DracoLunaris

The Gladiators of House Valens

I am basically about to go to bed and will be doing a spot of traveling tomorrow, so I'll probably be posting some time in the afternoon/evening

We Aren't the Crystal Gems: A Steven Universe AU roleplay

Interested

The Gladiators of House Valens

Brina

Brina Kerr

"I have faced horrors beyond your comprehension, what makes you think you can possibly stand against me!"
Accompanied by the above dramatic pose

Profile

Full Name: Brina Kerr
Titles/Nicknames: The Vestal, Honored Exile
Age: 24
Race: Human
Gender: F
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Combat Role: Front-line brawler/support mage

Hair Color: Auburn
Eye Color: Ice blue
Height: 1.6 m
Weight: 68 kg

Appearance:

A well built and muscular warrior woman from the northern reaches of the land, her appearance is most often hidden by a red hood and robes. Pull back that covering to unveil a rugged face that has seen many brushes with death and is marked with the scars to match. Most of these are small nics, where a sword blade or tendril has just barely missed her and the injury has been hastily patched back together by magic. More notable however is a trio of scars left by a claw that just failed to take out her right eye, running from her brow to her cheek. Her hairs is a dirty auburn tied back into a ponytail. In battle she seems to almost glow, the magic used to knit her body back together seems to have lingered and it resonates in sympathy to each new spell cast, giving her something of a radiant aura from the numerous scars found all across her body.

She stands with the confidence of a person who has suffered that may wounds and still stands, a steadfast presence who is generally gently smiling in all but the most dire situations. She believes she has fought and bested horrors from beyond the veil, so little in this world can faze her.

Personality

Overview:
She is rather friendly when there is no fighting to be done, a generally rather sociable person she will take any opportunity to bond with and form amicable relationships with those she meets. This is partially an attempt to replace what she has lost due to her exile, she is trying to find a new place where she belongs now that her clan, her family, is forever beyond her grasp.

She is highly spiritual and will often pray or see events as having a divine sources, though the Polytheistic nature of the Torguren religion means she isn’t the kind to look down on other people's beliefs if they don’t conflict directly with her own.

In combat she is a bit more serious but she sees arena fights as the sporting events they are and thus is there to have fun and entertain the crowds. Part of her role while fighting alongside her tribe was keeping morale up through encouraging words, giving her a strong voice that can carry above the din of battle. This can be useful for adding showmanship by calling out opponents or making grand boasts or proclamations, all done to increase the spectacle.

Having been exiled she is now seeking a new purpose. Part of this is making use of her skills in the lands beyond her homeland and the arenas are a perfect place for that. Other than that she will try to see if she can find ways to aid her clan’s fight indirectly. One way she does this is spreading the tale of her people, as a warning about the dangers of magic and a way to possibly send allies to them who seek the glory found in destroy evil.

She is a rather straightforward individual, the north is not a place for subtle words or conniving manipulations. She believes there is real quantifiable evil in the world, that dark forces are always seeking ways to enter reality and destroy humanity, so she hates the pointless petty power squabbling that others seem to be obsessed with.

She has an intense distaste of necromancy and any magic that looks evil in its application as a result of her origins.

Combat

Strength: 7
Dexterity: 4
Intelligence: 5
Cunning: 1
Magic: 3
Willpower: 7
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 6

Weapons of Choice:
Mace: A heavy spiked club that doubles as a channel for her powers and can be used either one or two handed
Tome: A runic imbued book that is used to cast spells. The thick tome has protective runes build in and can be used as an improvised shield. It is chained to her waist where it can be left hanging if she needs to use both her hands for fighting.

Armor/Combat Apparel: She wears red robes and over these she wears an iron breastplate, gauntlets and a sort of metal skirt. Her head is covered by a hood. A red sash is wrapped around her waist.

