#alethia eclaircir

[bitsypookums]

photoset for larger images of the art I did for these ask prompts

[bitsypookums]

Thia 1, 2, 10, Morr 2, 11, 16, Manami 4, 5,6

Alethia Eclaircir

Prompts 1 & 2 answered here!

10.) How has your character handled major losses?

Alethia grapples with grief in fractured fits-and-starts, moments of rage and mourning breaking through a haze of delirium, dissociation, and vacancy. Thia’s grasp on reality has always been a bit tenuous. She drifts in and out of echo visions that are clearly not her own, memories that are hers but so vivid and jarring as to distort her sense of time, and some scenes that are unknown but so familiar as to bring rib-aching pangs of longing. So she careens back and forth between a dreamlike, distant state of curious confusion... and a sharp, vivid return to those moments of abject loss. It’s a warped and jagged experience of reality.

There are times where she seems almost apathetic, behaving as normal while others tiptoe around the obvious wounds. And there are other moments where her feelings crystalize in a rare, concise, visceral way:

Morrigaunt Givre

Prompt 2 answered here!

11.) What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?

Marcelain Reverine was an only child, though his parents once hoped for a large, boisterous family. His father, Gaël Reverine, was a kind hearted carpenter from the Western Highlands; his soft-spoken humor and joyful service to others shaped Lain’s understanding of love and devotion. He died far from home during a commission to repair the fortifications at Camp Dragonhead. When Nidhogg’s aevis assaulted the structure, none of the tradesmen survived. Young Lain was 11 years old at the time.

His mother, Thècle Sambin, was a Brume-rat turned enlisted soldier. During the course of her career, she lost both parents and three siblings to dragon fire. Her service ended when her legs were permanently impared during combat; she retired with a pension to marry Gaël in Hemlock, leaving her old life behind. Their marriage drew the fierce and frigid soldier out of her shell and into a brief time of hope, gentleness, and joy. His death plunged her into a bitter, rancorous despair from which she never attempted to recover. Unable to remain in Hemlock on only her modest pension, she took her son back to the Brume - familiar dangers to her, but a terrifying and forbidding new landscape for him. She was the lifeline that he clung to in desperation even as he watched her fray further and further. 

To Thècle’s dismay, Lain met and fell for the young Adrien de Toursainte, fourth son of a vassal house of Dzemael. Marcelain saved the little lordling from a beating after an ill-advised venture into the Brume, and the two struck up a bond over their hunger for knowledge of their separate worlds. Adrien, usually timid and gentle, wanted to see the world outside his family’s estate before he was consigned to obscurity in the priesthood. In exchange for Loup’s insight, protection, and companionship, Adrien smuggled books, paintings, and trinkets out for Loup to study - tiny glimpses of another reality that only deepened Loup’s curiosity. 

Their friendship was certain to end badly, possibly in Lain’s death. Fortunately, they were discovered by the kindest of Adrien’s brothers, Clement de Toursainte, a dutiful astrologian-in-training with a wry sense of humor and an indulgent streak for his youngest brother. Since the boys refused to be parted, Clement offered to pull strings and recommend Lain as their eldest brother’s squire - a pathway toward knighthood and a way out of the Brume. Lain was overjoyed. But when he brought the news to his mother, her terror and fury turned his hopes to ashes in his mouth. Thècle berated her son for his naivete, certain that all his dreams would merely be kindling on the altar for the noble houses of Ishgard. She forbade her son from ever seeing Adrien again. When he disobeyed, she gave him an ultimatum: certain this path would end in his death, she declared that if he joined House Toursainte, he could never return home again. It would be simpler to lose her son now than to wait years for the final blow to fall.

But this opportunity promised everything Loup had ever wanted: a chance for service, training, three meals a day, and an expensive education on a noble house’s dime. He left, and the rift formed that day between mother and son would never fully close.

The Toursainte household became his second family, filled with as much deep affection, gentle hope, and bitter partings as the first. 

