Name: Tanya Palayen Age: 18 Gender: Female Race: Human Class: Paladin Appearance: Out of her armor, with her sword. In her armor, with a different sword and colors. Personality: Tanya is a sarcastic and short-tempered individual. She has nothing but scathing comments for people she dislikes, or people she sees as stupid. Tanya is quick to be irritated and quick to respond to her irritation, sometimes violently. At least when it's violently it's not bad enough to result in any serious injury. She has a sarcastic response to many, many things. Tanya also dislikes that she is rather small, at least to some extent, and has feelings of jealousy towards those who are not so small. In spite of her temper and sarcastic attitude, Tanya firmly believes in protecting those who need it and upholding the law. She seeks to punish all those who do evil to the fullest extent(at least if they are deserving of such treatment). She also has a deep dislike for undead, given that much of her duty is to eliminate dangerous undead. However, she will not harm them unless they give her reason to(or if they're mindless monsters). As a Reonite Paladin, she is deeply devoted to her chosen goddess and, and is also deeply anti-slavery. Brief Backstory: Born to the Palayen family, nobility living in the richest quarter of Meridan, Tanya was tncouraged from a very young age to become part of the Church of Reon's more active service. The idea of serving their Goddess enticed her to no end. As such, Tanya Tanya became a Paladin of the sun goddess, sworn to combat evil in her name. Aside from that, she was educated at the "St. Lilianna's Reonite School for Girls", a religious school for girls created by the Church of Reon. She also underwent combat training under other paladins serving Reon. Equipment: Tanya wears a suit of heavy armor to protect herself. However, the armor is enchanted to feel exceptionally light, allowing her to move quite quickly. Similarily, her bastard sword, Repharion, is also subjected to enchantments that reduce its weight in her hands significantly. Repharion is kept very sharp, and burns like fire when it cuts a target. This is chiefly intended for use against undead, but it's hard to deny the effectiveness against just about anything. Abilities: Tanya is a skilled combatant, excelling in both two-handed and one-handed swordplay, though her favored style is two-handed. However, due to the enchantments on her armor and weapons which renders them far lighter than they should be, her physical strength is actually rather lacking, and instead she is more of a speedy fighter who nevertheless hits hard due to her training and choice of weaponry.

Name: Teri Eriksdottir Age: 22 Gender: Female Race: Nem Class: Berserker Appearance: Like all nem, Teri is frighteningly pale and absolutely tiny. In fact, she's even smaller than normal nem--only 2'11 when standing up straight! She's more muscled than essentially any other nem, though, whilst retaining a noticeable layer of padding from lots of good food. With wild, black hair to her knees, a wolf pelt (folded over) as a cape, and scanty amounts of studded leather, she's every bit the barbarian. The red eyes even help. She's just too small. Personality: Of all the things that could be said of expected personalities from Teri's appearance, you wouldn't expect one of the sweetest girls you've ever met. Seemingly not possessing a mean bone in her body, and rather shy before crowds, the small nem is entirely unsuited to her chosen profession. But when she gets into a fight, it's easy to believe. Brief Backstory: Over two decades before, a nem expedition to the far north found itself running into trouble: unprepared for the northern winter, they both ran out of food and firewood, and only one managed to stumble all the way to one of the local villages--carrying their infant daughter. Even they, however, succumbed to the illnesses gained from their long trip... leaving the girl with just a first name to be raised by a proud warrior people. Always raised in the icy north, Teri avoided the fate of her parents and their partners, growing up without really minding that everyone else was always so much bigger than she was. Despite the size differences--and the inherent physical difficulty of trying to keep up with burly northerners--she grew up about as big and strong as could be expected, but able to prove her strength in the traditional way: wrestling a wolf to death with your bare hands and bringing it back. She practised her fighting skills a little more, but was granted permission to go on a trip to the south--both to find training opportunities and prove the strength of the north. Of course, there was an ulterior motive in letting her go: she gets to meet other nem. And find out that she's still tiny. Equipment: An enormous double-headed warhammer. That is, it's enormous for a burly, muscled man. It is not something that any nem should ever be walking around with, but Teri has the ability to wield it. Abilities: Teri's enormously strong, despite her small frame, and pretty tough as well. Of course, physical toughness can only take you so far when you're totally unarmoured, so she more often relies on dodging. Of course, when it comes to actual berserk-rages, dodging goes out the window: it's just enormously difficult to bring the tiny girl down, all the while she's smashing anything that can be reached. Strangely enough, the small girl is an accomplished cook, and her knowledge of recipes has expanded on her travels: you can ask her for most northern or local foods, and she'll be able to provide them.

