Kaimana
A sea elf wearied by the whims of landwellers about her; she keeps them amused while plotting a sweet revenge.
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Backstory Population Rates
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Backstory Characters
This is a detailed list of the characters involved in Kaimana's backgrounf.
Foe At First Sight
16th of Ehlom, 423 k.2
An intriguing encounter today: we met the infamous Merikh; the ultimate nemesis of our intrepid time warp. He was neither what I expected nor shockingly outside my wildest dreams. He presented himself to us in the form of another mechanical man.
We had just finished sorting out the townsfolk’s woes; informing the most competent idiot about the goings on below their piddling feet and preparing our boat for the next fin of our journey. All gathered in that pitiful excuse of a tavern, I noticed the bar was empty, so I let myself have at the good stuff behind the bar. (Sea grapes are delectable, but I must admit what these dryskins do to the land equivalent can be almost pure magic.) Few patrons littered the tavern, including a human courier arrived from the White City for half-ear.
The man bore a straightforward message: the process of auctioning off the vast amount of earth-wealth that half-ear is supposedly entitled to had begun. These pathetic creatures are so fixated on their hoards of wealth, so nothing seemed particularly odd about the man until I began to press him about paperwork; another unnatural abomination of which the unscaled are ever so fond. He bore no legal documentation whatsoever! Nothing in which for half-ear to inhibit the foreclosure of his belongings, which seemed incredibly impolitic for such a character to risk so perilous a journey alone just to bear time sensitive tidings without also carrying the proper paperwork to remedy said time restraints.
I’m still learning the awful, superfluous inefficiencies of the ungilled, but I can tell when things don’t add up. This was no mere courier, or at least not one who bore the legal authority he claimed. Over a few rounds of inane questioning from my companions, I hoisted my hydraulophone onto the bar top, raised a lurid rendition of ‘The Tides Do March’, and poised myself to enchant the mysterious courier; all without spilling so much as a drop of the rich port from the goblet dangling in my spare hand.
A sip.
Mmmm… delicious… I pose the suggestion: ‘You should just tell the truth.’
And the show began: my spell landed beautifully as the quotidian courier released a sigh and dissipated his common visage to reveal he was, in actuality, a metal man akin to our own tin man, but adorned in crimson crystals. And the rest of the party hopped into action.
I’m almost proud of my zealous buffoons. They swarmed the sanguineous glowing mecha-man in a panicked frenzy, like ravenous sharks at the faintest hint of blood. The only difference being that the shark’s instinct to kill compels it to reckless fearlessness while the boys instinct to pounce was prompted by simple, mammalian fear. They were clearly spooked, but reacted strongly.
Amidst the torrent of their blows, the man of scarlet-lit armor identified himself as Merikh: the arch-nemesis to our divine hostess of time manipulation, Mystra. Apparently this is the man we were sent to stop, but in the form of a metal man? Absolutely confounding.
Merikh’s connection to the crimson crystals is as clear as his addiction to chaos, but manifesting in this timeline as a mechanical being is certainly curious. Curiouser still when one considers how little our tin man seems to know about himself. He, unlike the others, was too stunned to react in his typically effective flair of violence. But despite tin man’s gears whirring so loud I thought he might overheat, and the muddle of hell the boys brought down on the mecha-Merikh, I was able to have a decent conversation with the man behind the metal. I dare say perhaps Merikh was even flirting with me; complimenting my spellwork and praising my ability to distinguish his falsehood. Ha! The audacity to even entertain the notion of wooing me! He hardly lasted a thrashing from half-wit, who even managed to grapple the lustrous, metal warlock. But Merikh made it clear he came with the sole intention of offering us a deal commensurate to Mystra’s: if instead of finding the remaining shards of the chronosphere and restoring it in the name of Mystra, we succumb to the inevitability of chaotic conversion and offer the shards up to Merikh, we can end reality as it is presently known.
