Update on my character.
The character's name is Aria. She was studying to be a bard under the tutelage of a traveling minstrel who was staying in town for awhile.The plan was that when he left, she would accompany him. In the meantime, the bard finagled some coin from the mining company to head down to the mine and lift spirits (and raise productivity) with his song. Aria went as well, to help.
Unfortunately, they decided to actually venture into the mines, performing as they went, and there was an accident. A shaft caved in, trapping many, crushing others. Attempts were made to clear the area of the collapse, but the shaft simply wasn't stable enough, and the team had to stop before another cave-in was triggered. The town mourned the dead, and went on with life.
Until, that was, Aria returned. One of the locals found her unconscious, cold body near a much older, now sealed mineshaft. Though she looked dead at first, she briefly recovered consciousness. So she was brought to the church of Pelor. There her wounds were healed, but no magic could return the color to her face entirely, nor warm her hands as much as they should be. Aria had changed as well. Where once she had been energetic and full of cheer and vigor...now she was quiet and subdued, and pessimistic.
She told what she could, which wasn't much. Knocked out early in the quake, she had only frightening fragments of memories as she was moved, dragged, used...and when it seemed she was of no use, discarded. The townsfolk became distrustful of Aria after that, suspecting that she knew things she wasn't saying. That she might be responsible for the deaths in the mine. Worse, that she might not even BE Aria anymore, but some monster living in her skin.
Things were not helped when Aria began displaying supernatural abilities, nevermind that she was as dismayed and afraid as anyone else. Finally the girl moved to the abandoned hut once owned by a forester, some distance from the town. There to live her days in miserable solitude...had not fate intervened.
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I'm flexible on this, so if you see a spot in here that you could work your character into, with a tweak or two, lets work it out. And by 'you' I mean 'any of you.'
The precise nature of the event that inflicted this condition on Aria is left to the GM. My first idea was that some Minion of Evil tried to cast Create Undead on her...but it failed beause she was still slightly alive. However, her spirit was so weak by that time that it couldn't -completely- resist the spell, and so part of an undead spirit entered her. It lacks control, but gradually corrupts her.
It could just as easily be an experiment. Or maybe it was precisely what they wanted to happen. Finding out will be an early character goal.
