About Shandi Zelz'ah*
+ Training in War and Song: You gain proficiency with light armor, and you gain proficiency with one type of one-handed melee weapon of your choice (rapier). You also gain proficiency in the Performance skill. + Bladesong: Starting at 2nd level, you can invoke an elven magic called the Bladesong, provided that you aren’t wearing medium or heavy armor or using a shield. It graces you with supernatural speed, agility, and focus. You can use a bonus action to start the Bladesong, which lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are incapacitated, if you don medium or heavy armor or a shield, or if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. You can also dismiss the Bladesong at any time (no action required). While your Bladesong is active, you gain the following benefits: * You gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1)
+ Aberrant Dragonmark: You have manifested an aberrant dragonmark. Determine its appearance and the flaw associated with it. You gain the following benefits: * Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
+ Heart of Darkness: Those who look into your eyes can see that you have faced unimaginable horror and that you are no stranger to darkness. Though they might fear you, commoners will extend you every courtesy and do their utmost to help you. Unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them, they will even take up arms to fight alongside you, should you find yourself facing an enemy alone. =================================================
+ Monster Hunter’s Pack
Common Clothes - Value: 5sp Weight: 3lbs Porcelain doll's head (that always seems to be looking at me).
+ Explorer's Pack
0 gp 1 sp
Backstory:
I've been stuck here too long. I have to get out of here. Home… An attractive woman with thick black hair and large earrings looked sullenly into a plate of poor peasant food. She has been living in this godforsaken village in this strange place for a month now… Barovia… A place full of fear and dangers waiting for a person in the darkness of night… But Shandi is no stranger to seeing evil. She was too young to remember all the details. Something came from below, from the mines. From Khyber itself. Something of indistinct shapes, with the wrong number of limbs and as if merging with the darkness of a moonless thick night. It killed everyone in the mining village… Everyone except Shandi. The main mystery of her life is the simple question «Why?». Why was she spared? Why did this creature, being in absolute proximity to Shandi, only "studied" her and then left? (it was something strange between sniffing and some kind of inspection - but not in the way animals and humanoids are used to it, something different and otherworldly). Why? Shandi didn't know all this. But she did know that after that night, strange, writhing patterns appeared on her forearms. Something in between a birthmark, a tattoo and a parasite. An inner voice told her that she needed to hide it and not show it to anyone. Having spent her entire childhood in an orphanage, she dreamed of only one thing. To understand. To discover. And to prevent this in the future. She did everything possible to get an education at the local temple of the Sovereign Host and passed the exams to the Cyre Academy of Guardians of Order (the Faculty of Applied and Combat Magic) with honors. Having gained access to libraries, she plunged headlong into arcane sciences, studying at night volume after volume about old horrors, terrible creatures and unspeakable rituals. But she never found something about the monster that turned her life upside down and killed all her loved ones. The riddle remained a riddle. The only thing she could figure out was that these drawings on her hands is an aberrant dragonmark. This mark is enough to be hunted and killed all over Eberron, as people associate it with the dark and forbidden rituals of the past… She never managed to graduate from the Academy. Students were taken to the front of the Hundred Years' War in huge numbers. She was on duty as part of patrol groups, being involved in those places where ordinary soldiers might need magic and special expertise. She dreamed of returning to her goal, her obsession, but it was not to be. When the armies of three countries went on a massive offensive at once, the great Cyre army stopped coping. The Queen Dannel decided to gather all the military units to the capital to give a final rebuff at its gates. Shandi's squad failed to break through and got stuck in the woods halfway, cut off from the main forces and hiding from the undead army coming from Karrnath. And then… ...then everything became foggy. She heard screams of pain and terror. Somewhere very very very far away… Thousands of throats roared from something unspeakable. Covering her ears with her hands, distraught with fear, she rushed into this fog, immediately losing sight of her comrades. Soon the screams subsided, and in the unnatural silence she saw the silhouette of THAT creature again. Numb with fear, she watched it. And something told her that it was looking at her, too. After a couple of moments that seemed like an eternity to her, the creature disappeared into the fog. Shandi, who had forgotten all her magic at once and lost faith in herself, burst into tears… After several days of wandering through the fog, she finally came to a village. Hungry, dirty, tired, she found shelter in some village. I still don't understand where I am. Isn't that Eberron? Where is my home? How to get out of here? - Shandi has been struggling with these issues for a month now. She was given shelter, food, clothes in the Barovian peasant fashion (in another world and at another time it would be called gypsy) and the opportunity to work it all out with her hands, helping around the yard. For a month, as if in a stupor, she leads a life that is not familiar to her. And at night, over and over again, she hears those screams in her nightmares. But the stupor began to gradually pass. It's time to get down to business. I need to get out of here. And also... these people need help. As I see, quite a lot of evil can happen here. And someone has to protect these good people if something terrible comes here at night… By the way. What if that monster from my past, what if it came from the mists and Barovia is its home? Then I can find out here more about it… It's time to get ready and start acting. But how?… I need a sign...
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