Lord and Lady de Toursainte were well suited to each other - but that should not be confused with a love match. They had equal levels of paranoia, skittishness, and determination to ingratiate themselves to their betters. To speak kindly of them, they were careful players of the Game of Houses, certain to avoid scandal, quick to follow orders, and resolved to position their sons to the house’s best advantage. Less generously, they could be likened to carrion birds: scavenging the corpses left behind by House Dzemael and vomiting rumor and accusation at anyone who approached their spoils. Though he served them with distinction, the Lord and Lady never saw Lain as much more than a piece on the board, to be played and pawned away at will.

Barthegoire de Toursainte, the eldest and heir, begrudgingly took this brume-rat under his wing and nurtured his prodigious talent for combat and tactics. Carrying the weight of the house’s hopes on his broad shoulders, Barthegoire was an unflinching traditionalist: harsh, commanding, dutiful, and as strict with his siblings and squire as he was with himself. Lain saved Bartie’s life on several occasions, earning the nickname of “Toothpick” when he killed his first dragon by diving past Bartie into the creature’s mouth and driving his lance upward. Barthegoire eventually endorsed Marcelain as a candidate for the order of Dragoons, despite the boy’s low birth and lack of connections. Though brusque and exacting, Barthegoire did everything he could to shield Lain and his brothers from their parents, the eyes of the Holy See, and the cruelty of the Houses’ games.

Clement de Toursainte was as conciliatory as his eldest brother was harsh. A frail constitution in his youth thwarted knightly training, but he found another path through academics at the Athenaeum Astrologicum. His talent for heavens-reading earned him the opportunity to study in Sharlayan for a time, despite the fact that both nations were wary of outsiders. He returned with a reputation as an unorthodox thinker, and avoided accusations of heresy through a mix of devout faith, genial theological debate, and a penchant for flattery. The peacekeeper and diplomat of the family, he ran interference between the brothers, their parents, the house staff, temple knights, offended suitors, his acidic-witted ward, and anyone else who came to him with a problem. 

Said ward was none other than Alianora Cross, a clever and gifted mage who was Clement’s classmate in Sharlayan. Though she kept much of her personal history close to the vest, she was a clear ally to Marcelain in the halls of the higher houses; her wisdom and biting commentary kept him grounded and wary in the vipers’ nest of house games. She did much to encourage his thirst for knowledge and desire to see more of the world, giving him confidence that he could be more than just another low-born body thrown on the pyre of the Dragonsong War. Though she quarreled endlessly with Barthegoire (too much in common, though they would both hate to hear it said), Lain spent many warm nights with Nora and the brothers, singing, dancing, bantering, bickering. Both carefully avoided mentioning their obvious doomed attachments to their respective Toursaintes.

The third son, D’Angustiel de Toursainte, made a sport out of giving the rest of the family ulcers. Pugnacious and iconoclastic, with a mouth as quick as his trigger finger, Goose sought out fights with the same bright-eyed fervor that he had for machina and schematics for the Haillenart’s Manufactory. His frequent liaisons with a rival house and his flat refusal to play courtly games caused his parents and brothers no end of misery. The Lord and Lady threatened disinheritance so often that Goose considered it a morning greeting. Even Lain was not spared his needling remarks and biting questions - though he handled the rest of House Toursainte with careful courtesy and strict boundaries, that etiquette only infuriated D’Angustiel. The third son dreamed of an Ishgard freed of its maundering fetters, but his disdain for orthodoxy earned him the enmity of his patrons. Without Barthegoire’s protective interference, his goose would have been cooked long ago. 

And finally, gentle-hearted and painfully-honest Adrien de Toursainte, the boy for whom Lain’s star fell from the sky. Ill suited to plotting and manipulation, Adrien knew that his consignment to the clergy was equal parts sanctuary and life-sentence. His heart was quick to delight in the frail and fleeting beauty of the world; he never failed to laugh at the worst of jokes, to wonder over the most flippant of observations, and to shatter over a stranger’s tears. From their first meeting in the Brume, Lain was his protector, his confidant, and his dearest friend. Adrien’s open heart dragged Marcelain’s mistrustful soul into sunlight, and Lain’s cautious nature tempered Adri’s eager earnestness. They were both too desperately lonely, too starved for affection, too ready to trade their hearts away, and too young to know any better. Their grand ambition was to live quiet lives in a forgotten corner of Coerthas, with Adrien as parish priest and Marcelain as knight-in-residence, till dragons or old age ended them. They asked Halone for so little, and still she gave them even less.

