Li'an Va'ardalia's page

Sorc (CL 11; cn +21) 1st 8/8 2nd 8/8 3rd 8/8 4th 8/8 5th 5/5 6th 3/3

Acro +12 Appr +14 Bluff +16 C(Jewel) +24 DDev +21 K(Hist|Arc,Pln,Dng|Loc|Any) +27/+22/+16/+12 Ling +13 S Motive +26 Splcrft +22 Stealth +19 UMD +22

Tremorsense 20', darkvision 60', double low-light vision, distance penalties to perception -1 per 20 ft instead of 10 ft.

DR 4/evil, resist electricity 11, fire 11, acid 11 Immune to sleep and falling damage

+4 morale bonus vs fear, poison, disease, curses, negative energy effects, death effects, charm and compulsion effects; (Aura of Protection)

20' protection aura, +3 resistance & +3 deflection vs evil.

+2 racial bonus vs enchantment spells and effects; (Elf)

+2 bonus vs illusions, charm, dominate and fascinate (Cynic)

Auto saving throw vs Illusions within 10'

Auto-detect casting (w/ range > personal/touch) within 60'

Creatures that attack Li'an with weapons, natural weapons or grapping are subject to her Burn ability (2d6 damage, DC 21 Reflex or catch fire)

Auraelia immediately knows if evil outsider is within 60', though not where.

May cast beneficial spells on allies within sight as if they were in touch range, as long as they believe.

+1 DC fire and light spells, 1 CL to fire spells, +1 damage per die rolled to fire spells.

Always knows the positions of celestial bodies, exact time of day, and direction of true north.

Does not eat, drink or sleep; does not breathe on most days (if MP would have been full even after spending 1 for not breathing).

continuous comprehend languages

continuous detect lies

Combat

prefers flying to walking unless speed is needed, but will always land on the ground after moving.

will warn the group if she detects something via tremorsense, or if Auraelia determines an evil outsider is nearby.

will use Illuminate if known darkness or illusion using casters or demons are present, or a foe is using blur/displacement/mirror image, and stealth is not required.

will always prioritize casting sacred space if evil outsiders are present, and will recast as needed to prevent summoning.

will not use "When All is Lost" unless half the party is down and the combat is not obviously about to be ended. She will use the time to either get everyone healed, or if it looks hopeless, to gather the party and flee to safety.

will use MP to Imm Act. counterspell with Battlemagic Sense and dispel magic if a hostile 4th level or higher spell is cast at the party.

will use no more than half of any given level's spells on offensive casting, unless such a spell would clearly be decisive.

Out-of-Combat

will spend two hours casting visualization of mind (Int) and visualization of body (Con) at the start of the day.

will maintain message at all times, 10 targets total, priority goes to the PCs, Auraelia (familiar), then any NPCs who we're actively protecting or whose input is needed to accomplish some goal, then any other cohorts (alphabetical), then any non-cohort NPCs.

will always use component freedom to negate verbal components unless she is physically restricted (negate somatic) or the spell has a costly component (i.e. not covered by Eschew Materials; negate material component)

Will use 1 MP to not need to breathe for 24 hours if MP at 9 or higher before resting for the night.

Auraelia will use guidance on any skill checks for the party, preferring Li'an's checks first if multiple would need to happen simultaneously.

Will always let allies know about her ability to cast spells at range as if they were in touch range, as long as they know/believe in her ability to do so.

Looks & Personality

Li'an Va'ardalia
Li'an in Combat
Auraelia

Li’an, though still lithe and relatively pale skinned, has changed significantly since she was raised from death after Isilme successfully freed herself from Li’an’s body. Her once silver hair quickly took on a fiery red, which remained even after she had washed out the dye that Isilme had been using on it before she’d regained her ability to change shape. When she is overcome with emotions, good or bad, it seems to glow like the cinders of a dying fire, and when she actually taps into her powers it quickly takes the form of a raging fire, much like the Brijidine Azata she had begun to transform into in Elysium during the years after her death. Her eyes similarly now burn a fiery red, glowing brightly with the burgeoning power within her.