Name: Jonathan Grimsteel Age: 30 Gender: Male Race: Human Class: Weapons master Appearance: Short brown hair, square jaw, brown eyes. Fairly non-descript, slightly better than average appearance. Personality: Jon is fairly stoic in nature but is a joking person on occasion. He’s isn’t usually the type to joke around but occasionally tries to lift the mood (and fails because he’s seen as super serious). Also somewhat humble. He’s actually light hearted at times and often smiles, though not when he’s working or fighting. He's a fairly down to earth person because of his peasantry background. Jon is also a weapons collector and enthusiast and takes some pleasure in window shopping for weapons. Backstory (not that brief): Jon was born to a peasant family and always dreamt of being a knight. In his childhood, Jon figured out that there was a solution to everything. As soon as he could, he went to a knight school and trained to be a knight. He became a skilled and well respected knight but he began to wonder. What was the perfect weapon? Each weapon had their own strengths and weaknesses, but there was no one weapon that suited every situation. Jon travelled the lands to find it, and found new and strange weapons, mastering different arms but he found no one weapon that was perfect. It was then that he saw a traveller wield a strange weapon in a fighting style that he hadn't seen before. When Jon asked where he had gotten the strange weapon, the traveller answered that they had found it in the dungeons. Jon decided to delve into the dungeons to find the perfect weapon. Abilities: Jon has a lot of strength for a human. He’s so strong that he can run with his kit. Not for long, though. Other than that, he also has a mind for strategy. He also has a lot of knowledge about weapons and how they are used.

Name: Alrik Ironheart Age: 36 Gender: Male Race: Human (from Barukstaed, which I assumed had a Nordic influence to it.) Class: Champion Appearance: Standing at 6'4" with a build of pure, large muscle, he's quite the intimidating/comanding figure. He's got a strong face to mach, with a pronounced chin and large nose, thick eyebrows, and blue-grey eyes. A long scar runs diagonally alongside the bridge of his nose, just under his right eye, and down to the edge of his face. His long, dark hair is tied back, and keeps his face trimmed to a thick stubble. (Picture when I find one.) Personality: Alrik is an example of the classic 'grizzly with a teddy bear underneath.' Despite his outward appearance and sometimes gruff mannerisms, he's a big old softie (especially for children). He isn't known for his intelligence (not to say he's dumb), though he's just short of a strategic genius. Those who know him personally remember him for his good humor and overall jolly-ness, and those who meet him on he battlefield remember him for his courage and the fervor with which he swings his mighty axe. He was raised with a particular set of values honoring family, honesty, hard work, and helping others. Definitely Lawful-Good. Equipment: In addition to his heavy armor and thick black cloak, he carries a battleaxe and large tower shield, named Astrid and Ingrid (after his sisters) respectively. (Pictures when I find them.) Abilities: With the heavy axe and tower shield, he's obviously not he most agile combatant, though his crushing blows are powerful. Basically the slow bruiser / mighty glacier with some party support thrown in.

