Name: Sparla the Night-Witch
Age: 28.
Sex: Female.
Breed: Sparla’s ancestors are a hot mess of half-orcs and full-blooded orcs and three-quarter blooded orcs, so while she is very clearly orc-ish, and certainly some part human, it isn’t worth anyone’s time to figure out the numbers.
Appearance: Sparla is larger and stronger than the average human woman, but shorter than most of her fellow female orcs. It isn’t by very much, but it is enough to be noticeable. Her hair, long and oily, hangs most of the way down her back. Her skin is grey, without even a hint of green, and covered in scars both faint and hideous—all of which get covered up rather easily with clothing, since none are actually on her face. Outside of battle, one wouldn’t think her particularly exceptional from her appearance.
Skills/Abilities:- Please list with most potent skills first.
- The skill that Sparla has cultivated above all others is what earned her recognition: magic. Not the variety of the tree-sculpting knife-ears, or wrinkled humans in towers, but something far more raw and visceral. Hers is the magic of blood and grime, of steel and mud. Sparla can grant or sap strength, summon noxious fumes, call sight-obscuring darkness, and throw around some fire—making fire being to magic as the burbling sounds of a baby are to speech. Beyond fire, Sparla’s magic almost universally requires material components, which are used up in their casting—things like plants, beast fur, and so on. Large scale workings, those with great tactical significance, are also within her capabilities, but they require more time and resources than are practical in pitched battle, where she’d have to confine her magic to a much smaller, more interpersonal scale. Efforts in enchantment have revealed that her magic can only alter organic matter—killing any living organic matter—and even then is a laborious process.
-She can brew a mean bear. There’s no real utility to this, but she knows how to brew alcohol and is pretty good at it.
(I think magic is broad enough that she doesn’t need any other major skills.)
Equipment:-Sparla avoids standard metal armor, which would restrict any somatic component to a spell. She instead chooses thick and durable leather, which can stand up to small blades and any reasonably small fire. A large number of red feathers have been affixed to her right bracer, shoulders, main body, and over every part of her helm.
-The feathers attached to Sparla’s armor, being organic, were ideal for enchantment. There is no longer any risk of their decay, and are as strong as iron. Experiments with armor that had more feathers proved to be just as cumbersome as, if not more so than, regular armor, but it has been included to provide extra protection to Sparla’s vital areas.
-Amidst leather and feathers, Sparla has attached pouches and vials of various substances to her armor so as to facilitate the use of magic in combat.
-Sparla always carries a knife for use when magic impractical, unnecessary, or impossible. Also for cutting herself, when she needs to use blood to fuel her magic (something she usually tries to avoid, but sometimes things are necessary).
History:Sparla’s parents were were of mixed stock, as unknowable a mixture of orc and humans she. The origin of this was quite simple: Sparla, and her parents, were not born, but bred. They came from no tribe, but a slave fighting arena. This was not technically legal, and is something that not many humans—in spite of their general feelings about orcs—would have been comfortable with, but there was enough money flowing to the right people that legality never became an issue. Sparla doesn’t know how high up the chain of command went—whether it stopped with some local Baron, straight up to the throne itself, or anywhere in between—but she has made it her personal mission to see anyone and everyone involved dead.
Sparla never knew her parents. She was separated from them, and they likely died in the arena before she learned to speak. Of course, one cannot miss what one never knew, so she does not miss them, and there were others to fill the void. Principally, the arena’s most prominent—and largest—combatant, a colossal, full-blooded orc, born in freedom, by the name of Magog. Magog was not especially kind, nor gentle, but he took it upon himself to raise her all the same. It was, despite the circumstances, fairly ordinary as orcish childhoods went, with the only notable difference being that she killed other children with greater regularity than she might have if she were born free—and even that was not especially cumbersome, because she was taught by one of the arena’s greatest fighters.
Then it came to light that she had a natural aptitude for magic.
This changed things in a number of ways. Magog realized that, while he could turn her into a truly fearsome fighter of great skill, it would be hindered by her natural build. He also realized that her magic would have no limitation. He did not know magic himself, but he encouraged Sparla to pursue her talents. Being the simplest form of magic, it didn’t take long for her to discover how to call fire; by mixing her blood with the open air, Sparla could easily initiate conflagration.
Controlling that fire was a different story. A fire started that she could not readily put out, and it came to the attention of the arena authorities that one of their slaves was a magic user. Fortunately for Sparla, their greed overcame their good sense. They called in a mage—an elf by the name of Therelon—who had bet and lost on far too many fights, and promised that they would absolve his debt with them, and pay off his debt with others, if he taught Sparla magic.
Being a knife-ear, he was an insufferable ponce, but Sparla could not deny his skill. The training was hard, and he was cruel, but he could not deny her talent for long. Together, begrudgingly, they worked out exactly what sort of magic she was skilled in. Over time, also begrudgingly, and very slowly, they developed something resembling respect for one another. Beyond that, a few years passed without incident, and Sparla grew strong in her magic.
But one day, Therelon told Sparla that the arena told him they meant to have her fight Magog. He told her not to be there, and he understood; she did not want another powerful magic user to deal with.
