Nawain

Nawain
[[Image:|200px]]
Status	Active
Race	Rakash
Gender	Female
Guild	Cleric
Instance	Prime
Relatives	Tekhelet

Appearance

Moonskin

You see Enelne's Voice Nawain Augtaire, Sfarns del Dzive of Siksraja, a Rakash Cleric.
A bright aura of holy energy emanates from Nawain, standing tall and shining with a powerful inner fortitude.
Nawain has a classic lupine face with laugh lines, delicate ears accented by some Ilithic applewood-carved gatekeeper butterflies dangling upon leather cords, a pair of goldenglow glaes cat-eye spectacles over golden-haloed rich zala eyes and a greying muzzle, a thick gingery red coat with white masking, a white-tipped tail and a deeply cowled cloak of dark jadeleaf cloth partially obscuring a coltish figure.
She is tiny for a Rakash.
She appears to be a pack alpha.
Her right palm has a tattoo of a stylized butterfly sketched in thick inky black lines.
She is in good shape.

She is wearing a slender goldenglow glaes txistu embellished with a dragon-shaped mouthpiece, a billowing uaro's'sugi of fine leaf-green silk that is loosely wound around the head and neck, a dark green choker of muracite leaves dotted with passionfruit beryls, an ethereal butterfly fetish spreading wings of verdant moonsilver, some butterfly wings of brightly colored gossamer, a mossy green thornweave bodice edged with copper-infused Gnomish kochos, a polished asini oath ring graced with a large glittering avene, a wispy woodland tutu composed of swamp moss and adderwood twigs, a blue-white mistglass anklet encrusted with chunks of cheery yellow ismenite and a pair of dancing slippers with mossy green thornweave straps.

Softskin

Nawain has a high-cheekboned kite-shaped face with laugh lines, delicate ears accented by some Ilithic applewood-carved gatekeeper butterflies dangling upon leather cords, kind grass-green eyes and a freckled nose.  Her grey-streaked ginger hair is hip length and frizzy with stark white streaks at the temple, and is worn in a tousled mass of locks that tumbles over her shoulders.  She has dew-kissed skin and a deeply cowled cloak of dark jadeleaf cloth partially obscuring a coltish figure.

Details

She's cute and loves apples.

Personality

She's sweet, loyal, compassionate and determined.

Backstory

I was eight when the undead came to our homestead between the Liirewsag and the mountains, in the early days of 394. It was winter. I always forget that. In my nightmares, the ground is blanketed in apple blossoms, but when I am thinking clearly, I remember how cold the snow was on my paws, how my breath climbed in clouds to the stars. We were in the orchard, celebrating Shosandu, my mother, father, and siblings. Katamba was heavy and full, and we rejoiced in our moonskin, howling greetings to the darkest moon. Our neighbors – family friends from Odcoru - across the wide meadow howled back, and all was good. My mother had made our favorite dumplings, and we kids practiced lobbing stones at the old apples that hadn’t fallen during the harvest season. They made the most satisfying splat when they hit the ground.

After what I fondly remember as the best meal we’d ever had, Turfarnec – my tev, my father - sent me inside to fetch one of his books of stories. He loved those books. The seeds for our orchard were pressed between their pages. They carried our past, and our future. They were a change in our traditions, certainly – we didn’t used to write our stories down, because doing so made them static and unliving, like a beautiful butterfly pinned forever under glass. But too many stories had been lost with their tellers, and my father refused to watch more of our teaching tales fade from memory and wrote down every single story he had ever heard. He kept those books in our secret place, in a little loft above the bedrooms. It was a place for he and I. Our story place. We painted it, even, with little pictures of crows, and wolves, and butterflies, and badgers.

I was up in the loft, getting the right book, when I heard… sounds, outside. I heard a scream. I heard scratching on the door. I went down the ladder while the noises got louder. I called out to whoever was outside, thinking it was my big brother, playing a bad trick. I'd pulled a mean prank on him the last week that turned his tail purple, so I was owed. I remember we had one of those great, big bars for the door. But... I didn't use it. I don't even know if I could have, but I didn't even try. My family was out there. If I put the big bar across the door, they couldn't come inside. I think I should have used the bar.

