Aaaaand in case anyone is dorky enough (like me) to be interesting in the Roleplaying Applications of the Races of... books, here's my answers to all those questions posted in the Gnom section of Races of Stone, for Nielsa:
Nielsa Brandywine – Roleplaying Applications
Psychology (page 35) ~ Nielsa believes that the greatest truth is the force of Good, and it is something to be fought for. This drives her quest for perfection as a Monk – she believes the way to find perfection for herself and her way of fighting is to use her talents to combat the evil that has invaded the world. The idea that there might be “evil” people within the safe area who are on the same side as her has not occurred to her, so whoever she meets, she will assume goodness in.
Illusion and Truth (page 36) ~ While Nielsa appreciates Illusions and what they can do to improve the appearance of things, she does see falseness in it, and gravitates towards Truth instead; especially because of the personal perfection all Monks seek (that in itself is a search for truth, I think). She does not see her pranks as involved with either, as she uses them to have fun, and is not opposed to the use of illusion to change appearance or hide things that need protecting.
Arts and Crafts (page 36) ~ Nielsa appreciates the arts, and likes music very much. However, the closest she has come to an artistic pursuit is her dancing.
Technology and Magic (page 36) ~ Like all Gnomes, Nielsa sees technology (and tinkering) as an art, though a practical, very useful and necessary one in these times. She also approves of magic, since it can a) make life easier and b) fight the enemies they have in ways melee combat cannot even come close to. The fact that her mother is a wizard doesn’t hurt either.
Love (page 27) ~ Nielsa wants to find love, just the one person meant for her. She does believe, very romantically, that there is a perfect mate for each person. As a lesbian, she knows her situation is a bit different from the hetero-normalcy in most humanoid cultures, but she still thinks it is possible for her to find her “soulmate.” Being such a romantic, she doesn’t want to be alone, which is why she stays with Gormlaith so long even though they’re not that compatible. She realizes and is grateful for how loved she is by her family, and that love has influenced her decision to have children someday. If she meets someone she is interested in, and thinks this person may be attracted to women, she will be honest about it with them instead of flirting with many people. While physical attractiveness is obviously a factor, personality and life goals are also a big factor in her attraction to someone. If they aren’t committed to the fight for good, and to settling down someday and building a family, she won’t bother at all. As such, she is not interested in one-night-stands either, though she enjoys sex as much as most people.
Gnomes at War (page 38) ~ Obviously, the Gnomes’ usual views on war might be different considering what is going on. Still, Nielsa is probably more violent and warlike than most Gnomes in her devotion to fighting the Big Bad. She likes fighting, believing that she fights for the good of the world, and that the war that’s going on is truly necessary for there to be peace someday.
Death (page 38) ~ Because of the nature of war and the need to move on and keep fighting, Nielsa will mourn in a way both similar and different from most Gnomes. She will appear in mourning for the appropriate time (a few years), wearing darker colors, refraining from pranks, etc. However, she will still continue to fight in the war as best she can, taking no time away from that task. It does not seem to her that stopping the fight would honor the dead at all, as the fight is for good itself. If one of the other PC’s happens to die, she may try to give them a Gnomish funeral, but will step back if she is stopped or if it is clear that would not have been what they wanted.
Society and Culture (page 38-39) ~ Technically, because Nielsa has chosen a path that is non-traditional, she is considered a Rebel in the Gnomish class structure. However, she is not disillusioned by her culture – she loves it, and wants to see it continue. Her attitude is probably that of the Middle Class, content with her lot in life and the possibilities she faces.
Gnomes and Other Races (page 42) ~ Because of her upbringing in the temple, Nielsa is likely open-minded and fair in dealing with most (if not all) races. Her assumption that all of her allies will be good-aligned lends to this. Since most Monks are human, she tends to be very friendly to them, and she is also friendly to Dwarves as they share similar qualities. She feels sorry for the strain all half-breeds must feel, and will not hesitate to share that opinion or be especially nice to them. If she meets a person who is part of a traditionally evil-aligned race who demonstrates goodness to her, she will trust them as she trusts everyone else based on their actions.
