Hmm... It only took us a mere 176 ⅗ days from when we learned about this RP till we got a character sheet we found satisfactory written. Hardly any time, right? a nice, precise 5000 words. If you count formatting tags as words too, mind you. So, enjoy the read, [@TheDuncanMorgan] & Co. We added that section you thought missing, [@Sundered Echo] [hider=Urd Raudhfell][b]Name: [/b] Urd Raudhfell [b]Age: [/b] 19 [b]Gender: [/b] Female [b]Sexual Orientation: [/b] Standard [b]Height: [/b] 158.3 cm [b]Weight: [/b] 50.9 kg [b]Eye Color: [/b] Spring Green [b]Hair Color: [/b] Brown [b]Position: [/b] Though born out of wedlock, Urd is a full-blooded noble of Cawanor. From her mother’s side, she is the heir to the Raudhfell fortune, being the only child of an only child. Her Grandparents acknowledged her and had her placed into the line of succession despite many protests from others. On her father’s side, she has no standing, though this is because he does not know of her existence. If she were to become known to him, she would be the eldest daughter of Patrick De Reimer, the current ruler of Cawanor. However, the nature of her birth might exclude her from the line of succession even if he should learn of her existence. [h2]Background: [/h2] To fully understand Urd’s origins, one has to go back before her birth and put logs on the fires of youthful exuberance, for she is not normal child. Or rather, she is normal, but not born of wedlocked parents. Both of her parents were barely past puberty when she was conceived, and neither had grown beyond the naïvete that belongs to youth. Perhaps it was drink, perhaps it was mere curiosity, perhaps it was something else. Whatever the reason, her parents, Patrick De Reimer and Ida Raudhfell most likely enjoyed conceiving Urd. She was conceived in Cawaport, at one of the rare times the Raudhfell family visited the city, for they mostly stayed in their ancestral lands at the southwestern corner of Cawanor. So by the time Ida had realized she was pregnant, she was already far from Cawaport and from Patrick. While most noble families consider bastard children to be rather shameful, especially when it is one of their daughters who conceive such, the Raudhfell family was not as shamed by it as most others would have been. The reason for that is quite simple. Ida’s birth had not been easy, and had rendered her mother barren, and although her father could’ve taken another wife, he had chosen not to, for he loved her mother dearly. Thus, Ida was an only child and would never get any siblings, and only children like that are both treasured and frequently doted upon. Having a bastard reduced her marriage value significantly, but her parents did not care, for she was their only daughter and heir. Any child was to be treasured, trueborn or bastard. They naturally questioned her about who the father was, but could not get her to divulge his name, though she did eventually divulge that he was no peasant, that he too was of the nobility. That was sufficient for them. Eventually they probably pressed for more details, but there was no hurry, for not all children lived to maturity. If Urd, as she was named after birth, did survive infancy, then they would deal with the father at that time. [hr] From birth, Urd was treated well. Though she lacked for nothing, her mother and her grandparents did not spoil her. She was treated fairly but had firm limits. Like her mother, she was expected not merely to eventually rule their territory, but also to know the people. To Urd, many of the people of her estates took the place of the father she did not know. While the De Reimers’ fortunes were based around mining, the Raudhfell family fortune had much more widespread roots. They dealt in everything from shipping to farming to smithing and forestry, but their fame was built especially on their renowned brewers. Though not as fine as the wines of of certain other nations, the Raudhfell ales and strong liquors were still known to many. But of course no life is purely lilies and sunshine. Not all the people viewed her bastard origins as kindly as her family. There were those who felt someone whose parentage was not set by wedlock should not inherit such lands. Urd was no more than five years old when someone first tried to kill her. It was a subtle affair, and had she not survived, it might even have been seen as an accident. She was out from the estates, being watched over by a steward. One of the many ruins dotting the family lands towered over her as she played. Without any prior warning, a piece of the wall fell from the ruin and was about to crush her. Had the steward not miraculously seen the rock falling and shouted out to her, she would have been crushed completely. As it was, she barely managed to look up and react before it hit. She had rolled or jumped back, but the rock still hit her leg. At that point, had she been perfectly normal, the accident would have been just that. But that was also the point where her innate talent for magic reared its head. She naturally had no training, but seemingly out of thin air a massive creature wolf appeared, leaping straight up to where the rock had fallen from, despite that being far higher than ought to be possible for an animal to jump. Moments later, even as the shock and pain had only barely begun to register for Urd, a scream was heard from above and a man jumped or fell down, even as the shade Urd had summoned leapt after him. The steward would no doubt have thrashed the culprit, but Urd’s summoned shade would not let him near, and was busy chewing the culprit up, for the