Ran'galchen

Indigo Archmage Lanna Shearwater (a.k.a. Ran'galchen, Humancake, Nell, Kitara)

Ran'galchen, born Lanna Shearwater, is currently a living weapon. She once had shades of willfulness within her, but they've since been replaced with pure ideological fanaticism for her cult, the Order of the Shade. Born to Sophia Adderwood and Aiden Shearwater, Lanna had such geomantic power that even as an infant, she caught the eye of an elven antimage working for the Order of the Shade.
Reports from the antimage reached the Blue Archmage, who in turn informed the Grand Witch, Yal'queran. When the grand witch personally investigated, she decided that the child needed to be hers at all costs, as she'd no doubt prove to be a powerful geomancer. The chaos-speaker found Sophia Adderwood while she was alone, and despite Sophia revealing her own geomancy in the effort to protect her child, she was severely injured, gaining short term memory loss, while Yal'queran spirited the child away to the Order's headquarters, Nightshade.
Thus, for as long as Ran'galchen remembers, she was a nameless child adopted by Yal'queran, nicknamed 'Humancake'. She was trained from childhood in honing her geomantic powers, and became the youngest inductee into the Order, at the tender age of six. She was given the order name 'Ran'galchen', that is, 'the Indigo One who shall climb as an Orange One'. As the Orange Division dealt with goblins, it was implying that her climb would be swift and skillful.
She proved to be both fanatically loyal to the Order's racially driven might makes right philosophy and skilled in magic as she grew, unsurprising given that she was not burdened with silly things such as outside perspectives. Yal'queran was proud of the weapon she'd honed, and when the girl was sixteen, she was trusted with a reconnaissance mission. She would infiltrate the Great Oasis and figure out what secrets the high elven family ruling it, the Sinhelioses, were hiding,, chiefly the lord's brash elder son, Kareon.
There, she was exposed to the outside world for the first time. She spied on Kel'kar Sinhelios at taverns, and one night, he brought his sister, Herael, with him. This night a performance trio of Madaki humans played; Indra, the Sitarist, Karthik the Dhol-drummer, and Kitara, the Belly-dancer. Kareon, became enamoured with Kitara, and being a nobleman, considered himself entitled to her. He repeatedly attempted to coerce the human, until eventually, Ran'galchen could take it no further.
Her problem was less that the woman was being harassed, but more that an elf had the impudence to both desire a woman beyond his race and place himself above a human (due to their position being directly beneath humans in the order). Therefore she stood up for Kitara in her own socially stunted, morally myopic way, and the nobleman eventually relented. Indra and Kitara thanked her, and asked for her name. Unsurely, she provided a variant on 'null': Nell.
They steadily became friends, and 'Nell' even became Kitara's dancing protégé. They would dance together in pubs, and for a moment, Ran'galchen felt joys from a source beyond learning magic and crushing her enemies. She understood how the peasants of the cities beyond Nightshade could cope without the structure and truth the Order provided, and as a teenage girl, simply enjoyed herself.
However, Kitara would soon die of poisoning following another interaction with Kel'kar and Kel'hera Sinhelios, causing Nell to immediately blame the nobleman. In her grief-stricken hatred, she deliberately shooed off Indra and Karthik despite the latter's obvious crush on her, so that she could revert to somebody neither Nell nor Ran'galchen. She waited for a good opportunity to take her revenge, and one soon surfaced.
Lord Kel'dan Sinhelios took his eldest son, Kel'kar, out on a minor crackdown on some bandits who'd occupied and looted the town of Duston, killing a great many of its residents. Kel'dan would die in the ensuing battle to retake it, and so Kareon, now officially Lord of the Great Oasis, needed to lead his men to victory despite being in a maelstrom of grief. Ran'galchen, having followed them, took advantage of this. In the sands that obeyed her geomancy, she mercilessly isolated and incapacitated Kel'kar, then demanded that he admit to his crime, to apologise, and only then would he be granted a quick death.
Instead, the confused nobleman claimed he did nothing of the sort even as he lay dying, shattering Ran'galchen's convictions. Frustrated and lost, she slit his throat, then abandoned her mission, returning to Nightshade having failed to acquire meaningful information, having instead killed her mark. At this point, the resulting doubts and trauma Yal'queran had to erase from her adoptive child caused her to resolve never to let Ran'galchen perform reconnaissance again.
She would instead be forced to focus on combat, becoming the strongest human geomancer in Arkheran history. She would fight Indigo Archmage Ran'xerath at eighteen and kill him in the duel, therefore ascending to archmage at the youngest age in the Order's history. Now having served as archmage for eight years, she's become a harsh, dominant force over the Indigo Divison, stoic and disconnected from her formerly emotional, vengeful nature. She values only what the Order tells her to value; racial arcane potential and might in battle.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Lanna's body is perhaps the peak of physical strength for her size, exceedingly lean and muscular to the point of mannishness. She's got a tenseness about her, as though capable of springing into combat at any moment. This reflects in her usual expression, a quiet, stoic glare that barely hides aggressive intent.
She keeps her blonde hair short, to avoid it being a catching hazard, while her face is surprisingly soft-featured despite the expressions she wears; she has a button nose, a feminine chin, and grey-blue eyes. She usually wears indigo robes with turquoise highlights, as per her role as Indigo Archmage of the Order of the Shade, but on the few reconnaissance missions she was trusted with, she's worn simple Madaki desert-walking clothes, brown rags with a brown keffiyeh wrapped around her face, or alternatively, belly-dancing gear that's red with golden-coloured sequins.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Grand Witch Yal'queran (adoptive mother, mentor, supreme leader)
Purple Archmage Mar'goritz (superior, fellow archmage)
Blue Archmage Aor'kirin (inferior, fellow archmage, continuous pest)
Green Archmage Mid'seran (inferior, fellow archmage, occasional advisor)
Yellow Archmage Kir'selai (inferior, fellow archmage)
Orange Archmage Chen'razghul (inferior, fellow archmage)
Red Archmage Ark'golom (inferior, fellow archmage, engineer)
Indigo Archmage Ran'xerath (mentor, predecessor, deceased)
Indigo Expert Ran'ortez (subordinate and long-term rival)
Indigo Expert Ran'lirath (subordinate, former crush)
Kitara (belly-dancing instructor, friend, deceased)
Indra (former friend)
Karthik (former friend)

Family Ties

Religious Views

Ran'galchen believes in the primordial four gods of Chaos, Order, Life and Death, but doesn't seek them out for guidance. She considers members of other organised faiths to be gullible fools, while failing to notice the high control group she herself is part of. While technically a secular organisation, her devotion to the Order of the Shade's principles of spellbinder superiority, might makes right, and magocracy is fundamentalist in nature.

Alignment

True Neutral

Current Location

Nightshade

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Arkheran

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Indigo Archmage of the Order of the Shade

Year of Birth

525 AGA 26 Years old

Circumstances of Birth

Noble (Minor)

Birthplace

Gods' Peak

Parents

Aiden Shearwater

Sophia Adderwood

Parents (Adopting)

Yal'queran

Current Residence

Nightshade

Gender

Female

Eyes

Blue-grey

Hair

Blonde

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale white

Height

5'3''

Aligned Organization

Order of the Shade

Other Affiliations

• House of Shearwater

Known Languages

Common Tongue
Old Galdusian
Jaranese
Madaki (basic)