Kareida Reyan

(10th January 2006 - 15th February 2006)
Initial Sheet

A talented Menelothian sorceress, of noble birth, Kareida had a peculiar mix of bloodlines, part of which left her with the power to shift form into that of a wolf. Although not ugly, she was not conspicuously attractive either, especially when compared to individuals like Krei Ffryedem. Perhaps because of this, she had a really snappy attitude.

Kareida found herself in Bryator at the time Lexion, Krei Ffryedem, and the others emerged from the mountains. Entangled in the Amarsh and Korwin business, she accompanied the party into the interior of New Bretonia.

Their guide, the illusionist Kalagash, was killed by mysterious assassins bearing serpent insignia. Also stalked by a deadly black shadow with a penchant for violent murder and a peculiar tendency to cause people and animals around her to drop dead and discharge insects, she and her companions arrived at the village of Plaig, where they met a warrior similarly cursed called Edalith.

That night the shadow wiped out everyone in the inn except Edalith and the adventurers. The next morning a Rosen captain named Zelth arrived, leading twenty men on a covert mission to discover what was happening. He had two dead specimens with him, mutated humans transformed into savage monsters by the drug Amarsh.

Leaving Plaig with Zelth, the party were next attacked by a larger force of Bretonian soldiers. Krei managed to trigger a pitched battle by assassinating the Bretonian captain, which by luck and superior stealth the whole group survived unscathed, and in the wake of this Zelth abandoned the party in disgust at their methods.

Fighting off assorted bandits as they travelled north, the group then encountered the retired Bretonian master sorcerer Mohimas, who examined the two bodies and requested they be burned. Taking refuge in his bubble of springtime, the party recuperated for a while.

Ranging out across the snow in worlf-form, Kareida came on a monstrosity, ragged, powerful, man-shaped, clearly the ultimate development of the creatures Zelth had shown them. Unwisely, she engaged this creature, and with a mixture of Enfeeblement and Web spells and good plain arrows managed to kill it. Unsettled by the acidic black blood it dripped onto the leaves, she called her comrades and Mohimas to look at it.

This was enough to motivate Mohimas to get properly involved. He declared the creature's blood to be Rootvile, the dark Primal fluid associated with necromancers - most notably the infamous Doctor X. Deducing that "death" for these merely meant a chance to rise again stronger, the old wizard proved his researcher's credentials by deciding to bury it and watch what happened.

Sure enough, it began to rise again as a much stronger version of the same thing. Mohimas, apparently afraid for the first time, banished it and announced he would accompany the party. They set out for Gran Breton the next day.

Mohimas had told Kareida that the approaching full moon would be very significant for her; he knew what she was, and clearly more about what would happen than she did.

After an eventful journey, including an almost surgical destruction of an unusual band of villager-eating ogres, the group reached the once-mighty capital of New Bretonia to find it in anarchy, decay and lawlessness, with around twenty percent of the population in the grip of Amarsh addiction. After encountering a priestess of Jarik who was running a desperately inadequate medical mission to try and heal the afflicted, and a blind sorcerer who had torn out his own yellowing eyes and healed himself from Amarsh before being adopted by another sentient wolf.

Resolved upon challenging Korvin in his lair the next day, the group were compelled to a detour back outside the city walls, as Kareida had been well warned not to approach the night of the full moon under cover, and she wanted more company than Mohimas, whom she didn't entirely trust despite - or maybe because of - his very strong desire to be present. Only Krie and Lung were absent, detained elsewhere by important business.

On the night, very significant changes happened within Kareida, culminating in the arrival of a huge pack of wolves. From this emerged the biggest wolf anyone had ever seen, silver as the moon, whom Mohimas greeted with the greatest of respect as Lord Ural. Ural acknowledged Mohimas as his friend, removing forever any of Kareida's doubts as to Mohimas' integrity.

Ural then formally acknowledged Kareida as an adult pack member of the nebulous wolf-human community they shared, and exhorted her to "bear me warriors!", something that was a bit of a shock to the young sorceress. Then he and the pack left and the party settled to sleep before heading back. Kareida, too emotionally charged to forsake her wolven form, slept in fur and fangs for the last time.

In the night, a band of robbers ambushed the camp, and the party sprang to the defence. Kareida, still in wolf form, launched two fireballs to eliminate two of the attackers, but without the extra melee specialists to keep her out of physical combat she was unable to avoid coming to grips, and being in wolf form had no available defences; her sword absorbed into the wolven form was unavailable to parry even were her paws able to hold it. A slashing sword hewed her head clean off, and her tale was done.