Age: 170
Race: Drow
Gender: Female
Appearance:
Young by drow standards, Talael appears to in her late twenties by a human definition of age and appearance. While not to the point of vanity, Talael takes care of her appearance as much as she can while still spending much of her time traveling. Her bluish-black skin is smooth and almost seems to fade into the shadows when it is dark and her body is lithe, built from an active lifestyle, but not muscled with any sort of regular heavy lifting. Her hair is a silvery-white, thick and braided into a long ponytail that reaches down to the middle of her back. She usually wears simple black robes while traveling, keeping her hood up to hide her drow features until she feels comfortable with her surroundings and the people there. She carries little else but a pair of concealed knives in her robes, and a knapsack with traveling essentials, a warmer set of robes and cloaks, and set of finely embroidered robes for formal occasions.
Personality: Having seen enough violence, cruelty, and conniving in her life, Talael has committed herself to striving for compassion and aid to those in need. However, her warm nature is still steeped in her drow upbringing. Her offers of friendship are to secure an ally rather than make an enemy, and she always carries a simmering fear of potential betrayal and poisoning. Talael’s strong stance of aiding and defending the innocent often leads to a fierce approach to those the cruel or oppressors. She also has an insatiable thirst for magical knowledge, coming close to a dangerous pursuit of the more powerful and darker workings of her magic. Talael has always loved the rush of power she feels from using her magic, even when rending another’s mind.
Allegiance: Having spent several decades traveling mostly across human lands, Talael is somewhat more sympathetic to them as she views the vyldkin as more barbaric and their attacks on human villages as quite detestable. However, she would prefer a negotiated peace and understands that some humans have less than honorable intentions against the vyldkin.
Skills/Abilities: Talael was born with the ‘spark’ and promptly educated in the use of magic from a young age. She is highly skilled in mental magic, from creating illusions to delving into another’s mind for secrets or simply to cause havoc. She has also had extensive training in the art of persuasion to the point where she is unflappably polite and in control, charming to potential friends and deathly calm to enemies. Talael has learned some skill in alchemy from her travels, knowing what plants are safe to eat and what sort of properties they have in potions.
Weaknesses: While robust enough to handle a life on the road, Talael is still a spellcaster at heart, lacking the training and physicality for melee combat. Her natural charm is so ingrained to the point of a tendency to manipulation, a shy smile given to anyone who seems open to her wiles for nothing else but another who will be open to her suggestions. And while peaceful and abhorrent of brute force, when pushed to violence, even if only to defend herself or others, Talael’s wrath is sudden, brutal, and final. Her most devastating mental magic risks intense feedback, more complex illusions turn into nightmarish creatures, and intense mental scrying and ravaging risk unhinging her own psyche. Her proficiency in mental magic has also greatly limited her use of the other two schools of magic to only the most basic of spells.
Bio: The eldest of several children to a prominent drow noble house, Talael was groomed from a young age to excel at what drow valued. Power and manipulation. And Talael did indeed excel at this, growing in magical prowess and more than capable of using her looks and charm to gain what she wanted. However, while she was barely an adult by drow standards, Talael’s youngest sister, still a child, abruptly died. Poison was the obvious conclusion, and Talael’s parents pursued a subtle but brutal campaign against the rival house that they assumed to be responsible. Disgusted by her own family and race, Talael fled from her home,to the place she felt farthest from her people, the surface. For decades she continued to wander, avoiding the lands of dwarves and elves, as she feared they recognize her as a drow and judge her by the reputation of her people. Instead she took to human lands in hopes of being seen more as a curiosity than a threat, and indeed Talael found the occasional compatriot in the fellow mages of the humans, and her charm has gained the friendship of people in high and low places, though she rarely remained in one place for long. Her drive for magical knowledge took her to far reaches, where she would offer help to locals in exchange for supplies or simply knowledge of rare spells and potions. More recently, Talael’s travels have brought her to the borders between the lands of humans and vyldkin, where she hopes to help prevent an expanding conflict at the source.