[tabs=800px][tab=Nevina]
Name: Nevina
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Gender: Female
Age: Adult (early 30's in human physiology)
Race: Standard Elven
Allegiance: Cult of the Nine Winds
Description: Like all elves, Nevina is several inches shorter than her human counterparts, with a slender build and angular features. Her hair is a vibrant red, kept long and unstyled, her skin pale, her eyes brown. She generally hides herself from the elements and other people within several layers of robes; aside from the fact that she's an elf in predominantly human lands, she looks very much like any wanderer along the highways. In fact, many people would most likely remember her for the long, cylindrical case she carries in which she packs her paltry belongings, various odds and ends for performing her rituals, and her magical focus - a long, fancily carved redwood flute.
Due to her affiliation with the Cult of the Nine Winds, Nevina carries on her forearm the mark of the Xereticus Invocare, a brand that distinguishes someone as a heretical mage in the service of some state - in Nevina's case, the Anderfen Republic. It is often viewed as a punishment as many people shun heretics (and especially heretic mages) as dangerous, but it's also intended to grant the heretic some manner of protection or pardon against persecution by the Order. Sometimes, it actually works.
Personality: Nevina is a very severe person with an outwardly dour disposition when in the company of others; she enjoys neither idle chatter nor simple humor, and is happiest when left to her own thoughts and devices. That is not to say she likes being alone, but that she likes her interactions with society to be limited to passive observation. In spite of the fact that the existence of other people seems to be an annoyance to her, she genuinely enjoyed her duties as part of the Cult, roaming the countryside and helping those in need. Most of all, she holds a genuine reverance for the forces of nature, being intimately aware of their capabilities.
She holds a bit of jealousy for anyone who possesses some manner of "inherent gift," as she lacks any such special quality. If you ask her to describe herself for you, she'll stare at you disapprovingly for a while before finally coming up with the words "well-meaning pragmatist," before going back to sipping her tea.
Biography: Born to elven serfs into what was then the human Kingdom of Thernwys, early life was difficult for the budding family, but peaceful and generally happy. Her parents were generally well-meaning and attentive, the same as any good and loving parent, and being an only child, they had all the love and attention in the world to give to their new daughter; no doubt she would have grown into a well-adjusted young woman in time had the war with the Anderfen not come along; barely had she learned to walk on her own when a republican army assaulted the nearby fief, sacking the cozy hamlet and slaughtering its inhabitants in the name of fulfilling their "good and noble" cause. A tiny child, she hid and survived.
Scavengers found her the following morning. While initially wanting to sell her off for coin, they (thankfully) settled for taking her to the nearest orphanage. Unfortunately, the war had not been kind to the people; orphans were many, and spare beds were far too rare to just accept "refuse" off the street. She spent the next several weeks bouncing across the countryside from orphanage to orphanage before some benevolent soul finally took her to an abbey that had been spared by the fighting. There, she was accepted into the Cult of the Nine Winds and given her name - Nevina. She never knew a surname.
Nevina spent the rest of her long childhood (elves mature slower than humans, you understand) at the abbey, her fellow brothers and sisters becoming as actual kin. Her instruction in the worship of the "Nine Winds" - nine daemon of the skies that the cult researched and revered - began almost immediately. Her academic studies took place a few years after, laying the groundwork for what would become her aeromancy and aerotheurgy. From there, she led a relatively normal adolescent life: playing with the few other children, attending lessons, getting into and out of trouble, partaking in romantic dalliances, the usual fare of growing pains. But, she was also met with the uncommon pain of watching her shorter-lived human compatriots grow older quicker, and die before her time; before long, she grew distant from her remaining "family," choosing to save herself the pain of further loss by engrossing herself more and more within her academic studies.
As time marched on and she became a more mature adult, her age and expansive knowledge earned her the recognition of her peers as they appointed her into "The Nine," the cult's leadership, whose duties included, among other things, to go into the countryside and serve the people with their skills. She grudgingly accepted these duties. Little did she know at the time that the appointment would eventually save her life; while camping on the road during one such visit to the "people," she noticed a portent in the stars in the direction of her home. Returning to the abbey, she discovered it in ruins, those unfortunate enough to have been there at the time having perished. Perhaps equally as devastating, many of the cult's manuscripts, including her own notes and research into different aerotheurgic practices, were nowhere to be found within the ruins.
Call it grief, vengeance, or perhaps shock, with no particular reason to stay she left to find whoever or whatever had caused this to happen, and she continues her search still. What she will do if or when she finally finds them, she doesn't know; she'll cross that bridge when she gets to it.
Abilities: Nevina is a highly skilled mage, but she is equally highly specialized. Her life-long study of the winds has granted her a mastery of Classical Aeromancy, or the divination of events through study of the winds, clouds, weather phenomena and cosmological movements. She is similarly apt at Aerotheurgy (invoking magical effects of or related to the winds, weather, etc, etc), though her knowledge is highly specialized; she is a master of the manipulation of wind and weather to the exclusion of nearly everything else, using a mixture of complex rituals and deals with various daemon.
"I sing to the winds," she replies when asked how she performs her magic, though this is not entirely true. She is quite capable with the flute, the instrument she keeps with her to serve as her magical focus, and whose use she often includes in most of her rituals.
Outside of these primary abilities, she has a passable understanding of potionmaking. Honestly, what self-respecting mage doesn't?[/tab][/tabs]
[tooltip=Republic of Nyland]
[tooltip=Videjszemes Karaliste]
[tooltip=Akhadic Republic of A'sir]