fall had broken the man’s legs. This left the shocked steward free to deal with Urd, who had by this time begun to register the pain of the injury. The steward was as careful as any could be as he removed the stone and when he used a few freshly cut branches and strips torn from his tunic to stabilize her foot, she fainted. The moment she did, the lupine shade began to flicker, then finally disappeared. What remained of the culprit was a bloody mess, shredded by fangs and claws alike. When she woke back up, the agony was beyond comparison, for her family had summoned healers to reassemble her foot. The ones who recommended amputation had already been sent away. Nothing other than full restoration would satisfy her grandparents. They worked upon her for the better time of a day and a night, and the amount of magic poured into her was staggering. Whenever she was awake, her shade occasionally flickered into existence, especially when the pain was the most intense, but it did not harm anyone. In the end, the healers did manage to reassemble her foot, but it had not been easy and she was forced to remain in bed for several weeks afterwards, for even though the bones were reassembled, they lacked the strength they had once had. When she did get to leave her bed, she was never again left alone. Her life of carefreeness was over. Not only were two of the family’s few guards assigned to her at all times, but she had proven that she possessed magic. Thus she had to be trained. If nothing else, to let her have control over it. Within the month, her parents had interviewed a number of mages and eventually hired one to train her at the estate, for they deemed her far too young to send to the Circle. Over the next two years, she learned some control over her magic, but as the mage teaching her was no summoner, he failed to teach her to truly control how or when to summon her lupine shade. Only the mages of the circle could teach her such, he claimed. Beyond her lessons in things mundane and magical, those years were mostly uneventful. There were several additional attempts upon her life, but with both her guardian shade and her guards, they failed before there was any more risk for her. However, some weeks after her 8th birthday, someone tried again. Though she normally stayed at the estate, she and her mother had gone to visit and see to the furthest villages of their lands, almost upon the border with Thralreth. Though they could have traveled overland through their own lands, the road went through lands not under their control. For ease of travel, they had kept to it, and ended up spending the night at a small village inn outside their lands. It had been the middle of the night, when they were all asleep. She had woken up and needed to go to the privy. Despite that she should’ve known better, she had not woken any of the guards to escort her. On her way back, someone had knocked her over the head, rendering her unconscious. Perhaps it was someone who had seen her use magic, or perhaps they had heard of her magic from other sources. She did not know, and by the time she woke up, she had been tied to the stake and they had begun to light the bonfire. Her head was too muddled at the time to summon the shade, and even if she had, it would not have helped free her, for they had not used ropes to tie her to the stake, but chains. Dozens of villagers were gathered around, jeering and mocking her, speaking of how they would eradicate the corruption that was magic once and for all. Urd stood there, terrified as the fire began to take. When the flames licked upon her feet, she screamed, both in terror and in pain. All that resulted in was cheering from the villagers. She could almost taste the hate upon the air. The fire continued spreading and soon flames licked at her nightdress, eventually lighting even that on fire. The agony was beyond words. She tried to use her magic, but it was still fickle and slow to respond. She did not truly control it. She felt their hate and a certain rage built up within her at how they would sentence someone to burn simply for how she was born. As the flames burned her clothes, the magic welled forth. Whereas her very first use of magic had only taken one form, that of a single shade shaped somewhat like a large wolf, this time it branched into two. The first felt like ice flowed through her veins, permeating her very flesh. This not only terminated the fire, but alleviated the majority of the pain from her burns. Or rather, replaced the pain with agony as her flesh was cooled far more than it had ever been meant to be cooled. The second form was even stranger. As it was unrefined and uncontrolled, it was in many ways lacking in focus. It took the shape of a shockwave of pure force, pushing straight out in a perfect circle from where she stood. The smoldering remnants of the bonfire at her feet were thrown out onto the no-longer cheering villagers, even as they were knocked back and down. This naturally left Urd hanging by the chains that held her arms. Her companion shade had come forth at last, and it leapt about, slaughtering villagers left and right. She did not know how long she hung there, but something about all this had woken both her mother and her guards. It was they who found her hanging from the stake, half-unconscious and screaming in agony as the combined pains of the ice fire made themselves known. Though the fires were gone, the fire had already done significant damage. The degree of burns varied greatly, being deepest on her legs and front and increasingly superficial higher up, but including even