Greenbriar
Exile
General Information
Name: Anielka of Cranholme
Ethnicity: Kelene
Path: Freelancer
Personality
Anielka sees herself as a woman who has lost everything, just going through the motions as a defender of the folk in a vain attempt to make her existence worthwhile. Beneath this, she is at heart the same peasant woman she always was and has a grass-roots view of the world and the so-called rich and powerful.
Hopes
She hopes to push back the darkness that overshadows the smallfolk of the world, from monster and man alike. One day she hopes to see the city of Regar, though her path hardly seems to trend in that direction.
Fears
She fears the Fae are smarter than a mere human woman, and have a deeper game in which she is but one more dancing puppet.
Regrets
Abandoning Piotr to his fate.
Connections
While she refuses to return to Gatewood, she has some small claim on ties to the Fae Lord and Lady she met there that may help with their kin. She has some ties of friendship and gratitude to Cranholme, and a number of smaller settlements in the Frontier.
Attributes
Physical
Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Fitness 2
Mental
Intellect 2, Intuition 2, Willpower 4
Social
Bearing 3, Guile 2, Composure 3
Skills
Physical
Athletics 3, Melee 3, Defense 3, Unarmed 1, Stealth 3
Mental
Empathy 3, Persuasion 2, Mingling 3, Kelene (Eastern, Frontier) 3
Social
Lore 3, Survival 2, Investigation 3
Focii
Spear 5 (Melee), Dodge 4 (Defense), Woodland 4 (Stealth), Folklore 4 (Lore), Truth in Fable (Investigation)
Advantages
Familiarity: Frontier - +1 die to Mingling, Persuasion, and Empathy when dealing with Frontiersmen.
Knowledge: The Barrow Court - +1 die on Lore, Investigation, and Persuasion when dealing with the Fae.
Training: Boar Hunter - +1 die for Defense when dodging, Melee when using a spear, and Athletics on long hunts.
Freelancer Perks
Kingslayer (Token Rank 3) Ignores all Soak on targets of higher social standing, negates Faerie damage resistance as it comes from among them.
Daredevil 4
Derived Stats
Speed: 5
Combat Pool: 8
Ranged Pool: 8
Offense: Melee: 6 (9 for Spear)
Offense: Ranged: 3
Offense: Unarmed: 4
Defend Rating: 6 (8 for Dodge)
Soak: 2
Magic Resist: 4
Inventory
Biography
Anielka lived a simple, peaceful, happy life as a simple, peaceful, innocent girl from the day she was drawn screaming from her mother's womb to the day she wed her childhood sweetheart Andrezj at the age of sixteen, working hard in the fields and the home as the seasons required. Her belly already beginning to swell as they came before the priest, she gave birth to four boys and three girls - though scarcely half survived their first years.
In her twenty fifth year, Anielka was drawing in the laundry outside their hut when she spied her five year old son Piotr through a hedge. He was kneeling over something on the grass, gazing down at it with an eerily focused attention. When she crept up behind him she saw it was a bird on its back with a stick driven through its breast, wings still fluttering. She stared down at the bird and stared at her son... then did what mothers the land over feared doing, drew out the old horse shoe from beneath her skirts and touched the cold iron to the back of his neck.
Instantly the Piotr-thing jumped and spun, hissing at her with eyes flickering and nictitating. She met his inhuman gaze for a long moment, saw the twin blistered marks on his throat... then he fled. Andrezj could scarce believe it when she came to him with the tale, but all the women of the village knew someone who had lost a child this way, and drew in around her in support. Despite all the village could do, Anielka sank into a depression and wandered in a haze for many days before she took it into her head to go after her lost child. Despite all he had undergone in the realm of the Fair Folk, surely he would know his mother when he saw her? She had to try, yet she knew no one else would understand. Already Andrezj (not to mention his mother!) was hinting that her family needed her to recover, but she couldn't simply abandon her son. She wouldn't!
She crept out of her house in the dead of night with a small pouch of food and flask of water. She dressed in her festival best, and brought with her her grandfather's old hunting spear, which she had practiced with for hours behind the cow sheds earlier that week. She knew the Gentry would not be as easy to put in their place as the stacks of hay, yet it was all that she had. She made her way across the fields and into the wild bounds of Gatewood, and by some miracle all the perils she had heard endless tales about seemed to avoid her. The creature that took Gavril's cows last Autumn, the witch-thing who corrupted Urzuli's chickens... she had half-expected them to set upon her as soon as she stepped beneath the trees, but the wood was just that - a wood. The deeper she went the quieter it became, as though a heavy stifling blanket was laid over all about her. And then at last she heard it, faintly on the breeze; music.
