Heledd Caddell

Heledd Caddell

Whispers about Heledd are not uncommon around camp, though most wouldn't dare repeat them to her face. A tall, muscular woman, Heledd commands an intimidating presence even before one sees her wield a sword. Rumor has it that she was sent to the Hearth Wardens after some psychotic break in her last post, and it's easy enough to believe - typically keeping to herself, it's not uncommon to see Heledd seemingly speaking to no one but the open air, and some have even said they've seen her wander out of camp at night as if in a trance. Still, whatever affliction she may experience doesn't seem to hinder her abilities in combat - skillful with the sword, she is a capable fighter, cautious and calculating.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Heledd stands about 6'2", with broad shoulders and toned muscles. Her chest is usually kept semi-bound both for protection and manueverability.

Body Features

A variety of scars dot her body - some obviously middling burns, while others appear to be inflicted by various bladed weapons.

Facial Features

Angular facial structure with deepset eyes and heavy eyebrows. A large scar runs from the bridge of her nose across her eye to he temple.

Apparel & Accessories

Heledd dresses for practicality and comfort, typically wearing a dark colored tunic and brown trousers, with half-plate etched with a rosemary border over a padded shirt when necessary. Around her neck can be found a small iron nail tied to a string, her only adornment outside of her pack and weapons.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Heledd was born to a family of blacksmiths, craftsmen of high-quality and character. From a young age she was taught by her father, Rhys, to work with her hands - whether that was helping in the workshop making handles for the tools and blades her father produced, or just making dinner for the night. Her mother, Rosemary, had died of an unknown disease when Heledd was only small. So for most of her childhood, it was just Heledd and her father. After her mother's passing, they travelled to Khor to bury her with her family, but by the time they went to return home, the borders had become hostile and nearly impossible to cross. Never a man to be deterred, her father set up shop in Khor and the Caddell Forge was reborn. He trained Heledd in the trade so that by the time she was 16 she was a skillful blacksmith in her own right, allowing her father more rest as he got older and she began to take over more of the business. As tensions rose between the highlands and the lowlands, the Caddell Forge was called upon to produce weapons, armor, and tools for the various mercenary groups about the lowlands. Together, Heledd and Rhys forged at a blistering pace to meet demand, but as war creeped ever closer on the horizon, the need for feet on the ground rose higher than that for steel. So, as the free cities began to form their plan for a coalition army, Heledd was chosen as an early conscript to the small platoon formed to test the structure and capabilities of such a union. She was capable enough with the weapons she made, but inexperienced. Still, when tested, her abilities exceeded that of many of those in her small village, and her physique created an intimidating presence as it was, causing her to stand out to the representatives of the four cities as an asset to their cause. Her father tried to convince her to stay, to run - he even tried arguing with the authorities that she was needed here at his forge more than on the field, but swords can be reused, people can’t (without some necromancy involved.)
And so Heledd went to train with the platoon, and there she stayed. She found herself picking up the art of the sword nearly as quickly as that of making them, and proved to be an asset on the battlefiel. But despite her eye for battle, she took no joy in its craft. After a month or so, the platoon was moved to a new training grounds, an old and overgrown battlefield from the last war. For all the world, it now looked like a meadow. But bones and scrap and remanants of violence still lingered beneath the soft grass. When they first arrived, Heledd found herself wandering out into the field ahead of the platoon, in an almost meditative trance. She walked slowly and reverently through the field, her foot suddenly hitting metal - a helm, the skull of its past inhabitant still inside. She knelt down to look closer, scrubbing away some grime with her thumb, and found the gseal of her grandfather's forge on the helm’s side - an elk’s head with branching antlers. She fell to her knees, and suddenly she seemed to notice beside her the innumerable dead still littering the field. As she did so, her vision clouded and voice roses in her head. Agonized screams, calls for mothers long passed, stories of lives cut short. It was overwhelming, yet somehow beautiful. She sat with the voices for a time, before her commander startled her out of her meditation with a hard jab to the shoulder. Her eyes flashed open and the voices died down, but the empty field did not feel empty anymore. She could sense the dead, casualties of war, crammed in all around her. It was hard to breath with so many crowded about. She gasped for air as panic began to set in. Heledd spent the next week in the make-shift infirmary, babbling nonsense. The voices came now and again, telling stories of the forgotten lives lost to conflict and pride, and she could almost always feel a spirit of a war-fallen somewhere nearby. She avoided going outside as much as she could, unless searching for whatever quiet places she could find. But the voices and the presence would always find her. With it all becoming to much, she went to her commanding officer to request a release from duty. After much prodding on his part, she eventually revealed the true nature of her request and what exactly had been happening to her in this time. Being a fair, if rough man, her commander said he would get something worked out with the higher-ups. Within a few weeks, she was handed a small piece of rolled parchment - not a release, but a transfer: a smaller unit, operating far from battlefields and warzones, a quieter assignment. Weighing her options between desertion and the new unit, Heledd settled upon the transfer - better to deal with the spirits without also being on the run. So, after a few weeks of travel, she arrived with this new operation. They were right - it was quieter, and there was certainly more than just the soldiering type here. It suited her. In time, she met a mentor, an oracle, who taught her to listen, and to set boundaries with the dead - she could tell them not to crowd or to leave her be while in the privy. And as she listened, she became more convinced that war was nothing more than a machine of the elite's pride and pettiness, chewing up and spitting out everyone else as if they were worthless. And so her course was set, egged on by the spirits of the dead, she set out to find a way to end this conflict once and for all, before it consumed her entire world. Hopefully her actions here would be enough...

