Appearance
Physical Description
Talia is heavy-set, although her size and lack of physical strength belies an impressive speed and dexterity. She is relatively short, and tends to slouch in an attempt to deflect attention.
Body Features
Talia's lower left side has a large scar from an acid burn, suffered while blinding the Black Dragon Wyrmling Sburkus.
Facial Features
Talia has a small scar above her left eye, which is most noticeable as it bisects her eyebrow. In most light, it is not noticeable.
Talia has a number of piercings, including a golden ring she wears in her nose and multiple piercings on both ears.
Talia's eyes are a strange, grey color and are faintly visible in anything but total darkness.
Physical quirks
Talia has silvery-grey eyes, which can be faintly seen in anything other than total darkness.
Talia's hair is naturally bright pink. In an effort to blend in with regular humanoids, she has attempted over time to dye it black with various substances, but either through improper materials or simply a lack of care or talent, she has streaks of bright pink hair throughout, as well as near fluorescent roots.
Apparel & Accessories
Talia's signature garment is a long, purple overcoat. While it was once likely very grand, it is now dirty, poorly patched, and threadbare, particularly around the shoulders and the ripped pockets.
Talia is also quite fond of jewelry, including many piercings in her ears, nose, and throughout her body. She always wears metal bangles, and many rings, in part to disguise her special genie's vessel. Although the jewelry is plentiful, it is mismatched and seems to have been acquired at random and with no eye towards either fashion or value.
Talia is never seen without two pieces of jewelry: a large signet ring with a strange blue stone, and a leather choker with a small wooden charm. The ring is her genie vessel, a symbol of her pact with Kihosud the Deep. It is hollow, and serves as a comfortable refuge for Talia who can enter the space for a few hours. The leather choker was given to Talia by Zenobia Helius, and the wooden charm was carved by her. Talia never takes the choker off and will not allow others to touch it.
Special abilities
As an Aasimar, Talia has the typical racial features of her species, including darkvision and the ability to create light.
As a Warlock, Talia is a gifted spellcaster. Since her patron is a Marid, a water genie, most of her spells involve manipulating ice or water.
Mentality
Personal history
EARLY LIFE
Talia was born 32 years before the campaign began to Nyssa Cleodus, a human druid, near the city of Azuren on the coast of Nefer. Nyssa died in childbirth. Talia's father, a halfling named Maroud Fleetfoot, left the infant Talia at the Temple of Melora, a Goddess of nature and the sea. He stated that he had been "told" that it was vital that Talia be "raised by another" but did not elaborate. Three years later he was killed by marauders when his ship was sunk.
Young Talia had a difficult upbringing. Although the nuns of Melora were kind, they were distant, and strongly believed that children were best left to their own to experience nature. Given her strange eyes and bright pink hair, the orphan Talia was a target of ridicule from other children. She developed a severe stutter, which she was eventually able to overcome, but it further isolated Talia.
In an attempt to make friends, Talia became a habitual liar, telling people whatever she felt they wanted to hear. For a time, it worked, until Talia's desperate desire to please everyone made it clear that her increasingly elaborate and contradictory claims were pure fiction.
When Talia was 13, in the midst of a deep depression and increasingly lonely and isolated, Talia began to hear a voice in her head. Initially convinced she was going mad, she eventually began speaking back to the voice. This did not improve her social standing, but she soon realized that the voice would respond. On her 14th birthday, Birtiel appeared before her and explained her celestial heritage. Talia was overjoyed, but soon found that having an explanation for her oddities did not make fitting in any easier.
When Talia was 16, she decided that there was nothing more for her in Azuren, stole a small boat from the temple and struck out on her own, encouraged by Birtiel.
NO LONGER ALONE
Talia's sea voyage was difficult, but not unpleasant. Birtiel directed her south, towards a small tropical island around which fishermen had been disappearing. Following Birtiel's advice, Talia discovered a nest of Kuo-Toa who were killing and feeding upon fishermen in the area. Talia fought them and killed their leader, driving the others out. With this, she embraced her destiny as a defender of the Material Plane.
Over the next 3 years, Talia learned to fight and followed Birtiel's advice and instructions to protect the coast from monsters and threats. Although she enjoyed the freedom and her newfound sense of purpose, the isolation and loneliness Talia had felt her whole life returned.
While hunting an Amphisbaena through a northern swamp, Talia was set upon by a large group of Kuo-Toa. Recognizing the leader as one of the survivors of her very first encounter, Talia fled into the swamps, but was soon poisoned and staggering from blood loss. Just before she lost consciousness, she saw a blurred figure leap over her, a flash of tanned skin and bright green hair.
