zohar delane

RE: CHILDHOOD.         *

zelda pascal is a twenty-five year old fighter when she breaks her arm. it's nothing major, and she's had worse, but her party's paladin has recently died in a rather nasty fight against a beholder, and they don't have a healer on board — so she & her party travel to the nearest town & seek out a healer. in comes philip delane, a cleric of sarenrae, who fixes zelda's arm and steals her heart.

the two settle down and marry the next year. philip's mother dies, and the two take over her woodworking shop, and they are happy. soon come two children: elias delane, and three years later, zohar delane.

zohar is three years old when her father dies — despite being a pacifist, when a war breaks out between neighboring areas only a few hours' ride from where they live in kilkennis, philip feels obliged to lend his healing talents to both sides, and is killed in the fray. zohar remembers her father as a bright sunny day and a kind smile, though she cannot recall his face.

RE: FOLK HERO.         *

zohar is fourteen when the fighting ends. she is fifteen when a corrupt baron named lorint threeglory takes control of kilkennis. she is sixteen when her mother plots a revolt, training the town under cover of night to take up their weapons and fight for their freedom. zohar assisted her mother, and when zelda fell ill, zohar took the lead.

zohar prays at her father's dusty altar to sarenrae the morning of the rebellion, and wears his holy symbol for strength. when an arrow flies towards her face & stops only a centimeter away, just hardly nicking her cheek & leaving a golden scar, she sees it as divine force — an act of a goddess. the battle is hard, and zohar has never truly fought anything before, but she leads kilkennis to victory and beheads baron threeglory herself.

the aftermath is a whirlwind. she tells her mother what she's done, and helps zelda regain her strength as she recovers from illness; meanwhile, zohar is unsure whether each letter will be a congratulations or a threat, and when she is paraded around to various lords for her bravery (many of them, too, were no friends of threeglory), she is unsure and ungraceful. her mother is helping kilkennis & surrounding towns regroup after the revolution (the local shoemaker, a woman named anya, is appointed leader of kilkennis, renowned for her kindness), but zohar is the face of the rebellion, and she has no idea how to act around the rich and powerful who come to congratulate her.

princess valencia van ankern, the ruler of a neighboring kingdom, sends zohar a letter and invites her to train at her land's knight academy. she agrees.

RE: PALADIN.         *

at the academy, zohar is a bit of a legend. she keeps to herself, largely, but she cannot ignore the stares and whispers — not bad things, not malicious, but uncomfortable nonetheless. her roommate, talya lee, is her main confidant, and the two fall deeply in love after only a few months. after a year, talya asks zohar to run away with her, unable to stand the lawful good mentality of the academy. zohar refuses. 

talya leaves in the middle of the night and becomes an assassin. zohar stays for another year, then goes into the world of adventuring, trying hard to bring good into the world.

throughout her time at the academy, zohar has been striking up a friendship over letter with basil bolde. the two join forces and go adventuring together soon after zohar leaves the academy, & they join with two others — & giselle, a ranger — to form a small adventuring party.

RE: CURSE OF STRAHD.         *

currently, zohar & her party are trying their best to defeat the vampire lord strahd. it isn't going very well.

highlights:

• zohar eats a pie made from human children and has a long hallucination in which she reunites with talya. she never realizes what the pie was made of, though the rest of her party does.
• zohar refuses to believe a fortune teller about the party's slim chances of defeating strahd and gets herself cursed with wisdom disadvantage for a week. the curse would have lasted forever if she hadn't been bit by a werewolf and needed a remove curse spell cast on her.
• every dinner party goes badly. it isn't always zohar's fault, but sometimes she sees nobles mistreating the common people in their service and threatens them a bit too much and gets her party banned from a city.
• zohar is killed by vampire spawn. she is given a choice: your goddess speaks of redemption through flame. would you like to live her truth? she accepts and comes back in a burst of fire, with terrible burn scars across her skin.