About Isilma EdasserilIsilma Edasseril:
ISILMA EDASSERIL - CR 1/2
XP 200 Female dusk elf adept 2 CN Medium humanoid (elf) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., perception +2 DEFENSE AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex)
OFFENSE Speed 30 ft.
Adept Spells Prepared (CL 2nd; concentration +2)
STATISTICS Str 6, Dex 16, Con 8, Int 19, Wis 11, Cha 13
Appearance:
Background:
This backstory assumes the events of Second Darkness have taken place. Do not read further if you wish to avoid spoiling that Adventure Path for yourself.
===4709=== "Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present for the very first time, the heroes of Kyonin, Lini, Sajan, Amiri and Seltiyel!" Somewhere below the balcony from which Queen Telandia is speaking, an ensemble of horns and woodwinds rings out a triumph. Four armed and armored figures step forward onto the balcony, and the queen slips behind the curtains to give them room. Tindómial cranes forward anxiously as one of them begins to address the crowd. Beside her, her brother Caliel and his wife Atalara, princess of the Snowcasters, hold each other close, his hand buried in her icy blonde hair. "Come with me, my faithful subjects," the queen says softly, ushering them down the hallway, away from the balcony. A hawk with deep brown feathers swoops down from the rafters and lands on the queen's wrist. "You already know what they plan to tell the crowd, and Lady Yávendar can handle them if they finish early. "The tales of Hialin and Allevrah were not the first I had heard of the Dark Fate," she says heavily as they walk. Her golden hair falls forward, obscuring her face, and the Viridian Crown slips a little on her brow. "Though it was not until I heard them that I knew my memory for what it was. Will you listen?" "Mhm," Tindómial says, nodding emphatically. Her faith in the queen seems to give the others strength. They look each other in the eye for a moment, then they both nod as well. Nyranin screeches, high but soft, and Telandia smoothes the feathers on the top of his head. "It all began many years ago. I was very young. Isilma was my favorite cousin, and even younger. We studied together under Master Auramesties." Tindómial's eyes go wide and she gasps. Caliel looks at her in concern. "I'm sorry Your Highness," she says, "it's just, I found a copy of his treatise on demonology in my room last night." "I presume you read it?" says Telandia, who looks relieved at the distraction. "Mhm," says Tindómial again, with another confident nod. Then her eyes go wide again. "Are you going to give me a test?" she asks. "Something like that." Tindómial starts fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve, wishing she hadn't left her notes in her chamber. "But I have to finish my story first. As I was saying, we were very close, almost like sisters. She loved slipping away from the guards, and she could always convince me to come along. On nights when we knew there'd be shooting stars—she had a whole calendar planned ten years in advance—there was always one tower we would climb. Nobody ever found us." Caliel catches Tindómial's eye, his eyebrow raised at the thought of the queen playing hooky or hide and seek. Atalara turns his chin and gives him a wink, and his cheeks redden. "It happened slowly, but she started spending more and more time with Auramesties," says the queen, insistent now. "He saw something in her. And they spent more and more time away from Iadara. Probably in Thorn's End, though I didn't know it at the time. I was jealous," she says flatly, sounding ashamed. "Every time we saw each other, she had a new story of a fearful demon of Tanglebriar, and the ways she would learn to fight it. She would talk about how they fought one another, and how easy reclaiming the swamp would be if we could only take advantage of it. I would talk about life at court, learning to be a crown princess. She seemed to like hearing about that. But each visit was sourer than the last. "One night, before she was scheduled to leave again, she came to my chamber without her guards. I heard her special knock, and went to the front room to let her in, and found my guards, Liltallë and Calintil, crumpled in their chairs, their chests burned by lightning." Telandia takes a deep breath, and then another, blinking hard and fast. Caliel feels in his pockets for a handkerchief, but Atalara grabs his wrist and pushes it gently back to his side. "I was a fool. I threw open the door. There she was, smiling and laughing like an idiot. She said she'd figured everything out. A way to open a portal from the moon to one of the aiudara, and let the two demonic factions destroy each other. She invoked Nocticula, called her the destroyer of Tanglebriar and savior of elvendom. But she needed my crown. We both knew there was only one way she would get it. I'll never forget what she said next. 'Come to me,' she said, just like that. 'I have to do it myself.' "Darkness seeped from the walls and into her body. Her eyes lit up with white fire. All I could think was I had to stop it somehow. One of my guards, Liltallë, was always talking about her lucky rod. I ran to her body, grabbed it. It was wet. Brought it down on Isilma's head. Broke it. Turned her to stone." They've stopped, in front of a pair of double doors. Tindómial has been so transfixed by the horror of the queen's story that she hasn't noticed. Telandia is crying freely now. Atalara lets Caliel give her his handkerchief. She wipes her eyes. "Auramesties found us. He told me he'd take care of everything. I trusted him. It was the last time I trusted the Winter Council. I never knew what he did with Liltallë and Calintil. But after I was crowned queen, I found where he had hidden Isilma." Telandia nudges open one of the doors. It leads into a large antechamber decorated by statues of golden wasps. At the far end of the chamber hangs a shimmering curtain of gold silk. Telandia stops them before they can pass through. "Caliel, Princess Atalara, you have prepared your magic as I asked?" They nod. "Then Caliel, I will need your help." She takes his hand, and they close their eyes. "Lift with me," she