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Player Information
Name: Emily
Age: Older
Contact: deerleisure
deerlesbian#5961@discord
Current characters: N/A

Character Information
Name: Isette of Khia
Appearance: Isette is a young woman who often gets mistaken for younger thanks to being scrawny and short (4'10".) She is on the malnourished and unhealthy side of skinny since she doesn't eat properly, and doesn't really have any muscles to speak of. Her hair is long and blond, although not particularly well cared for. She has dark gray eyes and a pale complexion that speaks of not getting enough sunlight. She's often sporting robes of cheap cloth that have many frays and are held together with patches.
Age: 20
Canon Point: Arrival at the Hero's Tower.

Canon History:
The world of Alvion where Isette hails is, in many ways, a typical "fantasy" world. Humans, elves, orcs, and various beastfolk live in harmony, keeping monsters at check and expanding their civilizations. Their technology level seems stagnant at a late medieval level, but as far as their people know, that's normal.

As of the present, the largest country in this world is Gimora, a predominantly human country with a couple notable beastfolk and orcish settlements, although other notable countries definitely exist, such as the large coastal elvish nation of Ai'dan. Gimora is a traditional monarchy (albeit with a gender-neutral succession system) with a number of noble houses managing affairs away from Varyn, the kingdom's capital.

Moving away from the capital, near the outskirts of Gimora, there's a city named Khia. They still hold allegiance to Gimora, but they have no noble to rule them and their province. Instead, the Academy of Arcane Studies (around which the city is built) manages the city and its environs itself, with its board acting as the ruling body. The Academy, and the people of Gimora, and really a lot of Alvion, only value study as it relates to magic. All other knowledge, whether it be history or technology or architecture, is considered to be "complete." The books already written are considered to be the sum of knowledge with nothing new to be added.

Religion in Alvion is mostly unified, regardless of race or nation or origin. There are considered to be three Divinities; the Divine Sun, the Divine Moon, and the Divine Stars. Everything in the world falls into the domain of one of these three. For example, the Divine Sun holds sway over land, the Divine Moon over the sea, and the Divine Stars over the heavens. Although they are referred to by the Divine Sun, Moon, and Stars, they are considered individuals, divine beings - they even have proper names, although they are never spoken except when calling on them directly. Although these Divinities are worshiped practically everywhere in Alvion, some places, usually small villages or specialized religious sects, worship singular "concepts" directly, such as a monk sect that worships and works for the concept of death.

Magic, as mentioned, is generally considered a field of study. Although people's strength in using magic differs, almost anybody can learn almost any type of magic, with enough study. And, like any study, it's generally not terribly difficult to learn the basics of many different types, but as it becomes more advanced it becomes progressively more difficult, and thus most people specialize. And so you wind up with fire mages, water mages, diviners, or summoners, specializing in one field, although each one probably knows basic spells of other types. Most peasantry, though, simply don't get the opportunity to study magic, unless they are very skilled - just as most people in medieval times didn't receive a proper education. At least in Gimora.

Divine magic is a little less nuanced. No matter which of the three Divinities is worshiped, their magic is fundamentally holy - it heals, removes impurities, and can smite - but the strength of this divine magic depends on which Divinity is worshiped and how much sway their domains have on the target and location being cast upon. Those who worship a concept rather than a Divine tend to have access to that concept in some way, though they are odd edge cases as far as the world is concerned.

Of note is that, around the world, there are many ancient ruins of a long-dead civilization, said to have incurred the wrath of the Divinities. They had superior technology and many building techniques currently unknown to the world. As a whole, though, the world is uninterested in these ruins - their technologies written off as unknown magical rituals and the rest to be a footnote in history books. Of note to us is that the ancient, long-dead language of this civilization is modern English.

And now we go into the backstory of the world. Millennia ago, a man from OUR world, from modern time, stumbled across a natural portal into Alvion. Perhaps as a side effect from the portal, or perhaps as an actual Divine blessing, this man, Shiro, gained the ability to draw in the power of those around him. The world back then was even less advanced than its current state, constantly struggling to keep pace with the monsters. Shiro, with his newfound abilities, was able to beat back the monsters. Then, with his modern knowledge, he was able to advance civilization. He founded an empire, accumulated power, and eventually... accumulated so much power than he ascended into the heavens. Without his personal guidance, though, his empire began to crumble - pushed too far ahead too fast, they couldn't continue their own momentum.

So Shiro used his power to bring in more people from his world. An entire town disappeared and was brought into Alvion. They all made the best of things, rapidly advancing technology, medicine, and lifestyle around them to match their own, taking Shiro's empire and making it even better than it had been in his rule. But they also learned of Shiro's existence, of his meddling, and had a target for their anger. Shiro was forced to end his empire in a rain of destruction. This was the lost civilization of Alvion. He decided it best that the people of this world remain at their current level of technology, so that they wouldn't rise against him again.