Fighting Style: A frontline support, she uses a combination of good old fashioned barbarian might alongside a selection of spells to smash her enemies and support her allies. In melee she fights with ferocity and brute strength, delivering strong blows with her mace and the occasional dazzling spell, in a support capacity she can help keep the team alive with light healing and can blind, relocate or blast their opponents.

Magical Affinity: Divine (in appearance anyway), all magics are “drawn” from the tome over a small duration. All of the effects destabilize magic briefly, which effectively stuns creatures like the undead and can cause enchantments to briefly fail to activate. This won’t really affect the arena but might be disruptive to other people using rune imbued equipment.
Spell 1 Dazzling Light: a wave of light shoots out of her mace, blinding and disorienting opponents.
Spell 2 Devin comfort: provides a small amount of wound recovery for all friendly characters.
Spell 3 Hand of light: adds a strong pushing force to the maces blows, sending opponents flying but damping most of the actual damage the blow itself would inflict.
Spell 4 Illumination: a more concentrated beam of light shoots from the mace that feels like a mace blow to the struck target.

Background

Place of Birth: Torguren
Social Status: warior cleric -> honored exile

History: She was born to the Aurora Clan, one of the most northern clans and once a minor part of the great confederation of clans that nearly conquered Venatria. These days however they are primarily dedicated to the standard inter clan conflicts and, of much greater importance to them, the purifying of the dark one’s dungeon, a vast imposing system of caverns and structures created by a Sariyan necromancer and his cultist centuries ago.

At a point in time when the Torguren people were focused outwards, united and hungry for conquest, there came a man to their lands. That man was clad in dark robes, his face hidden by a hood that was lined with a spiked iron halo, who traveled there with his acolytes to research foul magics away from prying eyes. His expedition was funded by some of the Venatria nobles who were perfectly fine in working with rather deranged necromancer if it meant causing damage to the invading Torguren’s lands. This man became known to the Clan simply as The Dark One.

He and his followers set up a base in a cavern filled mountainside, enslaving a local swine like beast race and using them and magic to build a great fortress dungeon right in the heart of the Aurora Clan’s lands. In that place they began to work their magics in the most twisted ways, carving runs into the stone of the mountain that warped and twisted the land into a hellscape, mutating the wildlife and any who's stayed there two long into monstrous slaves of The Dark One. This corruption and the monsters slowly spread outwards from the dungeon, and drew the Aurora Clan away from the war back to their homeland to protect their civilians and hunting grounds. There they fought a desperate losing battle against the encroaching darkness, those that fell in battle rose and turned against them, the tombs of their ancestors were desecrated, their rotting corpses joining the vile horde.

Despite how nightmarish this war for the Arora’s home was it was of little concern to the other clans, there was glory and conquest to be had in Venatria and thus the Aurora Clan was left without aid. That is until one day a second mage came from Venatria. Asmodyth was a mage who was a former college of the Dark One and the was one of the few people who know just how twisted the man was. His form of magic was primarily focused on light, disruption of enemy magic and providing support to those fighting alongside him. Upon learning that his countrymen had payed for the madman to conduct his research he had made the perilous journey to the north lands with the aims of putting a stop to it. When he arrived he joined the Arora’s number and while never really fitting in with them his particular brand of magic, along with his knowledge of how the dark ones magic worked, helped turn the tide against the foul creatures.

It all came down to a dramatic confrontation between Asmodyth and the twisted thing the Dark one had become. In the warped lands before the dungeon a great final battle was fought, eldritch horrors clashing with the furious barbarian warriors in a cacophony of bloody battle cries and screams of the dying. In the middle of this battle the red robed Asmodyth was a shining beacon fighting the writhing mass of tentacles, mouths and rune work that The Dark One had become. Both great mages perished that day in twin explosions of light and darkness.

The foul armies were left leaderless, yet the dungeon still stood, it’s runework intact and some of it’s servants still maintained the defences. They are nowhere near as capable as their master and they now primarily maintain the runework already set in place, incapable of creating any new types of magic. The body of Asmodyth was cut from the bloated mass of his foe and his magical tome retrieved. The Aurora Clan had been left too weak and few in number to finish the fight and so they retreated southwards, where they buried Asmodyth with all the honors of a true Torguren.

