Name: Lanaya Triskell Dionisa (or to those who know her personally, Lana)
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Position: Magister of the lesser noble house Thale.
Personality:
Lana is a proud and arrogant woman with strongly held beliefs in the superiority of mages. Nonetheless, like many in the grand political game, she has multiple faces. Publicly, she is a polite and occasionally outspoken Magister, who strives to be noticed but not annoy. She hides her arrogance and disdain well. She is happy to demonstrate her magical prowess on request, and also makes heavy use of her abilities without being obvious about it. In public she treats other mages no different than others.

Privately, she is far more opinionated, and once she has determined you agree with her opinions, will tend to be much more vocal and outspoken with them. She respects mages far more than ‘mundanes’ as she calls those without magic, and is prone to ignore the flaws of mages while exaggerating those of non-mages in conversation.

She also has a strong streak of wanderlust, which she indulges with regular traveling in the lands nearby wherever her current residence is - traveling alone and far further than most would be able to in a short span by making use of shape-shifting.

She is motivated by a strong desire to see mages take a larger role in ruling Formaroth. She argues that Circle trained mages are both more neutral and more logical than the current self interested rulers currently in place. She is exceptionally dedicated to her cause and will happily manipulate, lie and in extreme circumstances, injure or kill to achieve her goal.

Appearance:
Lana is of average height (5’6), and low weight, maintaining a slim appearance. She is not particularly curvy, but nor is she unpleasantly lanky. She has pale skin, green eyes and straight copper-red hair stretching down to her waist.

Her clothing varies wildly - if she is traveling she wears more form fitting, practical clothes together with enough small storage pouches to collect any interesting curios she finds or carry limited supplies. At court and around the city, she wears the typical dresses of a noblewoman, in whatever fashion is current. Of note, is that, particularly in the warmer months, she has been known to wear very little while creating an illusion of clothing around herself. Only those who have been intimate with her know of this tendency however. Even when she is not doing this, she does tend to add details to her outfit via illusion, covering for the fact that she does not own quite as much jewelry and extra finery as she would like.

Background:
Born Lanaya Triskell Dionisa, first daughter of house Dionisa, a minor family living in the capital city, Nyhem. Lana’s early childhood was a relatively normal one as far as noble children went. As soon as she was able to speak, her education began, her parents obsessing over ensuring she would be a worthy continuation of the line. Despite this, they still eagerly granted her almost every wish, doting on her in the extreme, particularly when she did well in her classes. Needless to say, this quickly turned her into a spoiled brat who expected to get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Near her seventh birthday, everything changed. An abrupt and clear manifestation of magic drastically altered her parents view of her. Suddenly, in their eyes, she would not be able to continue the family in any way. Though it was not exactly a dishonor for her to be a mage, it ruined their carefully laid plans for the future. Though it was not her fault, she was nonetheless blamed for the manifestation of magic. No time was wasted in contacting the Summer Isles to inform the mages they had another child to take.

Mere days later, she was collected by mages from the city and sent on her way to the isles. The last expression she remembered on her parents faces as she was taken was one of profound relief. To her, it seemed they were happy she was gone.

By most standards, the journey to the isles was a smooth one. To Lana, it was something else entirely. She had never traveled beyond sight of the city before, much less been on a ship. It was terrifying at first, but once she realised she was safe, both from the strange mages around her and the road and sea, she began to look upon the wilderness with wonder. After a time, however, she became so eager to see the next grand sight that she became impatient with the slow speed of travel. Fortunately for the mages accompanying her, she only began to act up the day before arriving at the Isles and the Circle proper.

The mages identified her as a possible trouble maker early on and did their best to eradicate her attitude, knowing how much of a catastrophe it could be to teach a child with such a mindset how to bend the world to their will. Their success was limited, and by her tenth yeah she had changed from demanding to manipulative.

Her magical studies went on regardless, though in the first two years they were extremely unfocused. Early on she lacked discipline, and had a tendency to flit between the next most impressive magic on the list, dabbling in the basics of many different kinds of magic. She was a nightmare for the teachers, who could see clear signs of potential and finesse in the basic techniques she learned, but regularly found themselves being informed by the self important young girl that she was going to go learn something else instead.

By her tenth birthday, Lana had finally decided on a type of magic to focus on - illusion. For three years she focused exclusively on illusion magic, despite her teachers recommendations that she study more broadly. Her focus within the field was broad, focused both on illusion to create art and illusion to aid in subterfuge. When she was thirteen, the wanderlust of travel began to once again grip her. Initially, she roamed the area near the circle during her downtime, but quickly decided that walking was far too slow. This led to her taking an interest in shapeshifting. By taking the shapes of other creatures, she reasoned, she would be able to travel faster. To the surprise of her teachers, she did not abandon her study of illusion at this point, instead balancing her time between the two pursuits more reasonably.

By the age of 15, she had become quite capable with several bird forms, each suited for a different kind of travel. With these new skills, she decided to travel back to the capital city and visit her parents, hoping that perhaps, they might be happy to see her again.

Initially, they were. But the initial joy at seeing their daughter again lasted only a short time before they tried to incorporate her into political machinations. For a time, she stayed, hoping to be something other than a playing piece in their political games, but however valuable a piece she was to them, she was never more than that. Three months later, she left once again, returning to the circle, now with knowledge of what it was like to be on the receiving end of manipulation. She decided when she left that she would not be manipulated ever again.