Name: Kaghad Norm Age: 194 Gender: Male Race: Dwarf Class: Technician Appearance: Rotund and ancient. His hair is thick and white, his nose enormous, and the area around his eyes eternally purple due to accumulated years of poor eye treatment. Take a look Personality: Old Kaghad is a surprisingly pleasant individual, given his age. He's not too outgoing and doesn't talk much, but there is a kindliness in his manner that makes many look to him as they would to a venerated grandfather, dwarf or not. While not very wise in the ways of the world and definitely lacking social intelligence, Kaghad's expertise in crafts and materials is uncanny, and though he loves to show his work and teach bits of it to others, he'll always have forgotten more than most humans will ever know. Kaghad's mood tends to be influenced by those around him. While patient with others, he can treat them very condescendingly if he feels they have earned it. In most cases, first impressions influence his opinions of others the most. He's not at all fond of fighting, having terrible instincts for combat, and is somewhat cowardly. By nature, Kaghad is slow and steady, not to be rushed and certainly not to be told to do something differently than the way he's always done it—that is the proud stubbornness of dwarves. He loves collecting, and he is very greedy for both artifacts and treasure, but this is more of a benign motivation than a potentially malevolent obsession. Brief Backstory: Equipment: Kaghad wears an assortment of protective gear, not designed to be armor but adequately able to serve as such. He carries with him three implements at all times; the first is a very heavy metal hammer he uses in smithing and as his primary form of attack, when cornered. The second is a longer tool with a drill at one end and a hand-crank at the other, and by a complex system of gears in the middle of the keg-sixed device, his cranks are amplified and give an unexpected amount of power to the drill. The third, called the 'Portable Forge' is what amounts to an oven on a pole. By inserting coal -of which Kaghad always carries a copious amount if he can help it- into the furnace and turning a small crank to get it ignited, Kaghad can get a fire going just about anywhere. A lever on the Portable Forge allows the inner fire to be channeled out through a nozzle of adjustable size, which can result in a jet of fire anywhere between flamethrower and blowtorch depending on the nozzle's diameter. This is most often used to superheat metals that Kaghad is working on. The smoke from the Forge is sent through the pole at expelled from its bottom, away from where he's working. Abilities: When in possession of his equipment and a good mood, there is no greater technical support for a team than Kaghad. Using his drill, he can bore through small obstacles and -more importantly- break locks. His Portable Forge can be utilized to quickly repair weapons and armor for his team members, and it can be turned into a flamethrower as a last-ditch effort in combat. In terms of combat, Kaghad isn't useless, but a lack of formal training and a crippling slowness make him pretty ill-suited for it, despite very impressive physical strength. He can also craft new equipment, including traps, in the field when provided the necessary materials. Less impressively, he is also quite good at lighting up dark areas, given his stock of coal.

Name: Laurena d'Olson Age: 28 Gender: Female Race: Human Class: Water Mage Appearance: Laurena stands at 5'7" (1.7m) and features a lean build with a hint of musculature hiding underneath. She has shoulder length brown hair to match her eyes, which often have a sleepless look lingering in them. Laurena's skin is rather light, though not to the point of sickliness, due to spending many hours indoors working on some project or another. Her face is rather unremarkable, and although well kept through magic, it still reflects her pale demeanor. While travelling, she wears pristine tan trousers with one of several monotone, dark colored shirts, the specific color often based off which is closest at hand upon waking. Personality: Laurena is a generally happy, if somewhat reserved person. Her main driving force is curiosity, and it's reflected in all her actions, sometimes to the point of recklessness. Laurena's thoughts are fast and tend to bounce from subject to subject, with the exception being things, or people, she finds particularly interesting. On such topics, she can acquire an almost obsessive interest in, sometimes spending days researching until her body reminds her it needs things like food, and sleep. Although generally nice, Laurena lacks a strong moral compass. She also tends to be lazy, looking for simple ways to do tasks she considers tedious. Laurena is a very neat person, liking to keep her space clean and organized, although these considerations can be thrown to the wayside if a sufficiently interesting project shows itself. As her powers work best with solid or liquid water, she prefers cold, humid environments, and will work to bring colder weather to an area if she thinks she will stay there for some time, despite any adverse effects on local farmers. Backstory: Laurena was born and raised in the town of Gidesa, middle of nowhere Velt. The town had a thriving trade with farmed goods, but little else to bring its name far and wide, due to perennial drought which plagued the area. Laurena was fortunate enough to be born to a moderately wealthy family, giving her the freedom to learn of dull things such as managing land, or crop rotation, but also of far more fascinating things, such as anatomy, how to read the weather, and the wondrous things that magic could do. The prospects of power and mystery that magic offered drove her curiosity. Eventually, through a mixture of luck, and pilfered allowances, an adolescent Laurena received her first bits of training in magic through a travelling hedge witch. Although finally learning an inkling of her much sought after subject, the witch's teachings left a bitter taste with Laurena. The witch had known how to use magic, but had little idea of how it worked. Laurena's questions of magical theory, of the why and how, earned her nothing but ire from her teacher. Eventually, knowing little more than when she started, and aware of the prejudice against those not properly trained, Laurena's lessons with the witch ended, and she set out with a new goal: To learn at the Mage's College in Meridan. Magic soon became an obsession of Laurenas. What spending money she had was now funneled towards whatever books and tomes she could get her hands on. Any learning she could afford was bought as soon as offered. Of those, her favourite was "Principles of Water Manipulation for the Journeyman Magician" by Jenisten Reynolds. Though there were many things the book assumed she knew it gave very detailed descriptions of how water interacted with almost anything else, and in a few years time, she knew it's words by heart. Laurena's parents, however, were not so fond of her obsession with magic. They had intentions of her becoming a healer for the town, at least after it had become apparent she was hopeless in managing their lands. A healer was another, good, respectable position. Magic however, was dangerous, and unknown, and while a passing interest was respectable, they did not like how serious Laurena was taking the subject. After gentler methods at discouraging her investigations proved futile, they forced Laurena to destroy her precious books. This did nothing to discourage her investigations, but rather to grasp more desperately at whatever options were presented. Such were conditions when six months later, when a young mage from the college came visiting to town, and presented a possible solution. Though the journey took longer, and wasn't as glamorous as intended, it did eventually get her to the mages college in Meridan. Once there, the finally was able to work on satiating her curiosity. Equipment: Laurena carries no weapons on her person - why should she need to, with the power of water at her hands? Instead, she carries several small pouches containing pure water, allowing her something to work with in dry conditions. Laurena also carries several small pouches of chemicals when travelling, as well as several empty ones, to hold any interesting substances found along the way. Although she has some training as a surgeon, she carries no tools, as most can be fashioned by freezing water, or in some cases, even her patient's blood. Abilities: Laurena can invoke control over water, once the spell is cast the fluids act almost like an extension of her body. Her powers primarily revolve around pure water, although other liquids can be influenced if they have water in them. Her precision and control deteriorates the more contaminated the water is. Fortunately, she is also capable of separating water from other substances that may make it impure. Laurena can also change waters state, from solid to liquid to gas, although it becomes more difficult to control as it becomes more energetic. The greater the temperature difference between the surroundings and her transformed water, the more energy it takes to keep it in its state. (ex: Ice is very difficult to keep ice inside a volcano.) Laurena knows how to create longer lasting magic, which she has used to automate some more monotonous tasks, such as laundry, in the past. This often requires rituals and a great deal of effort, scaling as the complexity of the task increases. The interactions can also become fairly complex, such as using multiple sets of spells to affect local weather, although weather is a rather complex subject, and can be easy to bring unintended consequences. Other: Strong swimmer, hates running. Doesn't like oils.

