic against a backdrop of the night sky or actual flowers more challenging for her, quite apart from the fact that she often finds herself focused on the normally invisible world of magic without consciously intending to be so.

Chaïa is tiny, by elven standards (5’7”), and beautiful, in a quiet way that often strikes those who meet her only some time after they’ve exchanged a few words, her features dominated by still grace throughout – unless hampered by the mysterious forces that accompany her magic, which can set her bumping about quite uncharacteristically. Her eyes are a deep blue, tending towards richer rather than clearer, set in a high-browed face framed by light blonde hair, which she normally keeps loose except on formal occasions, when she weaves it into a long braid down her back. When working on a difficult problem of arcane theory, she often runs a hand through the mane of her hair, or toys with the end of a single curl, a nervous habit that betrays her diffidence.
She prefers simple scholar’s robes, elegantly cut, for daily use, and her clothes show the care lavished on them that one might expect from someone who has had to make sure they wear well.