Dave Wood's

Campaign

Keira Rhian Malarah, Wild elf Shadowdancer

Status: Active

Illustration © by Ruth Thompson. All rights reserved! Read the legal information.

Keira Rhian Malarah was born in the forests of Mistyvale. She was born the youngest child in a family of 7, also the only girl. For the first 7 years of her life she was a carefree wild elf oblivious to the turmoil that was brewing in the forest. Her favourite playmate was the son of the chief, and in fact her parents had bethrowed her to him from an early age. The Orcs were invading the edges of the forest in a series of random attacks, while the wild elves fought them off with their skilful knowledge of the forest. Her father, Talagon, led the fighting elves. She rarely saw him, but secretly worshipped him and knew in her heart that she was the one who was meant to be his mentor and take over in his place when he was gone. He went off on many missions and usually took one or two of her older brothers along to observe and learn the ways of the fighters, but never her. She spent much of her childhood resenting her oldest 2 brothers for this.

One day Keira decided to follow her father and brothers to the edge of the forest to watch them. This was a particularly bloody battle and Keira's father was slain. She was devastated and revealed herself from the forest to try to save him, but the Orcs grabbed her and brought her back to their camp. She was held hostage while the Orcs ravished the forest searching for her village. She was held prisoner there for many moons, being tortured by the Orcs with fire and burning embers. During that time she spent much time grieving, but also developed a fiery will and challenged the Orcs every chance she could. She attempted to escape 6 times before she was finally successful. Each of the times she failed she was dragged back to her cell and tortured. The main torture she underwent was they would burn her feet in the hopes that she would not be able to walk. Eventually she lost all sensitivity in them and became immune to the torment. Her feet are still covered in scars from this torment. The time she finally escaped was broad daylight right under the nose of the guard. She managed to escape into the shadows and while the guard was summoning the others she escaped to the safety and tranquility of the forest canopy. She watched the Orcs search for her for a few hours and when she was confident she had evaded them she moved silently across the treetops back to the village.

A few years later, when she was 13 the Orcs attacked the village itself. The attack was a complete surprise as everyone had thought the war was over years before, but alas they returned at the helm of a tiefling named Salamere. This tiefling used magic and demonic powers to locate the village and slaughter everyone in it. Salamere's motives were purely lust, he had become obsessed with Keira's mother when she was a child and lived in the high forest. He had lost track of her, until he heard the Orcs describe the child Keira who they held captive and from this knew at once this was her child. He summoned all the Orcs through his magical powers and organized them into battle. The Orcs surrounded the village and set it ablaze.

From this battle all Keira's memories are of pure chaos, screaming and seeing the flames burning her home to the ground. She saw many members of her family set on fire, including her mother and 2 of her brothers. These memories are permanently etched in her mind. While she was trying to escape, the tiefling kidnapped her from the village. She was thrown into a sac and carried for what seemed like an eternity. She was then left somewhere that seemed like a cave. Salamere tried to gain her trust, but she refused to converse with him. Finally he gave up and decided to sacrifice her to his god. She was untied and taken to the temple to be used as a sacrificial creature to some random god. She managed to escape Salamere by again staying in the shadows and hiding. Keira is only comfortable in the forests, and in the shadows where she feels safe.

She returned to Mistyvale only to find the village was completely destroyed and everyone was gone. The site of the village was littered with freshly dug graves. She set out to find her family and fellow villagers but time had washed away all trace. After seeing these graves she has always held out hope that some of her family survived. She blames Salamere for the destruction and has sworn revenge onto him.

She was conflicted for many years, dividing her time between searching the countryside for her family and acting out her anger, first on any Orcs and Tieflings she could find, then she moved onto other races and anyone she could find. Eventually she was consumed in entirety by her hatred and desire for vengeance. She developed her shadow powers even further and became exceptional in hiding in the shadows and sneak attacks. She is not very friendly and has very poorly developed social skills, spending most of the last 10 years alone. She tortures any Orc and Tiefling she finds. As an ancient elven custom, she sacrifices the hatred Orcs and tieflings and sets up statues made of their bones. Keira believes this will bring her closer to the souls of the dead from her village and they will lead her to the living and she also derives immense pleasure from this All her attacks are very methodical and she spends much time planning and researching her next moves. She will not act on something until she is entirely comfortable and confident with the idea.

Her pure hatred, methodical planning and flawless execution of her self-emancipating rituals lead her to the worship of the god Bane. She does his bidding for him in exchange for what she believes will be her reward in the end. She believes Bane will reward her by making her queen of Mistyvale and giving Salamere to her to torture for eternity. For this she is extremely loyal to Bane.

Keira hates and deeply fears fires, still has frequent nightmares about the burning of her village and the image of her mother, half charred and half burning is etched into her memory. Anytime she begins to feel regret for the things done or any empathy for her victims that image enters her minds and hardens her once again. Her favourite colour is green, the colour of the forest. She has no care for money or items of monetary value and chooses to do things based on what she wants/thinks is best at any particular time. Her favourite animals are birds, she envies their flying capabilities and became entranced with them when hiding amid the tree tops. She longs to glide weightlessly through the air. She is highly skilled in sneak attacks and evasion and she sees flight as a means to expand her abilities. She doesn't really have any friends, so no habits annoy her greatly. In the people she has had to work with she loathes indecisiveness, arrogance and impulsiveness. She needs to methodically analyze a situation and then come to a conclusion. She is always confident in her decisions; once she reaches it she rarely goes back on it and will fight for the idea till the bitter end. Her weapons of choice are the bow and arrow and dagger.

Keira Rhian Malarah is played by Heather Cross