Instead, I went to the window, to see what was outside. There were shapes, between the trees. Far more than just my parents and siblings could account for. Two-legged shapes that didn't walk right. Some of them crawled or shambled, or lurched. Quiet shapes. There was no speaking, no calling to each other, no breathing, even. They didn't use torches, and only the black moon shone, and I'm glad for that. There's a lot I didn't see. And just as I started to be really afraid, I smelled my father. And I knew it would be alright.

I'd forgotten that I'd left the door from the side-yard open when I came in to grab the books. He - they came in behind me. He and my mother, and there were at least two others - Prydean, I think. It was hard to tell. The bodies.. weren't whole.

I recognized my father first. Nothing looked... wrong? With him, except his face. I've never seen that expression. It went from empty to ravenous in the time it took for me to realize it was him. And he moved fast. Very fast. His smell was off, too. Like meat that looks right on the outside but has worms in the middle. Mother was missing part of her neck. A big part. Too much.

I'm a good learner. I listened to all of Turfarnec's lessons. I knew I wasn't faster, or stronger than anything that wanted to hurt me, so I had to be smarter. So I went up. I climbed the table, and then the cabinets, and then the rafters, until I could get to the loft. There was something wrong, with how Tev moved. Fast, but broken. He dragged parts of himself, and he wasn't climbing, or jumping, he was hauling himself after me.

I made it to the loft, but they weren't stopping. One of the Prydean.. things... was simply clawing the walls until parts of its fingers fell off, as if it was going to tear the building apart board-by-board. Tev... made it all the way up to the rafters before I pushed him off with a broom, and something in his leg snapped. But the ladder... It was too heavy, and he'd done a very good job lashing it to the railings, so it wouldn't slip and fall. It took them a while to find it, like he didn't remember what it even was, or that it lead up to the loft.

And in that time, I lit the house on fire. Using Father's books. He worked so hard to preserve those stories, and I used them to kill him.  I folded each page with shaking hands until it had little wings, and then lit it on fire, and let it drift down to somewhere below, where it would catch on the carpet, or the couch, or Mother's knitting. I'd heard the stories. Ate them up. I knew what they were. What my Father was, now. I knew that if they'd killed my Tev, there wasn't any way the rest of the family had survived. I was ready to burn with them.

But part of the thatch caught, at the other end of the house, and I saw a moon that wasn't in the sky that night. A little white moon. And a breeze came through the room, and it made the smoke dance like something alive, and beautiful. And suddenly I wanted air. I pushed through the thatching near me just as the entire roof on the far end of the house collapsed and climbed out onto the roof. It was an easy jump to the little shed in the side-yard, but then, of course, that open side-door…

I didn't want them to follow me. It was suddenly very, very important that they not follow me, even though I didn't know where I was going to go. So I closed the door. And I held it closed. The knobs were these beautiful old brass things that Tev had traded someone for. They looked so out of place, but Mother loved them. I held the door until they stopped thumping against it. The brass was glowing, and I swear I could see the metal through my hand. It hurt so much, and it smelled like burned supper, but I held on until my hand didn’t hurt anymore. Pieces of my palm stayed stuck to the knob when I finally pulled away.

I don't know how long it took, but I heard more sounds, amongst the trees, so I had to hide again. My only thought was about the place I'd found to hide a few months before, where no one had found me for hours. It was the perfect spot. It even covered my scent. So I buried myself in a half-filled apple barrel. It was damp, and uncomfortable, and smelled like fermenting apples. I still can’t be in small, dark spaces without terror filling my heart and sending my thoughts skittering.

I don’t know how long I was in there, hearing things sniffing and growling inches from my hiding place. It must have gotten quiet eventually, for I fell asleep, and dreamed of butterflies made of fire. A short while after dawn, I woke to the familiar voices of our neighbors calling my name nearby. I'd forgotten why I was there, just for a moment, and I popped up like a child’s toy, thinking I'd won the game again. I'm lucky Lavsird had very good reflexes. A strange little person exploding from a barrel next to one's person, covered in apple gore, after a night of.. A night of...

He was covered in... well. We'll call it glory. Coshivi walked with him that night. He was an avenging force, as a Paladin should be. Rutraka told me later that was the night he knew he wanted to join the Paladin guild. Watching his father rove the orchards and beyond, stilling bodies that should never have been moving in the first place.