Talia came to in a cool, dry cave. Her wounds had been dressed, and her clothes patched and cleaned. She was startled to find a strange black bird curled up on her feet while she slept, and when she rose to get dressed it waddled excited around her before turning to greet the woman who entered the cave.
Zenobia Helius was the most beautiful woman Talia had ever seen. Her air of kindness and wisdom awed Talia, who immediately decided to try to emulate this strange woman as much as she was able. Zenobia was a quiet, patient listener, and radiated a sense of calm and wisdom far beyond her 22 years. To the angry, impatient Talia, it was like finding a calm port in a very bad storm.
More importantly, her bright green hair and strange red eyes made her sure that Zenobia was like her, an impression which was confirmed when she merely smiled when Talia asked Birtiel aloud if he had led Zenobia to save her. Birtiel responded that he had not, but that another of his kind had, and Talia had wept with joy at meeting another Aasimar.
Years of loneliness and isolation fell away as, over the next two weeks, Talia and Zenobia talked, shared secrets, and became friends. Eventually, when Birtiel reluctantly informed Talia that they had to move on, Talia summoned up all her courage and asked Zenobia if she would like to travel along with her. Zenobia pondered, and Talia watched her lips silently move as she discussed it with her own celestial guide, before she happily agreed.
THE GOOD SHIP HEAVEN'S JUDGE
Talia and Zenobia, along with Gin, Zenobia's pet warm-water penguin, traveled through the swamps, stopping only to slay the Amphisbaena which had drawn Talia to the area in the first place. They soon arrived in Chebe, a bustling port town.
While in town, Talia managed to talk a group of undead fishermen into abandoning their calling in favor of acting as the "last line of defense of the living from the Kuo-Toa menace." This led to a bad fight with Zenobia, who felt that Talia's lies where immoral and unbecoming of two celestial guardians. However, she ultimately agreed when one of the undead returned, thanking Talia for giving him purpose to overcome his desire for eternal rest (a happy coincidence, as Talia had merely wanted his boat).
Talia, Zenobia and Gin soon took the undead fishermen's boat, a small one-masted sailing ship, and set out, following Birtiel and Heirodicus' (Zenobia's celestial guide) silent instruction. They renamed the ship "Heaven's Judge" and spent the next nine years traveling in it.
GIVING A HAND
Over the next two years, Zenobia's natural ease brought Talia out of her shell. As the two travelers saved more strangers in their hunt for evil, they gained a small measure of notoriety, particularly among fellow sailors. While Talia still did not find it comfortable around strangers, she soon found that Zenobia's warmth set others at ease. She also found that her natural instinct to exaggerate and stretch the truth to please others found a natural home and acceptance among longshoremen and sailors, who were accustomed to tall tales and embellished legends.
A few months after Zenobia laughingly presented Talia with a small cake to celebrate their second year together. While hunting a tribe of Bullywugs through a flooded swamp, Zenobia realized that the swamp waters were unnaturally poisonous. Both Birtiel and Heirodicus concluded that the only explanation was some source of great evil. After an exhausting, week-long hunt, the two finally stumbled almost accidentally upon a strange grotto.
To their horror, Talia and Zenobia realized that the grotto was the lair of Sburkus, a Black Dragon Wyrmling. Despite knowing that in their exhausted and dehydrated state, they were almost certainly outmatched, the two attacked Sburkus.
The fight was long and difficult. Eventually, Zenobia was able to distract the wyrmling long enough to allow Talia a real shot at a killing blow. However, at the critical moment, Zenobia slipped, and Sburkus managed to fasten his jaws around her hand and forearm. Screaming, Talia lunged for the beast's head rather than it's vital organs in a desperate attempt to free her only friend. She buried her dagger in Sburkus' left eye, permanently blinding the beast.
In pain, Sburkus used its acid breath, freeing Zenobia and badly burning Talia. Sburkus fled, leaving the swamp behind. However, Zenobia's right arm was reduced to a melted, festering stump just below her elbow, and Talia suffered horrible acid burns across her lower left side. Talia was able to half-carry, half-drag a near comatose Zenobia back out of the grotto and aboard Heaven's Judge, before cutting the small vessel loose into the current and passing out from her own injuries.
Talia awoke four days later. Heaven's Judge had run aground on the shore 45 miles south of the swamps, where it was discovered by a local fisherman. He recognized the ship and its passengers, and realized that they were likely the reason that Sburkus had been seen fleeing the area. In gratitude, he had sailed Heaven's Judge to the nearest city to seek aid: Azuren.