Religion (page 42) ~ Nielsa believes in the Gods, hoping that they promise both a peaceful afterlife and the eventuality that good will prevail over evil. She’s not especially devout, but she utters her prayers to Garl Glittergold.
History and Folklore (page 46) ~ Since Nielsa desires change (in that she wants the evil to be defeated and for peace to be achieved), she sympathizes with Gelf’s desire for change in the “War of the Twins” story. However, she wants contentment too, and thus sympathizes with Garl as well. She likes to believe a balance will be struck between the two forces – contentment and change – when peace is accomplished.
History and Folklore (page 48) ~ As for Giant Killer legends, Nielsa appreciates and enjoys the stories, as she does with all tales told to entertain. However, she thinks the stories don’t apply to current times that much, as there are more dangerous things than Giants to face.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Nielsa Brandywine
I can't believe I didn't post this here yet!
Even though the campaign I play Tanisevania in isn't over yet, our DM says it's beginning to wind down, and as such many of us are preparing for the next one - meaning, of course, the design of new characters.
Some context - this next campaign is being run by Wayne, who ran the ones I played Cyd and Zoey in. All of his campaigns connect somehow, and as such, this next one takes place 60 years after the one with Zoey. At the end of that campaign, most of the floating continents that the populus lived on fell to the more wild earth-surface, and an army of golden soldiers serving a Goddess named Shir'Tar have invaded. The only safe and civilzed place is one big city, protected by the Emperor (who is an Irda, and friend of Zoey and Tharf). The new characters will be starting at Zoey's academy, which exists to train warriors of all kinds to fight the golden soldiers.
So, without further ado....
Nielsa Brandywine – Gnome Monk
Names: Owlenae Wedanna Miniver Pinvana Nielsa Brandywine
Owlenae (means “beloved jewel,” given by her mother)
Wedanna (means “diamond,” given by her father)
Miniver (means “white, fair, smooth,” given by the elders of Gnometown)
Pinvana (means “swift friend,” given by her friends in Gnometown)
Nielsa (means “victory of the people,” taken by herself right before she leaves Gaia’s Rest for the Academy)
Brandywine (family name)
Name usage: Both of her parents commonly refer to her as Wedanna, or Weda for short. However, if her mother is angry at her, she calls her Owlenae (like showing the seriousness of the situation by using the name she herself gave her at birth). The adults of Gnometown call her Miniver, and she uses that name in formal situations, like when meeting nobles of other races. The monks of Gaia’s Rest would also know her as Miniver, as that’s how she would have introduced herself to the superiors there. Her friends in Gnometown call her Pinvana. She chooses Nielsa when she starts at the Academy and everyone there will know her by that name, but she still answers to all the others.
Age (at the start of the game): 40
Appearance: Stocky, well muscled. 3’3” tall. Weighs 45 lbs because of her musculature. This stockiness may suggest Dwarven ancestry far back in her lineage, and most of her family shares the same body type. Has long white hair, light brown skin, and bright blue eyes. She usually keeps her hair tied up in two buns on either side of her head, close to her ears. Rounded features and an oval-shaped face, not beautiful, but cute, and she uses this to her advantage when needed. Dresses mostly in browns and purples.
Alignment: Lawful good – She believes, in this time of war, that it is necessary for rules to be in place in order to protect the people and make it easier for the forces of good to fight the evil that infects the Earth. None of her pranks would ever break any rules or laws, either. She understands that a person’s path or belief system is their own, and will say so, but probably acts very annoyed when someone breaks a rule or disregards someone in need. In the latter case, she’d probably step in to help that person in need, all the time glaring at the one who ignored them. She’d blindly obey any authority they meet up with, unless they try to force her to do something she’d consider wrong. In that case, her personal code of right and wrong would be stronger.
Personality: She is very girly, enjoying feminine clothes, jewelry, romance, etc. She is also quite a prankster, much to the annoyance of her comrades at the monastery. She loves dancing just as much as she loves fighting, and sees them as related things, so the way she fights looks a lot like dancing. She is kind, and wants to help people as much as she can, but can tend to be a bit righteous and expect such goodness of others (especially if they are trained to fight). She can be serious, as her training has taught her, but also light-hearted and have fun, as her culture has taught her. Also, although her family has a history of creating alcohol, she doesn’t drink it, preferring to remain clear-headed at all times.