Since that day the war between Clan and remaining cultists has consisted of sporadic raids by the two weakened sides against another and the events that lead to this sate have become shrouded in myth and sense of the divine. To the Clan The Dark One was not just a necromancer but a demonologist, a summoner of great unholy evils from beyond the veil. Asmodyth meanwhile is a legendary hero who was one chosen by the gods to strike down a servant of their most vile enemy. He was given divine powers to help in his battle and those powers have now been passed to them in the form of his rune imbued spell book.

While their understanding of those events decades ago has become clouded the clan must still contend with The Dark One’s legacy and Brina has was trained from birth to do just that. Since the day she could walk she has trained in the art of war, to fight the monsters that lie within the Dark One’s dungeon. When she became a woman she was tested and found to be able to channel magic well enough to create a replica of Asmodyth’s runic tome, those capable of doing so will create an inferior copy of it from which they can cast a number of the hero’s spells. She then fought the neighboring clans in some of those endless squabbles, defended her lands from raids originating from The Dark One’s lair and foiled attempted incursions by foreign cultists looking to learn the dark one's secrets by training with his remaining servants.

She showed enough skill to be chosen to take part of a raid upon the Dark One’s dungeon, to remove some of the unholy rune craft and weakening the place. She was the only one who returned unharmed, carrying with her a large slab of that corrupted stone, and thus the only one able to undertake the pilgrimage, hauling that rock down from the north to Venatria, too the place where Asmodyth was trained. There mages there, some descendants of the hero, help unweave the runcraft protecting the stones. They are then shattered and added to the growing pile of rubble found around a memorial to Asmodyth. Those who take the journey are said to be tainted from carrying the artifacts and may not return to the clan lest they spread the corruption. This is considered a noble sacrifice, and though none of her clan will ever interact with her again she is remembered as a hero and a martyr.

So it was that after months of travel and her duty done she found herself in the land of Venatria with no applicable skills but fighting. It was in this way that she found herself as a combatant in their arenas and vowed to spread the tale of her people so that none become as twisted and vile as The Dark One.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Sister Sophia

The whispering woods

The rain was pouring down around them, rapidly turning the ash coated ground into a thick quagmire of black sludge. The forest itself was a shell of it’s former splendor and mystery, consisting of stumps and fallen trunks all cracked and blackened by their fiery torment. Most of the animals had either fled or perished, leaving what would have been an eerie silence were it not for the pouring rain. It was as if nature was weeping for this atrocity committed against it and was now trying to wipe away the ash with her tears. In the years to come the forest would no doubt be green once more, the fallen trees making the ground incredibly fertile for the next generation, but it would be eons till the woods where ever the same again.

By the time Geromory spotted the arrival of the massive bird thing sophia had re-donned her armor, her body now in a far better state. Well apart from the hiddiose arm she was sporting, she retched every time it came into her frame of view or she was forced to use it to navigate the burnt woods. At this point she had somewhat dismissed the voice she had heard earlier as a delusion induced by blood loss first and afterwards painkillers, for she had not heard it since she recovered a little and the drugs wore off.

She and the grinning fool (why was she putting up with it?) took cover behind the burn hasuk of a particular large tree as she watched the two xenos arriving, one insectile like the dead Clotho and the other a wooden mockery of the Emperor's angels. There was no way she was getting closer, so she used a combination of the night/thermal visions and the binocular function in her helmet to get a better view of what they were doing. She wanted to go there and kill whatever they where but for the moment she was effectively unarmed. She had dropped both the knives back in the pool somewhere and had expended all her ammo previously in the forest king.

She watched in horror as Clotho was brought back to life, and though she did not hear what was said she knew there would be no kind words for her. Damn it. There was a brief period of quietly muttered curses and damnations of her enemies and the college for allowing this xenos scum so many allies where she had none. Fortunately it looked like they were leaving, the big one giving Clotho a lift, though the plant thing was staring of into the distance. Damn it. Had it seen her?

