Name: Vashti Lestil
Age: 160
Race: Elf
Profession: Priest -
InquisitorPersonality: Vashti, if anything, is a woman of conviction. She fails to see the grays in the world, finding life much simpler if she just qualifies everything as either black or white. She is extremely hard on herself. Vashti doesn’t make excuses for her failures, which have been aplenty, and constantly seeks new challenges to prove her devotion. While this devotion to the gods and her faith is unquestionable, her motivation and methods are dubious at best. One doesn’t have to spend much time around the elf to realize that she enjoys being the one who holds the power. She’s a decisive leader, to be fair, but is way too damned stubborn and refuses to listen to people who disagree with her. It doesn’t necessarily stop there at decision making, either. Vashti is one of those people who is convinced that everything she likes is right and everything she dislikes is wrong. It’d be incorrect to say that an air of superiority surrounds the woman; it’s much more like a choking, poisonous miasma.
That’s not to say that she’s a wholly unpleasant person to be around. She’s polite to strangers, usually, and people who stay in her good graces are often surprised by the wide range of topics she is willing to discuss—including ones that aren’t often touched by seemingly stuffy church types like her. As well, she is an astute observer of people, and has made better efforts to go out of her way to help those who seem to be distraught or defeated. Yet she isn’t one to get distracted, and if going out of her way to be a good samaritan prevents her from completing her duty she will often choose to ignore suffering if doing so serves what she sees as being the greater good.
Backstory: Vashti can still remember her youth in vague pictures that have been obscured by the passage of time. She had a mother and a father that loved and supported her, brothers and sisters that played with and watched after her, and lived in a verdant forest in Ilya where they were free from want. She wasted time painting pretty portraits, gathering bouquets of flowers with her mother, or sneaking behind bushes with boys after nightfall. She would go sell flowers with her mother in the neighboring city, see how humans live, and laugh at their backwards, uncultured way and wonder, ‘What kind of idiots would live in a place lousy with crime and disease, where it was so loud that one couldn’t hear their own thoughts, and it always smelled like a dirty latrine?’ It was no wonder her family’s flowers were in such high demand, even though someone could get them for free just by searching the prairies and forests outside of their “protective” walls. Today, Vashti could only look back in disgust at what a worthless little shit she had been as a youth, wasting her time peddling pointless potpourri to poor, pea-brained pissants. Then again, it was only because she was selling flowers in the city that she came to be the person she was today.
She was in her twenties, a child still by elven standards, but Vashti was in search for some fun and decided to slum it in the city and gawk at the desolate. However, she need money since humans were fascinated with useless metals, for some reason, so she gathered some flowers in hopes of making a quick buck with which she would use to blend in with the crowds and pretend to enjoy food made on the streets and juice that had been spoiled. Vashti quickly sold her bouquets and, with pockets full of coin, began her night on the town. Of course, human cities were always prone to danger, or so she had heard, but that’s why she carried a knife like all smart forest elves travelling into human territory did. However, apparently this information did not go both ways, because the look of surprise in the eyes of the cutpurse that had tried to jump her told Vashti that he had expected her to be an easy, unarmed target. He certainly hadn’t expected her to catch him right in the throat, but, then again, she certainly hadn’t tried to kill him.
Vashti would suppose that she should’ve been in shock, or a panic, or sorrowful, but instead she felt a catharsis, as if a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. It was as if in that moment she both realized that her life had been missing its purpose and had simultaneously found it. Now, Vashti had always been a vaguely religious person, praying to the gods for good fortune and damning them for stubbed toes and thorn pricks, but they had never really been that important. Yet, while she would never claim that they had spoken directly to her, she did believe that day they had acted through her. She was no fighter, her knife could’ve landed anywhere, probably would’ve even dropped from her hand for it had been shaking so much, but instead it had been guided directly into that thief’s neck. It had to be divine intervention, right? The man had intended to do evil, and in doing so she been directed to smite him. Perhaps Vashti would’ve had her doubts about all of this—the notation that some normal girl was used to invoke some divine retribution was something found in the human plays that she so often scoffed at—if she hadn’t developed a potency for divine magic shortly thereafter.
Her eyes opened for seemingly the first time, the girl had to make a choice. She decided to pursue this new awakening. Vashti left her family behind with little ceremony, believing that they would do nothing but question her calling, and began her life anew. Her philosophy was an alarmingly simple, almost naive, one—do good by hunting evil—but her path would be more complex than just that. Sure, she could head from town to town slaying killers and bandits like some kind of unhinged vigilante, but there were a few problems with that. For starters she was untrained, and as proven later by the monsters across the ocean it was obvious to her that the gods don’t always step in. More importantly to her, however, was the simple fact that not all killers and bandits were evil, and not all seemingly decent citizens were good. She could sense the corruption on people, feel it in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn’t do anything about without the backing of an institution. Thank the gods for the church.