Upon awakening, Talia discovered herself back in the Temple of Melora. Talia was manic, reopening her wounds in her crazed thrashing as she wept and cried for Zenobia. She only calmed when she was allowed access to Zenobia's room, where she herself was still unconscious, recovering from her wounds. In dawning realization and horror, Talia realized that she had fallen deeply in love with the other girl.
While Zenobia slept, Talia went out into the city she had sworn never to return to. She sought out the most well-known artisan of magical items in Azuren, gnomish artificer known as Torj Manmorn. There, Talia spent all her savings to commission a magical item, a replacement limb made of polished, magical walnut wood, which matched, well enough, Zenobia's natural skin tone. She returned to Zenobia's bedside, waiting for three days as Torj completed her commission and Zenobia slipped in and out of a fevered sleep.
The next three days were miserable for Talia. Her own wounds itched and burned, despite the healing magic offered by Melora's acolytes. Moreover, the city and temple brought back memories of her isolated and unhappy childhood, worsened by her fear over Zenobia's condition. As Zenobia stabilized and began to recover, Talia withdrew, becoming more and more the scared, frightened child who had fled from the Temple on a stolen boat. As soon as Torj completed the magical prosthesis and demonstrated its use and care to a grateful and overwhelmed Zenobia, Heaven's Judge fled Azuren, never to return.
Eventually, life aboard Heaven's Judge returned to normal, alth ough both Talia and Zenobia were much more cautious in their hunts. If Zenobia noticed that Talia began to insist on taking point during scouting missions or inventing reasons for Zenobia to remain onboard the ship with Gin, she gave no indication.
Seven months after their encounter with Sburkus, Talia returned from a trip into town to barter for supplies to find an atypically nervous Zenobia pacing the deck. Zenobia led Talia down into the ship, where Zenobia had laid out a meal composed of Talia's favorite foods, including a special rarity: applies covered in a sweet, sugary coating which Talia had only previously seen as a child, when traders from the south would bring them to sell at an annual festival in Azuren. Halting and uncertain, Zenobia told Talia that she had feelings for Talia, and had for over a year; following the encounter with Sburkus, she had decided that life was too short to live with the uncertainty of not confessing her feelings. Talia was overjoyed, and soon discovered that the taste of Talia's lips was even sweeter than the apples.
The next six years were the happiest in Talia's life. Deeply in love, finally free of the judgment of others, and pursuing her calling as a champion of celestial goodness along with her beloved, Talia began to plan for a future which had always previously seemed distant and lonely. She put her all into making Heaven's Judge a true home, filled with the artifacts of a shared life. But like all good things, it would not last.
THE LIGHT OF THE FEY
Three years before the campaign, Birtiel told Talia to sail north, as fast as possible. Knowing that Birtiel generally trusted Talia and Zenobia to hunt evil creatures of their own accord and only interjected in dire circumstances, Talia rushed to tell Zenobia. To her shock, Zenobia stated that Heirodicus had told her the same thing, and the couple set off for the North.
It took two months of travel before Talia spotted their destination, and another week to arrive there: a strange soft light, glowing constantly in the ocean a few miles from the coast. When they finally arrived, they discovered something unthinkable: a massive tear in the fabric of the Material Plane, and shimmering in the distance on the other side, the unnaturally lush and colorful shores of the Feywild.
The celestial guides explained that they could sense a great evil, making its way through the Feywilds, heading straight for the portal. While Zenobia began to research evil fey creatures, Talia kept watch on the deck.
Once Talia was alone, Birtiel revealed the true cost of restoring the barrier between the planes: Heirodicus and Birtiel could use their followers to close the rift, but needed Talia to enter the Feywilds to do so. The rift would close, but would strand Talia in the mercurial dimension, while Zenobia remained behind in the Material Plane.
Talia rejected this solution outright. She and Birtiel fought for hours, Talia screaming and weeping on the bow of the boat. Zenobia came up to ask what was wrong, but Talia sent her below, refusing to even tell her about what Birtiel had asked. Birtiel cajoled, threatened, and even begged. Finally, he warned Talia that if she did not pass through, the celestials would attempt to find another solution, but if none could be found, she would be stripped of her Aasimar powers and status. Furious, he stripped Talia of her darkvision, leaving her suddenly blind in the darkness around her and ceased communications.
Shellshocked, Talia stumbled into the interior of the ship and collapsed, weeping, into the bed she shared with Zenobia. Zenobia steered the ship towards the shore, and ushered Talia into their dinghy, rowing the two ashore and setting up camp while Talia recovered, holding Gin for comfort. After a few hours, Talia felt better, and made dinner while Zenobia scouted the area. When Zenobia returned, she looked tired, drawn and concerned, and kept glancing at Talia, worried and upset. However, the meal seemed to bolster them both, and they went to bed in the small tent Zenobia had set up. As she drifted to sleep in the arms of her beloved, Talia was sure she had made the right choice.