Orientation: She is a lesbian, and will have an ex-girlfriend at the monastery that she broke up with before going to the Academy. She does want to find love again, and if she finds it while fighting in the war, she will welcome it if the other person is also committed to the fight, so it won’t distract from that. Despite being a lesbian, she does want to bear children and raise a family someday, considering there are probably few Gnomes left and she loves her race and culture, and doesn’t want to see it die out.
Backstory:
Before the fall of the continents, Nielsa’s family specialized in the making of very sweet wines. Not all of them chose that path, of course, but enough did that the name was given to them several centuries ago and has persisted. The family was typically large and very extended, with relatives in many towns (this would have been considered a rarity, since Gnomes have few opportunities for conception). However, less than ten of them remain in the safe space now; some that has been living in the towns that fell in the safe space didn’t survive the fall, and while they remain hopeful for the rest, they have to assume the worst. Still, they try to keep their spirits up as they rebuild their lives in Gnometown.
Nielsa’s parents, Raspalla and Varel Brandywine, met and married less than a decade before the fall. Varel has three brothers, but knows not what happened to them – the other Brandywines in the safe space are his cousins, their children, and his own mother. Raspalla married into the family, having grown up in another town. Her parents both died of a sickness before the fall, and she has one older sister name Fenae who also survived. Their family line has always been a very small one – it was rumored for generations before this that its women were infertile, rarely conceiving children and carrying them to term. The men of that family also produced very few children, lending more to the rumors. This did not bother Varel at all – while he would welcome children, his family was so large that fertility did not seem a problem for them, and he loved Raspalla so much that he was willing to take that chance. After their wedding, they had built their own home near Varel’s mother’s. After the fall, however, the four of them (Raspalla, Varel, his mother, and her sister) all moved into one home together, with Varel’s cousins and children living nearby.
Twenty years later, Raspalla conceived. Because it had taken so long for her to do so and because of her family’s procreative history, her friends and family treated her like something very fragile. Part of her resented this, as she wanted to be of use to the rebuilding of the Empire, but because she feared she would miscarry she did everything she was told and let herself hope for the best. Against all odds, she was able to give birth to a healthy baby girl. Raspalla named her Owlenae (meaning “beloved jewel”), and Varel named her Wedanna (meaning “diamond”). As the years passed, however, they both came to refer to her as Wedanna, or Weda for short. Raspalla only calls her Owlenae when she’s angry with her, as if the use of the name she herself gave the girl at birth will show the seriousness of the situation.
Growing up, Wedanna proved herself a very strange combination of qualities. Her interests always fell within more “feminine” realms, but she was tough – standing up for herself and anyone the other children were bullying. It was expected that this would result in her getting beat up a lot; however, she also took to fighting and was able to hold her own against children years older than her. Because of this, by the age of 15 (human equivalent, roughly 7) her friends had dubbed her Pinvana, which means “swift friend.” She did not take to the arts, but appreciated them, focusing instead on beautiful clothing and jewelry. Raspalla, who had been a wizard by trade before the fall, tried to teach her some magic to see if her skills lay there, but she lacked in interest in it beyond illusions used to “pretty things up.” Varel, who had taken up swordplay in addition to his family’s trade, tried teaching her some of that, but she didn’t seem to like weapons either. Finally her aunt, who often watched her and some of the other children while their parents were busy, noticed that in her play she moved around in ways that were like dancing. Fenae herself had been a dancer, traveling with a band of bards and minstrels, before the fall (the only reason she was with her sister when it happened, and thus survived, was because she had just left that troupe and was staying with her until she decided what to do next). She asked Wedanna if she’d like to learn to dance, and when the girl said yes, she took to teaching her. After a time the elders of the new community wished to give her another name as per tradition, did not really have much to go off of in terms of her interests. Since learning from her aunt, she had taken to dancing as much as she had taken to fighting, but she had not yet chosen a path of study for herself that they could shape the name around. So they named her Miniver, meaning “white, fair, or smooth,” because of her hair color.