She ducked back behind the tree. She was sure that her armor’s ash coating was good camouflage and that she was much to far away to be spotted without some kind of vision enhancement. She certainly hoped that was the case.

She kept watch on the hovering bird while hopefully staying out of sight of the wooden angel. It if it left shortly then she was safe, and if not then she was going to have to run away again and she did not like her chances if Clotho’s companions where anywhere as near as fast as her.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Brina might have this as a passive theme and this as a bardic retelling of the climatic battle told of in her clan's history.

also this as her intro theme. /jk

HALT! The not so glorius life of the City Guard.

Rita

Rita the Knee Smasher

Appearance:

in days gone by

Cleaned up and ready for duty

Race: Goblin
Age: 19
Former Profession: Barbarian warrior
Skill: Winning David vs Goliath fights, which for her is basically every fight

Personality:

She has a sort of unstoppable personalty in place of actual charisma, she is fierce, bold, cock sure, completely willing to fight dirty and acts like she is the biggest and meanest thing around no matter who or what she is facing. She has an in your face attitude despite actually being at your knees, knees from which you shall soon be parting ways with. Her manner of speech is rather antiquated as a result of her little trip, which clashes a lot with her demeanor, speaking like she is out of a Shakespearian play put on by stereotypical scotsmen while trying to rip someones head of.

History:

Long ago in a distant land there rose a furious goblin horde the likes of which had never been seen, it swept across the land till it reached the city of Kings Knell. At its head was Goblinhis Khan, a mighty barbarian warlord and one of the keystones that held the bickering goblins together with his inspiring presence and sheer bloodymindedness. But when the goblins needed her most he vanished, for in the final battle to take the city a sorcerer of the defenders tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future. However the spell missed a bit and so only sent about half of the warlord into the past. Who was sent in the past intact was one of the may offspring he had sired who just happened to be next to him at the time, a young goblin named Rita.

Years in the future a screeching goblin appeared one night in a tavern along with half a corpse and descended upon the patrons with a furious rage caused by the death of her father. About an hour later the City guard, who had arrived about 40 minutes earlier and had waited till the fighting died down, went in to arrest anyone who had survived what was essentially a regular bar fight round these parts. Inside the found a now very drunk tiny goblin woman wielding a warhammer way to big for her standing in the middle of a thoroughly trashed tavern bawling her eyes out. It was rather fortunate that some of the Guards where goblins because she didn’t immediately try to assail them and instead was contrived to discuss the situation, something she had never been that good at.

After a lot of explaining she eventually calmed down and was taken to the goblin area of town where they tried to work out what to do with her. It was like if a Viking had suddenly showed up in modern Sweden, just what did they do with this relic of the past, particularly when she was wanted for the deaths of quite a few members of various gangs in that fight. Especially when she is riling up a lot of the younger ones to take up arms against the city and go marauding again. In the end she was convinced that it would be best if she took the pardon from the guard and that the old days were over. She has since then made quite the transformation, physically at least, to a relatively respectable looking Guard's women, though she is still a berserker at heart. Her main concern however was to return to the past and undo the future that had resulted from her fathers death. or at the very least smash the sorcerer to bloody pieces personal.

She has gotten a bit used to the city, so she doesn't quite feel like a fish out of water anymore, if she does find something she doesn't understand the best course of action is to thwack it till it makes sense. She has gained this kind of grudging respect from the goblin community as someone who really has no place in their new culture yet who stands for them first and foremost with a strength that cannot be questioned. A useful and rather easily manipulated tool for furthering their interests when a bit of brute force is required and you can't just pay some orks to do it.

The Gladiators of House Valens

@Estella

I think it turned out better just in generally as a result of the changes, so I didn't mind the re-write at all. The reason she came south is a little more contrived than before but everything else is better. Less grimdark and more heroic, which i think is generally better for an rp that is partial a series of tournament arcs.

