Unafe Two-Hearted's page

About Unafe Two-Hearted

Unafe's Character Sheet

HISTORY: THE DWELLERS WITH THE GREAT SAURIANS
In Northwest Sarkoris, near Lake of the Lost Sun, lies the Taranau Valley, characterized by oddly tropical ferns, hot springs, volcanic vents...and thundering saurians. According to tribal legend, the Demetae /Deh-meh-TIE/ (or “Dwellers with the Great Saurians” in their native strain of Hallit) have lived amongst the saurians there since before the Starfall. They tell tales of Goryon the Wise -- the first of the saurian shamans -- and how he was taught by the spirits of the land how to coexist with the great saurians and how to join one’s spirit to theirs. They learned to thrive in a locale which other humans fled due to the prevalence of dinosaurs (and occasional demons and other twisted things) and as a result their tribe existed largely untouched and unchanged for millennia.

Not that the tribe hasn’t faced great challenges through the years: One of the biggest threats in the Demetae’s tribal memory was 300 years ago. After Aroden slew Deskari, the demon lord's cultists started looking for new sources of power to usurp. Some became attracted to the power of the great saurians, and sought to harness that power toward their own thirst for bloody war and destruction. The tales say that the spirit of Goryon returned to protect the Demetae, and pushed the Deskari cultists back to the cold and twisted East.

Since that time they have lived with relative stability for the last few centuries...but that stability has crumbled quickly since Aroden’s death and the blossoming of the Worldwound.

EARLY CHILDHOOD: MARKED FOR GREATNESS
Unafe /OO-na-fey/ was born into the Demetae tribe in 4606, the same year Aroden died. At Unafe’s naming ritual the current tribal shaman, Old Aye, saw that she was Two-Hearted: that she had the reborn spirit of a great ancestor within her. Though it had been a few centuries since one of their shamans had been born Two-Hearted, it was known to all that a Two-Hearted would awaken to her Ancestor Heart when she reached adulthood, at which point it would be known which ancestor spirit she shared, and her two hearts would be joined. To prepare her for the burden, Old Aye took her for his own as soon as she was weaned and began to train her to call on the sacred ancestors, and the spirits of the saurians.

When Unafe was seven, Old Aye saw in his dreams that Unafe was not just Two Hearted; he saw that her Ancestor Heart was none other than the reincarnation of Goryon the Wise. It was wonderful news for the Demetae tribe, who knew that demons and cultists in the Worldwound were growing bold since Aroden’s death, and they feared a new confrontation. Old Aye assured his people that Unafe was Goryon reincarnated, and that she would protect them from the coming danger.

As a young child she played with the other children of the village, but by the time Aye shared his prophetic dream, most families kept a respectful distance from her. For several years, she would look longingly at her siblings, and the other village children...but while her parents frowned in resignation, it was known to all that a Two-Hearted shouldn’t socialize with normal children. When she wasn’t studying with Aye, she spent more and more of her time alone in the jungle or running with the great saurians that were never far from the Demetae. Old Aye taught her that when she reached womanhood she would regain all the memories and powers of Goryon The Wise, and would use her might to set things right again for her people. In the meantime, he taught her to channel the power of her ancestors, of Gozreh, and of the spirits of the great saurians.

ADOLESCENCE: THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
When Unafe’s woman’s-blood first came in her 12th year, she, Old Aye, and the whole village waited breathlessly. Within a moon she should regain the memory and might of Goryon The Wise, and soon thereafter step into her mantle as their protector. That month passed, as did another and another, growing into more than a year. She continued to study under Aye and to grow in skill, but no memories returned from her Ancestor Heart. Old Aye couldn’t explain it, but he continued to train her, and told her to have patience; Goryon’s might and memories would come.