Hm… a little drastic, if you ask me. Aiding Mystra ensures the continuation of existence. Abetting Merikh ensures its demise… I may detest the lung-throated rock clingers, but I know a few daughters of the sea I’d decimate heaven and earth to make certain they get to taste the sweet ocean brine of home. If I must save heaven and earth to also save the sea… so be it, I will continue to ally myself with Mystra. But my true alliance, as always, is to the sea. If the deep reveals another way, I will trust it. But it seems my stream trickles into the quiet, still waters of Mystra. For now.
Merikh kept his message brief, sardonically bequeathing us with the spoils of his defeat before parting. Apparently he was rather fond of the possessions he wielded in this form. But clearly not fond enough, for in the blink of an eye, the carmine glow emanating from the mechanical interpretation of an eye socket fizzled out, and the man shaped hunk of metal collapsed in half-wit’s arms: Merikh had withdrawn his spirit from the mechanical being.
Left with more questions than before and a pile of scrap, I did the boys a favor and took an hour to magically identify all the ruby-glistened equipment the mecha-Merikh had been wielding. Each item was enchanted with a unique and useful power, particularly the dagger which would allow you to cut through someone’s timeline and carve out a glimpse into either their past or their future. And that was only one of its propitious uses. Each weapon was crudely crafted, but exquisitely enchanted. I considered demanding the dagger for myself, but I deemed it more practical to leave it in the hands of a metal man so starved to know his own past, he might carve himself to death with it. This will be a fascinating test of tin man’s will, to say the least.
Equally fascinating is Merikh’s source of intel: the equipment itself. Every time we invoke the magical properties woven into the weapons, Merikh gets a glimpse of what the wielder is doing and their surroundings: a clever way to keep tabs on us. Since he is already clearly well familiarized with half-ear’s private affairs; our foe has eagerly lapped up his research. I even suspect the reason Merikh appeared to us in the form of a mechanical being was to bait our tin man with curiosity; a gateway to trust. He’s smart, I’ll give the warlock that much. But he has never encountered the likes of me before. I’ll see to the restoration of a world Merikh never existed in, even with these jellyfish-brained fools for my only allies.
In other news, I got my habit today. It’s an appalling head covering donned by militantly religious, landlocked women. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such gaudy impediments back home, but where the air gulpers roam, this garment signifies humility and respect: akin to the cleaner wrasse. So my habit satisfies several social needs to ease my time among the ungilled masses:
1. I can generally pass off as an assuming nun of some nondescript order without drawing attention to myself.
2. With the veil down, my aquatic lineage is less detectable to the ordinary passerby, furthering my covertness.
3. With the veil up, I can magically look like any individual of my imagining, increasing my ability to blend in with the unscaled.
The habit’s comprised by two veils conjoined with a fastened rim. The bottom veil is a mute, navy linen and serves singularly as a head covering while the top is a sheer, grey lace to be worn reversibly; either up over the head or down over the face. The rim connecting the two fabrics is an inch thick band of the same navy linen as the bottom veil with a button to latch the habit around my head.
I discovered the package containing my new headpiece in our boat when half-ear and I returned to prepare for our journey to where I assume to be the White City next. Reluctant to share the contents of my package in case the hatbox was a ruse, I opened my parcel at the base of the pier beneath the boat. It took me a considerable amount of effort to configure my hair just so, but with a little patience, I worked out a braid that sits comfortably enough under all the fabric.
Fixing the habit round my head, I could feel wisps of mana energy gently lapping against my scalp, like the tendrils of a sea anemone against the flesh of a clown fish. It tingled exhilaratingly, but somehow still felt safe, like adding a layer to myself: a magical extension of my cosmetics. That energy was all I needed to know it would work.
Surging with confidence, I decided to have a bit of fun with half-ear; just to give him a little scare. I slowly drew to the surface to stalk my prey, veil withdrawn, and poised to spook. Once he stood close enough to the edge of the boat with back turned, I lunged over the boat’s port side to grab ahold of half-ear’s leg. Already startled, when he turned round, it was to the face of the green hag we had taken down mere hours earlier! I have to give the boy credit for his snap; he reacted immediately with a swift kick I easily deflected. That said, the look on his face was a priceless hue of panic and confusion.
Anyways… to the undiscerning mudcrawler, I now appear a pious woman of the cloth. I suppose I should concoct a few nondescript faces between here and the White City, or wherever we travel next. This sea elf refuses to be caught unprepared.
