alsih2o said:
send buttercup an email, she had a great background for her pyromanic/depresive cleric in my tuesday game, and it was under a page
Well thanks for the compliment, Clay! Since I have my profile set up to refuse email except from mods & admins, I'll cut & paste her bio here. (I think it was a page and a half, actually.)
Thabarya, CG cleric of Balcla
Thabarya’s earliest memory is of the bright red and yellow flames crackling merrily in the fireplace, seen through the bars of her crib. Perhaps her love of fire began then, for she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t fascinated with the movement, the heat and the shifting colors of dancing flames. So it isn’t surprising that fire has become both her love and her curse, bringing her both the happiest and the most tragic moments of her life. When she was small, just a middle child of a large family, mostly ignored by her harried mother, she amused herself by watching the flames dance in the fireplace. She must have been 4 or 5 when she learned how to take a wondrous, almost-alive burning twig and light other fires with it. This occupied her peacefully for some time until the inevitable happened—she burned herself. Perhaps she had been leaning too close, drawn by the warmth and the smell, or perhaps the wind had shifted. Regardless, the fire licked out and engulfed her head, instantly burning off all her hair, and blistering a section of her left cheek. In spite of the horrible stink of burning hair and the intense pain of charred flesh, young Thabi was not daunted by the incident. In fact, the new thrill of danger added to the zest she already felt for crackling flames only made her fascination more intense. Throughout all the years of her childhood, she played with fire whenever she got the chance, sometimes getting in trouble for it, but more often not getting caught, until that terrible day when her whole world changed.
She was 14 when it happened. She had built up a nice pile of dry brush, oily rags, and refuse in the dirt behind her family’s house. The fire wasn’t burning as well as she wanted though, so she tossed in a small clay pot of cooking grease. When that didn’t sate her hunger for flame either, she ran into the house to get a flask of lamp oil. It was the middle of the night, because she especially loved the feeling she got from watching the bright flames crackle in the darkness. It took her longer than she intended to find the lamp oil while being quiet enough not to wake her sleeping parents or 6 siblings, and by the time she returned to the back door, it was too late. The fire had spread to the dry timbers of the house, and then it was only a matter of seconds until the thatch of the roof became completely engulfed. Thabarya was momentarily frozen with the wonder of this fire, bigger than any she had ever seen. Alas, that moment she took to admire the flames was all the time it took. The whole back of the house collapsed, and she managed to run toward the front in the nick of time. She tried to find any of her family members, but the fire was too hot, and the smoke was too thick. She stumbled coughing into the street just as the second floor came crashing down into the first. Thabarya stood and stared in horror at the funeral pyre of her 3 sisters, 4 brothers, her parents and her beloved grandmother. She didn’t even realize that her clothing was on fire and her hair was burning. Bystanders bundled her in blankets to smother the flames, and soon people came and made a bucket brigade all the way from the river, but it was much too late.
To this day Thabarya still doesn’t remember how long she wandered in a daze. Weeks, certainly. Months possibly. All she knows is that she awoke in a soft bed in the temple of Balcla in Maissen, where she had apparently been for some time. They said she had been raving when she came to the door. That was 12 years ago. Since that time, Thabarya has dedicated herself to the service of the firey messenger god, and tried to master her fascination with fire, with mixed results. Usually she can put off the need to see a fire, or be satisfied with watching the flames in a fireplace. But sometimes, the beautiful flames get the better of her. The one thing that comforts her is that Blacla in his wisdom has seen fit to lend her his holy fire, in small doses now and then. Indeed Balcla continues to answer her prayers, so he must not be too displeased with her, in spite of all her faults.
Mannerisms: Thabarya frequently appears to be muttering to herself. She is actually praying desperately, because she is trying to fight off a compulsion to start a fire, or to accelerate one that is already burning. In an attempt to find a safe outlet for her urges, Thabarya will always offer to light campfires, light lamps, hold torches and burn corpses.
Thabi is particularly foul mouthed. She invents colorful curses which include all sorts of imagined physical afflictions of her god, such as 'Balcla’s Painful Rectal Itch!' Or 'Balcla’s oozing sores!' In spite of this, she is quite pious, and will become violent with anyone who snears at her god, or the pantheon in general. Thabi is quite aware that Balcla is real and has delivered her from death by hanging as a kinslayer. She offers him all respect and praise, and will not tolerate blasphemy in others.
