Hi'ilani

Character Name: Hi’ilani (Lani for short) – “held in the arms of heaven”.

Race: Kurol

Age: 73

Gender: Female

Character Description: Hi’ilani is a six-foot-eight Kurol, one of the few of her people who reach taller than the rest (and only by a slim margin). Like the majority of her people however, she is sleek and slender from a life of swimming and hunting, with an athlete’s musculature. This Kurol has vibrant hot pink scale-skin which darkens slightly to a murky purple at extremities and at the belly while the edges of her fins, finger and toe webbings are a stark white in comparison only colored by whatever sits behind those thin membranes. Some fins settle at her forearms and calves, though a long train-like tail floats around her hips, all of them ruffled.

Her eyes are round, characteristic of many of her peoples but can narrow harshly and have a fuchsia hue to them throughout iris and sclera both. The nose is flat against her face like the rest of her ilk, and her mouth is usually thin with her expression naturally weary and focused. Purplish seaweed ‘hair’ sits lengthy atop her head, having grown thick but never cut down since the day she hatched.

Character Occupation: Hunter, Pearl Farmer

Character Personality/Traits:

Although she wasn’t always this way, Hi’ilani can sometimes be pretty harsh on first impressions. She’s peery and stand-offish but it is a defensive mechanism that easily comes down once you have gained her trust – which can take a bit unless you’ve given her reason to disarm herself. Though she won’t use crass language, she can find creative ways to tease and insult you if it means you’ll leave her to her devices, but it is evident to anyone that this comes from a place of pain and struggle as her bark is more prominent than her bite. Despite this, she puts the school of Kurol first when put into a group position. She is proud, which can be a bit of a detriment.

Once her guard is let down, she’s a lot more gentle and calm. Level-headed, willing to work as a team and even eager to navigate, show her ability. While this pride can result in some quiet cockiness, she is not one to rush ahead unless it is vital for survival to do so. Instead plotting and planning and taking her sweet time. She does smile and laugh and joke, but it isn’t something that comes easily to her like it used to and her smile can be described as a tiny bit crooked or ‘menacing’ because of it if she’s forced to pretend. If not, it’s actually quite pretty but such moments are intimate to her and she gets embarrassed for it.

Character Biography:

Hi’ilani’s story begins before she was even a thought in the world, her story one of two tribes which may have never come together if not for the circumstances which pushed them that way.

On the outskirts of the Kuroli city of Tarakoa, there existed a village which was home to a large farming tribe. Their people flourished and grew, with fantastical corals and pillars of stone which carried within them vast veins of raw cobalt causing the sun that dappled through the surface to shimmer and dapple throughout them. In the early years, hippocampi and dolphins and squid swept around the outside, kelp forests kept them safe and traps of jellyfish were laid to prevent passage to the uninvited. But the tribe’s truest trade was that of exotic materials – pearl and abalone farms – which were exchanged both among other Kuroli tribes in the city, and the rare Vasirman that made contact. This was the village of Rakoeko – ‘Sunspire’ – named for how the fingers of rock from below seemed to try and reach beyond.

The chieftain of this tribe was a humble man by the name of Kamaehu, who saw prosperity and joy during his tenure. Scarcely did the village have need for Pauna intervention so close to the city as it was and so naturally guarded by the environment and creatures there. It was a bastion of growth and trade, and he was proud of his people and the culture they had cultivated. They had even seen lesser mortality rates in their hatching beds, and because of that the people of Tarakoa considered them blessed of Kaihanga Ora’s touch. It had become preferable for a time to marry and join with them, blessed as they were. Festivals were thrown often in honor of the Gods and in celebration of a ‘golden era’.

However, this was not to last. The end of this century-long Golden Era came when a massive sea beast came too close to the city and its outer villages were the first to be hit. Some stories tell of a kraken’s vast arm that threatened to pull the entire people into Atua Katoa’s unknowable depths. Others speak of a shadow that extended over the village, a tide of creatures that stole the people from their homes never to be found again. Overnight, Rakoeko’s population – and Kamaehu’s tribe – had lost around ninety percent of its people. Pauna intervention came from the city but by the time they came it was too late, and those that survived were forced to retreat into the main population.

