Sabine
Tall young human paladin, heavily armed and armored. She roams the land restlessly in search of good deeds to appease her goddess, believing her life and soul lost if she can't keep Her satisfied.
View Character Profile
Children
Sabine History
Sabine’s History
Sabine (given name Charlotte Weaver) grew up in the village of Greywater on Kastran in the Hills of Plenty as the younger daughter in a large farming family. As the younger daughter, it was assumed her older siblings would inherit the farm and Sabine wasn't afforded much notice or care. Left to her own devices, she was a tough and independent child. As she got older she had a tendency towards being a bully and solving her problems with her fists. Charismatic, she had no problems attracting followers, but rarely formed any deep relationships or friendships. She valued strength and boldness and had no patience for weakness.
Not wanting the peaceful villager life, she joined the Kastran army as soon as they would take her. At first she excelled, having a natural talent for weapons training and endurance for strenuous conditions. However, after a while her problems with authority and discipline started to emerge and she began to form a reputation of being a problematic soldier.
One night while on station, she went drinking in a local tavern (in Khufr’o?). As she was in the habit of doing, she deliberately picked a fight with some locals. Vin, a young elvish acolyte of Eostre, tried to step in and prevent a fight. Instead, Sabine turned her anger on him, beating him to death before she could be pulled off him. After that she was rather hastily shipped off to the CloudFont and found herself set to be executed before she even fully sobered up.
While en route she fell into a restless sleep and had a vision where Eostre appeared to her, full of sadness and anger. The goddess was filled with sorrow for the loss of her favorite acolyte, Vin, and grieved for the casual cruelty of the world. She proclaimed that she would find some good from this senseless violent act, and bend Sabine, willing or not, to her cause. She proclaimed Sabine would spend her remaining days trying to do good to balance her past evils and to try to make the world a more peaceful safe place. Specifically, Eostre said Sabine would be charged with defending those who can't defend themselves and bringing destruction down on any who would perpetuate more cruelty and senseless violence. Eostre made it clear that if Sabine didn't do as Eostre willed, she would suffer for her failure.
Sabine awoke and was left with a sense of great fear about what would happen to her in the afterlife if she failed this mandate. She understood her second chance was, to Eostre, a perversion of justice and that Eostre hated her, but would wield her as a tool as long as she found Sabine to be useful.
After that, Sabine’s execution seemed to go as planned. She was fired from the cannon and should have died, but instead she found herself waking unharmed on the beach of Tuipran. She had on the scapular worn by Vin, still stained with his blood. It is composed of two squares of black cloth, worn so one hangs on the front and one on the chest hanging from straps over the shoulders. They are embroidered with leaves in the vivid new-growth green of Eostre, with embroidered scripture in Elvish (Sabine can't read Elvish). Sabine now wears it out of sight under her mail, but it acts as her holy symbol. She found that she had new abilities – she could perform light healing at will and sense good and evil.
Astonished by her new lease on life, terrified of the wrath of her goddess, she has begun to try to find ways to "do good" in the world, though it's a profound perspective shift for her and her propensity towards violence still gets her in trouble. When she stumbled across Kithri, it seemed to her that protecting this pathetic little lost creature would be a "good deed". Unfortunately, she got a little carried away in the protection when Kithri was discovered having stolen something, and violence broke out again and Sabine is again on her way to execution...
A New Path
She found herself coming back to consciousness slowly, like struggling through cold water. The sounds and sights came to her first, seagulls whirling in the blue sky, sharp calls washing over her. The sand was warm on her back. She let these sensations flow into her, savoring the unmoored feeling of waking.
Then in a flash, Sabine remembered. She remembered the claustrophobic press of the curved steel cylinder. She remembered the helplessness, the bile in her mouth as she looked to the circle of sky far above. Adrenaline filled her, hammering her heart and pushing her to her feet. Instinctually she reached for her sword, but it was gone.
The beach was empty. The white sands stretched upward to a line of trees and fell away abruptly into the void just a few paces from her. She drew away, taking inventory. She had on only the prisoner’s outfit and nothing else. No armor, no purse, not even her dagger.
No, wait. Her hand felt something on her chest, and she looked down to see a square of black cloth, hung over her shoulders on silver chains and attached to another square on her back. Lifting it, she saw it was embroidered in bright green, a pattern of leaves covering the front. Turning it over, she found writing in Elvish on the back. The green threads were soiled with something damp and dark. Sabine felt her stomach clench as she looked at the blood now staining her fingers. She had seen this cloth before.
Deep breaths, like calming herself before a battle. Not that she had ever been in a battle. She had never faced death. Danger, sure. Sabine treasured that rush that came from a good fight. To feel stronger, faster, meaner. That's what it meant to feel alive. She put herself in danger and sometimes she got hurt, but she had never looked the icy certainty of death in the eye - not until now. And it had been so final. All doors closed and locked. Gleaming cold steel and a circle of sky above.
Except she was given exit. A dream, in that last dawn before obliteration. But it had been more than a dream. She lived. She should be dead, but she lived. The dream had been real. A holy mandate, and there was nothing left to do but to try to fulfill it. To balance the scales. Sabine closed her hand around the cloth on her chest. She had her work cut out for her.
A while tower rose above the misty treeline in the distance. She had to start somewhere.
Comments