When the day came, she told the arena managers that she needed more fuel for her spells, to create make them more powerful, and cause a bigger spectacle. They believed her, and acquiesced. She entered the arena, Magog opposite her, with some human shouting at the audience, hyping up the crowd, almost all of whom held some sort of betting ticket. Magog lumbered towards her, and she made ready. When he reached her, he raised is axe high. And then he passed her. She unleashed her magic; a cloud of biting, acidic gas flowed into the audience.
Then the screaming started.
Magog charged into the passageway behind Sparla, through which she had entered the arena, and tore the grate covering it right off as he continued on. Little did the owners and proprieters of the arena know, some of the extra materials she had requested had gone towards enhancing Magog’s already great strength tremendously. Behind the scenes, he tore through guards and ripped chains from walls, raising the slaves to arms. In the arena, blasts of fire and poison from Sparla had seen the arena’s patrons, and those administrators who came to see the fight, dead. And the arena was on fire.
She followed where Magog had gone, and as one, the orcs and partial-orcs tore through all that stood in their way. Quite a few died—both to their desperate enemies and a wayward spell—but they were undeterred. By the time they made it out, the arena was completely engulfed in flames. That’s when they ran into the city guard. They were far more numerous than the foes they had faced in the bowels of the arena, and far more competent. Still, they were not enough to stop the horde of former slaves from blazing as trail out of the city. Before long, they were in the wilds, and they were free.
And they weren’t quite sure what to do with their freedom. Some formed a band of marauders, to kill and steal from the humans of the land. Some went off to try and find a tribe to join. Sparla and Magog, as well as several other former slaves, went off to forge their own destiny. It didn’t go over so well, especially with the news of the violent slave rebellion that butchered guardsmen and civilians alike, and burned down a fifth of the city they had been in. They were rebuffed at every turn, but eventually, they heard of something curious: an orc-only mercenary company. And they set off to join Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi.
It wasn’t particularly difficult to find the mercenary company, nor to join. Sparla started in the pikes, just like everyone else, but her commander was surprised to find her already quite disciplined—Therelon was not the sort of teacher to suffer rebellion. Combined with her capability with magic, this got her transferred out of the pikes quicker than most. Being one of relatively few magic users in the company, Sparla was a valued asset, but for a long time she was not seen as experienced enough to join the Chosen. Thus, she was long in a state of limbo, where she had many of the priveleges that came with being one of the company’s elite, but none of the rank and respect. Magog, being older than she, and more experienced, found his way intio the Chosen quite readily, after his also-short time on the pikes.
But time passed, and Sparla saw battle after battle, and, with Magog’s aggressively vocal support, she found her way into the Chosen. For three years, it was thus, and she and Magog went into battle together, and they claimed victory, or inflicted Pyrrhic victory on their enemies. One day, they charged into battle, ran into an enemy mage. While it wasn’t particularly common for them to run into other mages on the battlefield, it happened enough that there was a plan for it—namely, that Sparla would take care of them. They were powerful, far stronger than most of the one she was used to—he could create barriers to block her direct attacks, and had enough guile to contend with her trickery—but in the end, she was victorious. Magog did not make out so well.
He had been surrounded by twenty enemy combatants, and while none of them survived their encounter with him, he was wounded gravely. Sparla used her fire to cauterize his wounds, but it was not enough. He died on the field of battle.
Sparla was absent for much of the rest of the battle, but she was there at its end. Having claimed a high point from the enemy, she rained death on them. It consumed all the components that she had brought into battle, and enough of her own blood that she had begun to feel faint, but it opened a massive hole in the opponent’s line, and the Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi exploited it. The day was won, and Magog avenged.
She grieved for him, and those in the company that knew him honored his memory. But they all lived on, and they all kept fighting. Sparla has since made her peace with Magog’s death, and has risen to be one of the most prominent of the Chosen. Her title does not refer to any act in particular—she is a witch, and her fury is as terrible as any beast lurking in the shadow of night.
Personality and Psychological profile:It would be wrong to say that Sparla has no capacity for kindness. Rather, she has little motivation for it. Sure, she shows respect where it is due, and deference to her superiors, but she treats the majority of those she meets rather distantly. After all, if you’re going to be forced to fight to the death with someone, why bother with making friends with them? After escaping the arena, it was something that was ingrained into her, and while she acknowledges that the practical need for this reaction, she hasn’t worked to change it.
That isn’t to say she can’t be amicable, of course. If she’s in a good mood, she smiles, and acts polite, and all the pleasantries, but there’s always an edge to it. She knows how powerful she is, and she knows that has earned her respect, and she always looks like she’s one second away from turning the person she’s talking to into a newt (she can’t actually do that, even when she wants to, but that didn’t stop the rumors). She was more conventionally amicable with Magog, but that ended when he died.
And of course, she was arrogant. It’s to be expected, since she was taught magic by a knife-ear. She didn’t pick up any of Therelon’s habits, or anything like that, but there’s always a sense of smugness about her when she isn’t in battle.
She doesn’t stay with the Company out of any particular motivation. It would just be a worse decision for her to leave than to stay.
Relationships and Acquaintances:Everyone in the company knows about Sparla, and quite a few important people respect her, and her fellow Chosen are far more familiar with her than most of the company.
