Characters

Simply put, to acquire experience and become the greater warrior he is destined to become.

More than you ever wanted to know about my character...

Midnight Sky Thiel D'Orien (Sky) is affiliated with House Orien, whose human dragonmarked members bear the Mark of Passage. This mark grants its bearers superior control over movement through powers related to speed and teleportation. House Orien runs the Courier’s Guild (basically the USPS, FedEx, and UPS all rolled into one), and maintains an extensive network of lightning rail stations, trade roads, and caravan routes throughout Khorvaire.

Her father's family are the Thiels from Aundair and her mother's family are the Faldrens from Breland, a noble family. They make their home in Wroat, the capital city of Breland, where both of Sky’s parents work as high-level officials for the Courier’s Guild. Her mother's extended family is in nearby Sharn. Like most members of House Orien, Sky has aunts, uncles, and cousins all over Khorvaire, with the bulk of her extended family residing in the more cosmopolitan areas of Aundair and Breland.

Sky enjoyed a happy childhood, marred only by the fact that so far she has shown no signs of manifesting a house dragonmark. Her parents assumed at first, that since they both have greater dragonmarks, Sky would soon manifest one of her own. As time went by, however, and both of her siblings, Evie and Wyn, were born and developed the anticipated marks, her parents lost hope that Sky would ever have one. Overall her childhood was quite normal for a child born into privilege. She received an excellent primary education, where it was noted that she had some affinity for magic.

At the age of 16 she was enrolled in The Twelve arcane academy in Korth, Karrnath. The Twelve, founded and supported financially by the twelve houses, has traditionally been where dragonmark house heirs with magical aptitude continue their education. Unfortunately, she hated living in Karrnath (too militant and restrictive) and had difficulties with the academic curriculum, which was designed for mages of the more scholarly persuasion, not spontaneous spellcasters.

After a mediocre year of unenthusiastic scholarship, poor performance, and far too many late nights carousing in cheap dives with persons of questionable company, she was cordially asked not to return for the next year's term. The formal note to her parents cited the reasons for her dismissal as: “inability to apply herself to her studies, excessive absences, and insubordinate attitude towards her professors, and limited magical ability.” While she can't dispute any of this, she feels that it's hardly her fault that her stodgy instructors demanded that she “show her work” when doing spells and insisted that “real” spellwork requires advance preparation, tedious bookwork, and ridiculous and often disgusting components. She thinks it's stupid that the teachers at The Twelve consider sorcery to be “the focus of amateurs of little discipline and even less talent.”

Her parents were unimpressed with her performance and her excuses, and they refused to fund her lifestyle any further until she could sufficiently prove that she took her education and future seriously. Sky took a job with the Courier’s Guild and was able to save up enough money to enroll at the Passage Institute for magical studies in Passage, Aundair. The Passage Institute was far less prestigious than other arcane colleges, but their low cost and focus on fieldwork versus classwork suited her much better. After four years she was able to assemble a decent repertoire of simple spells for herself and learned enough discipline to be able to master more spells if she continues her studies post-college.

After graduation Sky was an adult ready to put her skills to work and make her way in the world, but still lacking the drive to make the leap from relatively carefree youth to full-time adult responsibility and respectability. Since she wasn’t certain what she wanted to do with her life, she spent the next year living with her parents and once again working for the Courier Service. She might have gone on like that for years, but fate conspired to push her in a new direction. During a contract that sent her overland with an adventuring party she saw combat for the first time, explored ruins, and learned self-sufficiency while not under the watchful eyes of her House. She acquitted herself well and, beyond all expectations, finally manifested a dragonmark.

Her first instinct was to tell her parents as soon as she returned home from her assignment, but before she could tell them, they sat her down for a serious talk about her future. Since her youngest sibling had left for his first year at university, they felt it was long past time for Sky to leave home and live on her own. Though they didn’t want her to feel that she was unwanted or a burden, they were very concerned about her prospects. She had a lackluster university education, little career ambition, an overfondness for Aundairian wine, and seemingly no goals in life. They loved her dearly, of course, but they expected a bit more of Sky than she had been willing to achieve for herself.

Also of great importance was that, even though she seemed to have no thought to it by the way she carried on, it was long past time for them to begin making arrangements for her to wed - though this presented somewhat of a problem for them. As she had never manifested a dragonmark, families who had once looked to her as a potential match for their marked sons had turned their attentions elsewhere. At any rate, they felt it was time for Sky to grow up, consider her future, and become more of a contributing member of her House.