She followed her ears and the music became louder until at last the woods opened up into a clearing around a high barrow with glowing lights strewn all around a great portal, both gates opened wide. Anielka walked on in a dream, pacing deep into the Fae Howe until she came to the glittering assemblage itself and curtsied to the Lord and Lady at its heart. They seemed amused by her careful courtesies and granted that she might offer them petition. Her dreamlike composure shaken, she begged them to allow her to see her son - and they did. She saw him, five still, sitting against a tree in a garden at the heart of the Howe, his face still stained with the goblin fruits as he slept. She ran to him, called to him, yet he did not wake... and so she turned back to the fair couple that had followed her there and begged that they allow her to take him home. They shook their heads; only one boon was their prize for her careful courtesies and respect. But then the Lady seemed to melt, and persuaded her Lord to offer Anielka a chance to earn another if she agreed to be the entertainment at that night's feast. Without thought she agreed, and was bustled away to be dressed in Faerie finery. She imagined they would ask her to sing, or to dance (though what they could want of her other than to show the weaknesses of humanity she could not imagine), yet she was careful to let no food nor drink pass her lips save that which she had brought with her.
When the time came to perform, it seemed her hosts were perhaps not so generous as she had imagined - the lady so merciful. She was to duel with a knight of the court before all onlookers, to the death. Even now she hung tight to her courtesies, and pleaded that she would not willingly risk killing one sworn to the service of her noble hosts. They reassured her that the knight would not, could not die and offered her an array of Gentry weapons from which to choose. Anielka insisted these were lordly weapons, not fit for the likes of her and in her humility managed to hold tight to the old steel spear her grandfather had left her without giving offence. What happened during the duel, even now she could not say - it was all a blur and she was utterly outclassed, yet somehow at the end of it all it was the courtly Knight who fell with the old spear driven so deeply into his chest that the head broke off. There was an abrupt shocked silence, and then applause from the inhuman assemblage, before the Lord and Lady stood and proffered her their promised boon in exchange for her service (and for surviving to claim it). She could indeed take Piotr home and he would know her as his mother - or she would be granted the ability to save the lives of her other children, who would die without her aid.
She had to take Piotr home, she had to! Wasn't that why she had come after all? Yet going on this suicidal journey had been selfishness in the extreme, putting a child she had never truly known ahead of the three she had cared for every day of their lives. Who loved and trusted her to protect them. Screaming inside, Anielka accepted the boon they offered. She would be granted the power required to protect her other children - yet once everyone was safe she must return to the court and return the relic, and they would invite her to stay. It was implied (if not stated) that they would expect her to agree. It would be the courteous thing to do after all, and she nodded her assent as they placed in her outstretched hands... a worn old wooden spear, half-rotted in places. She gave them a single unbelieving look, half-expecting mockery but saw instead the seriousness in their gaze. It was the Kingslayer, an honoured weapon for the defenders of the small.
Yet though the word of the Gentry is proverbially true, the Fair Folk are also notorious for twisting their meaning in deception. Although Anielka found her way out safely from the Gatewood (again the fabled monsters seemed strangely absent, unless they were afraid of the weapon she'd been loaned), when she returned to Cranholme she found that though her children remained safe forty years had passed. She had been written off as dead. Her husband had remarried, had four more children and passed away. Her children had families of their own now, and their children now had children. She was stunned, but the passage of time served to blur the village's memories and even her family failed to recognize her. She felt betrayed, spent the night as a guest of the town as she tried to work out where she went from here. That evening direwolves crept into the town and began to slaughter the locals. This was her moment, and without any particular concern for her life Anielka hurled herself at the monsters and cut them down, one after another.
The Fae had kept their word, and she had saved her children with the power they had granted her. They had kept the letter of their agreement - but definitely not the spirit. And as she unwillingly attended the feast in her honour the next night and began to drink, she reflected that she would be expected to go back now, to live at the mercy of the people who had ruined her life. Yet... as they had kept to the letter of their agreement, they had said to return once "everyone was safe". In her cups now, she resolved on her life to come. She would go and hunt these creatures wherever they threatened the helpless, until one day the world was safe or (more likely) she died a free woman.
Suiting word to deed, she has spent the past year pursuing her purpose (or morelike her death) on the far side of Gatewood, in the dangerous lands of the Frontier. Truth be known she should have died more than once; when the water-horse towed her beneath the Lake of Sighs, when the wolfmen cornered her at the cliff's edge, and when the Wild Hunt came howling down from the hills with her half a day from any human shelter. She hadn't always slain what menaced her (indeed, she had managed to scratch herself bloody clawing her way into the briar patch to hide, shivering, as the Huntsmen rode by) and she took her share of scars... but she was still alive, and so were most of those she set out to defend. That had to count for something.