Old Aye kept Unafe very busy with her training, and for a few years, Unafe was often able to forget her missing Ancestor Heart. One of the Demetae’s greatest secrets was a mine of sacred mithral. Many believed that it was that mine which had drawn the saurians to the valley, millennia ago. In any event, the ability to work mithral was a source of great pride, and Aye passed the skill on to Unafe. Painstakingly, she crafted her breastplate. Day after day, she meditated before taking up her tools and returning to the forge...and day after day, the sacred ancestors guided her hand. The final product was majestic, with a crenulated pattern that created stylized outlines of various saurians. The pauldrons she crafted to have the look of triceratops horns emerging from her shoulders.

Aye also taught her to make their sacred war paints, which could impart the toughness and speed of the great saurians. She would mix clay and bark to get the traditional orange-ochre and sky-blue, and local warriors would compete for the honor of being anointed with the True Warpaint of the Demetae.

While she enjoyed mastering her crafts, and working to hone her body, the next four years became increasingly difficult. Everyone could see that she had the gifts of the Two-Hearted: the saurians listened to her, and she had a Two-Hearted’s power to call on their ancestors and the spirits of the saurians to aid others, and to empower herself in battle. She had called a young gên cain to her (or ‘compsognathus’ in the Taldan tongue) who followed her everywhere. Yet everyone also knew that the Two-Hearted received their ancestor’s full blessing when they reached adulthood. She had become a woman in her 12th year, but at 19 still had yet to regain the memories or power of her Ancestor Heart. Meanwhile, demon-tainted frost giants and cultists were on the move, and hungry for power. They were getting bolder by the month, increasing their range with a grim inevitability. Old Aye was resolute: Unafe’s Ancestor Heart would reawaken, it would be Goryon, and it would happen in time.

During these years, Unafe’s most pure release--the moments where she let go fully--were when she was running with the great saurians. To test her growing strength, she started to tackle and wrestle them. She started with smaller ones, but over time she found that she would successfully best even those that were twice her size. Leaping onto their backs and rolling them into the mud remains the brightest memory of recent years.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: THE BATTLE FOR THE DEMETAE
As Unafe approached her 19th name day, scouts from the cultists started to appear in their valley. While Aye and the tribespeople managed to slay a few scouts, within weeks Aye’s Pteranodon companion warned that the tainted giants and cultist were barely two days march away in full force. They came with demonic servants and scathing fires, laying waste to all in their path. Old Aye and Unafe retreated into prayer, calling to Goryon and all the ancestors, and to the spirits of the saurians to bring Unafe her full power and deliver the Demetae once again from the forces of Deskari.

After an hour, Unafe opened her eyes and found that she had been transformed! She had the size, appearance, and might of a large crafanc ofnadwy, or terrible-claw. There was a cloud of Sacred Ancestors buzzing about her. Could this finally be it? Was her Ancestor Heart arriving? She turned to Aye in wonder, but he confirmed what she knew: her power was unfolding...but her Ancestor Heart had not yet awakened.

Doubt filled her heart, leaving her feeling unmoored and ashamed. Was there some weakness or unworthiness in her, that kept Goryon from returning? Was Old Aye’s Great Dream wrong, all those years ago?

Aye sternly told her that she had no time for doubt now: her people needed her to lead. Trembling inside, she led her people forward to meet the demon horde.

The battle was explosive, and terrible. While twisted frost giants and human cultists battled Demetae warriors and their saurian companions, Unafe leaped into the sky on powerful saurian legs, to do battle with Snjóbyl Soulhammer, the demonic spawn of Kostchtchie. In fact--to her great surprise--she found herself soaring nearly a hundred feet into the air in a single leap. With a cloud of sacred spirits swarming about her, Unafe called out, silently, Goryon the Wise! Sacred Ancestors! If there were any moment for my Ancestor Heart to awaken, it is now!

Threw all of her strength and momentum into a powerful uppercut, knocking out teeth and sending Snjóbyl spinning in the air, roaring in pain. She lept again to repeat it, but the demonic frost giant flapped his scaly wings out of the way and fired back with torrents of ice and hail that left Unafe gasping for breath. Please...please...What have I done wrong? Why do you forsake me?