murmurs. She seems to take solace in working magic. Nyranin shrieks, and flaps to the railing holding the curtain. After a few moments, a statue of an elf-girl on the cusp of maidenhood floats gently through the gold silk threshold. Tindómial and Atalara cover their mouths almost in unison at the sight of her. A hideously wide grin tears a chasm across an otherwise softly curved face. Her hair looks like it would be wavy were it not standing on end. In the corners of her leering eyes are the petrified remnants of beading tears. "Don't look at her," says Telandia, fitting a golden ring set with three bright red rubies onto her finger. "I have been preparing for this ever since Lini and the others told me what happened to Hialin." She hands Tindómial and Caliel a scroll each, and brushes her fingers against Tindómial's forehead. She feels a warmth like the protection of a mother's hug. "This is your test, my faithful student," she says, and Tindómial's ears perk up. "Princess Atalara, you will free Isilma from stone. Caliel, your will, I think, free her from something much worse. Tindómial, you will make sure it will not return to trouble us again. And I think…" the queen twists her ring nervously. Nyranin shuffles on her shoulder. "If we are quick, I can stop the Dark Fate from changing her any more." She smiles at them all. "We have the magic to save Isilma," she says. "We just have to trust each other." Tindómial looks at them all: her mentor, her brother, and her sister in law…they're her family. How could they not trust each other? She sees Atalara looking at her expectantly, and cocks her head. The snowcaster gestures at the scroll in her hand. Tindómial blushes, then busies herself with reading it. It's terribly complicated. She remembers that the book last night had had a whole section on about banishing spells, but even having read it Tindómial has a hard time making sense of the scroll. It looks like it was written centuries ago; given the state of the archives, that might even be true. Finally, though, she's ready. "Go ahead," she says. A punctuated cadence glosses off Atalara's tongue, and Tindómial gets a brief glimpse of Isilma as her stony skin turns to soft flesh. She looks very blue. But that's all the impression she gets before Caliel barks a word of power and the antechamber is lit up with the brightest flash Tindómial has ever seen. Somehow she manages to keep her eyes open through it, and can see what the queen had spoken of: what looks like an oily mist, black even against the light and the purple-yellow afterimages, seeping out of Isilma. The girl's legs start to buckle, but Tindómial ignores that and focuses her will on the mist. Get out, she thinks. Go away. Leave us alone. She speaks the command in a strange tongue. The light fades, and the mist is gone, but Tindómial can't tell if the spell worked or not. Her sense for magic is drowned out by the fount of power coming from Queen Telandia. She seems to be battling two ancient and implacable powers, one bubbling up from the earth, one descending in a great pillar from the sky, each determined to warp and twist the girl who is now curled up and rocking back and forth on the floor. Slowly, however, she pushes them back, Nyranin screaming his defiance and stooping on top of the girl, spreading his wings over her like a kill he wants to protect. Finally, Telandia falls to her knees next to her cousin, the energies gone and the rubies in her ring cracked and dull. Finally Tindómial can get a good look at Isilma. Her first impression had been right; she was blue all over. Her eyes are the pale, piercing blue of a month's second full moon. Her wavy hair is as blue as Tindómial's own, or her brother's, but lighter. She wears a gray-blue robe and a dark blue cape and sash the color of the night sky. But her skin, though ashy and pale, looks like her cousin's. When Telandia takes Isilma's hands, it is only their sizes that differentiate them. "It's been ninety years," says the queen. "Can you forgive me?" Tindómial gawks at that. From what Telandia had said, she had done nothing wrong, and deserves an apology herself at least! "Landë?" says Isilma, her voice hoarse. "What have you done?" "We saved you," says Caliel bluntly. "What he means," says Atalara, "is that we want to be friends." "It wasn't your fault," adds Telandia. "No," croaks Isilma, ignoring Caliel and Atalara. "I meant it. It's my destiny to kill the demons. She said so." She? Tindómial could remember no woman in Telandia's story that could have told Isilma such a thing. Auramesties might have, but he was a man. "She" refers to the shadow demon that had possessed Isilma. I have not named her. "It's been ninety years," repeats Tindómial, pausing to let that sink in. "Things have changed. You can't hurt the queen anymore. Accept that, and take your second chance." ===4713=== "Where did you say you were going, Tinwë?" Tindómial and Isilma were sitting on top of the same tower Isilma had used to climb with Telandia. It had become their special place in the years the girl had lived with Caliel and Atalara. "Taldor," says Tindómial. "The queen says I need to make friends with the humans. I guess you're not enough anymore." "We are family," says Isilma. "That does not count." "I guess," says Tindómial, pulling the girl close. "But I think there's another reason. There's going to be another Witchwar. Telandia thinks so too, or else she wouldn't have sent Caliel, Seltiyel, and Atalara to Icegate. She wants to keep me safe." "I know how you feel, Tinwë," says Isilma. "She will not let me near Tanglebriar again. I know I am ready." She smacks the shingles with the heel of her hand. "So does she," says Tindómial. "It's not you. It's the other warriors. They're not used to you. You make them nervous." "They should be!" Tindómial frowns, and Isilma backpedals. "That was wrong." "You could sail north," says Tindómial, hoping to make Isilma feel better. "The crusaders would be honored to have you." "It will not be the same…" Isilma is just shy of being convinced. "Say you're going to make friends," laughs Tindómial. "If she doesn't let you go, maybe I'll get to stay with you."
