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Appearance: Ren is smaller than most people she knows, at 5'2" and with a narrow, poorly fed frame. She is less physically strong than average, but her olive skin has seen its share of abuse and is not exactly soft. Still, having lived on her own for almost a year, she is beginning to smooth out her angles and build up her muscles. She has also picked up the Alvad fashion, dressing in wide pants or long dresses with colorful, complex patterns. Her clothes are further complimented by the distinctions of her race: her eyes are narrow and color-changing, her long dark hair sheened by a bit of blue-violet aurora. She wears it down more often than not, if only to cover the conspicuous Kenashern slave brand on her neck. Having spent the majority of her adult life as a novelty and ornament in other people's homes, she does not value her own beauty and is loath to wear cosmetics or style her hair.
Ren is optimistic to a fault. She trusts easily and smiles often, the first to pick out a sad face and attempt to change it. A dancer at heart, she has trouble keeping still, a trait only made worse by years of slavery in which she was forced to do just that. She revels in taking risks of any kind, finding the best thrills in the unknown. In fact, she has learned not to value her life over these thrills. She trusts in luck and the gods to create the outcome that is best; she will be hard pressed not to find a bright side to any situation. Having picked up a bit of accounting experience from her very last master, she has also begun to see patterns in her own life and the lives of others, but for now her knack for numbers is nothing but an idle game. Perhaps it was inevitable that she ended up in Alvadas, but she has not given up on her distant and almost mythical goal to head north and reunite with her family in Avanthal.
Character History
Renate was born in Avanthal's Winterflame hold, the first of two sisters. She was destined to marry a Skyglow named Fenos, but before the date she was out in the environs with her sister, where they were told not to go. Saving her sister, Ren was not mauled by monsters but captured by slavers and taken to Nyka. When she convinced the brothel master there that she was not pure, the slavers hauled her to Ravok, where she settled as a cook and housemaid for five years. She stole and saved small sums of money to buy her freedom, but in an attempt to double her money all at once, she lost it all. The same man who took her money stole her from Ravok and took her to Kenash, where he hoped to build a life as a Freeborn. Branded and enslaved as a homekeeper in Kenash, Ren lived there for three years before she managed to get in contact with Rujaro. They helped her escape north, but the plan went afoul and she was left for dead, only to be rescued by Kelwyn and dropped on an island in the Suvan. The Svefra that found her took her to Alvadas, where she managed to dance and busk her way into a decent home and a better life.
A Vantha Can Always Make a Story Longer :
Ren had always been reckless as a child, and a little too optimistic. Never one to turn down a dare, she was the first of her friends to touch the floor of the port bay and the first to discover firsthand how fire hurts when it burns. When she wasn't busy 'experimenting' with her parents' cooking, she was dancing in the Hold's greathall or otherwise trying to lighten the moods of those around her. Her family had intended her for a Skyglow boy, where her artistic tendencies might be better served. As handsome and pleasant as any, Renate did not dislike Fenos when she met him. They were to be married a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday, in Autumn.
But the Summer of 504 would spoil those plans indefinitely. By the middle of the season, Ren and Riara had taken to exploring the wilderness just outside the city. They weren't supposed to go as far out as they did; even in the warmest season of the year, their mother had warned them of the dangers, the savage beasts and other wild things that rose out of the Spring melts. But it was too thrilling to resist. Each day they would go out a little bit further, just to see what could be found. Perhaps it was inevitable that they would be the ones found--not by beasts, but by slavers just as savage.
When the slavers first descended on the pair, it was Riara who fought free. She pulled her sister away from them and together they managed to run for a decent distance. But Renate insisted that they split up, make it harder to catch them both so that at least one could send a search crew after the other. Ren would never forget the look of exasperation on Riara's face, for she had never been fond of her sister's gambles, but she agreed. As Renate ran, she prayed to Morwen and every other god she knew to protect them both. But more so, she hoped that her sister would be able to reach safety. Riara was destined for Icewatch, and Avanthal deserved to keep her.
Whether by chance or the gods' intervention, Renate's prayer came true. When the strange foreign men took her to their wagon, she did not see Riara there. There were only a few others whose faces she knew but whose names she did not remember, locked inside a windowless wagon and occasionally fed by dark-eyed men with rough hands. She would never see Avanthal again.
