Tala
Talanashta Wranvyre ● 35 ● She/her
______________________________________Appearance:
Long-haired woman with a very eccentric dress sense. Wears lots of bells that make little jingling noises wherever she goes. Is rarely seen far from her golden-feathered pet bird, Wicket.
Reputation:
An extremely powerful mage, here meaning ‘someone who was so isolated and friendless for so long that she had nothing better to do than study magic for unhealthy amounts of time.’ She seems nice enough, a kind and optimistic person who likes to dote on others and is starving for any form of positive interaction, but she’s also awkward, overbearing, extremely gullible, and has a bad sense of social boundaries. She does get along extremely well with animals, though, especially her bird. It’s a shame that her bird doesn’t seem to get along with anyone else…
Reason for Traveling:
Talanashta (but she likes to be called Tala) was living out a quiet life as a mage and naturalist in a lonely tower near a tiny village in the Croplands when one day a passing caravan of traders decided to stop nearby for the night. This didn’t happen often, and there was a reason it did now: while legitimate merchants favored larger and more well-paved roads, this lot were smugglers dealing in several illegal goods, taking a quiet route to avoid drawing suspicion. Part of their cargo was a collection of several rare and exotic animals and monsters, kept in cages to be sold on the black market as pets, and amongst them huddled a tiny prison housing a sick, shivering ball of feathers no longer than a thumb.
Long story short, the curious Tala ended up investigating, and, well, may have kind of liberated the entire menagerie and caused an incident that ended with a troop of imperial soldiers being called in to deal with all the monsters on the loose… Point was, by the time all that had died down, she’d nursed the tiny bird back to health and named him Wicket and decided that maybe she could keep him for a while.
There was a small problem with this. While Wicket was a very good bird and would definitely never do anything wrong, he was kind of a predator and did start exterminating the local avian population as soon as he was old enough to fly and oh gods did he just shoot fire from his nostrils?! Despite having spent years observing the local wildlife, Tala had never seen anything like him, and had no idea what he might look like as an adult. He grew quite slowly, but he also didn’t seem to ever stop getting larger, and after a year and a half of dealing with a steadily more rambunctious bird Tala decided that she probably couldn’t keep him forever. It was time to go out into the world and find out where he’d really come from, and then release him into the wilds to be with the rest of his kind, or at least somewhere he wouldn’t end up harming or being hunted by humans.
Having trained him as best she could not to ever breathe fire in public, Tala packed her bags, bought a map, and set out into the wider world, where she promptly ended up getting completely lost.
Skills:
She can cook! Kind of an essential skill for living on one’s own. All her specialties are vegetarian, but they do taste quite good, and she also knows some handy herbal remedies for common ailments.
She can name the plants and animals! Or at least most of them. Except the one she really needs to right now. But anyway, uhhh, she knows many birds and has read many natural history books, so yes please ask her anything about nature if you need her to not stop talking for the next hour or so.
She’s a really good mage! Like, really good. Pretty much entirely stuck to wind element, but when it comes to blowing things she can’t be beat! no wait that came out wrong Her mastery is such that she can effect large-scale changes in the weather given time (about half an hour) and even fly through the air for short intervals with her voluminous sleeves. The bells she carries aren’t anything special on their own, but the sounds they make fall easily within her purview, giving her a catalyst noise that she can alter and amplify to sound like pretty much anything she likes. Though none of her skills are specialized for combat, her raw power and versatility still make her a force to be reckoned with in that respect.
Her bird will murder you! You think Wicket’s just some puffed-up little hawk? Think again. This bad boy can do over 300 kph in the air, and has talons so strong they can rip through plate armor like paper if he hits you at full velocity. Mess with the big W, and I guarantee you he will rip your face off and charbroil your ass, or just shit on your favorite possessions the moment you leave them unattended.
Meta:
As you can probably tell already, Tala’s best suited for light and/or comedic stories. Ideally she’ll have plenty of opportunities to be an absolute dork and screw things up without doing so much harm that she can’t desperately try and fix everything afterwards. I’m hoping that her quest will bring her more in touch with the natural and supernatural side of Sedaia, with the magic and monsters and hidden wonders that few or no living humans have ever gazed upon before. Exploration is good, as is lore and history and anything that gets us deeper into the less-trodden details of the setting and its flora/fauna, all the parts that exist outside of or on the edges of human knowledge and influence.
Otherwise… I don’t actually mind dark stuff? And not everything can be sunshine and roses. So please feel free to drop the hammer on her at least once or twice along the line, if it fits the occasion. I’d actually prefer a sad or bittersweet ending if we reach that point, though animal stories can be easily mined for pathos so let’s try not to get too cliché in that regard. Romance is also super fun, so if anyone makes characters of a similar age then prepare to have them crushed on by goofy bird lady.
Extra:
Member
Danyel
Vyce
Mixtape Ghost N
