Gwendolyn Abramelin
"Gwen"
21 | Female Appearance:By no means imposing, Gwendolyn is a rather slight individual. Her wispy form bears a less than frightening stature. She stands at a meager height of 5β4β. Fortunately enough, not all of the young powder mageβs features are so inadequate. While it may be less evident, Gwendolyn finds her body lean enough to endure quite a bit of taxing travel due to her lifestyle. With a rather pallid complexion, Gwendolynβs fair skin complements her ash blonde hair rather well as its layered locks fall just far enough to brush the top of her shoulders. First impressions are quite impactful as Gwendoylnβs doe-like eyes stand out quite a bit with their electric blue color.
Gwendolyn is certainly no inconspicuous figure in a crowd. Much like the rest of Gwendolynβs past company, she has a tendency to dress in a rather gaudy fashion. Amid the golden necklaces, gemstones, and jewels, Gwendolyn is more personally known for the silken white cloak embroidered with a number of gold linings that enshrouds her form more often than any other outfit. Due to her bouts on the sea, her wardrobe tends to work well to defend her from the sunβs harmful rays. Gwendolyn is known to carry a large number of pouches and sacks on her person to hold various substances to work with her Flare.
Flare:Known as Drift Magic, Gwendolyn commands control over βDriftβ resources, those being particulate substances blown by the wind in forms of sand, ash, and dust. She summons up the will to exert her command on the Drift resources via a variety of complex gestures. This particular ability given to her by her Flare gives Gwendolyn a wide array of uses depending on how she wills the Drift. Common uses that are often found in Gwendolynβs arsenal are using her Drift to obscure sight by forming screens, using her Flare in mass amounts to create blasts to strike foes, or even compact Drift substances into unique shapes, though this requires a rather large supply of Drift.
Because of the weak and light nature of the Drift substances, control over them requires very little stamina and focus on Gwendolynβs part. This can change, however, if Gwendolyn moves mass amounts of Drift. Greater volumes and densities of Drift require more of Gwendolynβs energy on a linear scale. More often than not, Gwendolyn finds herself using her ability in diminutive amounts, allowing herself control throughout the day while subsisting on small amounts of Adamant rather than expending all of her energy at once. Gwendolyn finds herself constrained by other factors as well. For example, she cannot create the Drift substances. Thusly, she requires a supply of dust, ash, or sand for her magic to have any potency at all.
History: Gwendolyn knows very little of her actual birth and family. From her earliest clear memories, she can recall her childhood aboard what she assumed to be a merchant ship christened Jackalsβ Ensign. Without the care of parents, Gwendolyn was protected and cared for by the sailors that took her in. In their travels, Gwendolyn learned quite a bit about life on the sea. She did as much as she could to help out the sailors that had done so much for her in return. Of course, she didnβt have the capacity to do very much of the work due to her meek stature and childlike demeanor. Her life sailing around Boreas didnβt last forever though.
Unbeknownst to Gwendolyn, the men that had cared for her for so long were not the merchants she imagined them to be. Instead, the men aboard Jackalsβ Ensign were a band of marauders of the sea known only as the Jackals. Despite their undue hospitality, the Jackals were little more than pirates under the guise of merchants. The inevitable fates of pirates loomed over them, though, and the Jackals were long overdue to meet their match. It wasnβt until one particular day during a massive storm that a guild-sponsored war frigate finally found the target of their bounty: the Jackalβs Ensign. That day in the sea, the Jackalsβ Ensign was scuttled and found its final resting place in the sea north of Guise.
While most of the Jackals found themselves dragged to a watery grave that day, a small number of the Jackalsβ Ensignβs crew found themselves afloat in the raucous and rough waters of the storm. Gwendolyn was among these castaways. Lost for what seemed like days, it wasnβt long before the young girl succumbed to the will of the wild waves. Assuming that death was taking her, Gwendolyn allowed her eyes to slowly give in to the darkness. Her awakening thereafter was the greatest surprise of the whole ordeal. She found herself on a beach in the company of a strange vagabond. Gwendolyn didnβt find herself fully conscious until after the mysterious stranger had brought her into a city left in ruins.
After a long-winded conversation about their current circumstances, it was explained that Gwendolyn was washed up on the shores of Bidlip. Her strange saviour was a wayward vagrant calling himself Menes. Menes roamed the abandoned cityscape as a scavenger, using his abilities as a Powder Mage to sustain himself as best as he could. The scavenger found himself his supply of adamant due to a great deal of finesse when it came to passing merchant ships in the nearby seas. Upon finding Gwendolyn, he took her in as an apprentice, teaching her his scavenging art as well as helping her unlock her own abilities as a Powder Mage. It was in this broken city that Gwendolyn spent the majority of her teenage years. Alongside Menes, she honed her abilities and thrived in the unforgiving environment. Even this bout of good fortune wouldnβt carry the young girl forever though. During a venture into the depths of Bidlipβs urban landscape, Menes and Gwendolyn found themselves assaulted by a bizarre denomination of mages. They were something like a guild of outlaws likened to cultists. The pair found themselves escaping unscathed, but that was not the end to their encounters with the rogue mages. All aggressions came to a head when Menes and Gwendolyn were forced to flee to the beaches. Menes revealed to his apprentice that he had a raft constructed and ready to set sail. This was unfortunately his last message to Gwendolyn before he was taken. She escaped while she still could and this time, her time on the sea was brief before she was picked up by a passing ship.
Once the ship was docked into a port in Dilei, Gwendolyn found herself on her own. Due to her unconventional lifestyle, she had very little in terms of marketable skills. Entirely apprehensive to the idea of joining a guild because of her past experiences with similar groups, Gwendolyn subsisted off of βscavengingβ. She was entirely unaware of the repercussions of her actions as she was not at all used to conventional society. This landed her in heaps of trouble on a daily basis. It wasnβt long before a lieutenant of Vale Craft Guild came to her with a goal of recruitment. It was with great disdain that she was even considered to be brought into the fold of Vale Craft Guild due to the unsafe nature of her upbringing and how it trained her to deal with Flare. Despite her cautiousness surrounding the whole idea, Gwendolyn reluctantly accepted the offer with nowhere else to turn. She was anxious of the environment at first, but has slowly adapted to the civilized world and its ideas.
Personality:It is rather easy upon first interacting with Gwendolyn to notice that she has a certain abnormal air about her. While she appears to be very light-hearted and joyful in her demeanor, there remains a certain disconnect between her and the rest of the world. This can manifest in a variety of strange ways. Her odd attitude is seen especially in the way she interacts with others. Gwendolyn is generally a rather outspoken person, seeing no reason to be candid with her motivations. Therefore most of the people familiar with her know about her skewed view of modern society. It can be quite endearing at times as Gwendolyn tends to react with a certain naivety to many things.
Despite her active participation in the Vale Craft Guild, Gwendolyn has an untrusting disposition towards guilds in general. She isnβt fully accepting of the work they do, and often only participates in contracts that she is personally interested in. Often, that interest is vested in her fondness of material goods that can be obtained during any contracts. Put simply, Gwendolyn is a hoarder of many treasures. Stemming from her life as a scavenger, she finds herself desiring to constantly collect prized objects that she finds. Her actual treasures can vary, but commonly she seeks to gather gold, precious gems, and other valuables that she may find. Many would think her rich, but in reality Gwendolyn doesnβt buy much with her treasures and cares very little for actual coin.