One by one, every member of house Toursainte met their end by dragons or treachery, until only Adrien was left as the heir of his house. When he was framed for heresy, Marcelain took the fall in his place, tumbling down Witchdrop and crawling out again as Morrigaunt Givre.

16.) What does your character do for fun or during downtime? Do they have hobbies or side projects?

Morr is a talented carpenter and desperately wishes more people asked for those skills, rather than the murder ones. He dedicates much of his downtime to Francel and the reconstruction of the Firmament or assisting with expansion and repairs in Ok’Gundu Nakki and Bahrr Lehs. He also loves hiking and the great outdoors, content to spend hours or days alone with a fishing pole, a botanist’s hatchet, and his chocobo. He’s a gifted chef, a skill forged in desperation to make meals vaguely palatable on deployment in Dravania. He enjoys cooking with close companions and is known for bringing food around to sick, injured, or otherwise under-the-weather friends the moment he hears something’s troubling them. 

Though he’s a bit embarrassed about it, Morr also loves libraries and houses of learning. There’s something sacred to him in the smell of old tomes, the gentle murmuring of turning pages and scratching quills, the infinite possibilities of new minds pouring over ancient words. The fondest memories of his youth were spent in stolen moments between bookstacks with the boy he loved. Despite this, he always feels like an interloper in academic settings - expecting to be ejected at any moment.

In typical dragoon fashion, he also loves high and lofty vistas. If anyone’s wondering where he disappeared to, they can usually just check the highest point on the surrounding map.

Manami Bansho

4.) What was your character doing during the Seventh Umbral Calamity? Do they still think/talk about that time, or do they try to avoid it now?

At the time, she was serving in the XIV Legion as Mana jen Bansho, warmachina technician, field medic, and engineering specialist under Tribunus Rhitahtyn sas Arvina. Stationed in Ala Mhigo, she watched the moon descend from the sky and explode over the horizon, followed by the terrifying devastation of Bahamut’s rage. It was impossible to tear her gaze from the distant calamity while extrapolating the casualties on both sides.

5.) What does your character think of the Echo? What was it like when they first experienced it?

Manami first experienced the echo when she went spearfishing with her mother in the Ruby Sea. Glancing up at the shifting, shimmering sunlight streaming through the surface of the sea like the light of falling stars, she heard the voice of Hydaelyn call her for the first time. After that, she felt her vision sharpen, as though the light of the crystal always glinted off the most pressing, most dangerous, or most valuable target within her view. 

To be fair, she didn’t know it as the Echo until many, many years later. Her mother called it the Dragon’s Eye, and explained that she and many others of their line had been blessed with this special gift. Both women were frighteningly accurate archers - a useful talent when hunting for supper on the roads of Doma. Since they tended to receive the same visions together while traveling, Manami had the opportunity to sit with her mother and discuss what Setsuko called  “insight from the kami.”  

Manami knew better than to mention this gift to anyone during her conscription. At best, her Garlean commanders would dismiss it as Doman superstition; at worst, she would end up on mal Asina’s dissection table.

6.) Did your character always want to be an adventurer, or did unexpected circumstances bring them into it? Do they wish for any of their old life back at all?

When she was young, Manami dreamed she would take over her parents’ work as a traveling doctor and apothecary. That dream was deferred by her conscription under the Garlean Occupation.

For the first few years, she still hoped to survive her service and return to that life someday. After her aptitude for alchemy and armorcraft earned her technician training, she distinguished herself in the repair and design of warmachina. Her love for the intricacy and limitless potential of the technology was constantly undermined by the harsh reality - and body count - of her work. In her comparatively safe new line of work, she still dreamed of returning home… when she wasn’t hounded by nightmares of the devastation caused by her streamlined designs.