The journey that followed was long and difficult. Eventually Ren would count five total slavers, and the food they did have was not shared generously with their starving cargo. They picked up characters of all sorts along the way, mostly travelers who were not strong or lucky enough to avoid them. In the beginning, she and the others would try to rush the door every time it was opened, but their captors would beat them back every time. Once, Ren was able to break free, but they caught her soon after her and beat her for insolence. She was the last to stop trying, never giving up hope until they hurt her so badly she was too weak to stand. In the Vantha tradition, Ren tried to keep her fellow captives' spirits up with songs and stories, but even she had grown weary by the time they reached Nyka.
Ren saw one whole day of sun in the Flaxen District. From the Common she had learned in the dark, dirty wagon, she made out that they were trying to sell her to a brothel. But she had learned as much somewhere along the road, when one of the slavers had tried to have her and another had mentioned the value of virgins. When the buyer asked her if she was, Ren told of the incident with some embellishment. She left out the first man's begrudging abstinence and added a bit about a few peculiar sores she'd spotted on his member, complete with a carefully timed scratch on her inner thigh. Before nightfall, she had been stuffed back into the wagon and toted with the other failed sales to Ravok.
She had hoped to pull the same stunt there, happy to remain unowned even if it meant an uncertain future. But before she could try, she was sold to a wealthy family who needed a cook and were familiar with the name Winterflame. She worked as a cook's helper and housemaid for nearly half a decade, but never once resigned herself to a life of servitude. She learned the value of slaves and took to collecting the money needed to buy her freedom. She took coins from dressers and skimmed from the top of grocery funds, but the saving was slow and dangerous. One night, when she had made about half as much as she needed, she stole to the Pit in an attempt to double her money.
The fighting was cruel there, but her need was great. Still, as a young woman with little experience with such things, she found herself in the company of a silver-tongued man who filled her with drink and convinced her to tell her story. Instead of taking her money and returning her to her masters, however, he proposed a bet. If his fighter won, he would win her entire purse and, in the morning, her papers. Though she did not have her papers to give, she agreed for the prospect of not only doubling her money, but winning enough to buy a safe trip back to Avanthal. But she took the chance blindly, unaware that the man knew slaves and fighters better than she. Perhaps it was inevitable that he won; defeated, she went to a different home that night, where she was truly had for the first time, free of sores or beatings. In the morning her new master did not bother with papers; he stole her from the city and she did not know the law well enough to realize it.
In Kenash she was branded on her neck as a Freeborn's slave and imprisoned in a tiny townhouse, where she alone was responsible for the cooking, housework, and pleasure of the man she would learn to call Mr Sanrak. He did not treat her unkindly, but she never did learn to like her place. There was no dancing or fun in his work, only paperwork and quiet, beautiful social gatherings. She tried to collect money the same as she had in Ravok, but he was an accountant by trade and a savvy one at that, far more diligent than she could ever hope to outwit.
Ever the optimist, Renate never gave up on the possibility of freedom. Every lonely hour she spent in that house was fodder for new ways to escape, some more fantastical than others but each cleverer than the last. When she finally found the opportunity nearly three years later, it was not as graceful as she imagined. She had gotten in contact with a group of Rujaro when while accompanying her master on an overnight project at some estate. They proposed a journey south, but she insisted to go north, toward Avanthal. Deaf to their reasoning that Avanthal was too far to reach, she persuaded them to at least take her to a boat beyond the swamp, where she might hope to row herself to Syliras.
The plan was a poor one from the start, but Ren trusted in her fate and the gods. In late Summer of 512, the Rujaro proved to be true to their word. Unfortunately, the Kenashern authorities were just as dutiful. Ren's companions, unwilling to lose their lives for one stubborn girl, fled when they noticed the trail. Desperate for freedom, which seemed closer than it had ever been, Ren chose the uncertainty of the sea over the slow progress of her rowboat. She escaped her pursuers, only to become captive to the merciless Suvan.