Then, at age 17 (human equivalent roughly 8), she finally took notice of the monastery, Gaia’s Rest, that was being built nearby. Once she discovered it, she walked there every day and bothered the monks who were around, asking them many questions about it and who they were. Some of them obliged her, at least for a little while, and so she learned about monks and hand-to-hand combat through their answers. She would also watch them practice, if they would let her. Watching their movements, it occurred to her that dancing and fighting had similarities, and this captivated her imagination. Quickly she became enamored of that way of combat and the possibilities she saw in it, and decided she wanted to give it a try. She was almost 20 years old – the age at which young Gnomes at traditionally sent out for schooling. So, shortly before her 20th birthday, she went to her parents and begged them to let her go there. Both Raspalla and Varel were hesitant to let her do this – after all, she was still a child, and Gnome monks were almost unheard of. This might also mean that she would find her way into the war, and they did not want to send her to her death. They consulted their family and the community elders, and after much discussion, it was decided that it would be best to let her do as she pleased. They submitted a request to the superior of the temple that she be trained, and waited for approval. When it finally came, Wedanna was overjoyed, and began to prepare to leave immediately. Her family made her wait until her birthday, however, afraid they would not get to see her again for some time.
On her 20th birthday, then, she finally set out for Gaia’s Rest. She introduced herself to the superiors as Miniver, since she had learned to use that name in situations involving people older or more skilled than herself. Everyone at the temple came to call her that eventually. She threw herself into the training, including the building that still needed to be done, with vigor and enthusiasm. The teachings of the Monks shaped her mind and heart, and the temple itself became more home to her than Gnometown ever was. However, she still missed her family and the place she grew up, mostly because of the closeness and light-heartedness there. The life of a monk is an individual path to perfection, so even though they all worked together in training, it wasn’t quite the same. This longing manifested itself in a new hobby – pulling pranks. Most of the other students, and masters, didn’t really appreciate this, but she kept at it anyway. The few that were amused by her antics became her friends there, and though she didn’t have many, she valued the ones she did have. Also, she would visit her family every time she was given leave to, and make it as clear as she could that she did miss them. In these visits she would continue to take dancing lessons from Fenae as well, if she was willing to give them. And though she became a bit more serious because of the belief structure her chosen path formed, she continued to be proud of her people and her culture. Finally, as her style of fighting developed, something of her love for dance and the idea she had about dancing and fighting incorporated itself into her movements. Though she uses the same styles her peers and masters use and have taught her, the way she moves her body in combat looks like a blur of both things.
Because of how young she was when she went to the temple, she also hit puberty while she was there, and discovered that she was attracted to girls instead of boys. She struggled with this at first – the fact that there were so few Gnomes left meant that children were needed to continue the life of her people, and because of how much she was loved, she had decided she too wanted to have children someday. She made one brief attempt to be with a man, dating one of her friends – a human man named Alfried. In this attempt she also slept with him. It happened only once, and she hated every second of it. She broke up with him afterward (though they were able to remain friends), resolving to be honest about herself from then on. Gnomish views on love are flexible, after all, and there had to be a way to have a child even if she was with another woman, she’d just have to figure it out when she got to that point. However, she still kept her sexuality a secret from her family, in case they had high hopes for her reproductive potential.
Shortly after this and close to her 40th birthday, when she would be “mature” by Gnome standards, she started dating another one of her friends. Her name was Gormlaith, a half-Dwarven-half-human woman who had started her training just before the fall. She lost all of her family in it, and before she met Miniver, she had attempted to make close ties to the Dwarves to “replace” that loss. However, because she shunned most Dwarven traditions (including that of traditional male/female marriage, since she’s a lesbian too) they did not take to her as she wanted. This made her a bit bitter, and since she lost her family so young, she is slightly…unbalanced. She was one of Miniver’s first friends at Gaia’s Rest, and once Miniver stopped dating Alfried and came out to the group of them, she began dropping hints that she too was attracted to girls, and to her. Miniver found her physically attractive enough, but wasn’t that attracted to how angry and jaded she was. But since there were no other options, and in her hormonal-ness she wanted to be with a woman sooner than later, she decided to give it a try. Gormlaith became needy and clingy from the start; still, Miniver stuck it out.
