Giselle Bolde-Hartwell

PTSD. Giselle watched her town be murdered, including her father and little brother. She did not escape untraumatized from that.

OCD. Traumagenic, after Ravenloft.

Paranoia. Traumagenic, after Ravenloft; particularly after dying and coming back to life after a vague deal with the mists. Is worsened by her cursed bow.

Blindness. She found, attuned to, and kept an extremely cursed bow possessed by Vecna, which stole her vision. She can't see anything at all if she is 10 feet away from her bow.

Giselle is intelligent, level-headed, and observant, and loves nothing more than understanding more about the world. She comes from a tight-knit community from the forest, which she loved and valued, and where she learned a lot of what she knows. Finding her way through the wilds is second nature to her, she adores knowledge for its own sake, and wants to understand everything that she doesn't have an explanation for — particularly about her past. Hidden under the surface is a lot of guilt, anger, and regret, so she kills monsters both to make the world a better place and to exorcise her own demons.

Giselle grew up in a tight-knit community in the woods called Windermere. It wasn't very populated, but everyone who lived there cared about each other and helped out. They were mostly self-sustainable, and often traded with nearby communities. Giselle was raised by her mother, a half-elf hunter and ranger, and her father, a human who wrote manuals on flora and fauna. She and her younger brother, Everett, were very loved and cared for, and the family was close and happy.

When Giselle was 16, a vampire spawn attacked the community. Most of the people who lived in Windermere were there, with the exception of those who were out hunting or trading — like Giselle's mother. Giselle watched as they all tried to escape, help each other — but this was a town of mostly average people, and the spawn was much more powerful than them. She watched as her father failed to fight it, protecting her brother; she watched it be in vain as Everett, who was only thirteen, died, too. She was half-hiding, half-trying to run, and her blood turned cold as the vampire spawn looked at her, made eye contact, and walked away. It had spared only her, and she had no idea why.

Giselle 'celebrated' her 17th birthday with two-thirds of her family dead and thinking about how her brother wouldn’t ever be 17. He’d never grow out of his clothes, or achieve all the things he wanted so badly to do. He’d never grow into his newfound height. And she felt guilty for not doing anything. For a couple years after that, Giselle stayed with her mom. Recovering. Rebuilding. Her mom couldn't find it in her heart to leave Windermere. And Giselle decided that she was going to learn everything she could about vampires and their spawn, and every single undead creature, so that she could hunt them and this would never happen to anyone else again.

When Giselle was 20, she decided to leave home. She was going to seek out people who knew more about monsters than her, than anyone she had come across before. And this way, she could hunt monsters too. She hunted a couple of low-scale monsters by herself and did a lot of investigating for a year and a half. Then, when she was 21, she found Kaya Veshmire, a young elven woman who had a tiny group of monster-hunters and investigators: Asher Guthrie and Raja Grisham. Kaya was the brains; she was a scholar with lots of theoretical knowledge about monsters. Asher and Raja were the muscle, with varying experiences regarding the undead. They were people with similar goals as her, so she joined them.

She was with this little party for a year before she and Kaya become a couple. They very much liked each each other, but it turned out their ways of approaching their goals and their values differed a lot. Kaya was much more theoretical, more about the abstract of the greater good; Giselle was more about the practical consequences, about saving one person in the now than saving many in the possible later. The relationship lasted a year and a half, though, and when they broke up Giselle decided to be on her own for a while again.

She spent a lot of time after that taking odd jobs and doing research, until just after she turned 27 she found another group to work with: Basil, Jasper, and Zohar. They became fast friends and a pretty good team.

THIS SECTION IS UNFINISHED.

They tried to save Ireena from Strahd, failed many times, but keept trying. (They succeeded, eventually.) Also she fell in love with Basil, and became blind thanks to a cursed bow. She also died and came back to life with intense paranoia. Jasper died, Ireena was saved and got to marry her love, Sergei, Basil and Giselle kissed, Zohar dealt the killing blow on Strahd.

• Giselle’s favorites are:
  • green, for color
  • deciduous trees, for plants
  • frogs, for animals
  • marruh, for food
• She's a pescatarian, but it's not strict or a moral thing — she's a hunter. She just doesn't really like most meat.
• She kept her hair in locs after her dad died, because he always used to and she liked how they looked, but until that point hadn't gotten around to putting her hair in locs.
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