Gender Identity

Woman

Sexuality

Pansexual

Education

Heledd was taught the blacksmith's trade growing up, as well the as basic reading and arithmetic necessary for taking orders and balancing books as an artisan. She received her first martial training in an early platoon of the coalition army under Commander Laisern.

Mental Trauma

Like anyone who reaches the age of 25, Heledd has experienced her fair share of trauma. Her mother's death at a young age has left her with some mild abandonment issues, and a fear of illness. Being forced into military service and separated from her father and home has caused her to lose a certain sense of belonging and purpose, and she still carries guilt for not fighting harder to stay. Her time in her first training group left scars both physically and mentally. The training was brutal and recruits were encouraged not to hold back. She was often left face down in the dirt feeling like a failure, or standing above a comrade and feeling guilt for the damage she had inflicted. More recently, her discovery of her ability to commune with the dead has caused her to not only experience her own trauma of appearing crazy to others, as well as intense fear for the coming war, but now she listens to the wartime traumas of the departed, taking on their suffering in part as her own.

Intellectual Characteristics

Though not one for book learning and grand philosophical debate, Heledd has a keen eye for strategy and finding her opponents' weaknesses.

Morality & Philosophy

Heledd's primary belief is that the innocent and downtrodden should be protected at all costs. War is fought by the rich at the expense of the poor. She desires peace for the sake of protecting the most vulnerable and believes war to be the cruelest thing on earth. Loyalty to compatriots also ranks highly in her values, but she holds little loyalty to any one country, divinity, or leader.

Taboos

Senseless violence Greed Superiority

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

To end the war as quickly as possible and prevent as many innocent deaths as possible

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Strengths:

• Blacksmithing
• Swordplay
• Empathy
• "Street smarts"
• Strategy

Weaknesses:

• Can be overly cautious
• Stubborn
• "Book smarts"
• Stand-off-ish

Likes & Dislikes

Likes:

• Hearty home cooked meals
• Sweets
• Blacksmithing
• Detail work
• Card games
• Folk tunes
• Small furry animals
• Scents of evergreen and jasmine
• Picking wild flowers
• Eating the Rich

Favorites

• Favorite food: Venison Pie
• Favorite drink: Stout
• Favorite animal: Chipmunks
• Favorite flower: Blue Corydalis
• Favorite color: Green

Dislikes

• Unnecessary Violence
• Brawling Games
• Bitter greens
• Mead
• Small Portions
• Excess and Opulence
• Spiders

Virtues & Personality perks

• Compassionate
• Protective
• Observant
• Creative
• Humble
• Has Integrity

Vices & Personality flaws

Flaws:

• Cautious to a fault
• Self-righteous
• Distrustful
• Judgmental
• Distant
• Distractable

Vices

• Gambling

Personality Quirks

Heledd is often seen staring off into space or speaking to seemingly no one. Some say that she has a tendency to forget to blink at times, giving an eerie 100 yard stare at very random moments.
She also has a bad habit of biting her nails