Despite grieving his people, Kamaehu knew he had to do something to make up for his own complacency and though the village had been destroyed they could still reclaim what was lost in numbers. Seeking advice from the Council, its Nesting and Spiritual leaders, it was suggested he take a bride by Elders who chastised his decision to never sire before now. Most of the Kurol knew a carefree life, but only because its leaders took on the burden of duty and purpose and he could not afford to eschew that part of his life any longer. So he sought out a wife during the city’s festivals.

In spite of the fact that his tribe was in ruins, those that remained still had a high reputation among many of the smaller tribes. Picky as he was, many were turned away but one such prospect stood out among the rest, a woman named Nuivai who was host to a tribe of warriors. Many Pauna had hailed from her people, and she was new to the role but had made much in the way of conquest already. Seeing a capable survivor who could bring protections he had once neglected, the two would court and marry swiftly despite many differences in personality and lifestyle. Nuivai wanted his people for their skills and riches in trade, so this arrangement worked with some emotional distancing from her.

The Elders blessed and approved of this marriage swiftly for the sake of preservation. Grand celebrations were had within the city, and very soon, Nuivai laid her first clutch of eggs. The tribes had both expected it to be plentiful, but despite the clutch’s size, only one survivor came from the union, a tiny pink-and-purple baby whose purpose in life had been decided then and there. She would be raised as the next tribe chieftain, and with far more caution. What was seen as a punishment from the Gods to Kamaehu was seen as a blessing upon Nuivai and the rest of the conjoined tribe, and so this baby was named Hi’ilani, said to be carried into the world on the arms of her heavenly brothers and sisters, and those Kurol who were lost in the attack. This was a narrative the tribe would uphold for the remainder of its existence.

Hi’ilani was, for all of the things that came before her, a very happy child. Treated as a tribe princess by the masses, who in her youth had slowly become more integrated with each other. Though there were two clear factions within the tribe to begin, over time and for the sake of survival they learned how to make things work. The tribe remained within the city for many years, so Hi’ilani was highly guarded by the Pauna that came from Nuivai’s people and the people those people had contact with. But she made friends, was raised by the tribe as a whole as all children are, and learned the old trades and techniques of Kamaehu’s people. She also learned how to fight and hunt much like her mother, who took pride in her child despite being the only one for a long time. And while she would end up with brothers and sisters down the line, it was seen as payment to the Gods that Hi’ilani’s clutch had mostly perished and lifted her higher.

She could be gentle, but fierce. Full of life one minute and a portent of death the next. In many ways the best of both worlds. She would go out on hunts frequently and indulge in pearl farming but her passion was in speaking to her people and getting to know them and their struggles. Her love for them was unparalleled by her parents, who had no idea where this sense of maturity and wisdom and joy came from, save from maybe a wealth of people to guide her. And it was true that the people influenced her far more than her parents did. But this wisdom was balanced by a growing cockiness as she got older, and got hurt during her first truly dangerous hunt against a giant eel that saw her fighting for her life. She persevered with the help of many months of medicine, left to ‘dry out’ in the medical pockets.

It didn’t stop her from continuing even if for a while, she simply helped with more domestic and agricultural pursuits of the tribe like setting up a new oyster farm for pearls. The sense of duty had been instilled in her from her parents since day one, though much like her father all of this meant she abstained from taking on lovers, or even a marriage. It was normal for young adult Kurol to indulge in multiple partners before finding the one and encouraged even, but when asked about it, she learned to be secretive and elusive, when the truth was that she had taken none at all. And for a while this was accepted as a non-issue initially; she was an exemplar, who was odd in her privacy, but otherwise led by example.

Perhaps that privacy was welcomed in the first decade of her life, but slowly and surely the tribe would grow more skeptical. First it was those around her age, who shared gossip and told stories but had no tangible proof. Then the parents, who watched her with caution as she led without any consideration for herself or her own happiness. Then even the Elders, who began speaking out and scrutinized the decision to take no husband. Proud as she was, she soon put them in their places, but regretted it when that too was spoken about. Hot-headed, they’d say. Too indecisive. Frigid, on the opposite end. The kindness and care she had shown her people was soon warped with gossip.

