Basil D’ashar

36

Redguard

Female

The Steed

Mixed

Alchemist

Basil stands at a fairly average height of 5’7”. Her physique fluctuates between skinny and muscular, revealing a lifestyle of poor nutrition and hard labour. Her skin is surprisingly dark, even for a Redguard, and patches of it shine with greyish scars and burn marks. It is weathered - coarse hands, ashen elbows, cracked feet and thin lines on the face. Her breasts are small, her bottom is flat. She’s missing a pinky toe on her left foot.
 
Her face, like her body, is a mixture of bone and muscle. She has fairly prominent cheekbones and a pronounced brow alongside her thick black eyebrows. Her eyes are almond shaped, adorned with faint crow’s feet and eye bags. Unlike the dark brown of a typical Redguard, Basil’s eyes are a brilliant yellow-green colour. Her nose is wide and has been broken before; her lips are full and typically pushed into a faint smile. Basil doesn’t have any hair - it is shaved off.
 
When it comes to clothing, Basil mourns the lack of variety. Aside from her mixed leather and chainmail armour she owns a set of travelling robes and a spare pair of boots. The colours she wears are muted and earthy. She shows no visible piercings and wears no jewellery, save for a sabre tooth on an old and grimy piece of rope around her neck.

Basil tends to do the right thing; not out of a moral obligation but more due to the fear  regret. In other words, she doesn’t have to help other people but feels compelled to or else she’ll be guilty for weeks. This behaviour is tempered by a wariness learnt over time but it ultimately won’t stop her from giving people the benefit of a doubt.
 
Basil is an inquisitive soul who enjoys learning and discovering new things. This also makes it easier for her to make new friends as she genuinely listens to what they have to say. Unfortunately, this curiosity can also lead her into some fairly difficult situations to get out of and she is well aware of her limits and unafraid of asking for help if she needs it.

The D’ashar family may not be the most wealthy nor the most powerful, but they have a tendency to spread out across the continent and breed like rabbits. Basil was born and raised in the port town of Rihad, just off the border of Cyrodiil. Even before she understood what was going on she was able to recognise that she had an absurd amount of relatives and a lot of them had travelled a long way to give gifts and congratulate her mother Danari. This close-knit yet far-reaching family network would play a powerful influence on Basil as she grew older, but we’ll get back to that.
 
The port is a prosperous and wealthy place to live in and Basil grew up as a healthy and happy child. This did not stop her parents from instilling some discipline and a good work ethic; her mother had Basil work at the docks whilst her father, Hamud, was often absent due to military service. Life was incredibly easy and enjoyable during her younger years. She had many friends, multiple teenage crushes, and went to a multitude birthday parties and celebrations.
 
But as Basil grew into her late teens, the question of work began to press upon her mind. She was at a loss on what to do; part of her wanted to stay in Rihad and remain a dock worker simply because she knew how to do it. Another part of her wished to hit the road like her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, but she knew that she was not strong enough to look after herself. Basil’s kindheartedness also swayed her towards helping others, a habit she formed early on but wished to expand upon...but becoming a healer was practically unheard of in Rihad and she knew that she did not have the knack for learning magic.
 
When one of her second cousins started talking about an old friend of a friend who worked as an alchemist, Basil tracked down the man and begged him to take her as an apprentice. It was a craft which was versatile enough to be used to help others and protect herself. The ingredients were easy enough to find right now as most of them were locally sourced, but as her aptitude in Alchemy increased she would have to be able to travel further and further to find what she needs for that next potion. Basil believed that she would be able to teach herself how to fight and eventually leave to go into Cyrodiil.
 
After a few years of apprenticeship, she had learnt everything that her mentor could teach her. It took a couple of weeks, a big goodbye party and a lot of tears to finally part from the family home. On the road, Basil truly began experiencing the hardships of living outdoors which set her back more than the fear of wolves and bandits ever could. She was a few months into her travels and barely made it into Cyrodiil, too nervous to leave from her well-established campsite in the middle of a forest.
 
That is, of course, until a random Legionnaire staggered through the woods whilst Basil was foraging for food. She watched him incoherently call out to her, gurgle, then crumple to the floor. Shocked and afraid of abandoning him, Basil dragged the man back to her campsite and nursed him back to health. She discovered that the man was called Cassius, and he was part of a large squadron of Legionnaires who regularly patrolled Cyrodiil and kept the outer regions safe from local threats. Basil sensed her opportunity to finally escape the forest under the guard of a real life soldier, so she offered to help him find his squadron again.
 