There's more to Shiro's story though. He found that his powers didn't naturally regenerate. When he used up the powers he absorbed, he grew weaker. So he needed to continue absorbing power. He did this by bringing in people from his world once again. He knew better than to use more than one at a time now, but he still brought them in from modern times - it provided the perfect edge for them, as well as giving them a sense of superiority to these people living like olden times. To the people he brought in, he gave a version of his own power, as well as an unnatural boost to charisma. They would then go on to be heroes, building up a horde of followers, gaining their powers, and often save the world from middling threats like powerful necromancers or dragons. And then after they had their fun, Shiro would absorb the power they had gained.

Because of this, the world of modern Alvion has a long history of powerful heroes mysteriously appearing. These heroes would have incredible power, perform great deeds, and mysteriously vanish once everything was over. It wasn't terribly often - maybe once every few generations - but certainly enough to leave an impact on the world and in its history.

Character History:
Isette's early childhood was in the capital city of Gimora, Varyn. Her mother, Estelle, was a soldier of Gimora, and her father, Grett, a servant in the Royal Palace. She had a big sister, Sienna, and they were mostly happy there. Until their mother died in the line of duty, pushing back a monster attack. Her family received a tidy sum in death gratuity, but her father, seeing just how intelligent Isette was, used most of the money to send Isette to school in the Academy of Arcane Studies in Khia. And while Isette studied in Khia, Sienna trained under her father and eventually rose up to become the personal maid of the princess heir apparent.

Isette was around twelve when she went to Khia. Her father used his own connections and the connections of Isette's late mother to have Isette tag along with a group of knights heading to Khia for her trip there. Along the way, they stopped to check on some recently unearthed ruins, presumably to make sure no monster nests were inside. Khia was supposed to stay back with the caravans, but curiosity overtook her and she went exploring. And got hopelessly lost. She wound up exploring the ruins and finding an ancient artifact - some small triple-armed metallic device with holes at the ends - before the knights realized she was missing from the caravan and found her.

Because of this experience, Isette tried very hard to focus her studies on the ancient civilization, but grew very frustrated that none of her instructors took her seriously. The Academy of Arcane Studies only cared about magic. To them, all other fields of study were a waste, as everything they needed to know was already studied and written down. This is despite the fact nobody had any concrete ideas about the ancient civilization and nobody could even understand the written language they had left behind. She took to spending all of her free time studying this ancient civilization anyway, only learning light magic on the side in order to pass through the Academy.

She ended up graduating two years early at 16 years old, both because of her good grasp of magical theory and by simultaneously taking a less strenuous (magical) course load. She wasn't the only one to graduate early though - Vira was the magical prodigy and jewel of the instructors' eyes. Vira resented Isette's blasé attitude towards magic, and further resented the fact Isette graduated the same time she did. Still, she was off to do great things in the capital and surely would never meet Isette again.

After graduating, Isette applied for a researcher position within the same Academy, hoping to create a department within the Academy for the study of history and archeology. It took a while, but she eked out an approval by talking about the possible application of uncovering ancient magic. However, her new department received minimal funding, including her own pay. Because of this, her father and sister back at the capital sent most of their money to help support her in Khia as she pursued her own goals.

Four years after she graduated, Shiro [see world history] made a move. He brought in a new person from Earth to become a hero - Dexter, a college student in modern America. But he made a mistake, for in addition to pulling through Dexter, he brought in Dexter's roommate, another young man named Sawyer. Not even noticing Sawyer, that boy wound up in the back alleys of Khia while Dexter got sent to Varyn to have adventures. Unable to speak the local language and having no new special abilities to help him out, Sawyer bungled around in Khia until Isette stumbled across him.

Isette realized Sawyer was speaking the lost, ancient language. She had long mastered this language.... as well as can be expected for a scholar putting it together from only context clues. Communication was far from perfect, but she was able to teach Sawyer the local language while taking him in.

Using her new house guest as leverage within the Academy, Isette was able to scrounge up enough funding to go on an expedition. To this end, she and Sawyer held a... job fair, to hire potential guards, since the world is still a dangerous place filled with monsters. A knight named Sonje was the only one to fit the bill and the pay grade, so with her joining them, they set off. Along the way one of said dangerous monsters ended up tagging along, a sentient suit of armor (a dullahan) named Iris. Together, they found that the ruins had also been home to a gang of thieves, and found an artifact with the Gimora royal crest.