So she further distracted them. While her parents still primarily ruled the tribe, she brought to them plans to reclaim Rakoeko and rebuild from the ground up. It did not stop the gossip, but these distractions were nonetheless welcomed. Pauna were deployed to clear out the village and ensure Vasirman fishermen did not move into or above the space, the architects would bend and grow specially-cultivated corals to re-create homes over the next few decades. They couldn’t re-grow the spires, but much of the natural cobalt had been broken out and so that was used in decorations, creations and crafts that other tribes hadn’t seen before, and trade once more started to flourish from the tribe as they seemed to learn from their mistakes and, for a long while, seemed to even regain much of its previous grandeur.

Then, slowly and over time, the seas began to grow cold. Coral started to die, first in the outer reaches of the city where there were less people and then in places like Rakoeko and other larger villages. Wildlife perished too, and hunters had to travel further out. It went away, but came back again, ebbing and flowing until the tribe was once again forced to retreat into Tarakoa. Nuivai and Kamaehu were at odds about this because the first long winter ended and coral stopped dying for a while, so the people looked to Hi’ilani for a decision. The tribe could either split off from the whole and find somewhere warmer, or enter the city, where the rest were. Historically joining Tarakoa had always been a good idea, so she convinced Nuivai that was the best decision, but this would have dire consequences.

Because within those next ten years, the city began to freeze over. Ice coated the surface, and many coral and Kurol began to die off. The city started to crack and break apart, as much of it became part of a giant glacier that filled the crevasses connecting various spaces. This was not all immediate; it came as a result of the Deep Winter, where it started as a slow, rather insidious thing that crept up on the Kurol as winter does not touch them in the same way it touches land. Her parents perished, leaving the final decisions of the tribe to her while others in the city started to flee. Some fled within the decade, moving out to warmer spaces, finding geysers and underwater volcanos to center new places around. Some stubbornly stayed, and she was one. This was a problem, because by the final year it had become all but a glacier and regardless of the methods the Kurol used to keep the city warm within, nothing seemed to work. This resulted in the Council ordering a mass migration. Many flocked in a gargantuan school of Kuroli civilians and Pauna, but some few still remained until the very last where the city began to shift with the rest of the abnormal glacier. Never one to stand down much like her warrior mother, she searched what remained of it and looked for stragglers of her people in Tarakoa and Rakoeko both, trying to help them escape while the Pauna of her own tribe joined her in trying to keep her safe. It was a fatal error for many of her people, who she told to escape but tried to protect her or their own as they always had. Those that did eventually leave were picked off by surviving wildlife, on the outskirts, or environmental difficulties. And the ones that stayed were either killed making sure the one surviving child of their chieftains survived, or had fallen unconscious, or gotten lost or injured. At some point she had also fallen unconscious when a structural collapse separated her from the rest of the group she was with, a chunk of glacial ice cracking with pieces smattering through the waters to hit her head, her body sweeping into a nearby current due to this. She only woke up again later due to shock and sheer adrenaline. A tainted glow at the core of the city made her flee before it could touch her, feeling a dread she had never known before.

Hi’ilani soon found herself alone. And cold. And navigating unfamiliar oceans. She had a vague idea of where the rest of Tarakoa had fled, but not what their destination might be. There were stories of course, of stragglers that had journeyed through the currents to a far-off continent and so she would heed those tales, for it was all she really had to go off of. She’d find some of these stragglers occasionally and try to travel with them, but it didn’t always end well and it was within the first couple of years of her journey with notable survivors less and less as she went. With her spear in hand, injured and grieving, the tribal princess began to swim the seas. Some of that journey was beautiful. Forests of massive jellyfish, floating around strong sweeping currents with turtles, rich sights one never found around home. Some were difficult; water drakes she barely escaped the maws of, better hidden from. Sharks that tore through other stragglers. Shipwrecks full of ghosts of mariners from lands she had never visited, and pickets with ice and water magics that saw her almost bleeding to death had it not been for the odd lucky dry pocket or safe islands to rest on. Attacked by pirates closer to civilization. It took years of going the long way around and facing many challenges her people tackled as a group. Years longer than her people, anyway. In mostly isolation.