After a couple of months of looking after Cassius Basil had made a good friend out of him. She was unwilling to leave but knew she wasn’t nearly battle-ready. Luckily, Cassius’ superiors informed her that being part of the Legion was not reserved solely for footsoldiers; Basil could be hired on as an unofficial aide, working as their platoon’s alchemist to supply potions for their field medics. The possibility of 80 soldiers keeping her safe and the ability to learn some actual combat training whilst being paid were more than enough to persuade Basil to take on a contract. She’s been working with these soldiers for ten years now.

N/A

At least 2 hip flasks of potable water
Basic dried herbs and reagents to make 5 potions
Small pewter cauldron
Spare clothes
One-Handed sword
Flint and steel
Old book, pages used for kindling
Simple repair kit (needles, waxed thread, bunches of leather straps/patches, rags)
Tent and bedroll
1 weeks’ worth of rations
2 basic healing potions
1 vial basic poison
1 vial basic antidote for aforementioned poison (just in case!)
5 empty vials
Mortar and pestle
Alchemy Journal
Botanical textbook
Ink and Quill
200 septims

Cassius Chaerea

37

Imperial

Male

The Tower

Combat

Centurion

Standing at 6’2”, Cassius is a hairy, stocky man. His body has a scattering of slashed scars and projectile wounds from multiple battles. He has dark eyes and short dark hair which he cuts himself, and remains as clean shaven as possible (though he usually gains some stubble when he is on the road). He is usually seen wearing the imperial plate armour or a simple linen tunic with heavy woolen trousers when he is not on duty or needs to travel light.

Cassius is practical. A pessimistic attitude has allowed him to be able to expect the worst and avoid nasty surprises; rarely seeing and trusting the good in people. With a sharp tongue and a short temper, Cassius often remains wary of strangers with little regard to social etiquette or manners, most likely due to a lack of companionship when he was younger. Whilst he is unafraid of conflict, Cassius’ aggression is held back by his level-headedness and common sense. He knows how to pick his battles and is very aware of his limits. He carries himself with stoicism and tends to show very little visible emotion aside from general annoyance.

Cassius was born in Cyrodiil and into a long line of Imperial loyalists. Whether it was becoming a politician or joining the Legion, the fact that he’d grow up serving the Empire one way or another was set in stone. Raised by a family that had earnt a position in the noble district, Cassius had it pretty easy compared to the harshness of Tamriel. However this didn’t stop his father from thrusting him into training the moment Cassius reached the age of twelve, to eventually join the Imperial Legion.

Due to his restricted time schedule the only real memories, aside from harsh instructors and tedious tasks he’d have to endure, were memories of Cassius and his father taking the time to go out hunting together. He simply did not have the time to enjoy his early teens; he did not have any childhood friends when growing up, nor did he have any idyllic stories of young love. Cassius officially joined the Imperial Legion at the age of sixteen and didn’t do much aside from dedicating the next eleven years of his life to the empire. These years consisted of taking part in several skirmishes, taking on the role of city guards, and collecting bounties on escaped or yet to be convicts.

Things changed when, after a particularly exhausting routine patrol a few days’ march away from the Hammerfell border, Cassius mistook an incredibly poisonous plant for a bunch of Goldenrod and promptly ate it in an attempt to hold back his fatigue. He began to feel dizzy and could not think straight, resulting in him wandering away from where his squadron were based and into a nearby forest. He staggered towards a nearby young woman and tried to call out for help before succumbing to the poison and collapsing on the floor.

The young Redguard woman took Cassius back to her camp deep within the woods and nursed him back to health over a series of weeks. He managed to work off the poison’s effects rather quickly but was left with a serious fever that left him weakened and unable to travel back to his squadron, who had no idea where he had gone and eventually marked him as MIA. During this time the woman introduced herself as Basil D’ashar, a native from Hammerfell who wanted to see as much of the world as she could but was unfortunately unable to travel further due to a lack of combat experience. With a soldier by her side Basil agreed to help Cassius find his squadron again on the condition that he acted as a bodyguard whilst they travelled.

The two of them eventually found Cassius’ squadron and hastily explained what had happened. As it turns out, Cassius’ squadron had use for an alchemist who could help by providing their healers with antidotes and potions and Basil seemed willing to learn. They hired her on as an unofficial aide, unable to truly become part of the Legion without formal training and yet paid and treated like a fellow soldier. By this time Cassius and Basil were already friends, he began to teach her how to swing a blade and she provided care and assistance whenever she could. They have been working together for 10 years now as close friends, still wandering around Cyrodiil with the rest of their squadron, fighting in skirmishes, clearing out old abandoned fortresses and dealing with unruly and aggressive beasts.

N/A

1x full set of Imperial Legion Armor
1x Wool Clothes worn under armor
1x Legion Shield
1x Steel Longsword
1x Steel Shortsword
1x Bedroll
1x Waterskin
1x Weeks worth of rations
3x Torches
1x Small Tent
1x Steel Bow
30x Steel Arrow
1x Hunting Knife