One Hag Down...
16th of Ehlom, 423 k.1
Not quite the outcome we were hoping for, but we survived… which is more than I can say for the verdant sister of this pathetic coven. We were able to slay the emerald hag in our attempt to ambush the three.
In preparation for the skirmish, the bewildered mayor of Skor granted us a small contingent of 5 lungulpers mascaraing in soldier regalia, as well as a smattering of useful items such as health potions and weapons. Tin man spent most of his time forging gear for the rest of the party while salamander and I gleaned what we could from the surrounding brush to procure some extra poison for the fight. In exchange for his aid, I granted salamander my purple worm poison. To tin man, I offered serpent venom, and I split what poison I made myself with half-ear.
At nightfall, I stealthily lead the group through the tunnels, but the air was eerily still. Nothing sinister lumbered into our path, and we made it quickly to the dimensional channel.
Once there, each of our party paired up with a soldier imbecile before crossing into the hags’ plane. I chose a lanky, bow-wielding, needlefish of a ranger to keep my stride. He made for a lousy shield, but turned out to make for an even lousier soldier.
I can’t wait to dive into the mystery of this dimensional channel! The surge of fel magic as we transported out of the cave was pure exhilaration. I could feel the mana waves wash over me as we jettisoned ourselves from our plane into the cosmic lobby. Tin man wasted no time in this celestial limbo, deftly superimposing our beings into the new realm, like being stamped into existence.
Upon our arrival, the hags were in the midst of an unholy incantation, summoning foul creatures from their cauldron into the ethereal plane. I never got the chance to examine these ethereal beings closely, for our assault dawned upon arrival.
I broke away quickly from the group to secure cover behind a column of rock, with needlefish in tow. But as he dallied to dip his arrow in poison, the fools that comprise my party clustered near my cover, giving the hags the perfect opportunity to fry some moron. The three summoned a streak of lightening that reduced needlefish and most his contingency to little more than baked chum. The sniveling landstrider never even got a shot off: how pathetic.
I weathered the shock as best I could and kept moving forward, breaking away from the rest of the party to dive into the center trench. As intimidating as the enormous tentacle writhing about the trench was, I took tin man’s assessment under advisement and let it be while I healed my wounds.
I tried to turn the hags’ immense pride against one another, but the demonic-looking witch seemed immune to my charms. Her sister of the sea seems less impervious, but must have been drawing strength from the immunity of her sister. Regardless, tin man lead the rest of the party to focus their efforts on the weakest of the sisters: the emerald hag.
After the simpering, green fool met her flaming demise, our team turned their attention to the hag with demonic features. Salamander managed to sink his purple worm venom tipped javelin into the decrypted crone, eliciting a satisfying twinge of agony from her face. But she weathered the poison better than I would have hoped, despite bemoaning the karmic sweetness it was to suffer the poison she herself had gathered. The miserable witch also revealed that she had harvested the purple worm poison from the Grey Wastes… a viable destination from the dimensional channel! My head is swimming with possibilities.
But while the rest of the party battled what they could see, ethereal beings were continuing to spill forth from the hags’ caldron! So I loosed Saysan upon the roiling pot, toppling it over to empty its physical contents and snuffing out the steady stream of vile aberrations lumbering off to Io knows where. At which point, the gutless sea witch fled the plane in terror. But just before the pathetic excuse of an ambassador for the ocean’s magnitude vanished into thin air, she revealed that they had been commissioned with the task of thwarting our party by a ‘metal man’ in an exasperated complaint to her demonic sister in abyssal. Curious…
The last remaining hag couldn’t sustain holding us off, so she too disappeared. But in parting, the wretch spoke forth a spell to implode the dimension we were inhabiting. I was unable to locate either of the hags lurking through the ethereal plane, but I was fairly distracted by the crumbling cave around me. Salamander grabbed a few bits and bobbles from the altar, tin man hoisted the charred remains of the emerald hag over his shoulder, and I grabbed the unused bottle of poison from needlefish’s fried corpse as our party escaped the a toppling demise.
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