This is the point at which she’ll be when she is given the opportunity/orders/whatever to go the Academy. She’ll still be using the name Miniver in Gaia’s Rest (I plan on having her take Nielsa right before the game starts), and still be dating Gormlaith with disinterest. Her family will also still be oblivious to her sexual orientation.
Even though the campaign I play Tanisevania in isn't over yet, our DM says it's beginning to wind down, and as such many of us are preparing for the next one - meaning, of course, the design of new characters.
Some context - this next campaign is being run by Wayne, who ran the ones I played Cyd and Zoey in. All of his campaigns connect somehow, and as such, this next one takes place 60 years after the one with Zoey. At the end of that campaign, most of the floating continents that the populus lived on fell to the more wild earth-surface, and an army of golden soldiers serving a Goddess named Shir'Tar have invaded. The only safe and civilzed place is one big city, protected by the Emperor (who is an Irda, and friend of Zoey and Tharf). The new characters will be starting at Zoey's academy, which exists to train warriors of all kinds to fight the golden soldiers.
So, without further ado....
Nielsa Brandywine – Gnome Monk
Names: Owlenae Wedanna Miniver Pinvana Nielsa Brandywine
Owlenae (means “beloved jewel,” given by her mother)
Wedanna (means “diamond,” given by her father)
Miniver (means “white, fair, smooth,” given by the elders of Gnometown)
Pinvana (means “swift friend,” given by her friends in Gnometown)
Nielsa (means “victory of the people,” taken by herself right before she leaves Gaia’s Rest for the Academy)
Brandywine (family name)
Name usage: Both of her parents commonly refer to her as Wedanna, or Weda for short. However, if her mother is angry at her, she calls her Owlenae (like showing the seriousness of the situation by using the name she herself gave her at birth). The adults of Gnometown call her Miniver, and she uses that name in formal situations, like when meeting nobles of other races. The monks of Gaia’s Rest would also know her as Miniver, as that’s how she would have introduced herself to the superiors there. Her friends in Gnometown call her Pinvana. She chooses Nielsa when she starts at the Academy and everyone there will know her by that name, but she still answers to all the others.
Age (at the start of the game): 40
Appearance: Stocky, well muscled. 3’3” tall. Weighs 45 lbs because of her musculature. This stockiness may suggest Dwarven ancestry far back in her lineage, and most of her family shares the same body type. Has long white hair, light brown skin, and bright blue eyes. She usually keeps her hair tied up in two buns on either side of her head, close to her ears. Rounded features and an oval-shaped face, not beautiful, but cute, and she uses this to her advantage when needed. Dresses mostly in browns and purples.
Alignment: Lawful good – She believes, in this time of war, that it is necessary for rules to be in place in order to protect the people and make it easier for the forces of good to fight the evil that infects the Earth. None of her pranks would ever break any rules or laws, either. She understands that a person’s path or belief system is their own, and will say so, but probably acts very annoyed when someone breaks a rule or disregards someone in need. In the latter case, she’d probably step in to help that person in need, all the time glaring at the one who ignored them. She’d blindly obey any authority they meet up with, unless they try to force her to do something she’d consider wrong. In that case, her personal code of right and wrong would be stronger.
Personality: She is very girly, enjoying feminine clothes, jewelry, romance, etc. She is also quite a prankster, much to the annoyance of her comrades at the monastery. She loves dancing just as much as she loves fighting, and sees them as related things, so the way she fights looks a lot like dancing. She is kind, and wants to help people as much as she can, but can tend to be a bit righteous and expect such goodness of others (especially if they are trained to fight). She can be serious, as her training has taught her, but also light-hearted and have fun, as her culture has taught her. Also, although her family has a history of creating alcohol, she doesn’t drink it, preferring to remain clear-headed at all times.
Orientation: She is a lesbian, and will have an ex-girlfriend at the monastery that she broke up with before going to the Academy. She does want to find love again, and if she finds it while fighting in the war, she will welcome it if the other person is also committed to the fight, so it won’t distract from that. Despite being a lesbian, she does want to bear children and raise a family someday, considering there are probably few Gnomes left and she loves her race and culture, and doesn’t want to see it die out.