Her post in Gyr Abania with the XIVth legion allowed her to climb through the ranks despite being both Doman and au ra. She received particular encouragement from her direct superior, Rhitahtyn sas Arvina. He dreamed of a world united under Garlemald - safe, secure, and full of promising souls like Mana jen Bansho, who could flourish to their full potential. Manami saw their effect on Ala Mhigo very differently. 

When she received news of her father’s Garlean conscription and death at the hands of the Bozjan resistance, she stopped dreaming much at all. During a naval battle off the coast of Vylbrand, she opened a storage hangar, flushing herself and her latest prototype machina out to sea. When she was miraculously saved by the pirate beauties of Limsa Lominsa, she gradually built up a new, unfettered life with dreams of paying that favor forward. Eventually, adventuring seemed like a good way to repay that kindness.

[bitsypookums]

Morr 1-4, Alethia 5-9, Manami 10-14

This post is incredibly long! Get ready for a wall of text interspersed with conciliatory sketches!

Morrigaunt Givre:

1.) Where is your character from, and how did they wind up in their starting city (if they’re not from there)?

Born and raised Ishgardian, Marcelain Reverine hailed from Hemlock, a tiny hamlet in the Coerthas Western Highlands. The son of a gentle carpenter and a fierce former footsoldier, his idyllic life fell apart when his father was slaughtered by Nidhogg’s horde in the midst of commissioned repairs at Camp Dragonhead.  Laine and his mother were forced to return to the Brume, her old stomping ground, where he learned to scrap, steal, and survive in a new and more treacherous frontier.

If any astrologians had cared to look, they’d have read his doom when his star crossed that of a young lord of the lesser house of Toursainte. Young love drove Laine to train, serve, and strive, becoming a knight of Toursainte and Dzemael and a candidate for the order of Dragoons. That same love bade him take the fall when his lover was falsely accused of heresy. After weeks in the company of the inquisitors convinced them he would neither confess nor name any names on their list, he was dragged to Witchdrop in the depths of winter and thrown down like so much refuse. He turned his eyes to the sky as a starshower tumbled through the void above him, and heard, “Hear… Feel…. Think…” as the ice sailed past his frozen ears. And then he smashed upon the rocks below, proven faithful in death.

His memories are unclear--numb and shrouded in a blizzard of ice--but he remembers walking south to the sound of Ixali cries, a few flashes of blood against the snow, and the rumbling drums of Natalan. Not altogether coherent or certain what was happening, he assumed the Ixal would finish the job Halone had left undone. But they gave him a wide berth -- whatever thing had saved him and suffused his broken body apparently struck terror in the hearts of Garuda’s priests.

When he miraculously wandered out of the snowy peaks into Gridanian territory, he was so bloody, bruised, frozen, and torn that his rescuers assumed he was an escaped Ixali sacrifice. He never bothered to clarify. Instead, he feigned amnesia and gave them a new name. Morrigaunt Givre - suitable enough for a frozen corpse. 

2.) What major allegiances does your character have? Are they with the Scions through and through, or do they have different or additional priorities?

Morr is extremely wary of any organized group, and that anxiety skyrockets as it approaches power, influence, or wealth. He initially turned the scions down, repeatedly, until Papalymo cornered him with an inescapable heart-to-heart about the nature of Morr’s Echo and the good that he could do with it. Morr followed this with a thorough interrogation of the Scions’ track record and ultimate goals. 

He mistrusts the Grand Companies and the various City States as only someone who has been executed by the state can. His membership in the Order of the Twin Adder is conditioned on Commander Heuloix’s silence regarding Morr’s actions and supposed heroism, since Morr bristles at anything resembling propaganda (especially using his likeness). Perhaps the only order he’s truly grateful and proud to be a part of is the Carpenter’s Guild.

To his great distress, after being forced to return to Coerthas, Morr discovered that his love for Ishgard and its citizens endures beyond death. His cold mistrust of the Holy See and broken faith in Halone only made him more determined to protect those most victimized in their service. The warm hearth of Camp Dragonhead and the smiling face that welcomed him there gave him hope that there was still something generous, noble, and true in the heart of his homeland. In the face of that joy and affection, he could almost feel the ice of Witchdrop melting off of his heart.