Looking forwards to seeing everyone's finalized submissions and getting started.

Apotheosis

She was relieved to find out that it was indeed a sparring match and so stepped back out from behind the chief. She was a both confused and impressed by the two other female goblins grasping of twigs to defend themselves. Impressed because it was a much more proactiv thing to do than hide behind the chief like she had and confusing because how the heck did they think sticks we're going to protect them against all the ridiculous techniques the human woman was pulling off.

The fight was both impressive and terrifying, as Iris had underestimated just how much power difference there was between themselves and their evolved elders. The chief was big and imposing but from the looks of him maybe a whole bunch of goblins like them could fight him with the right tools and planning. His son’s lightning fast sparing and the ability of his unarmed opponent to keep up with him while they both held something close to a casual conversation showed just how weak she and the others where. How dangerous something was was apparently not very clear in this world had been born into. Though it might be possible to judge power based on the words they spoke, the short phrases they spoke when their power perhaps a tell of their capabilities.

"The ‘Second stage’ and ‘potential release’ things they said were spells right? Or are they more like abilities inherent to their evolution and class that need to be activated?" her retelling of the words spoken when they activated additional power where a crude mimicry of sounds without any understanding of what they actually meant.

She asked as she sat in the grass and spectated the conflict, occasionally popping one of the plants she had collected into her mouth for analysis and offering blueberries to anyone who joined her. There was a lots more little tit bits to be picked up from their conversation, about places and perhaps pilgrimages to them to gain power. Where touchstones in evolution sometimes rather literal? That would be interesting, touching an evolution stone and suddenly becoming something entirely new.

The Gladiators of House Valens

@DracoLunaris Hatred of necromancy eh? This is going to be fun

@Kassarock

I like how appropriate your avatar is for this comment.

The Gladiators of House Valens

oh look its another barbarian, but this time with a twist. and by twist I mean she is actually a cleric/wrestling face.

@Estella submission

Brina

Brina Kerr

"I have faced horrors beyond your comprehension, what makes you think you can possibly stand against me!"
Accompanied by the above dramatic pose

Profile

Full Name: Brina Kerr
Titles/Nicknames: The Vestal, That crazy nun, RuneBreaker, Honored Exile
Age: 24
Race: Human
Gender: F
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Combat Role: Front-line brawler/support mage

Hair Color: Auburn
Eye Color: Ice blue
Height: 1.6 m
Weight: 68 kg

Appearance:

A well built and muscular warrior woman from the northern reaches of the land, her appearance is most often hidden by a red hood and robes. Pull back that covering to unveil a rugged face that has seen many brushes with death and is marked with the scars to match. Most of these are small nics, where a sword blade or tendril has just barely missed her and the injury has been hastily patched back together by magic. More notable however is a trio of scars left by a claw that just failed to take out her right eye, running from her brow to her cheek. Her hairs is a dirty auburn tied back into a ponytail. In battle she seems to almost glow, the magic used to knit her body back together seems to have lingered and it resonates in sympathy to each new spell cast, giving her something of a radiant aura from the numerous scars found all across her body.

She stands with the confidence of a person who has suffered that may wounds and still stands, a steadfast presence who is generally gently smiling in all but the most dire situations. She believes she has fought and bested horrors from beyond the veil, so little in this world can faze her.

Personality

Overview:
She is rather friendly when there is no fighting to be done, a generally rather sociable person she will take any opportunity to bond with and form amicable relationships with those she meets. This is partially an attempt to replace what she has lost due to her exile, she is trying to find a new place where she belongs now that her clan, her family, is forever beyond her grasp.

She is highly spiritual and will often pray or see events as having a divine sources, though the Polytheistic nature of the Torguren religion means she isn’t the kind to look down on other people's beliefs if they don’t conflict directly with her own.

