My World of Words
Melody Wu
Character Concepts
Cinder
Race: Fire Genasi
Class: Undead Warlock / Light Cleric
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Cinder began as a concept of someone who constantly has to experience their burning to death. It evolved then into someone who was touch-starved due to being unable to come into physical contact with others, and should anyone touch her it causes her pain. She then became this character dealing with chronic pain and her own inner conflict of not wanting to hurt others while the urge to give in to her fiery, destructive nature is nearly impossible to ignore and causes her further pain, which then incites this tormenting cycle that is impossible to escape.
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Her tentative story is as follows, where, once half-elven, she was an apprentice to a powerful archmage who ended up using her as a ritualistic/arcane sacrifice in an attempt to reincarnate a powerful primordial titan of flame. In the ritual, she was burned alive, only to be brought back fused with a mysterious fiery entity that keeps her alive and affords her great power at the cost of neverending pain and a destructive wrath that must be reigned in.
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This archmage then uses her as a weapon fully under his control, and once she has outlived her usefulness, leaves her for dead once more. However, the living flame inside of her will not let her die, and so she rekindles into a force of vengeance that must find a way to rid herself of this primordial power or else risk the fate of the world.
Saianeska
Race: Astral Elf / Custom
Class: Lunar Sorcerer
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Saianeska Moon-blessed was created for a campaign set in Exandria (Critical Role), with the premise that Ruidus had shattered and a second Calamity had begun.
She hails from a small remote village in the Cliffkeep Mountains outside of Lyrengorn called Caeth Ivai’enn (By the Light of Catha) - where they worship the Moonweaver. However, they have a zealous view where they believe Catha to be the only moon under the Moonweaver’s domain, and buy into the superstition of Ruidus as the moon of ill-omen, believing that its red flares block the light of Catha from reaching Exandria and thus interfering with the Moonweaver's blessing. Subsequently, they engage in the practice of ritual sacrifice when Ruidus flares, even though it is outlawed in Tal’dorei.
Saianeska, Ruidusborn that she is, was chosen as one such sacrifice when she was a child. However, she survived the event, whether by her own innate magic and connection to the moon or by the mercy of the Moonweaver, she doesn’t know. As a result, the village, already cult-like, began to venerate her as blessed by the Moonweaver, and thus appointed her to High Priestess of the Lunar Weave. She would lead prayers, listen to confessions, claim to “speak” to the Moonweaver, kill any deemed as heretics...and also perform the Ruidusborn sacrifices when required. Eventually, Saia could no longer stand the leash around her neck and fled with the help of a few “heretics” who believed Saia’s “miracle” to be a sign that the Moonweaver did not approve of sacrifices to Ruidus.
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She ended up in Drynna, near the Mooren Lake, where she eventually came under the care of the Moon Mistress, first appearing as a nymph but eventually revealing herself as a night hag while Saiya was under her care. She spent her formative years under the hag’s tutelage, calling her Auntie, learning about celestial bodies, a different way to worship the Moonweaver, helpful herbs and plants, and also how to control her magic.
However, after six years, Auntie approached her with a request that quickly evaporated any familial connection they had formed. The hag needed a sacrifice to renew the mists of Mooren Lake to hide her from being a bounty hunter, something she’d originally planned to when Saia first came under her care, but her prowess in magic and the bond they’d formed had stopped her.
Traumatized as the past memories from her home resurfaced, Saianeska escaped one night under the new moon, at a curious time where magic seemed to falter, and Saia had a brief vision of a moving thread in the sky that she later would learn was a leyline while taking shelter in Zephrah and spending time among the Ashari. However, a few months later, Ruidus shattered, imbuing her with some unknown power or presence, changing one of her eyes to red. In the wake of the Calamity and her own connection with Catha, the Moonweaver, and now Ruidus, she felt a pull toward Vasselheim as a place of refuge, encouraged to head there as well by the Ashari.
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