Upon her return, she further diversified her magical studies - picking up destruction magics to better defend herself against those who might seek to control her with force. It was only one year later that the Remonnet-Manshrew civil war broke out. Lana did not have the dubious pleasure of taking part, instead watching events unfold from afar, safe on the Summer Isles. Her personal hope for much of the war, was that the Remonnets would be victorious, but that the despotic king Heylot would fall in battle. Safe as she was, however, it was all somewhat surreal, affecting her little until the end came. With the conclusion of the war came news of the fallen.

Several of her friends from the circle, older, more battle capable mages, had left to fight in the war - none returned, sacrificed for some tactical advantage or another at the hands of generals who often did not understand their abilities. As well, she discovered her parents had supported the now dead King Heylot. Whether from fear or greed, she did not know, but as minor as they were, they were not spared the fallout. They were among those to die at the order of Patrick De Reimer, though they were not important enough to warrant his personal presence.

The entire affair convinced Lana that the leadership of Formaroth could not be trusted to the political machinations of the mundane, the unwise who held no magic. She kept this opinion to herself at this time, knowing that agitating about it would get her nothing at this time. She requested, and was granted, the chance to study politics and governance - the skills of a Magister, within the circle. As with most pursuits she set her mind to, she learned quickly, though not abandoning any of her magical studies.

In particular, she was seeking ways to push her newfound agenda without having to become directly involved with any particular family as an advisor. At the age of twenty, she was deemed to be sufficiently capable to leave the circle, however, she was also sufficiently capable in Illusion and shape-shifting by this point to begin assisting in teaching novices in the circle. Thus, she remained on the Summer Isles in the official role of a teacher, while continuing her own studies in fields both political and magical.

At the age of 22, Lana decided she had studied sufficiently to try her hand at some real politics. She was able to call in sufficient favors at the Circle to select a particular house to be assigned to as a Magister. She chose the minor House Thale, a Nyhem noble house with a singularly weak leader. At first she advised on magical matters only, but within the first year she had influenced the Houses head to follow more and more of her recommendations. After her third year as Magister, House Thale was totally dependent on her for its running. Recently, she has begun speaking openly for the House, and persuaded the members to extol the virtues of having a mage advising them.

To Lana the Death of the King represents opportunity. Though she has made a public show of grief, as expected, she has in fact been happy, for now more than ever she is in a position to push for Mage oversight in the governance of the land, if not a Mage on the throne itself.

Skills and traits:
Magic:
Illusion - Master
Though no longer Lana’s prime focus, Illusion is the form of magic she has studied the longest. She is capable of creating detailed images of places she has been in still motion up to the size of the average room, though this requires time to create and active focus to maintain. She can create or shroud light nearby, as well as hiding herself or altering simple features of herself, such as hair color. She is capable of creating illusory clothing for herself, and often does so when required to appear in fancy dress, while wearing something else entirely.
Shapeshifting - Adept
Lana is capable of assuming several bird forms, including the Eagle and Owl, as well as several more mundane birds better suited towards long distance travel. In addition, she can take the shape of a Dolphin, as well as a songbird. She is quite capable of exploiting all of these shapes to their fullest.
Destruction - Master
Fire - Lana’s grasp of fire magic is the strongest in her destructive arsenal, and she is capable of generating incredibly hot fires in bolts, sheets or runes. Of particular note is that she is capable of manifesting bolts from unusual directions, not needing to originate them in her hands. This is quite limited in range of course.
Ice - Lana’s capability with Ice magic is less than fire, and she cannot generate temperatures much lower than freezing. She can however, create a wide aura of this lowered temperature around herself, as well as the typical ice bolt type attacks.
Lightning - Lana’s least capable elemental magic, she is limited to summoning a single directed bolt from her hands, or, if outside and in sufficiently cloudy weather, above.

Other skills:
She is a capable dancer, both in typical courtly manner and for performance’ sake.
She is a skilled singer, both with her natural voice and that of the songbird form she can take.
She is an adept ruler, though focused on magical solutions to problems.
She is a master manipulator, unafraid to employ magic in her manipulation but not relying on it.

Flaws:
Disdain of mundane combat:
Lana looks at combat with ‘mundane’ weaponry as a barbaric and crude. She has no skill whatsoever when it comes to wielding a blade, staff, bow or any other form of weapon. In addition, her lack of practice with such things has left her physically frail compared to those who do regularly wield weapons. Dancing has ensured she is not a complete weakling, nor is she clumsy, but she could still be easily outmaneuvered and overpowered by the vast majority of her peers in a physical confrontation.

Arrogant:
Lana looks down on everyone who is not a mage, and though she typically hides this in public, those who know her privately are aware of the strength of her feelings in this matter. In addition, she is prone to underestimating the capabilities of non-mages, though experience has tempered this somewhat.

Fear of being Manipulated:
Lana hates the idea of not being the master of her own fate. She constantly second guesses people, especially non-mages, analysing her interactions with them to ensure they are not manipulating her.

Love of fine things:
Lana has lived in luxury her entire life, save for very short sections while traveling long distance, sections which she hates with a passion. As much as she loves the natural beauty of the world, she also hates having to live outside of comfortable environments for more than a day or two.