The battle raged on with Unafe chasing Snjóbyl far from the Taranau Valley, and across the Rimethirst Mountains. Unafe grew grim as she realized that her Ancestor Heart was not going to appear. She launched herself straight at the demonic frost giant and managed to wrestle the gigantic fiend onto the ground with a loud thud. For a brief moment she thought she might be victorious, and the cloud of saurian and Demetae spirits around her buzzed loudly. The next moment, Snjóbyl lashed out in rage with his hammer, sending her tumbling into an ice-filled river. With a rumbling laugh that brought down an avalanche, Snjóbyl Soulhammer froze her beneath layers of ice...and as Unafe lost consciousness, she cried out one more time, WHY!??!?...and wondered with dread what her failure meant for the Demetae people, and the saurians they were charged with protecting.

APPEARANCE AND GEAR
Unafe is a tall, scrawny nineteen year old with pale skin and thick, wild, brown hair. Her face is full of emotion and uncertainty: passion, wonder, rage, joy, sorrow, and doubt. She paints her face with orange-ochre and sky-blue clay. She wears a gleaming silver-white mithral breastplate that is covered in a detailed, crenulated pattern of lines that form the stylized outlines of various saurian shapes. The large pauldrons gave the impression of three stout triceratops horns emerging from each shoulder. Over that she wears a colorful orange-dyed tunic, with plentiful deinonychus teeth stitched into the seams. Below that, she wears a blue war-kilt (also with saurian teeth sewn into it) and long, grey wool socks. Her enchanted boots--a gift from Aye, passed down among the Demetae warrior-shamans--are made of velociraptor leather. Her enchanted adamantine handwraps were also a gift from Old Aye...one he’d traveled on to Numeria on pteranodon-back to procure!) Her Wayfinder is something she found around the neck of the picked-over corpse of a Pathfinder who wandered into the Taranau valley and was set upon by velociraptors.

Overall, her attire is practical enough for her duties as a warrior-shaman...but it is equally ornamental, with saurian teeth stitched anywhere that they might fit, and flashy deinonychus feathers sticking out of her headband. Her orange tunic is cut to show the silvery-white triceratops pauldrons of her mithral breastplate.

Surrounding Unafe is a swirling cloud of ghostly dinosaurs and the spirits of her ancestors. Depending what is going on, they can go from silent to an angry buzz or growl. In her birth form, she has typical Kellid features...but recently she’s developed the ability to transform, growing to 14 feet in height, with her legs taking on a deinonychus’ speed and bulging jumping muscles. When transformed, white-and-tan feathers peak out from under her tunic, armor, and kilt, and her jaw elongates. Her smile shows the deinonychus’ predatory teeth.

While most of what she carried off to battle Snjóbyl was practical in nature...one of the pockets of her kilt contains a very worn triceratops doll, woven from dried grass, with horns carved from the vertebrae of a real triceratops. It was made for her by her father, before she was taken away by Old Aye (the only thing she has left from her birth family) and her fingers often unconsciously trace its familiar form inside her pocket.

SICRWYDD, THE GEN CAIN

Peeking out from between her legs or riding on her shoulder is a two-foot long obviously predatory bipedal dinosaur. It’s hide is covered in copper feathers with a spray of bright blue under it’s chin. It stands just over 12” at the shoulder on powerful legs, and needle-like teeth are visible between it’s gums.

Hoping for a bulwark against her own doubts, she has named him Sicrwydd, which means “Certainty” in Hallit. Sicrwydd is curious, protective, and always hungry. He moves in quick darting motions and then holds still, watching.

Sicrwydd (Compsognathus familiar) reference image

PERSONALITY
Since childhood Unafe has been told that she was the chosen one, the return of Goryon the Wise, who would protect her people in the coming storm.

Since puberty she’s known that Something Was Wrong, that the prophecy hadn’t yet gone as planned.