Name: Anielka of Cranholme
Ethnicity: Kelene
Path: Freelancer
Personality
Anielka sees herself as a woman who has lost everything, just going through the motions as a defender of the folk in a vain attempt to make her existence worthwhile. Beneath this, she is at heart the same peasant woman she always was and has a grass-roots view of the world and the so-called rich and powerful.
Hopes
She hopes to push back the darkness that overshadows the smallfolk of the world, from monster and man alike. One day she hopes to see the city of Regar, though her path hardly seems to trend in that direction.
Fears
She fears the Fae are smarter than a mere human woman, and have a deeper game in which she is but one more dancing puppet.
Regrets
Abandoning Piotr to his fate.
Connections
While she refuses to return to Gatewood, she has some small claim on ties to the Fae Lord and Lady she met there that may help with their kin. She has some ties of friendship and gratitude to Cranholme, and a number of smaller settlements in the Frontier.
Attributes
Physical
Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Fitness 2
Mental
Intellect 2, Intuition 2, Willpower 4
Social
Bearing 3, Guile 2, Composure 3
Skills
Physical
Athletics 3, Melee 3, Defense 3, Unarmed 1, Stealth 3
Mental
Empathy 3, Persuasion 2, Mingling 3, Kelene (Eastern, Frontier) 3
Social
Lore 3, Survival 2, Investigation 3
Focii
Spear 5 (Melee), Dodge 4 (Defense), Woodland 4 (Stealth), Folklore 4 (Lore), Truth in Fable (Investigation)
Advantages
Familiarity: Frontier - +1 die to Mingling, Persuasion, and Empathy when dealing with Frontiersmen.
Knowledge: The Barrow Court - +1 die on Lore, Investigation, and Persuasion when dealing with the Fae.
Training: Boar Hunter - +1 die for Defense when dodging, Melee when using a spear, and Athletics on long hunts.
Freelancer Perks
Kingslayer (Token Rank 3) Ignores all Soak on targets of higher social standing, negates Faerie damage resistance as it comes from among them.
Daredevil 4
Derived Stats
Speed: 5
Combat Pool: 8
Ranged Pool: 8
Offense: Melee: 6 (9 for Spear)
Offense: Ranged: 3
Offense: Unarmed: 4
Defend Rating: 6 (8 for Dodge)
Soak: 2
Magic Resist: 4
Inventory
Biography
Anielka lived a simple, peaceful, happy life as a simple, peaceful, innocent girl from the day she was drawn screaming from her mother's womb to the day she wed her childhood sweetheart Andrezj at the age of sixteen, working hard in the fields and the home as the seasons required. Her belly already beginning to swell as they came before the priest, she gave birth to four boys and three girls - though scarcely half survived their first years.
In her twenty fifth year, Anielka was drawing in the laundry outside their hut when she spied her five year old son Piotr through a hedge. He was kneeling over something on the grass, gazing down at it with an eerily focused attention. When she crept up behind him she saw it was a bird on its back with a stick driven through its breast, wings still fluttering. She stared down at the bird and stared at her son... then did what mothers the land over feared doing, drew out the old horse shoe from beneath her skirts and touched the cold iron to the back of his neck.
Instantly the Piotr-thing jumped and spun, hissing at her with eyes flickering and nictitating. She met his inhuman gaze for a long moment, saw the twin blistered marks on his throat... then he fled. Andrezj could scarce believe it when she came to him with the tale, but all the women of the village knew someone who had lost a child this way, and drew in around her in support. Despite all the village could do, Anielka sank into a depression and wandered in a haze for many days before she took it into her head to go after her lost child. Despite all he had undergone in the realm of the Fair Folk, surely he would know his mother when he saw her? She had to try, yet she knew no one else would understand. Already Andrezj (not to mention his mother!) was hinting that her family needed her to recover, but she couldn't simply abandon her son. She wouldn't!
She crept out of her house in the dead of night with a small pouch of food and flask of water. She dressed in her festival best, and brought with her her grandfather's old hunting spear, which she had practiced with for hours behind the cow sheds earlier that week. She knew the Gentry would not be as easy to put in their place as the stacks of hay, yet it was all that she had. She made her way across the fields and into the wild bounds of Gatewood, and by some miracle all the perils she had heard endless tales about seemed to avoid her. The creature that took Gavril's cows last Autumn, the witch-thing who corrupted Urzuli's chickens... she had half-expected them to set upon her as soon as she stepped beneath the trees, but the wood was just that - a wood. The deeper she went the quieter it became, as though a heavy stifling blanket was laid over all about her. And then at last she heard it, faintly on the breeze; music.