When that hope died a second time on the parapets of the Vault, it plunged him into a despair deep enough to harmonize with the cry of Nidhogg’s rage. 

3.) How does your character get along with the beast tribes?

For the most part, Morr feels extremely awkward around the beast tribes, especially if he’s been called in to kill their gods. Potentially several times. In front of them. He does not consider himself even a passable diplomat, but he does his best to be polite, resourceful, and conciliatory. He is perhaps overeager to perform tasks and protect tribal lands after giving such grievous offence. 

The main exception to this rule are the Vanu Vanu of Ok’Zundu, who both a.) directly requested his aid in slaying Bismarck and b.) had the good fortune to see Morr in a much more approachable (if wildly embarrassing) light. He made the mistake of feeding a feral, starving gaelikitten during his time in the Sea of Clouds, and the creature fixated on him immediately. It trailed him all the way back to the Firmament, where it made a hissing nuisance of itself until Morr arrived to claim it. Out of his depth, Morr returned to seek the advice of the Vanu Vanu on what to do with the flying gremlin.

The tribe assumed this was an elaborate Sad Clown Comedy Routine that the great warrior was putting on for the sake of the children; they clapped and cheered each inane, patently-ridiculous question Morr posed to their elders and hunters. Having dug his dignity’s grave deep enough, Morr decided not to fight this assumption. The children of Ok’Zundu race out, already laughing, when they see Bringer of Laughter Like Startling Rain from Clear Skies approaching on his black chocobo.

4.) What was your character doing during the Seventh Umbral Calamity? Do they still think/talk about that time, or do they try to avoid it now?

Morrigaunt had recently left Gridania under some duress after new information was brought to the Woods Wailers that cast doubts on his assumed identity. He struck out as an adventurer and lance-for-hire, though at the beginning he mostly worked repairing chocobo carts, travel-worn saddles, and various furniture.

When the call went out for all able-bodied souls to assemble at Cartenau for a last defense against the Garlean invasion, Morr joined the battle without hesitation in a hastily-put-together adventurer squadron. He thought perhaps this fight would finally rectify Halone’s grievous mistake at Witchdrop, and the question of whether he was truly alive or dead could finally be settled, permanently. Through the blood and the screams and the fall of Dalamud, Morr fought on through the night and the breaking of the world. And when the smoke cleared, he carried corpses, sifted through rubble, held down amputees, and assisted conjurers with triage. And through the years afterward, he continued hollowly seeking to serve whatever purpose had kept him alive.

Morr does not talk about that time, though he will confirm that he was present if pressed. 

Alethia Eclaircir

5.) What does your character think of the Echo? What was it like when they first experienced it?

Alethia’s earliest memories are of the stars above her head and the rubble of a ramshackle tent village burning in Amalj’aa fire. The commands to Hear, Feel, Think seemed like the most real and pressing aspects of her young life. Prone to dissociation and uncertainty about reality, her perception of magic, time, and spoken interaction have always been off. She initially considered the Echo just another aspect of her synaesthesia - seeing and tasting the aether of the land as she attuned to it, hearing The Voice’s commands and feeling it resonate in her teeth and taste like fresh mint and mango. She could not explain what was happening to her, and quickly gave up on trying after being dismissed as another lying Ala Mhigan urchin. She did not mention seeing visions of the lives of those around her for fear of being driven away, and she was never certain what was reality, what was a daydream, and what was a distorted memory that was not hers to borrow.

After joining the Scions and gaining an understanding of Hydaelyn, the Echo, and all that it implied, she was eager to study and improve her gifts. More than that, she was determined to be of use to these new friends who brought sympathy, clarity, and support for something she hadn’t spoken of to any living soul in decades. She mostly thinks of the Echo as an enhancement of her senses - a way of seeing, tasting, refining the aether around her through slowed time and reconstituting the possibilities into whatever is most precisely, most perfectly needed in that particular moment. 

6.) Did your character always want to be an adventurer, or did unexpected circumstances bring them into it? Do they wish for any of their old life back at all?