In combat she is a bit more serious but she sees arena fights as the sporting events they are and thus is there to have fun and entertain the crowds. Part of her role while fighting alongside her tribe was keeping morale up through encouraging words, giving her a strong voice that can carry above the din of battle. This can be useful for adding showmanship by calling out opponents or making grand boasts or proclamations, all done to increase the spectacle.

Having been exiled she is now seeking a new purpose. Part of this is making use of her skills in the lands beyond her homeland and the arenas are a perfect place for that. Other than that she will try to see if she can find ways to aid her clan’s fight indirectly. One way she does this is spreading the tale of her people, as a warning about the dangers of magic and a way to possibly send allies to them who seek the glory found in destroy evil.

She is a rather straightforward individual, the north is not a place for subtle words or conniving manipulations. She believes there is real quantifiable evil in the world, that dark forces are always seeking ways to enter reality and destroy humanity, so she hates the pointless petty power squabbling that others seem to be obsessed with.

She has an intense distaste of necromancy and any magic that looks evil in its application as a result of her origins.

Combat

Strength: 7
Dexterity: 4
Intelligence: 5
Cunning: 1
Magic: 3
Willpower: 7
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 6

Weapons of Choice:
Mace: A heavy spiked club that doubles as a channel for her powers and can be used either one or two handed
Tome: A runic imbued book that is used to cast spells. The thick tome has protective runes build in and can be used as an improvised shield. It is chained to her waist where it can be left hanging if she needs to use both her hands for fighting.

Armor/Combat Apparel: She wears red robes and over these she wears an iron breastplate, gauntlets and a sort of metal skirt. Her head is covered by a hood. A red sash is wrapped around her waist.

Fighting Style: A frontline support, she uses a combination of good old fashioned barbarian might alongside a selection of spells to smash her enemies and support her allies. In melee she fights with ferocity and brute strength, delivering strong blows with her mace and the occasional dazzling spell, in a support capacity she can help keep the team alive with light healing and can blind, relocate or blast their opponents.

Magical Affinity: Divine (in appearance anyway), all magics are “drawn” from the tome over a small duration. All of the effects destabilize magic briefly, which effectively stuns creatures like the undead and can cause enchantments to briefly fail to activate. This won’t really affect the arena but might be disruptive to other people using rune imbued equipment.
Spell 1 Dazzling Light: a wave of light shoots out of her mace, blinding and disorienting opponents.
Spell 2 Devin comfort: provides a small amount of wound recovery for all friendly characters.
Spell 3 Hand of light: adds a strong pushing force to the maces blows, sending opponents flying but damping most of the actual damage the blow itself would inflict.
Spell 4 Illumination: a more concentrated beam of light shoots from the mace that feels like a mace blow to the struck target.

Background

Place of Birth: Torguren
Social Status: warior cleric -> honored exile

History: She was born to the Aurora Clan, one of the most northern clans and once a minor part of the great confederation of clans that nearly conquered Venatria. These days however they are primarily dedicated to the standard inter clan conflicts and, of much greater importance to them, the purifying of the dark one’s dungeon, a vast imposing system of caverns and structures created by a Sariyan necromancer and his cultist centuries ago.

At a point in time when the Torguren people were focused outwards, united and hungry for conquest, there came a man to their lands. That man was clad in dark robes, his face hidden by a hood that was lined with a spiked iron halo, who traveled there with his acolytes to research foul magics away from prying eyes. His expedition was funded by some of the Venatria nobles who were perfectly fine in working with rather deranged necromancer if it meant causing damage to the invading Torguren’s lands. This man became known to the Clan simply as The Dark One.

He and his followers set up a base in a cavern filled mountainside, enslaving a local swine like beast race and using them and magic to build a great fortress dungeon right in the heart of the Aurora Clan’s lands. In that place they began to work their magics in the most twisted ways, carving runs into the stone of the mountain that warped and twisted the land into a hellscape, mutating the wildlife and any who's stayed there two long into monstrous slaves of The Dark One. This corruption and the monsters slowly spread outwards from the dungeon, and drew the Aurora Clan away from the war back to their homeland to protect their civilians and hunting grounds. There they fought a desperate losing battle against the encroaching darkness, those that fell in battle rose and turned against them, the tombs of their ancestors were desecrated, their rotting corpses joining the vile horde.