As her consciousness faded under layers of ice, she knows she’s failed, her Ancestor Heart never materialized, and her people are scattered or worse because of it.

When she meets the party, she'll be amongst unfamiliar people, trying to make sense of her life and find her path.

Currently she’s a conflicting tumult of emotion and perspectives. At her best moments she still feels her connection to the natural world, her love of its beauty, and her knowledge that she has something to contribute to it. At her worst she’s cracking under the stress of knowing that her Ancestor Heart never came, that she failed to save her tribe, and that the future that was prophesied for her has been derailed. Through those cracks -- for the first time since her early childhood -- a bit of the regular teenage girl in her is showing through as well.

Unafe is also still getting to know her powers. It was only recently that she developed the ability to transform into a saurian-hybrid. She finds the power at turns exhilarating and unsettling.

PATH, DRAWBACKS, TRAITS, STORY FEAT
MYTHIC PATH: Gifted
DRAWBACK: Radiant Power
Even when she’s not transformed into a saurian hybrid, the cloud of human and saurian spirits that buzz around her make it clear that she’s not normal, make it difficult for her to hide herself, and (thanks to the knot-like patterns that the spirits often weave in the grass) make her easy to track.
DRAWBACK: Traditional
Unafe’s mythic power is rooted in her relationship with the sacred ancestors. Calling on requires her to call out loud. Activating it brings with it a dramatic blur of swirling spirits...and causes a flare of pain that can sicken her for a few seconds.
MYTHIC QUALITY: Nature’s Balance
Unafe’s spirit is directly linked to those of the great saurians. This makes any dinosaurs immediately friendly with her...but also marks her as a dangerous predator to any large herd mammals, such as aurochs and mammoths.
MYTHIC QUALITY: Supervisor (Ancestor Heart)
As Unafe’s power awakens further, it will awaken with it’s own purpose...a purpose that it will expect Unafe to enable.
BOON: Expertise (Graceful Grappler)
Unafe’s years of wrestling massive saurians have paid off. She has the ability to wrestle foes almost effortlessly, grasping on reflexively after each blow, and maintaining her own full balance even while throwing them off of their own.
BOON: Exemplar (Mythic Martial Focus)
With the aid of the sacred ancestors that buzz around her constantly, Unafe has access to a greater reserve of martial focus than even the stoutest of her tribe’s warriors.
STORY FEAT: Forgotten Past Who or what gives her her Ancestor Heart? Is she truly a reincarnation of Goryon, as Old Aye prophesied? And whether she is or she isn’t, why have her Ancestor memories failed to emerge from the fog?
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Hooks, Notes, and Open Questions
- When awakened, Unafe will desperately want to go home, and discover if any of her people--or the saurians they were charged to protect--survive. She’ll of course delay if there is urgent aid she can give to those who’ve rescued her, or if feels duty pulls in another direction...but when she finally gets some downtime, it’s hard to imagine her not attempting to return home...at least to find out what became of her people.

- You asked about a mythic trial. My first thought would be clear some corruption (or restore some sacred source of power) in her village...or perhaps to rescue and nurse back some survivor.

- I can see her Ancestor Heart in fact being Goryon, first of the Shamans of her people…or I can see it being someone/something else entirely. Even if it is Goryon...a several thousand year tribal memory is sure to have mythologized much about him...what will she really learn? (I’m happy to be surprised by you…or to brainstorm possibilities together with you if you prefer)

- Either way, why didn’t her Ancestor Heart come when expected? Possibly tied to something going on in the Worldwound, or even direct interference from Deskari. Maybe Goryon’s spirit is caught up with/by Deskari? What does she need to do/confront/discover to recover her Ancestor Heart’s past?
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Stats below assume:
* Transformed into Hybrid form [human form in brackets, where relevant].
* Spirit-serendipity aura up (free to activate, unlimited duration)
* Familiar bonus is shifted from Init to Will (thanks to Dream With Me) unless otherwise stated