[Medium Sized Model - 25mm Base]
[Presupported with LYS files in 32mm & 75mm Scale]
Raised as an urchin in the sooty slums of the “jewel” of the Katarn Sea, Umbra’s life was preordained into one of crime, though for her she was blessed with one exceptional gift that drove her to heights far beyond her petty peers. With the blessing of shadow bestowed upon her by a means of manipulating Minera’s Breath, she was able to conceal herself in ways where she could execute heists no others would dare. Thus this caught the attention of the Inquisitors, who would offer her the chance to work for them with her powers, in exchange for her life.
Nortros is a city defined by beauty and industry, though often the two are often at odds with each other. Against the glistening waters of the Katarn Sea the opulent city is nestled, built upon a hill at the end of a narrow isthmus. In prior decades it was pristine, its blue-tiled roofs in harmony with the azure waves that surrounded it, yet in recent years discourse rose in this serene beauty. Conglomerates and titans of commerce saw the city as fertile ground to sow their seeds of industry, knocking down blocks of old apartments and dilapidated storefront and erecting workshops and factories in their place. Residents of those districts were left with little place to go, many forced to leave their home city altogether, while others tried to scratch a living in the street until times improved. Yet better times never came. More people began to leave the districts where soot and smoke filled the air, and squalor began to set in like a festering wound that marred the city’s old beauty.
Umbra’s family was one whose home was taken from them in this time, her mother was powerless to save their home when the guards tore them from it. Days later they would watch it be torn down by demolitionists, and her father would return from his sailor’s voyage to find his family living in a tent in the city’s outskirts. Without a word he packed his belongings and boarded the first craft leaving the city, and Umbra never saw him again. Bloodlung took her mother a few years after that, along with her younger brother. She was all that was left, a solitary survivor in a city dominated by magnates of industry whose word was law because of the coins in their pockets. Coins they clearly held too much of, for how often they split them into the laps of nobles and governors, those who would approve such callous creations at the doom of their citizens.
In these years Umbra found belonging in a small outfit of urchins like her, the Mudrunners. Led by a charismatic young man named Armond, the idealists hoped to one day build a utopia for themselves far from the bounds of Nortros’ walls, in virgin land where they could build a homestead and answer to no men but themselves. Yet the path to hell is paved with good intentions, and Armond’s path lead them down dark eaves; what started as simple heists and break-ins turned to trafficking and hits. A few lost their stomach for the work, a few more lost their lives. Umbra’s infatuation with Armond quickly grew sour as she watched his ideals wither as power took hold, and it became clear there was no intention to leave Nortros anymore. So, she took it upon herself to leave instead, taking a cart to Grimgate where she hoped to eschew a life of crime and stake out honest work instead. Hopes that dimmed quickly. The carriage there was lost in the Grim Marshes after avoiding a roadblock set by brigands. As night crept in, the undead that haunted the marsh beset the carriage.
All aboard were slaughtered, torn apart by the relentless dead, yet Umbra was spared: it seemed in the darkness their vacant eyes could not spot her. She was invisible. She thus found the road again the next day, salvaging what coin she could from the carriage and the other travellers, it was enough to pay her rent for a small flat in the city for a few months. Here she began to test her theory, and indeed it seemed that in light’s absence she was not merely masked by shadow, she was engulfed by it, becoming one with the darkness. The more she tested it the quicker she learnt her abilities stretched beyond some uncanny luck; it was manipulation of Minera’s Breath, the binding power which dictates all magic and laws of reason within the plains of Minera. The same magic which was forbidden and outlawed by the government of Baldur. Though she was already an outlaw once, and it seemed her wish of honest work was now rendered moot. Purchasing tomes through the blackmarket, she came to learn more of Minera’s Breath and how to further hone her own abilities by it. Using these she was able to delve into a life of crime once more, stealing from the opulent merchants and nobility of Grimgate, the very same who paid for her home to be torn down decades ago.
Lavish was Umbra’s life for many years, until a trap was eventually laid for her by Grimgate’s Inquisitors who suspected magic was at play in the recent spate of undetectable heists. A single scattering of Liturium dust was all that was needed to dispel her shadowy veil, exposing her to a squad of Inquisitors with handcannons at the ready, waiting for the mark of their officer to fill her with lead. Yet the officer relented. The form of magic used by this girl was unlike that which he had ever seen, and though it was clearly something she should be trialled and quartered for, he thought she might have better uses for their cause. Thus High Inquisitor Lorthren offered to Umbra in secret a plea bargain: to spend the rest of her life in servitude working for the Inquisition, or to face a firing squad. She chose the former, though since that day has made plans to flee Baldur the first chance she got, though she knew such a task would not be easy as the Inquisition’s eyes were on her every waking moment. Now she is tasked with helping Lorthren infiltrate and dismantle a terrorist cell operating in Grimgate which threatens to throw the city into chaos should their plans succeed. Umbra knows that should they succeed, martial law will be declared, making her escape even less likely.