Despite how nightmarish this war for the Arora’s home was it was of little concern to the other clans, there was glory and conquest to be had in Venatria and thus the Aurora Clan was left without aid. That is until one day a second mage came from Venatria. Asmodyth was a mage who was a former college of the Dark One and the was one of the few people who know just how twisted the man was. His form of magic was primarily focused on light, disruption of enemy magic and providing support to those fighting alongside him. Upon learning that his countrymen had payed for the madman to conduct his research he had made the perilous journey to the north lands with the aims of putting a stop to it. When he arrived he joined the Arora’s number and while never really fitting in with them his particular brand of magic, along with his knowledge of how the dark ones magic worked, helped turn the tide against the foul creatures.

It all came down to a dramatic confrontation between Asmodyth and the twisted thing the Dark one had become. In the warped lands before the dungeon a great final battle was fought, eldritch horrors clashing with the furious barbarian warriors in a cacophony of bloody battle cries and screams of the dying. In the middle of this battle the red robed Asmodyth was a shining beacon fighting the writhing mass of tentacles, mouths and rune work that The Dark One had become. Both great mages perished that day in twin explosions of light and darkness.

The foul armies were left leaderless, yet the dungeon still stood, it’s runework intact and some of it’s servants still maintained the defences. They are nowhere near as capable as their master and they now primarily maintain the runework already set in place, incapable of creating any new types of magic. The body of Asmodyth was cut from the bloated mass of his foe and his magical tome retrieved. The Aurora Clan had been left too weak and few in number to finish the fight and so they retreated southwards, where they buried Asmodyth with all the honors of a true Torguren.

Since that day the war between Clan and remaining cultists has consisted of sporadic raids by the two weakened sides against another and the events that lead to this sate have become shrouded in myth and sense of the divine. To the Clan The Dark One was not just a necromancer but a demonologist, a summoner of great unholy evils from beyond the veil. Asmodyth meanwhile is a legendary hero who was one chosen by the gods to strike down a servant of their most vile enemy. He was given divine powers to help in his battle and those powers have now been passed to them in the form of his rune imbued spell book.

While their understanding of those events decades ago has become clouded the clan must still contend with The Dark One’s legacy and Brina has was trained from birth to do just that. Since the day she could walk she has trained in the art of war, to fight the monsters that lie within the Dark One’s dungeon. When she became a woman she was tested and found to be able to channel magic well enough to create a replica of Asmodyth’s runic tome, those capable of doing so will create an inferior copy of it from which they can cast a number of the hero’s spells. She then fought the neighboring clans in some of those endless squabbles, defended her lands from raids originating from The Dark One’s lair and foiled attempted incursions by foreign cultists looking to learn the dark one's secrets by training with his remaining servants.

She showed enough skill to be chosen to take part of a raid upon the Dark One’s dungeon, to remove some of the unholy rune craft and weakening the place. She was the only one who returned unharmed, carrying with her a large slab of that corrupted stone, and thus the only one able to undertake the pilgrimage, hauling that rock down from the north to Venatria, too the place where Asmodyth was trained. There mages there, some descendants of the hero, help unweave the runcraft protecting the stones. They are then shattered and added to the growing pile of rubble found around a memorial to Asmodyth. Those who take the journey are said to be tainted from carrying the artifacts and may not return to the clan lest they spread the corruption. This is considered a noble sacrifice, and though none of her clan will ever interact with her again she is remembered as a hero and a martyr.

So it was that after months of travel and her duty done she found herself in the land of Venatria with no applicable skills but fighting. It was in this way that she found herself as a combatant in their arenas and vowed to spread the tale of her people so that none become as twisted and vile as The Dark One.