[center][b][h3]Sharadur[/h3][/b][/center] [u][b]Height[/b][/u]: 5'8" [u][b]Weight[/b][/u]: 150 [u][b]Age[/b][/u]: 25 [u][b]Race/Species[/b][/u]: Half-elven [u][b]Appearance[/b][/u]: [hider=X] [img]http://oi67.tinypic.com/302uwxi.jpg[/img] [/hider] Sharadur favors her human heritage much more than her elven when it comes to appearance. She is slightly above average height for a woman by human standards, with amber eyes and red-orange hair cut relatively short. More often than not, she goes around wearing armor. While her gear is of decent craftsmanship, she usually seems awkward and uncomfortable in her mail, as if unaccustomed to wearing such garb. She typically feels warm, almost feverish, to the touch. It is not uncommon for there to be a heat shimmer or few small curls of smoke wafting around her person, particularly after she has been using her magical talents. [u][b]Personality[/b][/u]: Sharadur is a rather impulsive, stubborn, quick tempered and not very well spoken. Being born to common merchants, she has no family name and has spent the majority of her life around boats and near sailors. As a result, she knows very little by way of courtly decorum and has a vulgar vocabulary and rough manner to boot. Not having a completely solid grip on her own magical talent, when her temper flares, so do nearby sources of fire. All her life she has had a thirst for adventure, which is the main reason she has now found herself at the capital city. Unfortunately, she has also spent an entire life hearing and believing derogatory remarks about city-folk. This has left her with a strong negative impression regarding the people she now finds herself surrounded by and an outright hostility towards nobility. When around them, she often becomes suspicious of their motives, often assuming they are out to manipulate her in some way, since none of them know how to stand and fight like a decent person. Even all those fancy knights are seen by Sharadur as a pack of nobles with wealthy enough parents that they could afford extra sharp toys to play with, with plenty of pretentious titles bought alongside. That being said, when she is around those she likes and trusts, she lets the more positive aspects of her personality shine through. In her eyes, family consists of those who you can count on to have your back rather than who you are related to by blood. She would be willing to put her life at risk to protect those she regards as family. Also, though she is well-accustomed to putting in a days worth of hard labor, she has no compunction against cutting loose and having a good time when among friends and family. To her, a raucous tavern with good drinks and good company is the ideal way to end a long day. [u][b]Statistics[/b][/u]: -Strength: 4 (she isn't the strongest person you'll meet, but she certainly isn't the weakest) -Perception:5 (her ancestry gives her an slight edge, though she is often inattentive) -Endurance: 4 (she's taken a couple hits in her days and can take a few more) -Charisma: 3 (rough around the edges and completely willing to tell you to fuck off) -Intelligence: 8 (large amount natural magical talent and relatively well educated) -Agility: 6 (deft enough to keep her footing even in rough seas) -Luck: 5 (she has defied death before and will do so again) [u][b]Abilities, Talents, Traits, Powers[/b][/u]: [b]Fey Ancestry[/b]- Due to her elven blood, her senses are sharpened and she can see more clearly than many regular humans in adverse lighting conditions. Additionally, she has some natural resistance against enchantments aimed her way. Last of all, she has been speaking Elvish with her parents all her life as well as common and is bi-lingual as a result. [b]Phoenix sorcery[/b]- Supposedly, somewhere in her past an unnamed blood relation did some deed or performed some favor and was blessed by a phoenix as a result. Every now and again, this blessing manifests itself in her bloodline, with Sharadur being the current recipient of the immortal flame. As might be expected, she can invoke this power to channel all manner of fire-related magic and even wreath herself in a mantle of flame at need. Unfortunately, the power is sometimes as uncontrollable, which leads to Sharadur unintentionally releasing her power, especially when blood runs hot and emotions are on edge. [u][b]Items[/b][/u]: Breastplate, chain shirt, leather armor, daggers, rapier. Most of her armor is a recent purchase and while the craftsmanship is plain, it is clearly well made. [u][b]History[/b][/u]: Sharadur was born on a ship in the middle of the Silver Ocean to a pair of moderately successful merchants. She then proceeded to spend the first decade of her life aboard her parent's vessel as they traveled from port to port up and down the coast of the Silver Ocean and beyond plying their trade. When it came to her parents, they ran a tight crew and considered anyone physically capable of doing work as a crew member in need of useful tasks to be given, even