Hygiene

Heledd keeps herself clean, but doesn't put too much thought into looking put together. Her hair may be washed and brushed out, but when it's time for a trim she's likely to just grab a knife and saw off pieces that have gotten too long for her liking. Her clothes are kept clean but not in the best repair, and while she bathes regularly enough, it's often not long before she is a bit of a mess again.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Rhys Caddell - Father, blacksmith. Currently out of touch Heledd is closer to her father than anyone else in the world. They have been through thick and thin together, and she is honored to be able to carry on his trade. A soft spoken, kindly man, Rhys was always a bit permissive as a father, but he knew when a lesson needed to be taught. Throughout her childhood, he instilled in Heledd the importance of generosity, peace, and the value of every life, regardless of how lowly. If anyone were to ask, Heledd would say that every good thing about herself came from what she learned from her dad. 
Rosemary Caddell - Mother, weaver. Deceased
Commander Laisren: The leader of the initial group Heledd was conscripted into. Though she has never much liked him due to his overbearing personality and over-inflated sense of self, she holds some respect for him in the way he ran his command, and appreciates his discretion in regards to her situation after the incident on the field. Still, in his place as a military authority, she does not fully trust him.
Osian: Heledd's oldest friend. Her father took him on as an apprentice for a short time after her mother had passed and while Heledd was still too young for some of the tasks around the forge. To her, he is very much like an older brother, but they haven't seen each other in a few years since he left to start his own forge. 
Mariana: Mariana was another recruit in Heledd's first unit. A woman of no trade, she lived out a simple life in a fairly secluded village, providing what she could for the community through hunting and foraging. The two quickly became friends, bonding of their love of nature and small critters, and were almost exclusively each other's sparring partners. She never told her, but Heledd had begun to develop some feelings towards Mariana towards the end of her time with the unit. After Heledd's "madness" set in, Mariana was really the only one in camp who sat by her, listening to her ravings and sitting with her through sleepless nights.
Coimhe: An oracle that helped Heledd learn how to handle the presence of the dead around her. Heledd regards her as a deeply respected mentor and believes herself to be in her debt for all the ways Coimhe has helped her. Never having bothered much with spirituality in the past, Heledd had been wary of Coimhe at first, but with a patience that reminded her of her mother, she broke down some of Heledd's walls and the two grew quite close. Now Heledd quite admires the regally quiet woman, despite her constant resting bitch face.
Cassius Gandagee: The snot-nosed son of a frequent customer to her father's forge from Maphat, Cassius is one of Heledd's least favorite people in the world. Full of arrogance and condescension, he always seemed to Heledd to be looking down his nose at her and her father when his father would come by to discuss or pick up orders. On the few occasions where they were left alone with one another, he always had a knack for pushing her buttons, making snide comments about her home, family, and station. Once, and only once, he got under her skin enough that she leapt at him and broke his nose. It was then that she had her first talking to from her father about how violence does not solve problems and only creates greater ones. A valuable lesson, truly, but her hatred for the spoiled little brat never died down. Upon discovering her newfound ability, she learned from the dead of his father and grandfather's roles as commanders in the fight for independence and what little care they showed for their soldiers - throwing them into battle underprepared, killing any who turned back. This knowledge only grew her hatred for boy - now a man - and she swears his family will know what it is like for those they have trod on for years.

Family Ties

Heledd was very close to her father before she left. He had trained her as a blacksmith and they worked side by side for years before she was pulled away. The death of her mother also brought them closer, leaning on each other for support both in their grief and in their transition to the Free Cities.
Her relationship with her mother mostly lives in nostalgia. She remembers her as being patient and even tempered, but also firm and at times quite strict. Not a day goes by when she doesn't miss her, and she often regrets not having had the chance to know her better. The scent of indigo often brings back strong memories of her mother.

Religious Views

While recognizing the power of the Aspects, Heledd puts little faith in them, seeing their power as a very dangerous thing to put in the hands of mortals.

Social Aptitude

A gruff and often distant individual, Heledd does not make friends easily. She used to, when things were simpler, but in her current condition she tends to avoid crowded spaces and finds long conversations difficult, as it is rare that they will go uninterrupted by other voices.

Mannerisms

Heledd has a very brusk and to the point manner of speaking. Conversants often notice that she makes little eye contact, instead looking off into nothing. It's not uncommon to hear her muttering to herself or shushing the air during conversation.

Hobbies & Pets

Hobbies

• Metalworking
• Engraving
• Nature walks
• Gambling

Wealth & Financial state

Heledd has never known wealth, but for a majority of her life was comfortable due to demand for her parents' trades.

Heledd Caddell, daughter of Rhys and Rosemary Caddell. 26 years of age, human fighter.

View Character Profile

Alignment

Neutral Good

Age

25

Birthplace

Lothal

Current Residence

Khōr

Gender

Female

Eyes

Gray

Hair

Shaggy black mid-length cut

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Sandy

Height

6'2"

Weight

200 lb

Known Languages

Common, Necril