Isette wrote to Sienna, her sister, to pass word along to the royal family in case this artifact was of any importance. Sienna wrote back, and the royal family sent along a princess to authenticate and bring back the relic. The former court mage, a man named Reth, accompanied her. Unfortunately, he had ulterior motives - he had recognized the artifact's description as the magical key to the Hero's Tower (or the Hero's Tomb, depending on who you ask,) the home of a great magic-wielding hero of ages past, who had been given the tower by the royal family. Locked away in this tower would be that hero's staff, and with it, he was sure he could gain incredible power, depose the king, and kill the upstart young court mage who took his place just for icing on the proverbial cake.

So he took the artifact in the night and ran. By the time Isette and the others realized what had happened, he was long gone. They managed to hire a beastfolk monk named Nyathan to help track him down, but between the head start and the mercenaries hired to keep him from being followed, they didn't catch up until the abandoned city of Brookside, a town long abandoned due to monster activity. In the confrontation, Isette and her friends (mostly her friends lbr) were victorious, but.... Reth was a summoner, and his final act was to summon a dragon.

But just as they were about to abandon all hope, a group of real heroes arrived. That is to say, Dexter, along with a group that Dexter had gathered under him. Among them was Vira, Isette's old rival(?) and the court mage who had usurped Reth's position. These heroes didn't seem very impressed with Isette's friends' performance, and quickly wrote them off. Even Dexter didn't spend any time catching up with his old friend Sawyer. They did, however, leave the artifact in their care, having been more concerned with Reth's plot and the dragon he had summoned.

With the artifact back in hand and now knowing its purpose, the princess proposed the group head to the Hero's Tower to investigate it. Isette, being of one mind (research) agreed. The group stuck together, bonded through adventure, adversity, and the promise of the princess giving them cash, and had several more adventures on their way to the tower.

And when they arrived.... Isette was taken away by a storyteller.

Personality:
Isette might look like a slob or a beggar (depending on how generous one is feeling upon meeting her) but she is, despite her appearance, an academic at heart. And in job. She has no qualms showing off or bragging of her status as a researcher and de facto department head at the Academy of Arcane Studies. Being an academic means a lot to her - it's the crux around which she's built up her identity.

Being as such, it's a given that Isette is most comfortable in academic settings. Place her in a classroom, in a library, or in a collections room, and she has no problem diving in, working her (literal or not) magic. And she jumps at the chance to learn new things - mostly in the fields of her own interest, but she'll quickly eat up any sort of new information thrown at her, really. You could say that one of her driving forces is curiosity - the drive to learn, the drive to find out why and how things are how they are. In her world, ignorance is... widely accepted. If things aren't already learned, if they aren't already known, they're written off as unimportant. Isette can't stand that. She can't stand a state of the world where people accept not knowing things instead of driving themselves forward towards the truth.

Isette is surprisingly headstrong and prideful. Some look at her and her manner of dress and think she must have no pride, but that's not true. It's just, her pride is in a different area. She fully believes in her own cause, she has pride in it, and she's willing to do whatever it takes to see it through. She's willing to live like a pauper and look like a fool, because her pride is in her work. Her lack of magical experience is actually a facet of this pride - she purposefully only learned the minimum of magic because her true goal is history and archeology. She thinks that is a goal worth standing on its own merits.

As mentioned, Isette is a very thrifty individual. She was forced to be. Her department receives next to no funding, so Isette supplements her research funds with her own money - even though her pay is already the lowest in the academy. It's not much of a secret that the other mages of the Academy think her research is unimportant, her position mostly a platitude, and that drives Isette even further to prove them wrong. She's mastered every way to save money and maximize the use of what she does have. Her copper-pinching tends to get on her friends' nerves after the third week in a row of sleeping in stables instead of inn proper and eating nothing but potatoes, but she makes sure they have the money they need for other things. That's not to say she is completely averse to spending money though - the entire point of her thriftiness is to make sure she can afford what she needs to. She just prioritizes to extremes.

It can be said that she is a "realist." Isette is a girl who knows her own limits, who thinks things through with that knowledge and makes the best decision. She's somebody who chooses rational thought over emotions, in other words. She will be quick to state when the odds aren't in their favor, quick to try and come up with a better plan or, failing that, beat a hasty retreat. However, while this rationale is her first thought and her first choice, when the chips are all on the table, Isette will let emotion triumph. Her first instinct is to do the smart thing, but the winner tends to be doing the right thing.

Because Isette is, at her core, a very kind, compassionate girl. She doesn't always sound it, her words don't always match up to it. But in her actions, her deeds, in her final decisions and judgments, she shows that she cares about people, that she's willing to put others over herself, and that the lessons of her childhood instilled into her by a doting father, a compassionate mother, and a kind older sister all held true.