Name: Astrea

Age: 22-ish

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Class: Astrologist

Appearance:


Personality: Astrea could best be described as bright and somewhat bubbly. She is happy with what she has most of the time, and doesn't usually ask for any more. She does however like to see big displays of power, whether or not it's hers or someone else's.

Backstory: As a child, Astrea was orphaned by parents she never knew, and was left on the streets to die. However, one day she happened to see a wandering magician performing at a local tavern. Something she saw fascinated her, and she decided to follow the magician. For a while, that's how it was. She would follow him from town to town, scavenging what she could and seeing what he could do.

Eventually, she plucked up enough courage to ask him about magic, and a few days later she was an apprentice. She was about 10 years old at the time, and she travelled with the magician learning magic and the ways of the world. Eventually, she became dissatisfied with regular old magic, she wanted more spectacle than normal magic had. It was on one fateful night that she looked up to the stars, and asked.

"Is there magic in the stars?" She said.

The magician she was travelling with said there was a theory stating that there was, but there wasn't much evidence in favour of it. Over the next year, Astrea would travel the world, struggling to find any information on the theory, and any way it could be used. One day, she left the magician to seek her own answers.

She returned a decade later, charged with a huge amount of power. She showed the magician her new magic, and the magician couldn't do anything but watch the spectacle. After she finished, all her magician mentor could do was hang their head, and say:

"I wasn't really a good magician, you know." The magician didn't really have much in the ways of ability, and even then Astrea had surpassed her astronomically. "And I'm not any better now."

"I know." Astrea said, "This is my goodbye."

She left the magician that day, and left in search of something only she knew.

Equipment: She wears sort of standard comfortable witch clothing and that's just about it. She doesn't have a magic focus or anything because she can cast spells without one. Also, the focus would probably explode.

Abilities: Astrea uses the power of the stars aligned to fuel magical spells and abilities. She can call upon the powers of the constellations in order to do specialized attacks and support abilities. She can cast the spells nigh infinitely, but there are certain limitations.

The abilities require a direct connection to the stars, and thus are best achieved when there is nothing between the caster and the night sky. A connection can be established underground, but this takes a toll on either the spell's strength or the time it takes to cast. It is the same when it is daytime, and both of these conditions can stack.

To put this in perspective, during the night time and when she has direct exposure to the stars, Astrea can cast her most destructive spells almost instantaneously and as much as she likes.

When underground and during the daytime, it would take some seconds of charging to cast even her weakest offensive spells at their maximum damage.