Ketara Laien

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Ketara Laien
General Information
Full Name: Ketara Ireina sa Laien
Race: Karidani/ extraplanar - a highly codified, rigidly caste, pacifist elven race characterized by a ruling sorcerer class with strict expectations of public service and behavior, a middle class of merchants and functionaries made up of ungifted members of sorcerer clans and gifted commoners, and a lower class of various laborers from common, mixed or human stock. While standard of living decreases with status, personal freedoms increase dramatically. Though birth determines status and base opportunities, all governmental positions require strict testing of sorcerous ability and knowledge. Education is a privilege and requirement accessible only through status. Karidani lifespans range from 200 to nearly a thousand based off sorcerer ability with the latter conferring longer life and better health if properly managed and rapid decline if not.
Gender: female
Age: 339
Date of Birth: 16 Tertuakerinat 152
Country of Origin: The southern continent of Karida, a small oceanic world characterized by turbulent seas and a tropical climate.
Arrival on Siveth After a violent altercation on her homeworld, fell through a sacred volcano and woke, surprisingly alive, in a strange country. Circa Hearthfire 472
Appearance
Hair Color: black with violet highlights
Eye Color: multi-hued purple
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 165lb
Additional Information
Aliases: Ket
Religion: Agnostic in worship but believes in local deities enough to respect Menxism
Creed: "All knowledge is worth having." J. Carey
Occupation: Physician, alchemist (former magistrate)
Income: Modest, some independent wealth from early gem trades and savings from previous employment.
Marital Status: single
Player: Ami


Biography

Born and cultivated to position and responsibility intermixed with a young adulthood spent as a foster among Karida's notoriously independent sailing clan, Ketara's pre-Arangothian history serves only to have shaped her adult personality, the memories distant enough to be all but irrelevant. It left her insatiably curious with all things regarding sociology, history, psychology, and physiology.

After acclimating with some difficulty to her new home, Ketara was eager to serve this adopted society as one of its roving magistrates even when it required betraying a naively trusted friend and lover - though not after much turmoil and narrowly escaping being used by the same woman as an instrument of assassination against a noted public figure, Resque Maessen - a woman she still assisted in escaping the full punishment that should have been dealt.

Deciding to restrict her associations to more savory friends, Ketara became engaged to one of her oldest friends when the Lillend decided to experiment with a turn at being male for awhile. The affectionate romance and friendship terminated when Quill Stygian discovered growing rumours that Ketara had been allowing an old but highly illegal friend to feed from her were true. Whatever hope for reconciliation there might have been normally was overshadowed by the potential danger to their unborn child. It was her driving need to maintain truthfulness when only her own neck was on the line that lead to her dismissal from the chancellory after public rumour caught up to private action. Out of respect for her service in clearing Maximilien Reizeau's name and uncovering Lytia Seward's plot to seize power over Drache, the reasons for her dismissal were kept publicly private and no charges were brought. Accepting the dismissal as more than fair, Ketara returned to private citizenship and lived frugally at the Black Dragon through a few well placed investments. Lakyle Stygian was born several months later, delivered by the Templar Prelate and taken to Quill by Ketara's friend and mentee, Magistrate Zybella T'Laranor. After a long recovery, Ketara had to leave the city with a hunted friend. Lakyle would be a young adult priest before she ever truly met him.

After such an understandably unwelcome meeting, she chose to spend several years wandering the kingdoms of Arangoth, returning to Drache briefly and infrequently.

Personality

Extremely curious, she can be exhaustive with questions on interesting topics including interesting people which sometimes find her nosy, and will very happily while away hours with an interesting or knowledgeable conversationalist. It's why she's always preferred negotiating a long term lease at the Black Dragon to leasing a private home. Ketara has a natural tendency to be mothering or helpful encouraged by her upbringing and empathy that some may also find a bit nosy. To balance, the fierce devotion to personal independence instilled by her foster clan keeps her from being overbearing most of the time. Friendly and quick to trust unless given a reason not to, she can be naive in some cases despite her age and is exceptionally skilled at finding herself in over her head. Her natural inclinations are marred by an intense dislike of anyone she considers controlling or "stuffy" - often the moment she sees pointed ears attached to a face spouting an unasked for opinionated diatribe. This dislike applies even to her own inevitable lapses into pre-judgements and assumptions of character. Placing an almost religious fervor in the value and power of honesty, she is a terrible liar. As such, she generally refuses to discuss the business of others with anyone else and fails miserably at keeping her own secrets.