In short, Isette might look and act like a tiny gremlin more concerned with saving a few copper than anything else, but at her core she's a kind individual who's trying her best to seek knowledge and help people along the way.

Abilities:
˖MAGIC - Isette mastered light magic, and only light magic. Although most mages can at least cast basic spells of other schools, Isette considered it a matter of pride that she focus on academics, and learned only enough magic to pass through the Academy.

With her magic, she CAN;
-Make lights, of varying intensities and colors. She can make them bright enough to light up a large building, but not enough to, say, light up a field. Her lights can hang in air where she puts them, or she can move them around. She puts magic in them when she makes the lights and that determines how long they remain - she can leave them far away and they will remain lit and in place as long as the magic she placed in them hasn't burnt out. (Obviously, the brighter they are the more they take.) However, she can't manipulate, recharge, or willingly snuff out lights that are out of line of sight or further away then, say, a hundred feet.
-Make EXTREMELY bright flashes, enough to blind everybody who looks at it temporarily. although this takes up larger amounts of magic than just making a floating light.
-Make "spotlight" or "flashlight"-like lights that point their light in a specific direction.
-Concentrate light onto a point to heat it up and start fires (this takes about fifteen to thirty seconds, so not useful in battle.)
-Make complicated patterns with lights, such as emulating fireworks or writing messages in spark-like lights.
-Make her light mimic the properties of sunlight, moonlight, etc, (applicable if, say, meeting a vampire, or werewolf, etc. where some mystic or genetic component reacts specifically to those)
-Manipulate nearby real sources of light in the same ways she can manipulate her own lights. (Though she can't snuff out a candle's flame, but she could dim its light.)
-"Ride" light waves traveling from a light source, traveling along them. Since it's at the speed of light it's near instant, but it's limited by the light source - the light needs to easily reach the destination point, and she can only ride the light directly away from the light source. This in particular is extremely magically exhausting.

With her magic, she can NOT:
-Make lasers powerful enough to harm somebody
-Make light "solid" or give it mass in any way
-Exorcise, or otherwise have her light act "holy"

In terms of magic ability, Isette would be considered low-powered, highly-skilled with technique, extremely precise, and of average endurance. With her good grasp of fundamentals, she can parse out how other abilities are used if it's consistent with her own world.

On the subject of magic, there are some potentials for the future. Illusions are a subset of light magic, just one she hasn't learned, so she could potentially spend time to learn how to do this. They would be image only, no sound no mass no weight no smell, etc. Beyond that, Isette is very smart and knows the fundamentals of magic, so she could spare the effort to branch out into other varieties of magic. Manipulating heat, or darkness, or certain forms of far-sight would be the closest to light magic and thus easiest to pick up. Any of these would require a lot of study and time devoted to mastery.

˖SKILLS - First off, Isette knows zero fighting techniques. None, zilch.

With that aside, she is a master of a wide variety of mundane, household skills that could be used to save money doing it herself. These include:
-Cooking simple dishes
-Mending clothing
-Sewing and making simple clothing
-Cobbling (at least enough to repair her own shoes)
-Basic carpentry (she could build a bookshelf or fix a hole in a wall, but not build a house)
-Cleaning
-Etc.

Beyond those, Isette is an academic. She can write academic papers, research, etc. She's half-archeologist, so she knows how to handle ancient artifacts, catalog finds, excavate, and piece together broken finds. She's well-versed in piecing together information, cracking codes, figuring out languages, and all of that good stuff.

And since Alvion's ancients were actually people from modern Earth using English, she has an, uh, strange archeological knowledge of some modern objects. She also has a very thorough academic knowledge of English, in the same way somebody today might have knowledge of ancient Egyptian - pieced together through context and sometimes completely wrong. She's been growing better in conversational English thanks to Sawyer, though.

Inventory:
˖A well-worn black cloak, with holes patched up with various non-matching cloth patterns
˖Clothing (well-worn, wool; blue shirt and brown breeches)
˖Leather boots, recently-purchased
˖An old pendant on a small steel chain
˖A simple cloth sack with a strap meant to be worn over one shoulder, containing:
˖Frying skillet
˖A single potato
˖6 pieces of cloth of varying sizes and styles, all cheap
˖Sewing needle
˖Sewing thread
˖Cloth scissors
˖Several blank pieces of parchment
˖Quills (3)
˖Vial of ink
˖One half-filled notebook with notes on archeology and modern English
˖A History of Grain Across the World
˖Ancient Trade Routes of Pre-Empirical Civilization
˖Divine Moon Temple Architecture

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