Born to a family of traders near the Hespereith Strait, Kyblea developed a deep interest in Azlanti culture at a young age, spurred on by whispered rumors about her family. According to family legend, Kyble's ancestors among a selection of gillmen held by their aboleth creators and to tend to the needs of a great, demonic beast bound to the Material Plane and manipulated by fleshcrafting with the intention of creating a weapon against surface-dwelling antagonists; to ensure that the beast was kept, the aboleth modified their chosen gillmen in ways that allowed them to best serve the fiend's needs, including the creation of a special bond and a system of mental communication. However, for reasons lost somewhere through the generations, the aberrations abandoned the project after years of work, cutting connections with the gillman they employed and leaving their beast to an unknown fate; when recounting the story, many in Kyblea's family include an assumption that the fiend somehow slipped its bonds and escaped to an Outer Plane, ruining the experiment.
Although such a concept as a living aboleth superweapon provokes doubt from most who hear the rumors, these tales nonetheless stuck with Kyblea both because they provided an easy, humorous explanation for her experiences with a recurring nightmare that involved hopeless wandering through a dark, sunken labyrinth while tormented by the presences of a distant, inhuman susurrus and an oppressive, borderline-painful heat; and because they left the young gillman with an obsession to learn the truth about the Azlanti and the aboleths, eventually becoming a scholar of ancient Azlant. Furthermore, Kyblea studies of the ancient culture allowed her to pick up a few snippets of Azlanti magical tradition, which, much to her surprise, resonated greatly with Kyblea, leading Kyblea to discover that she possessed innate magical abilities while experimenting with applications of the information.
Kyblea first heard of the Bountiful Venture Company through a cousin who happened upon information about the mission while peddling his wares in coastal towns across Andoran. Deeming the expedition a perfect chance to gather still more information about the ancient Azlanti, Kyblea jumped at the chance to apply, playing up her knowledge of the long-lost civilization and her magical talents in an attempt to secure a position.
Personality and Appearance[/spoiler:
Kyblea is a pale-skinned woman of average height with braided, raven hair, a prominent brow, and reddish-purple eyes. Although she reveals her good-natured and light-hearted qualities in the company of friends and family, Kyblea obscures displays emotion with an analytical personality when dealing with the rest of the world. She is generally brief and precise in communication, but has a hard time hiding her enthusiasm when presented with new information regarding Azlant. Kyblea is usually quite logical and scientific in her thought processes, but she tends to believe folklore and myths more than she would like to admit.
Stats:
Kyblea Waveborn
Female Gillman Summoner 1
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NG Medium Humanoid (Aquatic) Summoner 1
Initiative: +2; Senses: normal; Perception: +2
Description:
A monstrous patchwork, Kyble's eidolon straddles the line between fantastic and horrifying: its reptilian body, covered in craggy, green, piscine scales, has the head and flippers of a mighty sperm whale; two thick legs whose webbed toes are tipped with small claws; two lines of serrated, teardrop-shaped scutes; and a long tail ending in a structure resembling a hybrid of a thagomizer and cetacean flukes. The creature' eyes emit a dim, red glow, and its body is uncomfortably warm to the touch, regardless of the surrounding temperature.
Backstory:
While Kyblea's family is well aware of the legend surrounding them, none know that the story is actually true, or that they have come to the proposer conclusion regarding the beast's disappearance. A weakening in the magic circles used to contain the creature allowed the fiend—code-named "razed earth" in the aboleth language—to slip free from its captors and disappear into the depths of the ocean, where it was able to use abyssal magic to escape to the lower planes.
Due to the work of its aberrant masters, the beast's mind was broken to the point of being barely above animal intelligence, causing it to act in a mindlessly destructive matter; if not for its connection to its gillman attendants, it would have been nigh impossible to control. Although Kyblea is unaware of this fact (she doesn't even know the eidolon exists), she is able to ordering the monster in a similar fashion and dampen its violent tendencies; the fiend hears any request for assistance and will instinctively send a portion of its essence to the Material Plane to fulfill its caller's wishes.