the weakest burns, over three fifths of her body had burns. When they cut down the stake and freed her of the chains, she fell into a blissfully painless coma. As such, she had no recollection of the journey back home, though her mother later told her how they had commandeered a cart and had ridden the rest of the night and through half the day to get home, even as two of their six guards had ridden out to fetch the best healers from their residences upon the family lands. Even with the expertise of the family servants and the local healers, Urd’s chances for survival were touch and go for more than three weeks. Her mother practically never left her side in that entire time, even taking to sleeping in a chair. Her grandparents in turn hired even more guards to watch her, terrified that someone would come to finish the job of killing their granddaughter. Though a lot of magical energy had been used to heal her the last time, it was nothing compared to what the healers did this time. More than one healer feared that she would turn into an abomination simply from the amount of energy used, but neither her grandparents nor her mother would heed any such objections. All they wanted and desired, was to see her healed and made whole again. But even restoration used in dangerous amounts cannot work miracles. To this day, her legs and abdomen bear the scars of the burns, and there are hairline scars over many other parts of her body. Her arms, having been suspended so high up, were not burned, but the manacles nonetheless left their scars upon her wrists. Even discounting the scars, the healing left its marks upon her body, though they were subtle and only recognizable to the trained eye unless one is to observe her naked. For beneath her clothes, upon her torso she retains a cobwebbing series of blueish white lines from where the icy magic flowed through her. Even though it hurt almost everywhere else, these areas seemed to be almost without sense. But the surrounding tissue hurt even more, for the combination of Ice and Fire was not peaceful. If other things changed, she did not know of them or notice, all she could feel was the pain. As happens to any creature that is exposed to excessive magical energy, her body reacted. Where her skin, muscle and such were repaired, her internal organs were largely unharmed and thus reacted to the magic differently. In the case of her liver, kidneys and several other organs, this meant excessive growth. Perhaps this was how her body tried to deal with magical poisoning, perhaps it was something else. Following the months of recovery, it had become increasingly clear to her family that Urd simply would not be entirely safe until she could both protect herself and control her magic. And the only place she could learn that would be at the Circle upon the Summer Isles, where the greatest mages of Formaroth resided. They were loath to send her away, but knew they had no choice. With her, they sent a full complement of guards, a few of which would stay with her the entire time, the rest who would return to the estates after escorting her there. The evening before she left, her mother took her aside for a private conversation. Though visits home might happen, it could take a long time, and there was no telling what would happen in the meantime. It was then she learned of her true father. Of how charming her mother had found him, of how luck had granted her mother her. She learned his name and what little her mother knew of him. But she was asked not to speak of it unless absolutely necessary, for not all treated those born out of wedlock nicely or fairly. In addition, her mother reminded her not to tell just anyone just how significant the healing done to her had been. Urd understood the importance of what she had been told, even as she understood the need for secrecy. Once upon the summer isles, her training in the arts of magic truly began. She was taught how to use all aspects of her magic. How to control it. How to not use it. Its history. Even some parts of its nature. It fascinated her to no end, and she absorbed the knowledge like a sponge. In time, she even learned to summon more than that single shade she had summoned for years. Not as many as certain legendary summoners could summon, but still enough. She stayed there for a full eight years, visiting her home only a few times in those years, always escorted by a large number of soldiers hired by her family. Back on the family lands, she had been isolated from the noble society. While not as important as it was at the courts, it became increasingly clear with each passing year to Urd that politics were a major thing. Even though most mages came from the general populace, a significant portion of them hailed from noble families, both powerful and weak. During her last couple of years at the Circle, one of her teachers especially aided her in understanding this. That particular teacher was teaching her journeyman illusion magic, so that the might hide certain of her scars at certain times. She had not revealed the full extent of her scars, but her interest in it was such that some would have figured out that there was more to it than she did reveal. The teacher in question, Lanaya Triskell Dionisa, also taught her politics. She made it clear how she wished to use Urd as an example of how mages were unfairly treated, but Urd did not want to become a symbol for others. She was afraid that others might see more than just the burn scars. However, she did not only study magic at the Circle. She also had to learn how to defend herself. As small and