Einiel

Gender: Female

Age: Young

Species: Elf

Theme

Description: Standing at an average height, it would be easy for Einiel to blend in with crowds if not for the pointed ears and other elven features that immediately betray the girl’s race. Another trait making her stand out is the hair – flaming red in colour, more often than not serving as an immediate attention grabber. Coupled with freckles dotting Einiel’s fair skin and vibrant emerald eyes dominating her face, the woman is particularly easy to identify. Despite the physical beauty, she doesn’t wear anything out of the ordinary, clothing common among farmers and  displaying strong signs of wear and tear. She is always seen draped beneath her hooded cloak, a dark piece of cloth capable of concealing both ears and hair during the elf’s nocturnal activities.

Profession: An ordinary farmworker when she can stave off hunger, a thief and wannabe assassin when she can’t

Wealth: Poor

Combat Role: Ranged

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

• Useless at melee – direct engagements up close have to be avoided at all cost, as she lacks any formal training and her only bladed weapon is a short dagger   

Major Motivations: Avoid starvation, amass enough wealth to leave Darkwood and her uncle behind

Magic: No spells are known to Einiel, although her elven bloods grants her an affinity at magic, a gift she has yet to realize

Background:

Another orphan whose parents have been claimed by the spirits and ghosts roaming the Darkwood’s wilderness, Einiel was forced to grow up and learn how to survive sooner than most, raised in a place where werebeasts and vampires hunted the occasional unprepared traveller as a welcome appetizer and bandits avoided the entire region like the plague.

Her uncle Aldaril, after being named Einiel’s guardian, seized the family’s small, isolated farm, also taking control of all shares of the inheritance. The relationship was far from idyllic – days of hard, gruelling work often ended with the girl going to sleep on an empty stomach and it soon became clear her uncle had zero intention of ever letting her see a single coin from the inheritance, ensuring his niece had to stay and work at the farm. On the bright side, the farm has never been touched by the sword or attacked by wraiths – a devoted and faithful man, Aldaril prayed to Morryxa diligently, firmly believing it was her good will that protected the lands, even if harvest often turned poor. Through beating and punishment, this pious streak passed onto Einiel as well and she, too, serves the malevolent goddess, albeit purely out of fear rather than actual devotion.

Winters were particularly hard to get through, and the family barely scraped by. Every coin counted, food became especially scarce and those without enough forethought or luck rarely lived long enough to learn from their mistake next year. Other seasons meant hard work, surviving rather than living, stockpiling food and hoping this year’s harvest would turn better than the last, all the while avoiding Morryxa’s wrath. When rarely blessed with free time, taking a trip to the nearby hamlet of Blackdale became an option. Riddled with dangers, the unkempt roads often saw Einiel sneaking about, hoping to earn a few extra coins and escape the solitude of everyday life. That was the reason she learned how to draw a bow; the ever-present danger in form of goblins and ghouls demanded everyone knew how to handle a weapon.

Einiel quickly discovered liberating coins from their former owners was a profitable and easy way to earn money. What started as keeping a purse abandoned by its drunken owner turned into pickpocketing and petty theft, but it was that or starving for a month. She often stayed in Blackdale for several days, creeping outside under the night’s guise and trying her luck, sometimes even braving the wilds and visiting long lost cemeteries and crumbling structures - the dead rarely missed their belongings and those who did were never fortunate enough to get a hold of the flame haired thief. Einiel usually transformed her spoils into bread or beer, not saving as much as she would have liked, but definitely living more than ever before.