It wasn’t hard to find acceptance into a monastery in Yggdra. She was young, determined, magically capable, and smart enough to keep her mouth shut about certain things that would raise eyebrows and bring her character into question. Vashti trained for years in the monastery to master her command of divine magic and her skill with a blade, eventually moving from being a neophyte to becoming an inquisitor. No longer bound to the monastery, Vashti wormed her way into being tasked with investigating crimes against the church and the gods. Her work gave her the liberty and materials needed to execute on her philosophy, and with the gods guiding her actions through her sixth sense she found that she was quite a natural at all.
It also provided her with a challenge. Despite having the backing of the church and the insight from the gods, she had to still prove that someone was a heretic. Often enough she had seen some wet behind the ears inquisitor act on a hunch without coming forth with real evidence and end up burning an innocent. Mistakes like that often proved to be the end of an inquisitor’s career depending on how public it was, so Vashti acted with patience and always went out of her way gather the necessary evidence before an arrest or execution. It should’ve always been easy with the gods guiding her senses, but the gods are gods, and Vashti found that they often get bored and enjoy playing with mortals. There were times that they would lead her astray while on a witchhunt; testing her by muddling with her senses, forcing her to determine if she was truly following the gods or just her gut. Yet even in these trying times she would be able to root out evil, and with each wicked person she condemned she could feel her magic occasionally grow stronger—a divine reward, surely.
Even if Vashti was truly being gifted by the gods, it did not prevent her from being despised by mortals. They saw an inquisitor and assumed it was her duty to bless their harvest, or cure their sick, or officiate their weddings and bless their wives so they can spit out even more babies despite not being able to take care of the ones they already had. Vashti paid little mind to the whispers or curses she heard whenever she refused, which was almost always, and she turned her cheek when angry gentiles spit or hurled rocks as she dragged their wicked cousin or sister to the hangman’s perch. She didn’t raise a finger against them; it wasn’t evil to be ignorant, even if their ignorance did get in the way of her doing her damn job. So Vashti ignored the pleas, the bargains, the insults, the criticisms; after all, they were words coming from stupid simpletons, while she was acting directly as the hand of the gods. It was clear which side was the right one.
However, while Vashti was unwavering in her ways, the church had been changing over the years and they had been receiving complaints about one of their inquisitors for over a decade. There was no one single infraction that pushed everything over the edge, but when tens to hundreds of their flock demand the excommunication of one of their inquisitors they are forced to listen. However, Vashti had served them for over a century and her record, outside of her poor public relations, was rather spotless—the only skeletons she had were the ones she had made in the name of the church and the gods. Still, the leaders of the church knew that they had to get rid of her, or at the very least get her out of the public’s eye, so they ‘promoted’ her. Vashti was recalled to the monastery that she had studied at, where she would now act as one of the head trainers.
Vashti saw through the ruse and was upset, naturally, but she was no idiot. It was better to be kept in the fold of the cloth where one day she could perhaps return to the duty that she had been born for than to be completely shut out without any hope of ever returning. She expected that she would teach swordsmanship, magic, or even forensics, anything to help the new recruits combat the creatures that were appearing across the sea. Instead, she was made to teach history of the church. It was obvious that the church was trying to make her resign out of boredom, but the only resignation that came from Vashti was the acceptance of her fate. She taught glassy-eyed students about Cardinals So-and-So and Bishops Doldrums while her sword hung on her wall, untouched except for the times she took it down to the training yards to take out her frustrations on wooden dummies that bore the faces of the snot-nosed brats she taught. Still, as the years began to pass she did not question the church for removing her or the gods from letting it happen, at least not until her divine magic began to wane in power.
At first she was distraught, knowing that divine magic was related directly to how favored one was by the gods. Vashti firmly believed she had done no wrongs and that she had willingly followed the path the gods had sent her down, but regardless she was losing favor. Slowly a revelation came over her: her magic had waxed and waned before when she was an inquisitor, growing when she had being challenged and diminishing when she was slogging through easy foe after easy foe. Vashti realized that the gods had once again been testing her by leading her astray, and she had failed to recognize it for years. A life spent behind a podium was an easy one, a safe one, but it was the wrong one, and for that her power had been greatly crippled. If she wanted to appease the gods and win back their favor she would have to do something magnificent, something absolutely herculean; wringing the necks of a few sinners like she had before wouldn’t make the cut, it had to be something grander.
Vashti knew the way. She shirked her responsibilities and left her post at the church under the cover of darkness and, with a few personal effects, made her way to her homeland of Ilya. After all, the institution would do nothing but question her new calling and hold her back, and she did not need their protection where she was going. Her philosophy had not changed, it was still the simple ‘do good by hunting evil’, but her path had taken her across the sea to the New World. Vashti knew she should’ve been full of doubt, having abandoned the life she had lived for years on a personal whim, but when she stepped on the boat to the Expeditionary Camp she felt a weight lift from her shoulders, quite similar to the first time that she had dispatched wickedness. It was as if strings had been attached to her limbs and, like a marionette, she was being moved once again by the gods. She could feel the divine magic blooming like a flower inside of her, and knew for certain that she had made no mistake when it had come to her decision to crusade against the evils of the New World. In fact, to call it her decision was incorrect; she was just following the will of the gods.