light as she was, she could never become a warrior. She would not be able to hold her own in a swordfight. Instead, she chose to learn how to wield daggers and knives, both thrown and handheld. For her fifteenth birthday, one of her guards, with the aid of her grandparents, gave her a long dirk forged of Dwarven Steel. As goes without saying, that is her prize possession. Combined with her magic, that is how she feels safe. She has never met her father, nor does she know for sure whether he knows of her existence. Even in the three years since she left the Summer Isles, she has not seen or heard him. While she spent much of those years back with her family, she also traveled the land, trying to do her best to improve lives for mages like herself and to find and rescue potential mages before ignorant villages burn them alive. She has become quite at home in the woods and the wilds, as well as occasionally venturing to the courts. Recently, with the death of King John Remonnet and the De Reimer claim to the throne, she has shown increased interest in her father and his family, seeking to learn more about them and what they are like. While her family isn’t overfond of her transient tendencies, they respect her choice, knowing well that she is able to protect herself now, unlike what she was in her youth. Nonetheless, they insist that she keeps her guards with her, something she does to placate them, despite not truly feeling it is necessary any longer. She regularly writes letters home to her family, for she is very close to them. [h2]Appearance: [/h2] [hider=example picture of her appearance][img]http://img10.deviantart.net/ab34/i/2015/015/6/c/commission__tanwen_draigmerch_by_shilesque-d8dz3sc.jpg[/img][/hider] When it comes to clothing, Urd Raudhfell is fairly casual and normal. She strongly prefers not to stand out, but she also desires not to show herself off to others, on account of how her body has been both damaged by fire and altered by magic. She appreciates quality, so while the cut of her clothes typically doesn’t stand out from what any regular merchant or peasant would wear, the quality of the fabric and the sewmanship is generally top-tier. Her boots are of quality leather, but they are not dyed. Because of the moderate to severe scarring on her legs, she virtually always wears pants and a long tunic, never anything that should risk revealing her scars, for she is not proud of them. Her tunic is typically of demure colors and generally have only minimal embroidering. It is belted at the waist but the loose portions below the belt reach down to roughly mid-thigh. Because she is often traveling about, she usually has a stout, waterproofed cloak with a deep hood. When among people or when the weather demands it, the hood is most often kept raised, making her face harder to see. Like the rest of her clothes, the cloaks are typically of high quality but with minimal decoration. Over much of her lower torso and parts of her upper legs she has a faint cobwebbing of narrow lines colored a blueish white. These lines stem from magic gone awry and are noticeably colder than the rest of her skin. Intermingled with the burn scars that riddle much of her body, she would look quite abnormal if compared to most other women while nude. Not that she would ever want to be nude before just anyone. Beyond the fact that she is somewhat on the short side compared to most other Cawanori, she looks fairly average. However, her averageness only stretches to somewhat underneath her skin, for the restoration magic worked upon her during her healings overwhelmed much of her system. A human body simply isn’t designed to handle such energies in such quantities. Her liver, kidneys and other organs like that steadily grew larger as more and more magical energy was imbued into her body. Perhaps to help her body expel the excess energy, perhaps for other reasons. However, her stomach did not grow in the same manner. In fact, it largely stopped growing, for there was no room for it to grow the way it normally would have. As such, now that she is fully grown up, her stomach is undersized. Even if she tries, she cannot eat as much as most others, and she has to eat more frequently. If she does not, she will steadily go down in weight as her body feeds off itself. Like the cobwebbing, this is the result of magic gone awry, and is not noticeable to anyone who isn’t looking for it. Where the cobwebbing is the result of Icy magic, the other discrepancies are the result of restoration magic intermingled with her summoning. Her brown hair is usually fairly straight and kept tied up only when necessary. If let hang freely, it reaches down to about mid-chest, but when she wears one of her cloaks, it is usually hidden beneath that. Should she ever be imbued with even more magical energy, there is no telling how she will be affected, but it is quite likely that such transformations will not be limited to her insides. [h2]Personality: [/h2] Once upon a time, Urd Raudhfell was open, innocent, playful and carefree, as all children should be. But life did not let her keep such tendencies, terrible events turning her into a jaded and private individual, making her terrified of many things, from uneducated crowds to undressing before others to lack of control and many other things. Where once she might have assumed that all people have good intentions, she lost that view after people have repeatedly tried to kill her just for being born the way she was, be it with magic or out of wedlock. Having grown stronger and able to protect others, she seeks to prevent others from going through what she has gone through and is merciless towards those who would harm people for being the way they were born. Even as fear rules her on some fronts, she rules her fear on others, for with time and training, she has mastered several of her fears, even as mastering others has proven beyond her. [h2]Weaknesses: [/h2] A person like Urd is not without flaws. If anything, she is more flawed than most, for her life has not been without its perils. Over the years, she has been injured more than is fair and had her family not had numerous healers available, she would at best have been crippled or at worst in an early grave. As it stands, she is built around her numerous fears and injuries. Her fears are numerous, and some are naturally more powerful than others. They include: [b]Automysophobia.