Name:
Ardath Dodorea
Gender:
Female
Age:
177
Origin:
Aelgar
Career:
Dreadlord
Faction:
Shadow
Appearance:
A woman slight in stature, and not without feminine qualities. She’s dressed from shoulders to toes in what can only be in leather armor that features a color similar to that of an unpolished iron. The armor is fitted and vaguely reveals the woman’s curves. The armor’s appearance is almost entirely leather, however it is supplemented in the style of a brigandine with a thin gambeson acting as a buffer between her skin and the plates while acting as additional protection. Covering her head is a morion complete with a mask that encloses the typically open helmet.
And lastly, hitched to her hip is a long sword. There’s nothing startlingly unique about it
Outside of the armor, she could be called beautiful – for time has seemed to have completely forgotten about her. Her hair is long with the color of a crow’s feathers with bands of hair curling into what might as well be called sails as they easily catch the wind and are blown about. She has brown eyes, and a light complexion.
She had lost the desire of following fashion, and prefers to wear more utilitarian and sturdy things. Most frequently, canvas trousers, and a men’s blouse with little care to the comfort of her peers.
History:
She was born as the fourth and youngest sibling to a prosperous family in one of the costal City’s of Aelgar. Her family’s business was trade, and they did it well through cut-throat practices, and strategic planning that whittled out a number of merchants, sent them into debt, or even taking over property after giving their customers a loaded deal on credit.
It wasn’t until long after she began to pick up her family’s trade was she discovered to be a channeler. And by then she was already well versed in the art of deception, trickery, and economics. And with her time in the tower, she joined the Brown Arjahs and began to focus on her own studies now that she was no longer able to continue her family’s wishes. She began to study both the human mind and psychology. Finding the research fascinating, if it couldn’t be called a noble pursuit.
Her research had produced hundreds of journals. Many of which were simply journals that studied a single person in such disturbing detail; each one made without a single lick of respect paid to privacy. And what’s more, she was beginning to come to the point of predicting each individual’s next actions with a startling percentage of accuracy. A few of those journals, however studied something a little deeper. Common patterns of human behavior found in her own accounts, and past accounts. The three she was most obsessed with however, were compassion, conflict, and ambition. Those three is what she found in herself as well as many others.
She had practically locked herself away to her own devices in the tower following the small discovery. Reading over accounts of history. Kings and Queens of the world’s history, wars and sieges between nations and lordlings, usurpers sending assassins or building masses to take the throne.
And time continued on. Where it was kind to her body, it was not kind to her mind. At the age of eighty-three her family was already in their graves. And her mental state began to degrade as she stressed over her research. Where the constant bellows of horns, the thumping of horns, and the clash of metal would drive people away, it sung to her like a siren’s song. Where others saw things horrible, she saw beauty. Where people saw a battlefield strew with bodies, she saw a landscape turned into a work of art. She began to become infatuated with the war. Love even, if war could be a creature that could return such feelings back.
And with her current condition, it did not take much more to convince her to willingly join the forces of shadow. She did not need the soothing caress of power, or to hear the songs of wealth. She wanted to walk in the light of violence, and to be at the epicenter.
Through the next ninety-four years, she had been commanding a company of Trollocs and Shadowspren. With shaky results at first… as with any new commander. But her experimentation soon warped into a method, a practice, and a skill. She began producing results in a deadly campaign.
But... again, through those ninety-four years time has been picking at her mind like a grabby toddler. Bags began to form in her eyes as her eyes seemed to fix themselves in a haunted glare. They flick repeatedly, seeing the unseen, whom she also converses with, tantrums with, and fights with near daily. Both in and out of battle.
Notes:
During Ardath's dip into insanity before she left the tower to join the dark forces, she developed a moniker of "Banshee". Which is a reference to the way she howls out like a frightened animal when left alone without a light, and if she's silent... she's usually found holed up in a very tight space.
Ardath can be confidently described as a war monger. She’s often seen on the battlefield in armor, giving orders to her Myddraal to be relayed to the Trollocs. That is not to say that she is defenseless as the years have given her plenty of time to become a formidable swordsmen among being a channeler.
She can be a bit of a showboater, and while not to the point of boasting about her own success. But boasting when victory is already in her hands, and to make a cruel display out of what she has done to instill a desired emotion on her next foes.
She's also a hot head. Her emotions fluctuates rather rapidly... and takes little stimuli for her to shift between sadness to happiness, from neutral, to rage. Rage to glee. And what have you.
However, she does hold a firm respect for honor and refuses to go back on a word when it is given.
Her Strength in One Power is 24; she's strongest in Earth and Fire, but completely lacks the ability to manifest spirit.
Despite how far she fell, she still has a love of knowledge, and a fear of it disappearing when the world turns over to her new master. She openly sanctions all seekers of knowledge and structures of it, refusing the use of violence against them. And will violently punish her own troops for knowingly violating that sanction.