Her taste for clothes has become significantly more colorful and less pragmatic since her return. One of the first things she did after being returned was to have the Loumises rework the green dress they had gifted her long ago, and which she’d hoped to one day wear for Valaria, into an outfit she could wear regularly. Along with her new outfit she sports a pair of flat but stylish thigh high boots, tailored to complement the dress and provide just the merest hint of skin between their tops and the bottom of the shortened asymmetric skirt of the reworked dress, which crosses mid-thigh in the front while still dropping down to her calves in behind. She has subsequently had the new outfit enchanted by Ehren Ferron both to augment her abilities and to render its fabric resistant to fire. Apart from her outfit, she no longer carries much in the way of gear, having only a variety of containers for scrolls bound to her belt along with a couple of belt pouches.

Though she still has some love of writing, her interests in artistry have drifted towards craftsmanship significantly since her return, likely a result of her Brijidine nature. She has taken to crafting jewelry, something she has done for the Loumises on several occasions since her return for special orders, and also for herself and her friends.

Reason for Fighting

Having spent years in Elysium and having retained her memories after being revived has changed Li’an’s view on the world substantially. She has forgiven herself, and her primary goal upon returning was to locate and reunite herself with Valaria. Unfortunately the imprisonment of Ary Bishop, and the subsequent arrests of Isilme and Xander result in her stepping in to her former role as a Crusader at the requests of Anevia and Markus, albeit reluctantly.

Why Mythic?

The power Isilme gained while in Li’an’s body was never quite hers, due to the fact her soul was never properly at home within the body. When Isilme severed her link to Li’an’s body in heaven by sacrificing the fragment of her soul bound within Endless Night, she also severed her link to the mythic power she had developed. Subsequently when Li’an was raised to life, she did so into a vessel that was overflowing with power.

In many ways, what resulted was the opposite of what happened with Lleuad-a'r-Sêr after the collision of wishes. In that case the sword that formed to contain her soul was too small a vessel, and so it fragmented and the other pieces were bound to nearby objects of sentimental value to her. In Li’an’s case, the vessel that was once her body was now far more than her mortal soul could fill alone, and instead of merely bringing her soul back, the raise spell drew all the souls intertwined into her bourgeoning Brijidine form, of which he had been the dominant soul. This altered the nature of the divine power within her body, causing her to develop Brijidine qualities over the weeks and months after she returned, along with allowing her to keep the magical abilities she had developed in Elysium.

Class and Weapon

Though once a rogue, her time in Elysium has changed the way she fights dramatically. Fire and healing magics flow easily to her fingertips, and while she could once only read scrolls of magic, she is easily able to jot them down from memory now. Her magic skews strongly towards her Brijidine nature, and augmented by the divine power within, the flames she wields can easily burn the most resistant of foes.
With her original blade long gone, and no real need to fight in combat due to her overwhelming magical power, Li’an no longer uses any weapons in combat, though her fists are tougher than those of a normal elf and she has knocked out at least one drunken lout who dared leer at her while she was trying to get a drink while visiting Nerosyan after being inducted into the crusades again.

Religion

Ostensibly a worshiper of Desna before she died, the truth was it was mostly her enfatuation with Valaria and her father’s worship that drove her own interest in the Song of Spheres. In the years roaming Elysium, however, she began to revere Pulura, and has heard her whispers from time to time since then. Since her return to Golarion she has been an active worshiper of Pulura and hopes to one day be able to visit Pulura’s Falls to aid in the battle there, hopefully with Valaria at her side.
Alignment (Chaotic Good)
While Li’an was always chaotic good, she is now big-C chaotic and big-G good, as her Azata nature brought with it the downsides of being an outsider with those qualities. Her temper is significantly more fiery than it once was, and combined with her natural free spirited, reckless nature has resulted in her being willing to intervene at the slightest infraction against what she believes to be “Good”.

