PLAYED BY: Brianna Novy
CHARACTER NAME: Mia Tellistri
GENDER: Female
CLASS: Rogue
AGE: 23
RACE: Human
HAIR: Blonde
EYES: Blue
OCCUPATION: Herbalist
KNOWN SKILLS: Cooking. Archery. Herbology.
BIRTHPLACE: Aldoria
APPEARANCE: Petite. Medium height.
NOTABLE TRAITS: Friendly. Chatterbox.
RELATIONSHIPS: Rangers.
RUMORS: “Was she in Oaks tent again?”
BIO / BACKGROUND HISTORY: I was very young when the wars started. So young that I hardly remember much of what happened back then. Of what little I do remember, my father was a politician and my mother stayed home to watch over my younger brother and myself. I also remember my father coming home from work very stressed and angry. My parents would fight while they thought I was asleep in bed. I heard their murmurs about the war and undead attacks. I knew my father wanted to leave, the king had already abandoned us and so too did others. However, we stayed for my mother’s sake. She was born and raised in that small, one story house. She was always telling us that there were too many memories floating around for her to ever want to leave.
Eventually, the war got too close to home and we were forced to evacuate. I remember seeing my mother screaming with tears in her eyes as father dragged her away from the only place she knew. Father put us on a boat, saying we were going on an adventure to a faraway place. The journey started out fun and exciting for my current eight year old self, but soon turned into the worst days of my life. Sickness spread around the hall and soon my brother and I became sick. I still can only remember being so sick, and mother’s teary eyes, as she told me my little brother had gone to a better place.
Finally we made it to land. I was still recovering from the illness when we landed and everything after that is hazy to me. When I came to, I was at a small town that went by the name Crows Landing. The people were very accepting of us and we fit in well at first. I was a fragile young girl that had just lost her brother at the time, but over the years I learned to become the woman I am today. The winters became increasingly hard for the town and for many years we struggled to get by. The government at Crows Landing became corrupt and started spending money they didn’t have for reasons nobody understood.
This led my family to turn inwards for help and we mostly relied on our own resources to get by during these troubling times. I started to develop a liking to herbology because it was the only way my parents would let me help at the time. I would take long walks into the woods and pick herbs for the family to get away from everything happening in town.
Finally relief came in the form of visitors wearing red and green. They saw the state of our little town and decided to help us for reasons I cannot even explain. They brought us the resources and materials we desperately needed and soon our town was thriving once again. Now that I am older and my parents are being taken care of, I have a strong urge to spread my wings. I met some people on my adventures into the woods. They called themselves the Rangers. One even told me that if I learned to fight, I would make a good asset to their group because of my Herbology background. I went home that day and picked up a sword. When that had failed because of my petite stature, I found a bow and arrow. Ever since then I have been honing my skills in archery, so that I could one day join the odd men I had met long ago.
Shortly after creating our troop of misfits Oak came to me with the notion that he wanted to go on an adventure. He felt that playing militia for the Phoenix, though rewarding, was not where he had wanted to be at this point in his life. I agreed to go with him if the day came that he decided to leave. We tried to convince Elijah to come with us on our adventure, but he chose to stay with the group that we had created.
So after a few short months, Oak and I were packing our bags. We decided that we would travel to the Syndar islands. Elijah was a Syndar and would spend many a night telling us stories of his people. I was enraptured with the culture and beliefs they had and Oak had heard of a place that created beautiful, powerful weapons.
For five years we traveled the continent, exploring new towns, foods, and cultures. We met up with a small tribe of Syndarians deep in the forest that believed in the power that the natural world possessed. We stayed with them the longest on our adventure. I was fascinated by their beliefs. They didn’t have a god or goddess per say that they called to, but instead they prayed to the natural way of the world – though it can’t be said if there was someone behind the scenes that came when they called. They believed everything, from the grass you walk on to the trees swaying overhead, was alive and had powerful magic deep within them.
I learned a lot from the tribe. They taught me more about natural medicines and the reagents that were needed for them. They showed me some new techniques to harvest reagents more effectively. And eventually after long hours of working with them and by them, they began to teach me their prayers. They would pray to the mother bear that protects their cubs with ferocity and might. They would pray to the butterfly for its wings of flight. They would pray to the river currents for its ebb and flow.
They had a prayer for every single living thing in the forest and each new prayer that I witnessed was accompanied by a beautiful set of hand movements. Oak had tried to join in on the prayers a few times, but his body was so stiff and rigid from the years spent sword fighting that he never truly got the movements. He seemed to focus more on the analytical side of magic anyway, eventually picking up some of the secrets to arcane magic.
I can still remember the first time I was witness to the magic of the world. A small Syndar boy had jumped out of a tree and broke his arm in the fall. He had wailed and wailed in pain, but the moment the shaman opened her mouth he was entranced. That day she prayed to the sky for the light it brings. And before my very eyes the boy’s arm had reset itself with little more than a snap.
It felt like a lifetime living among the Syndar people, but before we knew it we were saying our goodbyes. We had decided that our adventure was over. We had been sent word from Elijah of a group he had met on his travels seeking to recruit a couple of fighters. Soon enough we were making our way to Shieldhaven to meet up with the Guardians of the Wall. I had continued to practice the prayers of the Syndar tribe as we traveled. Letting the way of divine nature guide me in my movements and honing my magic. I hope that in time, I may become as powerful as the syndarian shamans I met so long ago. But as for now, I will continue to practice my craft and aid the Guardians for as long as I am able.