[/b] Because of how she was burned, she is also terrified of being dirty, for dirty wounds risk festering. [b]Dishabiliophobia.[/b] She is terrified of undressing before others, for she does not know what they will think of her scarring and her unnatural traits. When this fear does not bloom completely, it merely makes her somewhat more shy. [b]Demophobia.[/b] Being in crowds, especially those of less educated people like villagers, terrifies her. [b]Merinthophobia.[/b] Being tied up reminds her of the burning. That is also terrifying. [i]Strange, eh?[/i] [b]Frigophobia.[/b] She is always somewhat cold, her core body temperature having been altered by the magic she used upon the fire during her burning. Thus she is inevitably more vulnerable to certain diseases. She is also terrified of being burned by fire. With people once having tried to burn her alive, she reacts violently and mercilessly whenever people try doing the same to others. As a direct result of the magical energy used upon her in the past, her internal organs are not as they ought to be. Some, like her kidneys, liver and such are much larger than they should be, others like her stomach are simply too small. As such, she literally can’t eat as much as others, and she needs to eat more frequently if she is not to waste away. More magical energy imbued into her is likely to make even more overt changes to her body, and not for the better. There is as of yet no telling if the magic has done anything else to her, for she herself is not aware of anything other than her own unusual eating patterns and the cobwebbing lines. Her physical flaws include a formerly crushed foot and healed burns ranging from the superficial to severe over more than sixty percent of her body, as well as a reduced core body temperature. She military training, nor any experience with strategy or tactics, and her skill at politics is rudimentary at best. [h2]Skills: [/h2] [b]General:[/b] Throughout her youth and early adulthood, Urd has dabbled in many skills, both those making up her family trades and the management of those trades, as well as learning some of the ways that befit members of the lesser nobility. However, she is not yet truly at home among the nobility, for her birth placed her far outside the courts and by the time she moved to central locations, her education was more focused on magic and her dislike of crowds had set in fully. She’s also not too good when it comes to politics, though this is largely due to inexperience and lack of training rather than lack of potential. In many ways, she is rather naïve here. [b]Martial:[/b] Her skill when it comes to all things martial are lacking. She’s got no military training, knows nothing of strategy or tactics and barely knows up and down on a sword. She has barely ever fired a bow, and only then a hunting bow back in her early youth on the family lands. The only martial skill she has any training with is knives and daggers of various sizes and shapes. She’s been taught exactly where to put a dagger to cause the most harm, and carries a dwarven steel dirk for self-defense. [b]Magic:[/b] Her greatest skillsets lie in the domains of magic. There she has extensive training across several schools. In particular within summoning, destruction, illusion and alteration. However, none of those schools can be considered mastered. Within the school of Destruction, she has learned how to wield fire, force and ice, though the last is the one she is best at. She has decent control, but cannot be considered an expert at it. When it comes to the school of Summoning, that is her specialty. Even before she was taught anything of magic, she showed the ability to summon a Shade, which took the shape of a large wolf. This shade is one of her greatest guardians, especially after she learned how to control her magic. It responds chiefly to whenever she feels threatened or in severe pain and is fed by revenge. At the Circle, she learned how to control other aspects of this school, learning how to summon several other shades, including an oversized moose with an impressive rack of antlers, a ferret and a narwhal. The emotions and feelings these are linked to are varied, but reflect much about her personality and her mood at any given time. Like all shades, they are capable of protecting her. Her skills at alteration are of a roughly of a journeyman level, allowing her to have a few tricks up her sleeves, but no more than that. She’s able to enhance certain senses temporarily, generate light and useful things like that. Illusion is the final school she has studied. That she studied in order to learn how to hide her scars, so that she on occasion can go out among other people without revealing them. However, there are many uses she has yet to learn. [/hider]