Thia never wanted to be an adventurer. But grief over her father’s murder was going to drive her mad without something, anything to made her feel like she was helping someone. She cut off her long Gyr Abaninan plaits, shaved her head entirely in mourning, and began a new life. Getting work and holding her own amidst this boisterous and brash crowd was quite a challenge at first, but anything was preferable to sitting still. 

7 and 8 answered here!

9.) How does your character approach combat? Are they in the thick of the action? Do they take a supporting role?

Thia’s initial training focused heavily on magic, both with her father as a child and later in the Thaumaturge’s guild. Her wildly fluctuating and frighteningly deep aetheric reserves required quite a bit of dedicated and personalized tutoring to control, but they make her an absolute powerhouse of a spellcaster. She operated as a spellcasting hellraiser and a careful, taciturn healer with equal competence. Seeking any possible connection to her long lost mother, Thia eventually sought training as a Monk, and learned to reorient her aetheric reserves through chakra. She had to retrain her use of the Echo to follow the flow of battle in melee combat, learning to read form and fist the same way she once read spellcasting sigils and manipulated ley lines. 

After her sojourn on the First, Thia’s first destination on her return to the source was the Marauder’s Guild, of all places. Alka Zolka fell flat on his face when he overheard the infamous laconic mage petition the guild for training with an Axe. But she would not be deterred - something had clearly happened there that filled her with the determination to master the way of the Warrior. And so she did. 

Manami Bansho

10.) How has your character handled major losses? 

Manami never fully makes it through the stages of grief, cycling through denial, anger, and bargaining. If there’s someone to reasonably blame, then it’s time for a roaring rampage of revenge with all guns blazing. And usually, by the time that’s over, she has a new loss to go avenge anyway. So she never actually has to get to depression (to say nothing of acceptance).

11.) What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?

Manami’s parents were traveling apothecaries, offering their tinctures, cures, and consultation as they wandered across Doma. When a call was put out requiring every Doman family to offer a conscript under Yotsuyu’s rule, Manami enlisted at the age of 16 to spare her parents that fate. She was shipped off to Gyr Abania as a Garlean conscript, and assumed she would never see them again. Five years later, she discovered that her father had also been forcibly conscripted - and that his medical ward in Bozja had been ransacked and then destroyed by the resistance. In the next battle, she threw herself overboard during an encounter with Lominsan vessels, seeking death or defection and not certain which she preferred. 

Fortunately, the gorgeous pirate beauty that plucked her out of the waves convinced her that there were still a few things about living that were worth the trouble.

Manami had long given up hope of ever seeing her family again when, seemingly out of nowhere, the Scions suddenly decided to throw their lot in with the Doman Liberation Front. When she arrived in Hingashi, she helped her seasick companions find the nearest local apothecary. The woman who answered them was a trifle grayer and weathered by years of quiet grief, but she was unmistakably Manami’s mother. 

Their impossible joy was made complete when the Bozjan resistance reached out to the Doman Enclave for aid. There she discovered that her father had not died at the hands of the rebels, but had defected and joined their cause. Across continents and endless battles and a decade of grief, their family was made whole again. 

Manami is a deeply changed person after her time as a Garlean conscript, Maelstrom Pirate, and Ironworks Engineer. She and her parents are gradually reacquainting themselves with who they have all had to become in their long separation. But there is as much love as there is trepidation. 

12.) Which of your character’s allies do they get along with best? Which do they have the most difficulty with?

Manami belongs with the Ironworks crew, through and through. She adores each and every one of them, and as a result teases all of them relentlessly. Her expertise in Garlean magitek, alchemy, blacksmithing, armorcraft, and goldsmithing found a perfect home amongst the tinkering do gooders, experts, and unrepentant ne’er-do-wells that strive for Freedom Through Technology.

Her greatest difficulties are actually with the Scions’ Doman allies, who seem to remember a different Doma than the one Manami and her parents covered step by painful step. The ease of language and delight in shared customs, joys, and jokes can occasionally give way to rancorous fights about the preservation of traditions versus the building of something newer, better, and more equal for all. That said, she is definitely not allowed in Ishgard unsupervised after too many episodes of taunting mouthy Temple Knights about what this tiny dragon girl will do to them once she’s done bringing their heretic parents to climax....