Backstory:
Before the fall of the continents, Nielsa’s family specialized in the making of very sweet wines. Not all of them chose that path, of course, but enough did that the name was given to them several centuries ago and has persisted. The family was typically large and very extended, with relatives in many towns (this would have been considered a rarity, since Gnomes have few opportunities for conception). However, less than ten of them remain in the safe space now; some that has been living in the towns that fell in the safe space didn’t survive the fall, and while they remain hopeful for the rest, they have to assume the worst. Still, they try to keep their spirits up as they rebuild their lives in Gnometown.
Nielsa’s parents, Raspalla and Varel Brandywine, met and married less than a decade before the fall. Varel has three brothers, but knows not what happened to them – the other Brandywines in the safe space are his cousins, their children, and his own mother. Raspalla married into the family, having grown up in another town. Her parents both died of a sickness before the fall, and she has one older sister name Fenae who also survived. Their family line has always been a very small one – it was rumored for generations before this that its women were infertile, rarely conceiving children and carrying them to term. The men of that family also produced very few children, lending more to the rumors. This did not bother Varel at all – while he would welcome children, his family was so large that fertility did not seem a problem for them, and he loved Raspalla so much that he was willing to take that chance. After their wedding, they had built their own home near Varel’s mother’s. After the fall, however, the four of them (Raspalla, Varel, his mother, and her sister) all moved into one home together, with Varel’s cousins and children living nearby.
Twenty years later, Raspalla conceived. Because it had taken so long for her to do so and because of her family’s procreative history, her friends and family treated her like something very fragile. Part of her resented this, as she wanted to be of use to the rebuilding of the Empire, but because she feared she would miscarry she did everything she was told and let herself hope for the best. Against all odds, she was able to give birth to a healthy baby girl. Raspalla named her Owlenae (meaning “beloved jewel”), and Varel named her Wedanna (meaning “diamond”). As the years passed, however, they both came to refer to her as Wedanna, or Weda for short. Raspalla only calls her Owlenae when she’s angry with her, as if the use of the name she herself gave the girl at birth will show the seriousness of the situation.
Growing up, Wedanna proved herself a very strange combination of qualities. Her interests always fell within more “feminine” realms, but she was tough – standing up for herself and anyone the other children were bullying. It was expected that this would result in her getting beat up a lot; however, she also took to fighting and was able to hold her own against children years older than her. Because of this, by the age of 15 (human equivalent, roughly 7) her friends had dubbed her Pinvana, which means “swift friend.” She did not take to the arts, but appreciated them, focusing instead on beautiful clothing and jewelry. Raspalla, who had been a wizard by trade before the fall, tried to teach her some magic to see if her skills lay there, but she lacked in interest in it beyond illusions used to “pretty things up.” Varel, who had taken up swordplay in addition to his family’s trade, tried teaching her some of that, but she didn’t seem to like weapons either. Finally her aunt, who often watched her and some of the other children while their parents were busy, noticed that in her play she moved around in ways that were like dancing. Fenae herself had been a dancer, traveling with a band of bards and minstrels, before the fall (the only reason she was with her sister when it happened, and thus survived, was because she had just left that troupe and was staying with her until she decided what to do next). She asked Wedanna if she’d like to learn to dance, and when the girl said yes, she took to teaching her. After a time the elders of the new community wished to give her another name as per tradition, did not really have much to go off of in terms of her interests. Since learning from her aunt, she had taken to dancing as much as she had taken to fighting, but she had not yet chosen a path of study for herself that they could shape the name around. So they named her Miniver, meaning “white, fair, or smooth,” because of her hair color.