In light of all of this, Sky has decided to keep her dragonmark a secret for the time being. She has come to a long overdue realization about life in the great Houses: To bear a House dragonmark is to have access to great wealth privilege and influence, but very little actual freedom. As soon as you manifest a mark your future is charted out for you, regardless of your own inclinations. The House chooses where you go to school, where you work, who you marry, and often even where you live. While the people she’s met with dragonmarks seem to be content with their lot in life, she wants the freedom to live life on her terms, even though she’s not sure yet what those terms are yet.

So now what?

Her family connections assure that she can find work in any city across Khorvaire with the Courier Service, in a caravan, or working for the light rail system. She also has the option of contracting through The Passage Institute for all manner of paying fieldwork internships practically anywhere in the world. But after careful thought she decided that she’d had enough of trading on her old ways and wanted to get out from under the constant oversight of her House. She packed her bags and moved to Fairhaven, Aundair, which brought her closer to her younger siblings, but more importantly, brought her closer to the largest adventurer’s guild in Khorvaire not run by one of the great Houses.

That was a week ago. The future is an open road, and what is there to fear from the open road when you bear a Mark of Passage?

Alexandria Noiryanna Fyrr (Alex and rhea Noir yaw nah Fear)

It was raining all those years ago, the young Alex remembered, when she saw her first death. She was barely past her sixth winter and already ill of the winter chills. Although insulated against the war of the surrounding Thrane, the Kingdom of Valtharia has been stuck between the warring nations of the Theocracy of Thrane and its neighbors, Aundair, Cyre, and Karrnath. It had flown many flags before, being at the dead center of all of those nations until it declared its independence and crowned a new King, the now and newly deceased former military general, then king, now corpse that was Alexandria's grandfather. He founded and ruled the nation of Valtharia since 931 YK, when Thaliost and several surrounding satellite towns declared independence from any that would stake claim in its lands. He was a tough man for successfully wresting this small but industrious piece of land from the much more powerful surrounding nations but his bid has been successful for a very long time.



Alexandria scarcely realized it, even upon seeing her grandfather's body after a clearly successful assassination attempt, the world wasn't nearly as safe as she had thought it was. It took many years following this time for her to fully realize this, but she was constantly surrounded by death and destruction. Some of this was of her own Kingdom's volition, which she was being groomed to realize as her father's first born and future heir to her father's throne. The throne of King Albert Fyrr.

She was, however, insulated from much of it during her lifetime. As she grew up and the winters began to come and go, she would see the non-stop production of war machines, weapons, warforged, ammunition, and a host of other tools of war. Valtharia, even before the last war, always had a strong tradition of war. Thaliost still possessed one of the best war colleges in the Five Nations. It possessed a small standing army, but highly trained and highly effective soldiers. This strong tradition, however, had one fatal flaw in that the nation had little defense against espionage. Workers and servants would always come and go through Fyrr castle and that is how the first King of Valtharia met his unfortunate end.

Alexandria had forgotten much of that day in the past. Insulated and with the naivety that naturally stems from a blue-blooded life of money without responsibility or worry, she spent her days reading of fanciful romance, learning of etiquette, and spending money from the royal coffers to shop for luxuries and wiling her time on gossip and unimportant things with her sisters and handmaidens.



As she grew into her young adulthood, King Fyrr grew worried that he had been keeping too much from his children. On the outside of the cold stone walls of Castle Fyrr, excursions into and through the Kingdom's borders grew more frequent. After decades of war and battles that would leave lakes of blood and gore across city-sized fields, the conflict only intensified. The cold of winter only deadened the pain of those that truly know its horror. Still behind her father's walls but surrounded by frozen waste and tired soldiers. She remembered this day as well. She didn't understand why she was brought from her creature comforts and into the clutches of her father's masters of war. They were dirty. They were unkempt. They had the appearance of rapists and thugs. Their very presence was threatening. The man that stood before her was among the top war veterans of decades past. He bore the scars of sword and magic as well as the experience that came with them. He had much to teach but Alexandria had little desire to learn.




It was a noble but wasted effort. Alexandria was a delicate flower that was spoiled to perfection. The drudgery of war was something she was simple not able to comprehend the importance of but eventually the day came when the bubble would finally burst. The Kingdom of Valtharia was never recognized by the five nations and Thane had always claimed it as its lands as its own despite their open worship of Dol Dorn and the Sovereign Host. According to a few of the Cardinals of the Church of the Silver Flame, the declaration of independence against the Church (despite the fact that this area wasn't originally a part of Thane), the relative impermeability of their borders to their missionaries, and unwillingness to accept the Silver Flame's teachings all lead up to several rulings by the more corrupt members of the faith to lead an open crusade against the small but capable nation.