Oath/Code

As a sworn crusader, she seeks to eliminate the forces of the worldwound, though she sees this now primarily through the lens of protecting her friends, especially Anevia, Ehren and Markus, as well as for Ary, Aravashnial and Isilme, who though distant (and in one case imprisoned), are the people she considers her family. So long as the threat to them persists, she will help the crusades in Drezen.
In addition, due to her Brijidine nature, she seeks to purge the world of all things diabolical, and has a deep-seated hatred for devils and devil-worshipers. This has already caused more than a few problems in Nerosyan, with her having vaporized the imp familiars of a pair of visiting diabolists before it being pointed out to her that it wasn’t illegal. Since then she has strongly avoided being in Nerosyan, preferring to stay in Drezen where thankfully no hell knights or other devil worshipers are stationed.

The Story So Far

Li'an's last memory when she was awoke was having picked up the young girl that the cultists were attempting to sacrifice. She had barely made it a few steps before she was struck down and felt the life draining from her body. This is normally where the memories of mortals end, but over the weeks after her rebirth, as her Azata soul continued to flow in from Elysium, she began to remember more. By the end of the first month she could recall her time after death and everything that had transpired for her in Elysium.

The first memory that returned to her, was awakening within an endless plane of multicolored grass and rose-tinted skies. It was both disconcerting and comforting to find herself alone out on there, only the sound of the wind blowing gently through the grass audible. Unsure what to do, she set out in a random direction to find a more sheltered place to rest. After nearly half a day's journey, she found what she sought in the form of a river that led to a small set of waterfalls coming from a cliff maybe twenty or thirty feet up. There were several small caves in the wall, and after cautiously checking to ensure nothing was living in them, she took shelter in one.

Though she wasn't ever particularly hungry, thirsty, or tired for that matter, she did all the things she would have while still living out of habit. Over the following months she learned to catch fish and hunt small game from the surrounding area and gather enough wood and grass to improve the shelter and comfort afforded by her small cave. She spent many nights of those nights in the stillness of the darkened cave wondering how Valaria was doing, and if she would get to see her again. Other nights she'd sit out under the strange stars of the Elysian sky, trying to figure out what it was she was supposed to do. She'd long since figured out that this was somehow the 'afterlife', but it seemed to her like she was missing something, a nagging feeling that she was meant to do more than just sit there in her little den beneath the waterfall living a quiet life.

Her answer came in the form of her first visitor. In the middle of the night she awoke to the sense that something was dreadfully wrong. Opening her eyes just in time, she was barely able to dodge the claws of a terrible winged demon that roared at her like the howling winds of a storm. Cornered and without weapons she found herself desperate for any way to defend herself.

The fight went on for quite a while, with things seeming hopeless for Li'an until she managed to trip the demon up. Collapsing to the ground, the large sack he had been carrying fell to the ground, spilling its contents, among which were a series of weapon. Jumping over the fiend, she tumbled past the jumble of blades, grabbing one and turning to face her attacker. The tables equalized, Li'an was able to whittle the creature down over what seemed like an eternity, and when it finally fell she collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

The next morning she went through the now-vanished creature's collection, which told a tale of many of the denizens of this plane having been murdered, likely in their sleep, for their few possessions. Among the belongings she found a journal documenting someone else's journey through the afterlife. Or at least until they had an unfortunate encounter with the demon she had slain the previous night. She spent the next day reading through the stories of the Puluran priestess who had left it behind. That night, sitting beneath the stars, a grand aurora filled the sky. As she sat there watching in awe, she suddenly felt she understood her role for the first time. The Plane of Elysium was an unforgiving place, but that didn't mean that those who lived there could not strive to do better for others. So it was that Li'an resolved to hunt the rare unwelcome visitors to the plane and to aid those who had just arrived so that they could thrive in this place.