Personality:
Notes on Youth (Ultimate Campaign p. 194):
Ability Score Adjustments In the same way an adult character gains adjustments to her ability scores as she reaches middle, old, and venerable age, a young character occupies a new pre-adulthood age category, and therefore has altered physical ability scores, though the vigor of youth does grant some benefit. A young character has a +2 bonus to Dexterity and a –2 penalty to Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom. (A young character’s potential inexperience and awkwardness are represented by having only the skill ranks of a 1st-level character rather than taking a penalty to Intelligence or Charisma.)
When a young character reaches adulthood (see Table 3–9: Random Young Starting Ages), she loses these ability score adjustments. Available Classes A young character does not have access to the same classes as adult characters. Not yet trained in the advanced techniques of war, arcana, faith, and varied other pursuits, a young character is a squire, apprentice, acolyte, or student on the path to expertise. As such, you can select only NPC classes while in this age category, beginning play and advancing in level as an adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, or warrior, according to your interests and social background. As soon as you reach adulthood, though, you may retrain those NPC class levels as levels in any base classes of your choosing (see Retraining on page 188). I plan to retrain Isilma's Adept levels to Wizard levels upon her reaching adulthood. Traits Because character traits (see page 51) represent your character’s background before becoming an adventurer, the GM might limit you to selecting only one trait at 1st level instead of the normal two traits allowed. When your character reaches adulthood, you select your second trait. Note that normally you can select a new trait after 1st level only if your character takes the Additional Traits feat, so this option allows you more flexibility in choosing your second trait, as recent events in the campaign might make some of your trait options more valuable than they originally appeared when the campaign started. I plan to take the Magical Lineage trait upon reaching Isilma reaching adulthood. Leaving Youth Behind The pace at which characters gain experience varies widely from campaign to campaign. In one campaign, a character might gain multiple levels in a single month of in-game time, while in another a character might spend years at the same level. If adulthood were purely tied to the passage of time in a campaign, a young character might gain extensive adventuring experience but still be restricted to selecting only NPC classes. A GM may grant a young character the option of passing into the adult age category early after achieving some noteworthy goal. Potential accomplishments include surpassing your instructor’s skill, defeating a powerful adult foe, overcoming a threat to your home, or completing a lengthy journey. The completion of a published module or adventure of similar length might warrant a youth advancing to adulthood, or perhaps attaining a certain level in an NPC class (perhaps at 3rd or 5th level). If your GM grants your young character the ability to advance into adulthood early, you may choose when to take advantage of that benefit. Your ability scores do not change to reflect your new age category until you retrain an NPC class level. I hope to have Isilma accomplish one of the four milestones listed in the second paragraph fairly early in the adventure, most probably either "defeating a powerful adult foe" or "completing a lengthy journey". In fact, she may have completed a sufficiently lengthy journey already: from Iadara to Kenabres. Please let me know when you would like me to retrain her class levels. Notes on Alignment and Redemption:
I would like it if over the course of the campaign Isilma's alignment shifted to Neutral Good. She began her life Chaotic Good, fell to Chaotic Evil, and has since set her sights not just on redeeming herself, but also becoming more disciplined. Please feel free to present opportunities for penances like the ones in the Player's Guide. Dates:
b.4561 AR
s.4622 AR r.4709 AR c.4713 AR |