Talia woke alone in the grey pre-dawn light. In the corner of the tent, Gin slept on top of Talia's rucksack, which she was sure she had left on Heaven's Judge. On the pillow next to her, which still smelled like Zenobia's hair, was a leather choker with a walnut carving hanging from it: Zenobia's favorite piece of jewelry.
Talia raced outside, already knowing what she would find: the dinghy was gone, and Heaven's Judge was a mere speck on the horizon, heading straight towards the strange, pink glow on the horizon. As Talia ran into the surf, she heard a voice in her head, sad and weary, but resigned, Birtiel told Talia to wait. And a moment later, she heard another voice, one she knew better than her own, but never echoing in her own mind like Birtiel and never this resigned and sad. Talia collapsed into the sand, overwhelmed by Zenobia's last message:
Hi Pinkie. Heirodicus says you're up, and you'll be able to hear me, but not respond. I think ... I think it's their idea of a gift? Maybe a gift for me, at least, they aren't happy with you. I guess Birtiel asked you first, which, for spending so much time in your head, he doesn't know you very well, huh?
I know you're going to try to come after me. I'm a little concerned you might be drowning trying to swim after me right now, actually, but I think you're smarter than that. And ... you have more to do than that, Pinkie. So you've got to let this happen. You've got to let me do this, because you couldn't, and I couldn't stay. I want to. I wish we could stay, but we can't, and this is ... this is why we're here, Pinkie. I know ... I hope you see that. Eventually.
I do wish you could see this though. We're almost there, and it's so strange, and so beautiful. It reminds me of you. Maybe that's why they tried to send you first. You could stop dying your hair and fit right in...
I ... I think I'm gonna lose you in a second, Pinkie. There's so much I want to say. I want to tell you that you'll be ok, and that you're going to be amazing. I want you to know that I left you because I knew you'd be better than me, and you'll help so many people. I want to make sure you know how to take care of Gin and that you don't forget to feed him, or feed yourself, without me around. But most of all, Pinkie ... Talia ... I want you to know ... no matter what ... I lo...
The pink light iris-ed down to nothing, and the voice became silent. Talia sat, sobbing, on the beach, and watched the sun rise on Gebra, knowing that it only did so because of Zenobia's sacrifice, and wishing she could trade it all for one more day together.
THE LOST YEAR
Eventually, Talia managed to stumble back to the tent, and collapsed into her bedroll. Clutching Zenobia's choker to her chest, Talia passed into a twilight state, not truly awake nor entirely asleep. She got up five times to relieve herself and feed Gin, but did not know if hours or weeks had passed.
Birtiel came to her, telling her she would need to head north, that there was a monster threatening a town there. She screamed and wept and begged, telling him that she would never work for him again, that he and Heirodicus and their entire celestial host was evil and hypocritical, and that if they were powerful enough to close the dimensional tear they should be powerful enough to bring Zenobia back, or send Talia to her. Birtiel calmly responded to every complaint and abuse, reminding Talia that she was a champion of good, as was Zenobia, that they had a greater purpose, that Zenobia had saved countless lives, and that Zenobia may come back one day, but that he did not know the future. He also reminded Talia that he had loved Zenobia, and Heirodicus, and that he and Heirodicus had sealed the tear regardless. But it was a reminder that Zenobia had left the world behind in order to save Gebra's life from great evils, and that Talia could carry on that mission or could betray everything she had sacrificed for.
Angry and resentful, Talia had headed north. She killed the creature Birtiel pointed her towards, drank herself into a stupor, and then, when Birtiel's voice became to incessant to ignore through negligence and drink, continued in the direction he pointed. The next year passed in a haze of monster-fighting, slow, earth-bound travel, and drink.
Talia accepted Birtiel's presence as necessary to root out evil and protect others, but her hatred and resentment of the celestial grew. She became reckless, taking greater and greater risks and fighting any creature Birtiel suggested heedless of strategy or danger. Already a habitual liar and teller of tall tales, the habit became nearly compulsive, and seemingly without goal; while in the past, Talia would lie to smooth her way into a group or a city, now she was prone to telling others falsehoods seemingly to amuse herself, even if it made her time in an area more difficult.
THE DROWNING
A "BORROWED" PISTOL
ARRIVAL AT RUNNING BEND
Social
Current Residence
Running Bend
Hobbies & Pets