Approaching Saphriel itself was the worst of it. She could see the mainland distantly, yet navigating a minefield of empty rusted armors and walking dead and amalgams was tricky in itself especially closer to the shallows. The first time she poked one, several dozen woke up and she was forced to restrain swimming to the near-surface. It was fortunate she was quick enough to out-swim them at all. And once passing that barrier of unknown danger that was remnants of a Cult she knew nothing about, Hi’ilani finally reached Taramoana – Dragongrass – which the remainder of her people had fled to.

It took her eleven years to reach Taramoana. She had lost her entire tribe, something she found out when speaking with the council. Those who did escape initially hadn’t survived the trip, and even she was thought to be dead. Horrified to learn that only five-thousand Kurol had made it, her experiences alone and her losses made her jaded, and angry, mostly at herself. Now she has no claim; she must either join a tribe, or start a new one of her own, a prospect which was daunting to a woman who remembered almost every face that raised her, that grew alongside her. And get to know a Kingdom she knew so little about.

—

Magic Biography:

Trinkets were practically non-existent – or at least, so rare they were mythical – within the Kuroli culture. Those that did have magic were naturally gifted, and not everyone had been given Mahi Atua’s touch but most saw it as a natural ability that one either could, or couldn’t, do. Hi’ilani’s people only really knew water magic, and it wasn’t exactly abundant. But it was lovely to know if one had it and her experience was like many others of her age at the time.

She was a young girl when she first learned of it. Hi’ilani would recall swimming out with the adults of her tribe and hunting around the naturally forming coral reefs for food. Spearfishing was a very fun pass-time, and it taught her a lot about early survival. One particular venture out had made her frustrated when a slippery eel had tried to get away from her. Another kid, who went along for the journey, took his trident and caught the culprit, only to spin it around like spaghetti on a fork and pull it back with his magics.

{K} “Show-off,” She pouted- before spotting another fish in the periphery. Getting an idea in her head, she moved to get close to a lone grouper, and then sent her spear flying. She caught it dead-on- bullseye! – and then tried to reel it back in the same way as he. It took her some moments to realise it, but Hi’ilani got incredibly tired, and very swiftly. Instead of reeling the spear back she ended up puffing a few tiny bubbles from the end of her fingertips. Thank goodness she was so pink, because the embarrassment was plain as day on her face. Too weak, yet. And yet, she felt a pride well up in her. Was that was it felt like, to cast magic? She’d show him who was the better fisher one day.

Please describe the magic system, including its limitations in your own words:

Most of the time, magic requires a few things; the most important is Bothimir’s Gift, which allows someone the innate ability to will magic as they desire within certain strict boundaries. The second is a trinket, which is the secondary component necessary and is external to the mage. Trinkets can come in many forms, and usually have an aspect and a strength level that they cap at. Some have multiple aspects. Another thing necessary is eye-sight, though barring that, physical touch will do (though is much more limited).

Many races can cast magic, though not everyone has the Gift and some races don’t have it at all, such as Alba or Dark Elves. Some races are able to cast it innately, such as Ca’liar, Avalti, Kurol or Half-Demons but this is limited to a specific aspect and only to medium level. Magic can be exhausting to cast, and everyone has a set amount of spell slots which can differ depending on mastery or lack thereof, special items, or limitations on how many aspects that race can learn. You can overcast, but this is dangerous and will require rolls. A natural 20 will provide you with 2 extra spells at your maximum spell slot, but a natural 1 will always kill your character regardless of luck. The DC to pass overcasting is 5, but increases by +2 for every spell after, and a failure means no more casting for the rest of the day.

Please describe how you would use a weak trinket with your characters first/only aspect:

Though she does not need a weak trinket of water, she would use it to perhaps drip droplets of water over herself on land, gradually to prevent drying out. Or to nudge ripples across a pond to bring something closer to herself – or further away, if she wanted.