The Cleric
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Player : Matthew Last

False Character : Female Human Cleric

Real Character : Paladin (Potential Avatar of Good)

'Alignment' : Neutral Good (will do reasonable things for a good cause)

Why you are here : To destroy the Dungeon and to prove yourself worthy of the Goddess (the Virgin Goddess of the Church of Purity) so you may lead her forces in the coming Apocalypse

Other Factors : Following prophecy.

What you know about the other players : May get in the way, but they are mentioned in the prophecy.

Nadia Toitovna

Human Cleric

Nadia is a young woman whom one will generally encounter on horseback in plate or chain armour, depending upon the danger of the local area. Her features and build are both unusually fine for a warrior, and her skin has the pale appearance of those whom were born far to the North. Unusually, her hair is straight, black as coal, and remarkably long.  She keeps it very clean, is rather vain of its appearance and considers it a fine point.  Her skin is still largely unmarked, her improbable speed allowing her to generally avoid blows, and thus, scarring.  Her posture is very good as a result of a number of years spent on horseback and wearing heavy armour and increases her already unusual height.  Her current horse is, purely by coincidence also black with white fetlocks.  She often maintains a facade of cool dispassion until she becomes interested in something at which point 'gushing' is possibly not too strong a word.

History: 

I was born thirty years ago this Solstice.  My father was a merchant, a big man in a small town who tried desperately to raise his only daughter as a lady.  Unfortunately for the both of us, I was the least musical child I've ever encountered with no sense of rhythm and no ability to keep anything in my head.  I was awful when keeping track of numbers or different things so my studies in history, business; after all if I married a merchant's son I would require some knowledge of it, music and languages suffered horribly. 

He was a huge, jolly man who would, despite his frustration at my lack of learning, loved me and my brothers fully, and very loudly.  My mother almost appeared faded next to him.  Not a small woman she still disappeared into the background when my father exploded upon one of his joyous rants.  The only area in our lives where she controlled entirely was in the chapel.  She was no small cleric herself and insisted we all follow her true faith.  I was always fascinated by the stories and her magic, but always felt a little off-balance, as if I were not exactly meant to worship Balance.  My mother watched me endlessly whenever she taught us of religion and I soon came to learn that silence was the better option when I disagreed or wished to question her teachings.

Both my parents allowed me to wander occasionally with the other children my age in the town, while always trying to teach me that we were a little better than them.  I thank Goodness that this at least I never learned as they wished. Very little happened in my life until my twelfth year.  I had become somewhat tom-boyish over the years simply because I was so poor at most lady-like things.  I could swim, run, climb with the best of the boys a couple of years older than I.  And then my father died. 

Our favourite pond some four miles out of town was legendarily bottomless, falling away into a darkness that would swallow anyone that swum too deep.  We would challenge each other, seeing who could swim the deepest before turning and fleeing for the surface.  As we got older, we went deeper.  And then one day I went too deep.  There was something down there, a darkness, an Evil of which I will not speak.  But it did not take me, it claimed me instead.  I returned to the surface apparently almost thirty minutes after I had swum down.  I was alone, the others having panicked and fled, for help or for themselves I know not even to this day, and cold.  I staggered home, not knowing what had happened to me, the usual distance feeling ten times its norm. 

The village seemed deserted, I saw no-one until stepping into the kitchen of our home.  Alone in there was Natalia, my eldest brothers wife, whose only reaction at seeing the return of the youngest of the family was to scream, cross herself and flee.  I was surprised to say the least.  It took some time, some confusion before I found myself locked in the my room with my semi-hysterical parents promising to fix it.  It?  What? My father loved glass and so, despite the cost and the difficulty had purchased some glass mirrors and one was in my room. 

It was supposed to help me make myself look beautiful.  And I did use it occasionally.  But throwing myself across the room to look out the window it was some minutes before I realised that something had been very different in the mirror as I passed.  That morning my hair had been pale, so pale that, even as fine as it was, even wet it still looked almost white.  But now, now it was black, as dark as a raven's wing and almost similar in texture, truly odd.  I still did not know what had happened, but when I could not clean it at all... I will speak very little of what happened later that evening, and few in the town could tell you more.  There was a way to free me from the darkness that was threatening my soul, but it was a spell of true darkness and fell power. 

And my mother, my mother, as powerful as she was, more so than I had imagined, was a worshipper of Balance.  To save one...  My father paid for my childish games.  He knew what he was doing, as did my mother.  But no-one else did.  My hair remained dark.  I pray endlessly that my soul did not, but do fear it a little.  I was blamed for much from that moment. No-one ever dared speak directly to my face of my father's death, especially once the strangely-twisted blade that only I could touch appeared on his tomb, but they accused me of much else, and I could hear the words spoken behind my back more clearly than they thought. 

Come fifteen I left, taking only Rusalka and the clothes upon my back.  I ran out on an arranged marriage, the only man my brothers had been able to find prepared to pay dowry for the perceived risk, and the loss of the money they would have received if I had stayed but a week longer enraged them.  My mother had faded even more, and had become almost wraith-like since my father's death, and her death a month earlier had severed the one tie still holding me to home.  And she had spoken to me upon her death-bed just once more, when we were alone.  Even then my brothers would not hurt her, or cross me.  She spoke, rambling a little, of a Prophecy, of a time of darkness and light and battle and death.  Being Balance and my mother, she had wanted, done everything she could, to prevent me following the path that she was sure would end in death. 

Except let me die, possessed.  My path might be dangerous, but as Evil.  She stopped here and would speak no further except to assure me that the blade was truly meant for me, and I was meant for it and the times soon to come.  Uh, yeah.  Sure thing. Since then, I have wandered and learned my trade and survival and earned a little here and there and come to a greater understanding of Good, and Evil and the other forces that shape our lives. Rusalka  This blade.  Unique isn't it.  It appeared on my fathers tomb the first month's anniversary of his death.  I know this blade as I have known it before, in other times and places. 

I wouldn't exactly say it speaks to me, but with this in my hands, I know Good more clearly than ever.  It will not strike unjustly, and will not suffer the touch of darkness. The Church of Purity and I do and don't get on.  We have agreed to disagree.  I am sanctioned and will assist them when I agree with the cause.  I also tithe as they do many good works regardless of their exact policies.  Well, it was a little better, but that bishop four years ago. He was a murderer and worshipper of demons and all, but they don't exactly like admitting it, so I am not blamed, but not exactly persona non grata either.