Amongst the Scions, she finds Urianger incomprehensible but amusing. Y’Shtola can occasionally leave Manami speechless with her scathing wit and beauty. The twins receive relentless sibling-esque taunting and bring out the worst of Manami’s competitive streak (which is perhaps a little cruel, since they’re… children…. and she’s a grown adult with a lot of guns). 

13.) Does your character have any pets?

No, though she does have an impressive collection of wind-ups, tiny magitek constructs, and other autonomous robotic knick-knacks. Her mother owns a troublemaker shibe in Hingashi that Manami pretends to be indifferent toward while secretly spoiling it with treats.

14.) How does your character interact with working animals— chocobos, other mounts, etc?

Manami strongly prefers magitek over beast mounts. She’s much more confident in her ability to design, program, and repair any machine rather than managing the skittish or stubborn temperaments of any beast of burden. She’s temperamental enough on her own without the addition of another shitkicker. That said, the one exception to this rule is her personal chocobo, Manners - so named because she was told she needed to get some. Neither she nor Manners have actually gotten any.

[bitsypookums]

Alethia, 1, 2, 7, 8, 11

1.) Where is your character from, and how did they wind up in their starting city (if they’re not from there)?

Alethia is of Ala Mhigan ancestry - her father, Apostolos Eclaircir, was a scholar, healer, and spy for the rebellion in King Theodoric’s court; her mother, Myrrhine, was a monk of the Fist of Rhalgr. They kept their relationship secret in the midst of Theodoric’s reign of terror, planning a celebratory wedding once the Mad King was finally ousted. Instead, the Temple of the Fist was ransacked just a month after Thia’s birth, and Apostolos was left with his grief and his baby girl. 

Apostolos fled the court immediately, dodging a few assassins on his way to openly join the rebellion as a healer during the civil war. But when Garlemald invaded he left the fight, prioritizing getting his daughter as far away from the empire’s clutches as possible. He helped guide a band of refugees across the border into Gridania to plead for sanctuary, but they were rejected by the Elementals. Though Apostolos himself was offered a place within the conjurer’s guild, he was already wracked with guilt for leaving the rebellion behind, and could not stomach serving the forest that had rejected his countrymen.  

Their search for sanctuary brought them all the way to the high walls of Ul'dah… and no further. Though his skills would have been quite marketable inside the city walls, Apostolos refused to abandon those who had survived the journey this far only to be turned away at the gates. Thia grew up in Stonesthrow, amidst the ramshackle shanties and tumbling dust. Already quiet, distant, and prone to long bouts of dissociation, Alethia became more and more laconic as her Ala Mhigan accent earned her jeers and mockery. Her greatest joys were in her father’s lessons - magic, history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy. The world viewed through his eyes seemed so much brighter than the dirt, blood, and coin of the roads that led to Ul'dah.

She spent most of her childhood attempting to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible, but eventually her father’s lessons and her endless, volatile well of aether grabbed the attention of the Thaumaturge’s Guild. When she received an offer of sponsorship, her father strongly encouraged her to take the room, board, and access to more books than she had ever seen in her life. She made few friends there, and her long silences only lengthened, but the well of knowledge and the new outlet for her flares of aether more than made up for the mockery and isolation.

Apostolos died during an altercation with some Brass Blades shortly before Alethia finished her studies at the Arrzaneth Ossuary. The judge ruled that her father--a teetotal, spartan-living community healer and peacekeeper--had drunkenly assaulted the officers. The fact that his belongings were ransacked and any valuable potions or tinctures had gone missing was apparently of no consequence.

Thia left without a word, without ever officially graduating, and submitted her application to the Adventurer’s Guild. She wanted to help, as he had. An unmoored, unwanted, unknown creature of sand and dust. 

 2.) What major allegiances does your character have? Are they with the Scions through and through, or do they have different or additional priorities?