Gnosis
Renate has the Hapchance gnosis from Kelwyn, which will grant her a miraculous (and often absurd) solution to any problem which she cannot solve on her own. She can activate the solution at will, but she cannot control the effects it gives and she only has seven activations for the course of her life. The mark has a unique manifestation for every individual, and hers is an elaborate, six-pointed snowflake. Most obviously it reflects her Vantha heritage, but its precise, exponential fractals hint at a mathematical mind. After every use, one set of fractals will disappear from the outermost design, making the mark shrink into a smaller and simpler version of itself. It is usually located on the outside of her upper left arm, but it has been known to wander to other parts of her body on rare occasion.
Gnosis Story :
Her arms ached and her leg was cramping. Heavy waves of ocean rolled over her head every time she tried to surface, never able to catch enough air to satisfy her greedy lungs. She could still see land when she tried to look, which meant she had not gotten nearly as far as she needed to. It was a foolish, stupid thing to try, but really it had been the only thing to try. And whether by the fading oxygen in her brain or some sort of true and desperate delusion, still Renate Winterflame tried to swim toward the horizon. Anywhere but there. If she was going to die in these strange, salty waters, at least she would die free.
But that did not mean she would give up. Renate Winterflame did not give up. Because things do work out, she had told a master's young son once, even when they don't. She did not want to die, but if she did, at least she might find solace in the eternal winter of Morwen's divine realm. Or she would be reincarnated as a person with a better life, or a beetle who didn't know better. Anything was better than slavery.
"Idiot," said a voice from behind her, strangely clear and close. Startled, Ren stopped and twisted round to see a young man with long, ashy hair. He eyed her behind a wicked smile, the kind that turned an insult into a compliment.
Before she could think to respond, she heard another voice behind her. Sinking fast beneath the weight of the ocean and her own lack of breath, Ren found herself swiveling again, tangled in her clothes. Opposite the man was a woman of equal age and stature, her bright eyes examining the Vantha girl's mind and body. "Brilliant."
"And what are you doing all the way out here?" The man asked, but not before Ren's confused head had rocked back in his direction. She opened her mouth, but all that exited was the last of her air. Wyn rolled his eyes. Suddenly the human was gasping through her miraculously breathing neck, her shoulders heaving with newfound air. The dark ocean still swept around her, but now she was suspended between them: hair swirling, feet hanging, but otherwise untouched. The man made an impatient gesture. "Well?"
"Swimming," she responded. It felt good to be defiant. Still she could not resist adding a smile, if only at the absurdity of it all.
"In the middle of this dreadful Winter?" Wyn supplied, despite the mild season on the Kenashern coast.
"I don't mind the cold," she answered, treading carefully.
"Well aren't you a special snowflake?" Said Wyn.
"Enough with the small talk," said Kel. "What did you expect would happen? We are only curious, truly."
Ren's fingers flexed nervously at her sides. She wasn't sure what these strange mages were getting at, but she could find no reason to distrust them. She spoke before even she knew the answer. "I... don't know."
"Good answer," Wyn said with a wink.
Kel nodded. "And what did you expect would happen, when you walked into a gambling establishment with all of the money you had ever owned?"
Ren's surprise flared in her carmine eyes. That particular moment of her past had not ended well. It had taken her five years to collect that money, stealing it from her masters in tiny sums from dresser tops and grocery funds. Her savings were what had given her hope in her darkest times, but she had been impatient with them. She had taken it all to Ravok's Pit, hoping to gamble enough to buy her freedom, but she had not known how to make a bet or how to hold so much money. She had lost it all, and it had cost her the marginally comfortable home where she had been lovingly enslaved.
"I..." Ren shot her a confused look. "How did you know--"
"Or when you wandered into the Talderan wilderness after your mother told you explicitly not to?"
That one hit closer to home. Less than a season before her marriage to her betrothed in Avanthal, Ren had been foolish enough to take her little sister on an adventure beyond the city's borders. She had secretly hoped to encounter some wild, dire beast and engage in a thrilling chase that should have ended in her mother's disappointed embrace. Instead she had been captured by slavers, far cleverer than any monster. To this day she could only hope that Riara had been spared the same fate. "How do you know about that?" Ren insisted.
"We know most things," said Wyn.
"Answer the question," said Kel.
