Priestess Molova Sheinarr

[nullexe]

Character: Molova Sheinarr
Player: nullexe

Molova, or Mol to her few bosom friends, was a typical girl living in a small village in the Rawlinswood. Born the eldest of seven children to a farmer and his wife, she was a devout girl from birth, learning from her elders to give thanks to each of the Gods for their contribution to the world, a prayer for Lathander in the morning as chores began, through giving thanks to Selune as she went to bed.

Her days were idyllic growing up, her tomboyishness reinforced as she played at swords with her brothers using bits of wooden planking, her womanliness enhanced as she helped her mother cook or played at dress and make-up with her sisters.

Like any other village, bandits and raiders sometimes ran through town, but it was so often and her parents so quick to shoo them all to safety that she never really gave any thought to the danger. Sure, her father was forced to grab the old spear, a relic from his stint as a militiaman, from the barrel by the door to fend off a would-be house-breaker once a year or so, but the children merely sat in the cellar, often as not drawing on the dirt walls with bits of charcoal or singing songs, innocently unaware of the dangers outside the wooden doors.

She probably would have continued like her mother, growing out of her boyish wonder of weapons and play-fighting and into the new wonder of boys and tussling with them, eventually to settle down with another village boy of her age and have a farm and children of their own, but that paradise was shattered when she was in her tenth year.

In the woods outside the village, there was a tower her father had sternly warned all the village children to never near, but had not given a reason, perhaps in retrospect to spare them from the horrors within. This tower was the abode of a twisted man, who played with dark forces in the woods, stealing the bodies of the dead, both human and animal, and forming abominations with them, sometimes fusing a furious minor demon into the unholy creation. She would never get the story exactly straight, for there were too few survivors, but somehow the madman's creations got away from him, or a demon broke it's restraints and retaliated upon it's summoner. Either way, she was awoken one night by her father and instructed to gather the other six and hide in the basement. It was the first time she'd truly felt fear, because looking into her father's face, she saw only complete despair as he clutched the smooth-worn haft of the spear.

Running out the back door of their house, herding the smaller children in front, they were surrounded by flaming buildings and the screams of the villagers as shambling, foul-smelling hulks lumbered around, unfazed by the simple weapons of the villagers, tearing the defenders limb from limb as they lurched across the village. Smaller, more mobile abominations darted around amidst the smoke of burning thatch and charring flesh, stopping only to tear a throat out or feast for a moment on an unmoving body before scurrying off horribly into the darkness.

Somehow, they made it to the root cellar, almost falling in and pulling the door to behind them. Molova barring the door with a bit of wood shoved through the handles. For what seemed like hours, they huddled together in the darkness, crying and wondering their parents fate, listening to the occasional horrid scratching as an undead took a momentary interest at the cellar doors. Then the noises got louder and louder with each passing moment until there was a frantic banging on the door and the unmistakable shout of her father's voice.

Opening the doors, she was confronted with her father's broken figure, skin and clothing torn in multiple places by the teeth and jagged nails of the undead. In a frantic, terror-laden voice he begged them to flee into the woods, clutching the now ichor-stained spear like a lifeline. Terrified, Molova tried to leave, only to stop, screaming as she noticed the body of her mother, torn open by a crooked abomination, the thing feeding on her entrails. The thing stopped at her scream, and began advancing on the group, other undead closing in a ring around the crying children and one sobbing adult. Her father stepped forward in one last brave attempt to save his children's lives, his spear thrust almost casually batted away by the thing that had been feeding on his wife.

As the pole weapon clattered to her feet, her father's death scream ringing in her ears as the crooked creature tore his chest open with another swipe, her spirit broke. She fell to the ground atop the weapon as the undead descended on the children, her siblings sobbing as they were torn apart. She lay there for a moment, the spear broken in half beneath her. As she felt a diseased hand grip her shoulder to turn her over, her mind could only utter one phrase "save me." Suddenly, something seemed to revitalize her mind, turn her terror to fury, her tears of fear to tears of rage. As she was roughly spun around by her parent's killer, her hands closed around the broken spear haft. With a scream of pure rage at the injustice of it all, she drove the steel head of the spear into the thing's chest, her adrenalized muscles thrusting the thing off of her as she jammed the splintered end of the shaft into the dirt at her side.

The thing's scream was so sudden, so piercing, that she could do naught but stare at it, noticing almost casually that all the other abominations were motionless, fixated on the one she'd skewered. The moment passed though, and with a rictus grin, the thing began pulling itself, hand over twisted hand, down the spear shaft toward her, the others closing in on her as well. As it's nails reached for her face, she saw light, like the first sign of dawn over the mountains, appear from behind the crowd of disturbed death. The abomination's hungrily anxious face showed an emotion that could only be described as a mixture of horror and thankfulness and the light swept over it, and over every undead, turning their broken, unholy bodies to ash.

When she awoke with the dawn, she was bumping along in the back of a cart, a bone and gold cloak thrown over her body. And elderly man with a skeletal hand and scales etched into his breastplate rode next to the cart on a pale horse, smiling down at her serenely. Her startled shock sat her upright, the cloak sliding awkwardly off her to reveal the spear, now coated in burnt black ichor, still clutched white-knuckled in her hands. The man explained who they were, a Kelemvorite hunting party, sent from the local temple to eradicate the threat of the woodland tower. He expressed his deepest sorrows that they arrived to late to save more than a handful of children, and his greater regret that none of her family had survived either.

He turned out to be the Martial leader at the temple, and took the now-orphan under his wing at her request allowing her to become one of the few female Hunters ever trained at the Temple. She learned quickly in the temple, becoming quite proficient with most weapons as well as deific spells, prefering the heft of bladed weapons and destructive prayers to anything else. After a decade of training, she was released into the region, and charged with the sacred duty of maintaining the balance of souls.

Wanting to get away from the area where she had seen so much sorrow, she traveled north, to Peltarch, where she applied for and was granted citizenship. She now resides in the city, traveling frequently back to the Temple to further her faith.

[Black Rider]

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