As an empath, Ketara is sometimes exhausted by the effort of controlling her own responses to the strong emotions of those around her to mixed success. This often leads to periods of numbness with her own emotions and physical tiredness if over exposed. Emotional outbursts are rare, but can affect those in her immediate vicinity mildly.

Physical Description

A few inches shy of six feet, Ketara is on the tall side of average for her people and marked as a sailor by her bronzed skin and wiry, athletic build. With her violet highlighted, black hair usually in a single braid hanging past her hips she had to be a ship's sorceress to support such an impractical vanity. The slightly upturned, almond eyes housing irises of fractured amethyst confirmed the suspicion. Her sharply angular face and aquiline nose were as framed by faint lines as the corners of her eyes indicated a life close to half lived while those around her full, bowed lips spoke of one given to amusement and joy despite hardships.

Abilities & Skills

Mundane Skills

  • Physician: skilled in general diagnostics, elven and human anatomy & physiology, treatment of humors and simple surgery.
  • Alchemist: Focused on the creation of medicinal potions, tinctures, and poultices, but what can heal can harm.
  • Weapon proficiencies: martial art akin to judo, staff, bow, and knife throwing. Acidic tongue and sharp wit usually non-deadly.
  • Sewing: much better with living tissue than cloth, but stitched is stitched, right?
  • Cooking: "good with spices" assuming you don't believe less is more
  • Sailing: nautical navigation, weather prediction, climbing, and knots
  • Research: knowing how to learn, not necessarily how to apply
  • Sommelier: growing up on her family's vineyard allows her to tell you exactly why you should drink according to arbitrary tradition rather than taste. If she does it, she probably doesn't like you.

Magic Skills

  • Karidani sorcery doesn't work off of spellcasting, normally. It uses understanding based will shaping, requiring the gifted to know how an effect happens naturally and causing it through exertion of will, using one's own well of energy. As such, all effects require line of sight and to be within 5 meters. Effects must already have a baseline to work with (you can't throw a fireball, but you could toss a torch and cause it to flare within reason, to about a foot or two in diameter) and the more spectacular the effect is from the baseline event, the more time and energy it takes as well as the greater the chance of failure (which still depletes energy). ((Note: since it is a non-traditional system of sorcery, I do not use it offensively. On the rare occasions it's been used in a combat setting, it's minor effects used defensively - like condensing cold air to provide resistance when the Blight ridden Lillend is trying to squeeze you to death.))
  • Empathy: requires great focus to block strong emotions around her, but instinctively trained at a young age to ignore subtle ones, so much so that it cannot be conveniently overcome. Strong feelings only.
  • Alchemy: Ketara's medicines usually contain a "blessing" of personal energy to encourage absorption and efficacy.
  • Healing: her healing, as above, can only do the same things she could with tools and alchemy but only at extremely draining personal costs and with a great deal more pain, tenderness, and bruising for the subject. Only to be used in life threatening circumstances for stabilization.
  • Elemental shamanism: Karidani ship's sorcerers learn to communicate with native elementals. Very helpful if any are around but prone to leave one appearing to talk to air, streams, brushfires, and pet rocks.

Equipment

Weapons

  • When wearing her white leather jacket, each sleeve contains three, 3 inch bladed throwing knives with poison delivery - neurotoxin (localized paralytic), hemotoxin (slows clotting), and warning shot (empty)
  • Hunting bow and quiver of basic arrows, rarely carried on person
  • Silver short sword, ornately designed, cleverly enchanted to become any metal implement of the same material no more than 3 feet in length. Usually worn as a chain belt. A gift from Yago Aginor.
  • Acidic tongue
  • Sharp wit

Armor

  • White padded leather, sleeveless jumpsuit with matching long sleeved, short waisted jacket. Greatest daily expenditure of sorcerous energy goes to keeping it white.

Tools

  • Alchemist kit
  • Eerie collection of bone scalpels, steel scalpels and trusty bone saw.
  • Refillable fountain pen. You will pry it from her cold, dead fingers.
  • Personal journal, enchanted to open only to a command word.