She followed her ears and the music became louder until at last the woods opened up into a clearing around a high barrow with glowing lights strewn all around a great portal, both gates opened wide. Anielka walked on in a dream, pacing deep into the Fae Howe until she came to the glittering assemblage itself and curtsied to the Lord and Lady at its heart. They seemed amused by her careful courtesies and granted that she might offer them petition. Her dreamlike composure shaken, she begged them to allow her to see her son - and they did. She saw him, five still, sitting against a tree in a garden at the heart of the Howe, his face still stained with the goblin fruits as he slept. She ran to him, called to him, yet he did not wake... and so she turned back to the fair couple that had followed her there and begged that they allow her to take him home. They shook their heads; only one boon was their prize for her careful courtesies and respect. But then the Lady seemed to melt, and persuaded her Lord to offer Anielka a chance to earn another if she agreed to be the entertainment at that night's feast. Without thought she agreed, and was bustled away to be dressed in Faerie finery. She imagined they would ask her to sing, or to dance (though what they could want of her other than to show the weaknesses of humanity she could not imagine), yet she was careful to let no food nor drink pass her lips save that which she had brought with her.
When the time came to perform, it seemed her hosts were perhaps not so generous as she had imagined - the lady so merciful. She was to duel with a knight of the court before all onlookers, to the death. Even now she hung tight to her courtesies, and pleaded that she would not willingly risk killing one sworn to the service of her noble hosts. They reassured her that the knight would not, could not die and offered her an array of Gentry weapons from which to choose. Anielka insisted these were lordly weapons, not fit for the likes of her and in her humility managed to hold tight to the old steel spear her grandfather had left her without giving offence. What happened during the duel, even now she could not say - it was all a blur and she was utterly outclassed, yet somehow at the end of it all it was the courtly Knight who fell with the old spear driven so deeply into his chest that the head broke off. There was an abrupt shocked silence, and then applause from the inhuman assemblage, before the Lord and Lady stood and proffered her their promised boon in exchange for her service (and for surviving to claim it). She could indeed take Piotr home and he would know her as his mother - or she would be granted the ability to save the lives of her other children, who would die without her aid.
She had to take Piotr home, she had to! Wasn't that why she had come after all? Yet going on this suicidal journey had been selfishness in the extreme, putting a child she had never truly known ahead of the three she had cared for every day of their lives. Who loved and trusted her to protect them. Screaming inside, Anielka accepted the boon they offered. She would be granted the power required to protect her other children - yet once everyone was safe she must return to the court and return the relic, and they would invite her to stay. It was implied (if not stated) that they would expect her to agree. It would be the courteous thing to do after all, and she nodded her assent as they placed in her outstretched hands... a worn old wooden spear, half-rotted in places. She gave them a single unbelieving look, half-expecting mockery but saw instead the seriousness in their gaze. It was the Kingslayer, an honoured weapon for the defenders of the small.
Yet though the word of the Gentry is proverbially true, the Fair Folk are also notorious for twisting their meaning in deception. Although Anielka found her way out safely from the Gatewood (again the fabled monsters seemed strangely absent, unless they were afraid of the weapon she'd been loaned), when she returned to Cranholme she found that though her children remained safe forty years had passed. She had been written off as dead. Her husband had remarried, had four more children and passed away. Her children had families of their own now, and their children now had children. She was stunned, but the passage of time served to blur the village's memories and even her family failed to recognize her. She felt betrayed, spent the night as a guest of the town as she tried to work out where she went from here. That evening direwolves crept into the town and began to slaughter the locals. This was her moment, and without any particular concern for her life Anielka hurled herself at the monsters and cut them down, one after another.
The Fae had kept their word, and she had saved her children with the power they had granted her. They had kept the letter of their agreement - but definitely not the spirit. And as she unwillingly attended the feast in her honour the next night and began to drink, she reflected that she would be expected to go back now, to live at the mercy of the people who had ruined her life. Yet... as they had kept to the letter of their agreement, they had said to return once "everyone was safe". In her cups now, she resolved on her life to come. She would go and hunt these creatures wherever they threatened the helpless, until one day the world was safe or (more likely) she died a free woman.
Suiting word to deed, she has spent the past year pursuing her purpose (or morelike her death) on the far side of Gatewood, in the dangerous lands of the Frontier. Truth be known she should have died more than once; when the water-horse towed her beneath the Lake of Sighs, when the wolfmen cornered her at the cliff's edge, and when the Wild Hunt came howling down from the hills with her half a day from any human shelter. She hadn't always slain what menaced her (indeed, she had managed to scratch herself bloody clawing her way into the briar patch to hide, shivering, as the Huntsmen rode by) and she took her share of scars... but she was still alive, and so were most of those she set out to defend. That had to count for something.
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