We went to Siksraja first, to share what I’d seen with the Elders, and then we came home, and everything was different. I grew up with them, across the meadow from the ruins of my family. I never returned to the orchard, never visited that side of the homestead at all. And when his parents passed, Rutraka and I left that place that had been a sanctuary for our parents, and never went back. We planted new trees, just to the north of Crossing, and we made a new home, and new stories. And I never forgot the orchards watered in blood, the ashes of my childhood, my terror in the apple-scented dark.

I will not forget, not until there are no more undead to torment the living, no more necromancers perverting the bodies of the beloved dead. I am my father’s daughter. In his name I hunt the monsters, and I will not stop.

Treasured Items

• a viridian whip enveloped by razor-winged goldenglow glaes butterflies

Dyed a brilliant emerald, the braided smokewhorl leather of this sinuous weapon bears wispy dark-grey lines that spiral across its supple surface. Dozens of pale gold butterflies enwreathe the length of the vibrant whip, faintly translucent and washed in a radiant sheen. Each delicate-looking insect sports razor-sharp wings that lend a deadly note to their ethereal beauty.

• a verdant jadeleaf prayer mat graced with golden butterflies and wildlace tassels

Myriad goldenglow glaes butterflies dapple the soft, moss-wrought textile, the radiant winged insects cavorting with a pack of senci wolves across the verdant jadeleaf meadow.  Profusions of golden wildlace create feathery tassels at both ends, which sends ephemeral traceries across the emerald expanse like dawn's first caress.  A black tursa crow glides watchfully above the pack, while the opposite edge bears the visage of a snarling asini badger poised to safeguard the supplicant's back.

• an ethereal butterfly fetish spreading wings of verdant moonsilver

Intricately sculpted vibrant green wire creates the illusion of butterfly wings in delicate gossamer-thin lines that bear a gentle silvery-green glow.  The lambent insect trembles with every movement, fluttering fragile wings in a fair imitation of a living creature.

• a luminous lavender butterfly graced by prismatic lilac moonsilver wings

Hematite beading and a faint rufescent sheen mimic the coloration of a lilac-bordered copper butterfly, while lambent lilac moonsilver wire enwreathes the delicate form in a soft silvery-amethyst glow.

• a substantial ka'hurst signet ring set with a goldenglow glaes intaglio crest

The ka'hurst band of this hefty ring bears a strikingly green sheen, yet reflects remarkably little light. Tendrils of shadow-black metal intertwine like branches to cradle a goldenglow glaes moon. Deeply etched into the radiant golden disc is a gnarled apple tree sheltering a flame-wreathed butterfly. READ: Augtaire SEAL: a flame-wreathed butterfly cradled in the branches of a gnarled apple tree

Puppy

• a coppery saluki puppy flaunting a goldenglow glaes collar and jadeleaf snood

Silky fur falls in burnished copper rivulets from the ears, tail, and legs of this lithe, enthusiastic puppy, flagging and flowing in the slightest bit of wind. Brimming with energy, each wag of the puppy's tail causes its entire body to sway. A moss-green jadeleaf snood embroidered in golden butterflies slouches around the saluki's long neck, partially obscuring an elaborate collar of faintly translucent goldenglow glaes. A tiny bejeweled butterfly-shaped tag displays the pup's name. READ: Miss Wiggles

Guardian

• a badger-headed aegis automaton blanketed in moss and wildflowers

A sculpted helm tops this immense and implacable construct, bearing the visage of a snarling badger, complete with dagger-sharp ivory teeth. The implied menace of this aegis automaton is somewhat lessened by a fine, fuzzy pelt of moss which hosts a smattering of tiny wildflowers. Rusted and battered armor peeks through the verdant mantle, wreathed in paper-thin radiant goldenglow glaes filigree and bearing the barely discernible engraving of a gnarled apple tree cradling a flame-wreathed butterfly.

Home

[Zoluren Royal Mews, Training Field]
Another practice area opens up, with the scent of fresh grass and the smell of horses in sharp contrast to the fragrant roses planted against a nearby brick wall. Wooden barrels and fences provide the perfect opportunity for practicing jumps and turns.
An oak tree strung with garlands of thistle and amber-hued gaethzen orbs. Obvious paths: northeast, southwest.

