It would be easier to pry a bone from a dog’s mouth that to get Maja Tasker to open up about her childhood. In the witching hours of the night, Maja often tries to sort out her memories and decipher which ones can be believed and which others can be discarded as tainted. Both of her parents were cultists, which she admits to readily. That they worshipped the Deathless Frost, the demon lord Kostchtchie, she does not give voice to. Life at the temple was certainly not great, as her family and others were hardly better than slaves, but it did provide a measure of security and comfort. Not many would willingly strike down a servant of Kostchtchie in a house dedicated to him, even a halfling one.
The case that Maja has always wanted to solve is why her parents worshipped Kostchtchie. Perhaps there was a bargain that they had to see through, an ancient treaty that they were stuck with, an offering to protect others: all of these scenarios and more have played through Maja’s mind. Her parents kept Maja and her four siblings as far removed from the gore-filled details of worshipping a demon lord as possible, often sending them to clean laundry, work the kitchens, or maintain the library.
By far, the library was Maja’s favorite chore, as she had worked out an efficient method that allowed her sufficient free time to study the materials therein. The temple was not dedicated to Kostchtchie when it was built, but was the home of one of Irrisen’s Winter Witches—the topic of many of the library’s books. Unobtrusive in her cleaning, she managed to pick up bits and pieces of several different languages as she overheard others, including a healthy vocabulary in Abyssal, picking up reading and writing along the way as well. As she continued to lose herself in the library, she found across a number of legal documents, but unlike some of the moldering tomes she had painstakingly cleaned, these were fresher, but all caked in the unmistakable color and thickness in blood. Ever-curious, Maja pried open the documents, only to find out that she and her siblings were promised: their flesh and their souls consigned to damnation—but not to the demon lord her parents served. No, they were promised to be gifted to an unnamed White Witch for an equally unknown purpose.
Again, Maja burned to know the why, but before she could confront her parents about it, an adventuring party broke into the temple, killing the high priest, his acolytes, and many of the servants including both of her parents. Looting the place, the adventurers left as swiftly as they arrived, leaving Maja and her siblings in a state of shock and loss. Keeping her wits about her as best she could, Maja and her siblings gathered supplies and headed south to find shelter and a new home.
That itching desire to know the truth has chased Maja all her day. It guided her to seek a legal career to help protect her family, but also to try and find out more about demonic cults. As she studied, she learned that the prospect of Kostchtchie’s minions willingly working with a White Witch were astonishingly low. Did she remember things correctly, or was her perception shaded by the trauma of losing her parents in such an abrupt and grisly manner? Though her mind is mostly healed from her time in the demon lord’s cult and her personality warm and bubbly after being freed from it strictures, she has bouts of insomnia that plague her as she worries over the unsolved mystery of her parents. Now she seeks to find out what machinations guide both the cult of the Deathless Frost and the White Witches, for she knows that the truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe she will find the truth about her parents there too.
Appearance:
Maja exudes a warm and friendly attitude, enhanced by her dark eyes and wide full-lipped smile. Long dark auburn hair is pulled back from her face and arranged in a simple braid. The brightness of her copper-colored skin is offset by the dull gray silk and black leather of her lamellar cuirass, and she constantly fidgets with a cane held in her right hand. The top of the cane is fashioned in the shape of a bloodhound, its brass surface rubbed smooth by her touch. Black woolen leggings are wrapped in gaiters of turquoise-dyed leather with white stitching, covering Maja’s legs down to the tops of her wide feet.
Personality:
Despite her unconventional upbringing, Maja has a positive outlook on the world, trying to do as much good as she can with the knowledge that she has gained through study. Not wholly altruistic, Maja does try and act in such a manner as to cause the least harm, refraining from impulsive action until she has a chance to study a situation thoroughly. With four siblings, she has great experience making disparate personalities work together and often falls into the role of a mother hen without thinking about it.
Not above manipulating people or being pedantic when it works out in her favor, Maja will ruefully admit she dabbled in behavioral studies while attending school to become a barrister. She takes great pains to avoid naming gods and other powerful outsider entities by name, often referring to them by their epithet. Actions that affect innocent bystanders draws her ire, especially wanton acts of violence.