if they happened to be a child. Of course, the tasks they assigned were always according to stature and capability, which ultimately ended up providing Sharadur with a plethora of useful life skills from a very young age. Perhaps her favorite task to be set to was cooking. After all, the captain may ostensibly be the one in charge, but no one wants to get on the wrong side of a ship's cook, lest the gastric consequences be dire. From as young an age as she can remember, Sharadur had a healthy love for the wild stories sailors told whenever they stopped at a port. As soon as she learned to read, she began to acquire books of lore for the small library she kept in the quarters she shared with her parents. Though she loved tales of adventure most of all, she never was very fond of those involving the high seas- given her lifestyle, it just seemed a unrealistically romanticized version of her perfectly mundane life. Her favorite tale was one she heard from her parents, something about her great-great-great grand-whatever having done some big favor or rendered some grand service for a legendary phoenix (the exact nature of the deeds changed with every re-telling), who had then blessed their family line with his mighty powers. To a young Sharadur, those sorts of stories were fanciful enough to fill her childish imagination with images of how awesomely badass she was definitely going to be one day. It wasn't until the midst of her adolescence, well past when she realized that bedside stories were nothing more than nonsense and she was never going to be destined for any awesome powers that her powers did begin to awaken. Even as a small child, she had always found an unconscious fascination with fire and accidentally scorched more than a few of her parent's belongings as a result. The more significant surprise came when fire seemed to begin reacting to her presence, with candles always seeming to burn brighter whenever her she was around. This culminated one day at sea when their vessel was caught off guard by a band of pirates. In the midst of the conflict was the first time she truly unleashed her power, resolving in a blast of fire that set the other ship's rigging ablaze. It was during the pirate's frantic efforts to douse the flames and save their own ship that Sharadur and her family slipped away. Unfortunately, while leading a sortie against boarding crews, her mother had taken a wound to the leg. The injury became infected before they could get proper treatment and left her mother with a permanent limp. After that incident, her parents decided that their lifestyle needed to change and set aside their current line of work, instead using their accumulated wealth and connections to start and manage their own shipping company. Thus shore-bound, they were also able to attend to the matter of Sharadur's burgeoning magical talent. There was some brief talk about sending her to the city to Zespah for a formal education, yet those plans were quickly discarded. After all, spending too much time around those lazy, dishonest city-folk couldn't possibly be a decent environment for their only daughter. Instead, they did their best to provide her with the finest tutors available. For a while, things seemed to be good, yet Sharadur quickly found her daily life becoming quite monotonous. It was right around the time her parents began regularly spouting off obnoxious sayings like: "owning one percent of one-hundred ships is better than owning one-hundred percent of one ship!", she knew that counting coppers and balancing ledgers was not the life for her. Setting out on her own, for a time she took to mercenary work. The idea came about as a bit of inspiration brought about the day her magical powers awakened and she began selling her services to ship captains thinking of doing the particularly risky and lucrative trade runs. Often these involved smuggling in one form or another or took else took the ship through waters with bad reputations for piracy. As it turns out, fire is an immediate and powerful deterrent for would-be plunderers. For a couple of years, life was a bit more exciting again. Unfortunately, hiring a pyromancer with only loose control over her magic is a bit of a double-edged sword. Sure, it meant that anyone wanting to seize your vessel found themselves quickly converting their entire crew into a bucket brigade, yet it also meant that there was always the chance your own cargo accidentally went up in flames. For some captains, the risk was worth the potential payout, yet it only took one or two major incidents to slow business down to a crawl. Eventually, it became clear she needed to turn to a different line of work. Fortunately, news travels swiftly along the shipping lanes, and the rumor mill was churning out something potentially exciting happening off near the capital. With a bit of gold borrowed from her parents, she acquired some proper arms and equipment to take with her as she set out for adventure.