"I- I guess I..." She only struggled for a moment. "I figured that things would work out. And they do, even when they don’t."
The two nodded in consideration as Ren looked between them, bewildered. They allowed her a moment to gather her thoughts, and another to dare to ask, "Who are you?"
"We are Kelwyn," the lady answered. "We find those who are lost."
"And we help them," her brother concluded, moving into place beside his sister.
Ren laughed. How beautiful! Word of these gods had met her once or twice, but she had never imagined they would actually meet her in person. Was she really such a lost cause? She wasn't sure if that was an honor or an insult.
The question was answered before she could say it. She felt a cold tickle on her upper arm and immediately dropped all thought of speech, pulling up her sleeve to investigate. There was sprouting a snow-white, cyclical pattern: a six-pointed star, surrounded by an elegant fractal. It sprouted again into another geometric layer, and another, and more, each was more complex than the last. It stopped at the seventh, an elaborate white snowflake with a soft, bluish sheen. It seemed too beautiful for her hard, dark skin, but still it felt as if it had somehow belonged there, as if it had always been a part of her. She laughed again, looking happily at the pair before her.
But she did not have the chance to express her gratitude. She opened her mouth to speak and it was filled with salt water. The purple excitement in her eyes shifted instantly to green panic as she clutched at her neck. The sea was pushing wildly against her again, her eyes burning in the brine. She could only watch as a dark cloud rushed out from behind the gods, one which turned into a giant school of little blue fish. The fish surrounded her, embraced her, and began to lift her out of the water.
"Flying fish don't actually fly," Kel mentioned, arms folded and eyes rolling.
"Who says?" Wyn responded. The little creatures pulled Ren out of the cold waters and somehow carried her through thin air, away from the world she hated and the danger she craved. Kelwyn rose with her from the ocean; they did not seem to notice the change in scenery, even as it dripped away from them. She looked back at them from within the flapping swarm of fish, learning quickly how to stay still so that she would not fall through their slippery mass. Despite the flurry of the fin-wings beneath her, Ren watched for the last of her saviors as their strange blessing carried her away. Kel's arms were folded, but Wyn's were outstretched proudly. "Brilliant."
"Idiot." His sister mimicked his earlier smile as their latest victim stared behind, dumbstruck. "You're welcome!"
"Thank you," Ren would mumble, when she finally caught her breath and Kelwyn had long since disappeared. She knew, though, that they were not the sort of gods who accepted simple thanks. Like she, they were creatures of action, not words. She had a long time to think about her gratitude before the flying fish finally deposited her on an island and flopped to their deaths in the sand. By the time the Svefra fleet happened upon her days later, she knew what she had to do.
She would thank them time and time again, throughout her life, by living it to the fullest and trusting that things would always turn out. Even when they don't.
Bookkeeping
Skills
Skill
EXP
Total
Proficiency
Storytelling
10 RB
10
Novice
Dance
10 SP
10
Novice
Acrobatics
10 SP
10
Novice
Cooking
10 SP
10
Novice
Mathematics
10 SP
10
Novice
Busking
5 SP
5
Novice
Wilderness Survival
5 SP
5
Novice
Lores
Lore of Vantha Culture Lore of Mathematics: Accounting
Languages
Language
Proficiency
Common
Fluent
Vani
Basic
Kontinese
Poor
Possessions
Item
Linen Dress & Vest (Start)
Linen Jumpsuit
Cotton Blouse & Pants
Copper Bell Bracelets (4)
Wool Coat
Black Boots
Flask
Bag
Wooden Comb
Soap
Razor
Rations
Eating Knife
Flint & Steel
Cook's Kit (Heirloom)
Housing
A 20x20 apartment in Alvadas, complete with a compass-key that tugs Ren towards its location. Contains: -Bunk with a patchwork pillow and blankets -chest of drawers with vanity and wash basin atop, containing clothes, toiletries, and miscellany -small writer's desk -chair with faded cushion -hearth and cast iron pot with posts for hanging -tall window with curtains
![[Unverified]](./images/spacer.gif "[Unverified]")
Ren 
by Renate Winterflame on December 21st, 2013, 5:44 pm 
Renate has the 