When that day arrived, it changed everything. The warriors and soldiers that the Cardinals had sent to Valtharia were told to convert at sword point and several points in the Castle had already been infiltrated by spies. Despite a legacy of war and all the greatest warriors in the region, the small nation fell within a single night. Although few of the citizens felt the full wrath of the crusade, the royalty that ruled Valtharia were all murdered, including Alexandria's parents and five younger siblings. She was sought as well to be killed as a traitor of Thrane, but she was successfully smuggled out of the castle. Although the acts perpetrated there was officially denounced by the Keeper of the Flame, Jaela Daran, it has done too little, too late. What was once a prosperous nation amidst all the strife around it was destroyed and absorbed into Thrane.

Alexandria was cold, alone, unprepared, and thrust into a world she doesn't understand. She knew, though, just how lucky she was that she had managed to escape alive and with far more funds than she'd need in a lifetime to most of the common folk. Under an assumed name, she wandered the countryside, away from metropolitan areas, governments, and their various corruptions. It was easy to blend in when the war reached its zenith but the destruction of Cyre and the end of the last war didn't avert the eyes of the Order of the Emerald Claw, who immediately recognized her for who and what she is. As the last war ended, so has Alexandria's began.

She hated the Silver Flame and everything they did to her and she was not above giving into her own base desires. Although herself not a fanatical follower of the Blood of Vol, she said anything she had to say and did whatever she had to do to get what she wanted and what she wanted was revenge against the Church of the Silver Flame. She didn't train as a knight as most would, however, she quickly rose into the ranks of the Order's best assassins and the Order used her motivation and newfound skills to their mutual benefit against Thrane. She willingly and gleefully accepted their orders, including and especially her first assassination mission, which resulted in her first confirmed kill.



It was the Cardinal that orchestrated the assault on Castle Fyrr, now rebuilt and renamed Silvercliff Castle, and murdered so many people. He was more powerful, politically, than he had ever been before. The Order selected him both for her own sake and because of the stresses it would cause with his political enemies and allies. Alex remembers feeling nothing at the sight of his dead body. She had imagined it many times before but after over a year of training with the Emerald Claw's best assassins, she never imagined that she would be able to see this day, even when it was fast approaching. With him now a corpse in front of her though, she couldn't feel anything. No satisfaction, no happiness, or anything resembling joy or release. She repeated her success numerous times against the church but all she felt was empty inside.

Eventually, she couldn't take the senseless killing anymore and officially quit the Order, but the most important thing she has done was forgive the Church of the Silver Flame. Not only did this awaken a deep contentment within her, but it awakened something else as well, a latent and hidden divine energies she never knew she had before. After a further month of training, she realized she was ready for much greater things now. So, she sought and joined an adventuring guild in Fairhaven, Aundair.



Alexandria's long term goals for the future are as follows:
1) Establish herself as a political and economic power in Khorvaire using her abilities and finances as an adventurer.
2) Establish a new, secular Constitutional Monarchy and appoint herself as its queen.
3) Live in peace.

Alexandria's motivation is no longer revenge against the Church of the Silver Flame that has wronged her, but now she is mostly motivated by self-improvement and the desire to establish and rule a new Kingdom that has none of the shortcomings she believes that led to the corruption that caused the death of her entire family at the hands of a Church dedicated to defeating evil and protecting the innocent.

Alexandria is still fairly naïve but she does believe that the only way to achieve great things is to aim high and do everything it takes to meet those goals.

However, to the party (in game) most of her past and her goals would be unknown to the other player characters. She hasn't talked much about her past and her travelling companions will most likely not recognize her without a good knowledge (nobility) check. She is especially keeping her past with the emerald claw to herself.

She doesn't, however, care to make a secret about who she is unless she believes that her life is in danger (again).

All the party (in game) should know about her is that she defiantly acts like a noble with her haughty and holier than thou attitude and she hasn't been too secretive about her more roguish skills but she definitely hasn't explained to any detail about how she acquired them or definitely about how she used to use them.

When she joined the party she had only just began to start her post-assassin life. She definitely has still been in the process of learning to use her acquired paladin powers as they would be very new to her and her time in this adventuring guild is most likely the first time she's actually used them to do good in the world.