Skills and Abilities:Intuition - Sixth sense, second sight, clairvoyance, detect evil, call it what you will, Vashti will sometimes get hunches that something isn’t as it seems, that there is danger afoot, or that someone is clearly evil. The accuracy of this ability is faulty at best, but she’s convinced that this is the way of the gods guiding her so that she can act in their stead. Still there’s no actual proof in any of this being more than nonsense, but who needs proof when you have faith?
Investigation - Okay, well, some people do require proof, especially when you are accusing their loved ones of high heresy, and Vashti has spent decades training her eyes to spot the things most people don’t see. There’s nothing magical about her abilities, she is just uncommonly observant and patient when it comes to spotting things that should or should not be. She’s no tracker, however, and even in the old days she would tend to outsource to third-party help to find someone who had gone into hiding.
Close Combat - Vashti has a century of training underneath her belt, and her physical prowess on the field has not dampened over the years. She can go blow for blow with the best of them, and her divine magic gives her the edge she needs to win fights with what would otherwise be equal or better opponents. That said, her fighting style is that of rigid church discipline and fairly one-note, leaving her to be rather predictable while in a scrap and susceptible to dishonorable techniques.
Divine Magic - Vashti specializes in spells that destroys her enemies and strengthens herself through prayers. Each prayer requires constant channeling through chants, so she cannot cast prayers simultaneously or if she has somehow been silenced. The gods enjoy hearing their praise, after all. As well, prayers are spiritually draining, and how long a inquisitor can pray without becoming completely exhausted is determined by how much favor the gods show them. Currently, Vashti is fairly limited in how long her windows of prayer last.
- Prayer of Exorcism - The first spell an inquisitor learns, and the only one they ever really need. Vashti can call forth the heavenly power to bring down holy light that smites the enemies of the gods in an area. Stories have told of inquisitors who could lay waste to entire towns of heathens in one blinding blast, but even at her best Vashti could only hope to erase a large orc in one blow. Now, she can probably just punch some rather painful holes through the enemies of the gods. It’s still effective in combat, sure, but she misses being able to exorcise an evil being completely from existence.
- Prayer of Vigor - Vashti can beseech the gods to help her exert herself physically that comes in a form of a dull light that surrounds her body. While in this state she can easily shrug off some hits that would’ve normally knocked her off her feet, strike with a strength unnatural for her size, and push herself to fight harder for longer. It also temporarily eliminates the need for what a body naturally requires to survive. Stories tell of inquisitors who went years without having to eat or sleep in their quest to destroy evil, but at her peak Vashti has only gone a week (and the week after was rather unpleasant).
- Prayer of Mending - An inquisitor’s line of work is dangerous, and those who aren’t partnered with a cleric or chaplain often find themselves stuck in a bad spot unless they learn how to take care of themselves. Vashti can use the favor of the gods to heal herself or others of physical wounds and to expel some toxins from her body. Stories tell of inquisitors who could survive deathblows and resurrect themselves in the middle of combat, but even at her best Vashti could only heal light wounds while being active. Now she could probably stitch together herself or someone else if given the time and place to meditate, but in the heat of the moment it’s practically useless.
Equipment:Inquisitor’s Claymore - The standard two-handed sword of an inquisitor are often engraved with runes and blessed by chaplains to keep the blade sharp and to help inquisitor’s complete their duty of smiting evil. The runes and blessings on Vashti’s sword have long since faded and the blade has grown somewhat dull and misshapen, but it is still her most trusted tool.
Inquisitor’s Breastplate - Resistant to blades and infused with a brass alloy to dissuade those pesky mages, an inquisitor’s armor is quite something even before it gets heavily blessed. For decades an inquisitor has to watch out for brigands who would kill them just to steal their armor, but its ineffectiveness against firearms has thankfully seen this trend fade. Vashti’s armor is a bit weathered, but it still holds up.
Expeditionary Uniform - Vashti would’ve preferred her coat in red, but apparently the expedition quartermasters don’t take special orders.
Short Rune Pattern Ethergun - Vashti’s supposes that it’d be pretty hard to miss with a gun if she fires it point blank. Otherwise, maybe it can serve as a bludgeon if she loses her sword.
Leaf of the Great Tree - A brass religious pendant shaped like a leaf that is worn around the neck by a beaded chain. They’re a fairly commonplace item and actually offer no real benefit to the wearer, although people like to convince themselves that the gods will cast a protective eye over wearings of the necklace as if it were some kind of good luck charm.
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