About

Ever wonder what happens when one woman trades her first born to a witch for youth and makes a pact with a demon to carry his spawn in exchange for power? Well. Hadara can tell you it's one hell of a custody battle.

Raised in the care of her Auntie, the owlkocran lich her mother made her first pact with, Hadara knew neither of her parents. Her mother fucked off after her birth, content to take her spoils over her daughter, and her father was bound and sealed in the Abyss. Instead, she knew Uncle, the demon her father sent in his steed. While Auntie and Uncle despised each other, neither could deny the other's claim on the tiefling girl and so saw to her mutual upbringing with a begruding acceptance.

Auntie had wanted a child for spellwork, both to teach and use when necessary. Instead, she got Hadara, whose only magical competency came from the chaos running in her blood and a knack for curses. Still, Auntie came to care for her, and though Hadara always somehow knew she was not what Auntie had wanted, there was a weird maternal bond there. The lich had devoted years of her immortal life to Hadara's care and upbringing, more attention showed to her than any other living thing in centuries.

Uncle, however, was a sort of weekend visitor who made the old lich cluck and scowl when he darkened their door. He brought presents from afar and lessons from her father, and when she was young, Hadara reveled in these visits. When Auntie left them alone, he'd tell her she was Chosen, and that one day she would do great things.

On one visit, he brought Hadara a seamless crystal box with a swirling gem inside — a gift, if she could figure it out. She turned the box over and over, trying to find the trick. With a growl, she finally lauched it across the room and shattering it. As the little orb rolled to her feet, Uncle laughed. Sometimes, he said, the best trick is the obvious one.

The Chains That Bind

But as she grew a little older, Uncle began to take her away from Auntie to train for days or weeks at a time. She enjoyed it at first. She was much better with a sword and a shield than she was with spellwork. He said she would pick up her father's mantle. He said she would conquer and make Murmur proud of his daughter. She would not merely be a soldier for what was to come, but she would be what led them to glory.

They were nice words. But she was a girl raised in isolation by a lich and a demon. They were words without weight.

When she was thirteen, she had grown in her power enough to earn her first chain. Uncle took her away from Auntie's tower and when he told her to loosen the neck of her tunic she did. He pressed a black crystal to her skin and begin to draw the first chain of her future mantle on her skin. An honor, he said, to wear the mark of the Chained Oblivion. So she grit her teeth and dug her claws into her knees as it burned her skin white. She would make her father proud.

A few years, more training, more rituals later, Hadara wore a mantle of chains on her chest. Each victory marked by another link in the chain, a little more of herself devoted to a demon god she would one day free.

She razed a temple to the ground one night, broke a seal on demons trapped beneath it, and watched them destroy what priests Hadara had spared. Uncle took out the black crystal again, when she'd thought her mantle was done. After just four bands of chain down her arm, he told her she could have earned a full sleeve, but she'd left survivors for the dogs to clean up. She could have done better.

And though there was fury in her at those words, it was not wholly at Uncle, not yet. She was Hadara, the Chainbreaker. She was meant for greatness. She was better than this one mistake.

Broken Chains Still Hold

In search of something she couldn't — and knew she shouldn't — explain, Hadara began to leave the tower on her own. She would ride out to towns where no one knew her and experience what it was like to live without restraint, one night at a time. It was more addictive than anything had been in years. She'd work with Uncle, return to Auntie, and ride out when neither of them were looking. Just a little fun before she broke the seals and it was gone.

Uncle disapproved, of course. He cracked a hand across her cheek one night and spines errupted across her skin until the demon howled. He warned her to know her place. She bared her teeth and warned him that she did.

And it was fine. She was fine. Until it wasn't. Until Uncle demanded too much of her and a carefully prepared ritual fell apart at the seams. Her last test failed and her leg left bare of chains. Uncle furious, Auntie's home ablaze, and Hadara lost. For the first time she didn't know who or what she was. A girl with a sword. Promised greatness and pride from before she could crawl, let alone understand. She was the Chainbreaker, but what was the cost?

That night, Hadara screamed into a void that didn't scream back and took her blade to her shield until it and she bled.

Oathbroken, Hadara has abandoned everything and everyone that raised her. Determined to not let her father's machinations find success beyond the abyss, the only oath she carries now is to herself. A vow to cut down any in her way who stands by his side. There are some things in this world worth living, she's not going to let the void win.

But Hadara figured the one thing she had on her side was time. She was eighteen when she left the fold, surely that would set back Murmur's plans by eighteen years at least to find another to cast the ritual to bare his child and raise another like her. Finding out from another Chosen that she wasn't alone, that Tharizdun had others active beside her left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Now, the race is on to stop his third and last remaining Chosen from breaking the seals that would release him. If she or Cyrus fails? Then everything is lost to the void that ruined them both.

Design

Relationships

Cyrus Silverhand [ f-friend? ]

Another Chosen out of grace with Tharizdun, Hadara considers him an ally, but remains wary of the fallen aasimar who was not born into this life and found it all the same. His inability to either listen or keep himself out of harm's way infuriates her for reasons she can't quite place.

Aren Ruin [ replacement ]

Having received word from both 'family' and new found allies about her official replacement in the chain of command, Hadara is ready to hunt down this 'bitch with a knife' once and for all. Knowing she killed Zirus with a blade that was supposed to be Hadara's only adds liquor to the fire.

Titania [ companion ]

Another tiefling she met in an assault on a lich compound, Titania is a lot of woman with bold ideals and fists that back her words. On a quest for glory, Titania has decided to follow Hadara to Chult and has maybe gotten herself more involved than she intended.