Half-Elf Hexblade - Karisia Of Timberly

[Medium Sized Model - 25mm Base]

[Presupported with LYS files in 32mm & 75mm Scale]

A half-elf sellsword from Belfrie, though the sword she sells is imbued with a power unlike any other. Karisia is well regarded among mercenary circles, though has always worked as a freelancer, never signing her name to a particular company, in turn creating more demand for her. Now her reputation has earned her a summons to Hinatal to act as a bodyguard for a wealthy merchant, but his disappearance has put her in a scenario where she must play detective to find him, and her pay.

The village of Timberley in Belfrie is a small gladeside settlement regarded for its quality timber and evergreens. Within its populace, it employs a handful of sorcerers who tend their forests, paid for by the Baron himself, ensuring a consistent cycle of reforestation as well as imbuing the trees with life unlike any others. It is this that gives Timberly an edge over other lumber towns in Belfrie. It is from this arrangement that Karisia was born: an illicit affair between an Elven Sorcerer, Sirilus, and the innkeep who tended to his every need, Larissa. When he learned of his imminent fatherhood, the Sirilus chose to stay, with plans to take the child and wife to his home in Volosvio, where he would plan to later have the child schooled at the University of Ardris. However, when the father of his lover learned of their affair, he was enraged, accusing the sorcerer of taking advantage of his naive daughter.

Under false pretense, the father gathered the townspeople: an angry mob set to exact vengeance against an outsider who wronged one of their own, armed with pitchforks and axes. By the time Karisia’s mother had learned of what transpired, her lover had been dead for hours. At her behest and hysteria, she demanded her father take her to the corpse: a bloodied mess that was barely recognisable. It had just fallen dusk when she arrived. She wept until dawn. Yet as the sun shone on his body, it glowed a faint radiant light, and an energy seemed to leave it, imbuing itself in her. Karisia was born three months later, healthy and strong, though with eyes that glowed a strange golden hue.

Karisia’s early years were fraught with disparaging remarks, both to her and her mother. The village folk of Timberly were not as accommodating to modern values as the city folk of Jochenia and Velandria, where half-elves were often seen. When she was only six winters old, her mother made the difficult decision to flee Timberly and move to Volosvio, looking for the home of her old lover, or any who perhaps knew him. By fortune, she found a close friend to her lover: his mentor at the University of Ardris, who was deeply saddened to learn of his friend’s passing. This mentor, Corelian, was an age old sorcerer who had served as a professor at the university for decades before retiring to Volosvio. He took Karisia and her mother in, though was intrigued by the golden hue that flickered in the eyes of the child. Through gentle experimentations and probing questions, he came to theorise that in death, a part of the father’s soul had bound itself to the unborn Karisia, still in her mother’s womb. That soul was a sentinel, one which offered her both protection and might, through her father’s ancestral line, and her father himself.

As Karisia grew older, she was taught by Corelian to wield this power bestowed by her father, and eventually by her father himself as his spirit manifested in her mind, as though a voice spoke to her behind her eyes. Finally, after sixteen years, she was able to speak to the father she never had. Joy also filled the hearts of her mother and Corelian, who were able to speak to their loved one through Karisia after so much time had passed. As years went by, he further instructed Karisia how to wield his borrowed power as a weapon, literally. From his soul, she was able to summon her entire Elven ancestral line as both weapon and armour, a Hexblade bound by her familial tapestry: a link granted through her deceased father.

When her mother passed to illness, both Karisia and the soul of her father grieved. Though Karisia encouraged her father to leave her, taking his powers with him, so he could reunite with the soul of his old lover, he refused. The two would have eternity together after, and Karisia had but one life now, a special one that he would see to its end: assuring her that whether it was chance or divine intervention that brought their souls together in such a way, he would not see such a thing go to waste. Karisia was special, and held this power for a purpose. Yet, destiny would not come to her doorstep as she sat in Volosvio, so Karisia set out into the wilds, selling her services to those in need.

Over decades she earned a reputation as a highly competent problem solver, both of the mundane and arcane. Her blade was quick to solve both kinds of problems. Though she had her own fiery flare, and a vice for gold, it was tempered with a warm and welcoming personality, one that could easily melt away tensions in the coldest of situations. Though many mercenary organisations tried to recruit her, she refused them all, working as a lone wolf on her own terms, for greater sums of gold. Her reputation had preceded her so much that work often found her, rather than needing to seek it out. 

By her thirtieth birthday, she had received a contract for her biggest job yet, a wealthy Baldurian Merchant by the name of Norman Crestwell, paying her enough to buy a small manor to escort him across the savannah and desert of Sudd Tohst to the esteemed city of Hinatal. It seemed too easy to be true, yet with only minor incidents, they arrived in Hinatal, the merchant and his goods unscathed. Though her initial suspicions came to fruition, as the day after their arrival, her employer vanished. Suspecting either foul play, or an employer refusing to cough up their pay, she has begun to investigate through the city, hoping to find the merchant, and her gold.