About ValaiValai
Init +1; Senses Low-light vision; Perception +5 Defense
Offense
Statistics
Feats
Skills
Traits
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Serpentfolk, Sylvan, Thassalonian SQ Arcane bond (familiar)
Magic
Spellbook
Spells prepared; X = cast
Wealth
Equipment
Appearance
Background
Up until this point, Valai's life was like that of so many Elfmaids. The only things that distinguished her from her peers were her relative shortness, the darkness of her eyes and a focus rarely seen in one so young, which kept her at her studies when her peers were at play. She was considered slightly unsociable, to be honest. In time, Valai was admitted to an advanced class, overseen by a venerable archmage of Kyonin, and her family was well pleased. Then dawned the day when the archmage called his class together and announced that one of his high-level scrolls had been stolen from his study during the night; the study that only he and his chosen apprentices could access. He asked the guilty party to step forward and publically admit their guilt. In return, he would not pursue the matter any further. Valai stood silent. She had not stolen any scroll, knew she had not stolen any scroll, and resorted to wait until this distasteful matter had been resolved and she could continue with her studies. To her shock and outrage, two of the other students promptly accused her of being the most likely to have taken the scroll. "Were Illusionists not consummate tricksters and deceivers?" they argued. "And was Valai not always keeping herself apart from her fellows, sneaking around and keeping secrets?" Valai's outrage erupted into outright fury when the archmage agreed with this assessment, and ordered her to hand the scroll over. Valai lost her self-control and hurled magic at her two detractors, actually drawing her sword when her spells ran out. At this point, the archmage stopped and reprimanded her, explaining that the whole 'theft' had been a simple test of character, one he regularly applied to his students. "You could have wept," the archmage said, his eyebrows lowered. "You could have been brave and maintained your innocence. You could have brought forth good arguments to prove your innocence. You could even have left with dignity. You did none of these things, you resorted to violence against your fellow students, Elves of good families, my loyal apprentices!" The archmage made it clear that Valai had a choice; she could humbly apologize to her apprentices and continue as the archmage's pupil, agreeing to take additional lessons in self-control and propriety from both the archmage and her classmates, or she could leave. Valai left, spitting at her tutor's feet before she did. In her fury, she did not deign to notice the distress of the classmates she left behind, nor the pain on her now ex-tutor's face. After this, nothing was the same again. Valai's once abstracted expression turned into the cold mask she bears today. She was short and cold to other Elves, taciturn to her family, and sarcastic to her fellow spellcasters. More and more, she withdrew from Elven society, limiting her contact with others to the barest minimum, losing herself in any and all tomes that she could get her hands on. She met intrusions on her privacy with harsh words and threats, and finally, when those same apprentices who had helped the archmage administer the fateful test of character forced themselves into her rooms to offer her an intervention, with violence. Valai was dragged in front of the court after this, and offered the same choice she had been given by her ex-tutor: repent or depart. Again, Valai made the choice to depart, accepting exile in the extreme of her fury. She scowled her way through the marking ceremony that branded her an exile in silence, and left without saying a word to her tearful relatives, without meeting the eye of any of the Elves gathered to see her fall. Since her exile, Valai has been travelling the world. She has scoured the ruins of Thassalonia in search of arcane lore, and bore away a working knowledge of its language. She acts the part of a travelling entertainer, casting cantrips and simple illusions to entertain children and simple country-folk in return for food, lodging and pennies. Many of those who meet her think her nothing more than a hedge-mage, accompanied as she is by her goat familiar, dressed in her dowdy robes. When she encounters people of genuine erudition or places and objects of true arcane power, however, she is a transformed personality. Valai delights in learning secrets, ancient stories and spells, focusing as always on the art of Illusion. To Valai, illusion is not just a way of fooling the senses. In her mind, reality is a harsh, grey bedrock of rules underlying the world. All people's perceptions of the world are their own way of lying to themselves. Replace a person's own illusions with those you create, and you have changed their whole world. Valai's odd philosophy leaves her pleasantly open to new experiences and strange people - so long as they are not Elves from Kyonin. To her, the distinction between species is just one more illusion, and anyone might teach her something new, either by sharing their knowledge or by providing her with experimental information when she casts her illusions. If Valai has a goal in life, it is to attain ultimate arcane power; she is willing to travel the whole world over to expand her knowledge and abilities to their utmost. She believes that power over Illusion equals power over all living creatures and their perception of the world, and power over perception equals power over the world itself. In rare moments of introspection, she nurtures bitter grudges against the tutor and fellow apprentices that ruined her education in Kyonin for her, and sometimes a bleak regret for the relatives she has neither seen nor spoken to for many years now. Religion
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