[Nawain's Home]

A tall sturdy workbench with an expansive ribbon-stripe top and a long silverbirch table painted with a field of flowers with some stuff on it rest upon the silverwood floor of this tidy workshop.  A basalt fireplace embellished with moss agates, with a healer's manual decorated with a goldleaf herb hanging above it, burns from its resting place at the edge of the moss-green rug covering the silverwood floor.  Tapestry walls enclose the area, holding in its strong smell of eghmok potion.

You also see a bewhiskered ash grey Musparan dog, a huge silverbirch-framed window inset with moss-green glass, a silverwood door elaborately carved with blooming vines, a large black shadowbark apothecary's cabinet inlaid with fanciful kiralan herbs with several things on it and a mossy-green cushion of fine silk.

Obvious exits: none.

Mrodhouse (shrine)

[Zoluren Royal Mews, Training Field] The air is filled with the scent of fresh grass and the smell of horses. A narrow pathway opens into a practice field for trainers and their spirited horses. High fences covered in ivy and moss offer jumpers a challenging course. The field also features a row of barrels and a low brick wall that gives the horses variety of tasks as their handlers put them through their paces. You also see a tall pine tree with a murder of crows secreted among its branches. Obvious paths: northeast, southwest.

A pale applewood kneeling altar inlaid with luminous blued moonsilver turinstil and a broad golden applewood desk with blackened moonsilver filigree with some stuff on it rest upon the gloomwood floor of this serene meditation chamber. A colorful tile fireplace with a forest design, with an asini-banded tower shield portraying a jet-black snarling badger in the center hanging above it, burns from its resting place at the edge of the shadow-black rug covering the gloomwood floor. Gloomwood walls enclose the area, holding in its mild smell of dry parchment. You also see a gloomwood door with wrought iron banding, a polished gloomwood wall with a central motif of a fog-shrouded tree with several things on it, a circular golden applewood bookcase with blackened moonsilver filigree with several things on it, an ebonwood weapon rack carved with wolves in bas-relief with a couple of things on it, a glossy black silk-cushioned chair, a glossy black silk-cushioned chair and a glossy black silk-cushioned chair. Obvious exits: none.

Altar: Four watchful afis with howlite claws sit on their haunches and gaze stoically from where they support the four corners of the carved slab, their asini eyes alert and fierce. Several tursa varna are outlined in eerily glowing blackened moonsilver around the lip of the altar, interspersed with dozens of brilliant gemstone turinstil. The remarkably pale wood of the small shrine bears natural dark gold striations that whorl across the highly polished surface.

Pilgrimage for the Redivawzis

Pilgrimage for the Redivawzis: Return to the West It's time to go back. We need to see if our homeland is ready for our return. We need to see with our own eyes the blood-watered dirt, the moss-covered bones, the empty roads... And start to put it right again. A pilgrimage is proposed, to the last known location of the redivawzis. The group will travel as quickly as it can, but it has a sworn duty to destroy any undead it encounters. They will cleanse any polluted waters they find, and will gather seeds and samples of the traditional herbs and plants, and encourage them to grow in Siksraja. The pilgrims will be the eyes, ears, and hands of our People, and everything they learn will be shared with the Elders, the Hubs, the packs, and whomever asks. If successful, the pilgrims will find where the redivawzis was last known to be. It may be defiled. It may be shattered. Or it may be whole and untouched, Coshivi's gift to His children. Depending on what they have seen and experienced, and how many hostile undead still befoul the lands, they may even attempt the journey to Odcoru itself. Perhaps it will be in our lifetimes that our People return to the West. Perhaps our home is ready and waiting for us to return, and our pilgrimage will herald the start of another migration. We're going to try. We are the Rakash Packs, and the Prydaen Hubs. We are every ranger, every holy warrior, every mage and storyteller, every fighter, healer, every... acquisitions or logistics expert. Everyone who will help us forge a trail to the redivawzis. It's time to go home. Be a part of the journey! Pilgrimage for the Redivawzis

Augtaire Apothecary

Augtaire Apothecary: Vut Lavi and Enelne Bless! Nawain takes great joy in creating herbal remedies, using the preparation and application methods her people relied upon in their ancestral homelands. She is happy to sell her remedies to whomever is in need. Please check Augtaire Apothecary for a list of her products, packages and prices! She also works with the Crafter's Union.

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By Digital Artist/Pixelist, Chrocheter Damiza
Discord: Obsidian#1345