Thia is confused by any organization that offers her a membership, assuming they have low standards, bad taste, or odd priorities. She initially assumed the Scions were very elaborate pranksters. However, they were the first people to offer her answers about the fluctuations of her aether, the nature of the Echo, and the wider threats facing Ul'dah, Eorzea, and beyond. She quickly became quite fond of them in her own quiet way, though her lack of Sharlayan training and formal education made her feel she had little to contribute other than fireworks at first.

Aside from the Scions, Alethia had very few other organizational allegiances prior to the events at Baelsar’s Wall. Ul'dah was the most familiar, which mostly made its sins sharper in her mind. If she is loyal to anyone there, it is General Aldynn, not the Flames or the Sultanate (and certainly not the Monetarists and their Brass Blades). 

Thia’s relationship with the Ala Mhigan Resistance is strained, confusing, and bittersweet. To many in Little Ala Mhigo and Rhalgr’s Reach, she represents the pampered, mewling cowards who abandoned the homeland to beg for scraps from the Sultana’s table. Still others--complete strangers--offer her stories of both her parents; some heroic, some mundane, but all sharp knives between her ribs. To honor the mother she never knew and the father ravaged by guilt, she threw everything she had into the liberation of their homeland. 

7.) Does your character have thoughts of settling down some day? Is it in the region they came from, or somewhere they visited in their travels? Or are they a forever wanderer?

Thia’s wanderlust and desire to go where she is most useful are really just smokescreens for her all-encompassing sense that she does not belong anywhere. This has only gotten more pronounced as various city states clamor for her presence and assistance where they previously closed the door on Ala Mhigans. Life in Ul'dah is honestly more jarring, now, from her vantage point among the Scions. Her treatment there is so far removed from her young life as a refugee that she finds it by turns disorienting, amusing, and infuriating. 

Gyr Abania is both familiar and alien, the fairytale land of her father’s bedtime stories and the ruined remnants of a home that will not claim her. Everything smells faintly of the spices that always perfumed her father’s alchemy; the textile patterns match the faded threads of his most treasured, weathered clothing; the music thrums and the rebels dance to the same tunes that broke out around the fires of Stonesthrow… but above all of it, a relentless voice echoes in Thia’s mind: “I will suckle on the souls of the hopeless and liberate the homeland they no longer deserve.”

No matter where she goes, Thia is eventually overwhelmed by feelings of, “I am not of this place; my name is foreign on their lips; I am unwanted here; I am a trespasser.”  Displacement is baked into her understanding of herself. 

8.) What is your character’s favorite place— to visit, or to stay in?

Despite its bittersweetness, Thia loves the Temple of the Fist, and will scale the walls of the Reach at all hours to walk the halls where her mother lived, trained, loved, and died. She would not admit it, but part of her hopes to some day receive an Echo vision of the brave and unflinching woman she cannot remember.

She is also fascinated by the Sunken City of Skalla, and has made several more exploratory expeditions there to study, catalog, and contain threats to resistance members seeking to redistribute the Mad King’s trove.

More recently, she became very fond of the Bookman’s Shelves and the Bureau of the Architect - one for its association with a certain person, and the other for how it clarified many things she never understood about herself. 

11.) What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?

Thia has no surviving blood relatives, but she does have very close family friends who may as well be aunts and a cousin. Aledis was a sworn sister to Myrrhine in the Fists of Rhalgr, and remained close with Apostolos in the fallout of Ala Mhigo’s downfall. Her daughter, Valle, is the closest thing Thia has to a sibling. Thia is very protective of her, and content to sit and listen in warm silence as Valle enumerates new theories for an entire rainbow of new carbuncle varieties.

[bitsypookums]

Warrior of Light vs. Azem: Alethia Eclaircir and Aletheia of Amaurot

Thia is an Ala Mhigan refugee who grew up in Stonesthrow outside the walls of Ul'Dah. A laconic and dissociative but frighteningly gifted mage, she became a wandering adventurer and tried to spark some good in the world after her father was murdered by Brass Blades. A visit to the First introduced her to many new truths, including an aching vision of the gregarious diplomat and peacemaker version of herself in a world unsundered.

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