The years that followed were joyful and immensely satisfying to Li'an. She helped dozens of the newly arrived to find small communities in which they could live peacefully and safely, and killed nearly as many demons. In almost every case, be it demon or petitioner, she was guided by the presence of auroras in the night sky, leading her in the direction of her next goal.

As she continued to travel she found herself beginning to change. The most willful souls in the planes attract the fragments and remnants of kindred souls as they pass near them--fragments of souls left over from reincarnations or resurrections, from souls who lost themselves or moved on, and even from those who were murdered. It is this accumulation that slowly transforms what was once a mortal soul into something more. In Li'an's case, her form grew more powerful, beginning to take on the traits of the Brijidines. She developed an affinity for fire and light, and slowly developed the ability innately cast fire and earth-based magic.

It was years later--now a powerful and renowned Brijidine in the portions of the plane she frequented--that she first heard the words of her goddess. Unlike her faith in Desna, which had come externally to her, first from her father, and then from Valaria, her reverence for Pulura came from within, developed over the countless days the goddess had guided her in her task of guiding the lonely to safety. She could not recall exactly what the words she had heard were, it may be that there was no way for anyone but a god to vocalize such thoughts, but they had expressed pride. Pride in what Li'an had accomplished, in what she had become, and what she could be in the future. They were words that filled her with a sense of completion and joy unlike anything she had felt before in her life, be it mortal or in the afterlife.

Shortly thereafter came the tug on her soul, calling her back to the mortal world. Part of her resisted strongly, feeling a sense of purpose here in Elysium that she'd never quite felt on Golarion. There she would just be Li'an, an elf who couldn't even save a single girl. Here she was something more, something truer to herself. That all melted away though when she received a vision of Valaria, and remembered dancing with her in a dream after she had passed away. The days they had spent together after the disaster in Kenabres had stranded them deep below the ground with her friends... Her heart raced, thinking about the springs in Neathholm, and the more she resisted, the more clearly she recalled Val, until it all melted away. She gave in and allowed herself to be pulled along on the river of souls that flowed between the afterlife and the mortal world, and as her consciousness faded away, she heard her goddess promise she would not be alone.

The world Li'an came back to was not one she recognized. Ary was apparently in charge of a city, her sword was now a half-orc who apparently was in a relationship with her father's friend, Ehren was older, an Archdruid, and in a committed relationship... and Valaria was nowhere to be found. No one even really knew where she'd gone. The wizard Xander and Isilme occasionaly did sendings, but she seldom shared any details about her whereabouts, and the one time she'd talked Isilme into mentioning her in the sending was met with silence.

While she had initially prepared herself to seek out Valaria, the advent of her powers along with the apparent loss of Ary, Isilme and Xander due to the fallout of their trip to Rahadoum led to her being asked by Markus and Anevia to stay and aid the group. Reluctantly, she agreed, and rejoined the Crusades in order to gain access to resources, given she owned literally nothing upon returning, except for the few belongings Isilme had returned to her.

Auraelia has served as an emissary of Pulura for ages now, appearing before followers that the Shimmering Maiden deems worthy to join the fight in Pulura's falls. Four times she has guided worthy heroes there, and four times they have fallen in the endless battle against the demonic foes besieging the goddess's domain on Golarion.

Despite this she continues in her task, returning to Elysium to be called again when another candidate has appeared. This time she appeared before Li'an, shortly after she had been reincarnated. Initially confused as Li'an seemed to be an ordinary elf, she nevertheless remained, bearing witness her slow transformation over weeks into the Elf-Brijidine hybrid she is today.

Unlike many of her fellow Lyrakien, Auraelia considers herself a warrior first, and the demands of merely surviving in Pulura's falls have led her to don armor and use weapons to defend herself to avoid being a burden to those she is sent to provide guidance for. She does, however, share her fellow glistenwings' love of adventurers' tales and wandering, and general upbeat spirit. In fact, despite the losses she's led to the battle, she feels no remorse, knowing that they've been guided home by the North Star after they've fallen.