Then, at age 17 (human equivalent roughly 8), she finally took notice of the monastery, Gaia’s Rest, that was being built nearby. Once she discovered it, she walked there every day and bothered the monks who were around, asking them many questions about it and who they were. Some of them obliged her, at least for a little while, and so she learned about monks and hand-to-hand combat through their answers. She would also watch them practice, if they would let her. Watching their movements, it occurred to her that dancing and fighting had similarities, and this captivated her imagination. Quickly she became enamored of that way of combat and the possibilities she saw in it, and decided she wanted to give it a try. She was almost 20 years old – the age at which young Gnomes at traditionally sent out for schooling. So, shortly before her 20th birthday, she went to her parents and begged them to let her go there. Both Raspalla and Varel were hesitant to let her do this – after all, she was still a child, and Gnome monks were almost unheard of. This might also mean that she would find her way into the war, and they did not want to send her to her death. They consulted their family and the community elders, and after much discussion, it was decided that it would be best to let her do as she pleased. They submitted a request to the superior of the temple that she be trained, and waited for approval. When it finally came, Wedanna was overjoyed, and began to prepare to leave immediately. Her family made her wait until her birthday, however, afraid they would not get to see her again for some time.
On her 20th birthday, then, she finally set out for Gaia’s Rest. She introduced herself to the superiors as Miniver, since she had learned to use that name in situations involving people older or more skilled than herself. Everyone at the temple came to call her that eventually. She threw herself into the training, including the building that still needed to be done, with vigor and enthusiasm. The teachings of the Monks shaped her mind and heart, and the temple itself became more home to her than Gnometown ever was. However, she still missed her family and the place she grew up, mostly because of the closeness and light-heartedness there. The life of a monk is an individual path to perfection, so even though they all worked together in training, it wasn’t quite the same. This longing manifested itself in a new hobby – pulling pranks. Most of the other students, and masters, didn’t really appreciate this, but she kept at it anyway. The few that were amused by her antics became her friends there, and though she didn’t have many, she valued the ones she did have. Also, she would visit her family every time she was given leave to, and make it as clear as she could that she did miss them. In these visits she would continue to take dancing lessons from Fenae as well, if she was willing to give them. And though she became a bit more serious because of the belief structure her chosen path formed, she continued to be proud of her people and her culture. Finally, as her style of fighting developed, something of her love for dance and the idea she had about dancing and fighting incorporated itself into her movements. Though she uses the same styles her peers and masters use and have taught her, the way she moves her body in combat looks like a blur of both things.
Because of how young she was when she went to the temple, she also hit puberty while she was there, and discovered that she was attracted to girls instead of boys. She struggled with this at first – the fact that there were so few Gnomes left meant that children were needed to continue the life of her people, and because of how much she was loved, she had decided she too wanted to have children someday. She made one brief attempt to be with a man, dating one of her friends – a human man named Alfried. In this attempt she also slept with him. It happened only once, and she hated every second of it. She broke up with him afterward (though they were able to remain friends), resolving to be honest about herself from then on. Gnomish views on love are flexible, after all, and there had to be a way to have a child even if she was with another woman, she’d just have to figure it out when she got to that point. However, she still kept her sexuality a secret from her family, in case they had high hopes for her reproductive potential.
Shortly after this and close to her 40th birthday, when she would be “mature” by Gnome standards, she started dating another one of her friends. Her name was Gormlaith, a half-Dwarven-half-human woman who had started her training just before the fall. She lost all of her family in it, and before she met Miniver, she had attempted to make close ties to the Dwarves to “replace” that loss. However, because she shunned most Dwarven traditions (including that of traditional male/female marriage, since she’s a lesbian too) they did not take to her as she wanted. This made her a bit bitter, and since she lost her family so young, she is slightly…unbalanced. She was one of Miniver’s first friends at Gaia’s Rest, and once Miniver stopped dating Alfried and came out to the group of them, she began dropping hints that she too was attracted to girls, and to her. Miniver found her physically attractive enough, but wasn’t that attracted to how angry and jaded she was. But since there were no other options, and in her hormonal-ness she wanted to be with a woman sooner than later, she decided to give it a try. Gormlaith became needy and clingy from the start; still, Miniver stuck it out.
This is the point at which she’ll be when she is given the opportunity/orders/whatever to go the Academy. She’ll still be using the name Miniver in Gaia’s Rest (I plan on having her take Nielsa right before the game starts), and still be dating Gormlaith with disinterest. Her family will also still be oblivious to her sexual orientation.
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