Basics
Name: Lienne Ky'heka
Race: Elf Scion (Goddess of Retribution)
Sex/Gender: Female
Age: 34
Appearance: Lienne is naturally slight of build, with the delicate features and pale skin and eyes of any dark elf. Unlike most dark elves, however, she sports flaming red hair from her mother. Her divine markings consist of what appear to be a tribalistic design of an eye darkening her hair, which somehow stays consistent, even when she pulls her hair back from her face or otherwise moves it around. It holds no function and does not impede her regular vision (unless she physically blocks her eyes with her hair, which she occasionally does when it's too bright outside). Disregard the horn-like markings, and imagine the hair slightly less horrifically pink. Art by Zeronis.
Skills
Fighting Style:
Up Close and Underhanded - Lienne is not a ranged fighter, but she's also not the strongest cookie in the box, nor the one with the most experience with weapons. She relies heavily on her agility and speed to keep from taking blows, and takes any chances she gets to take her opponents down. Whether it be taking advantage of an injury, kicking them while they're down, hitting them where they're tender, or tripping them into each other, Lienne will use whatever dishonorable method she can imagine, and she's damn good at finding and taking the slightest opening. All that matters is winning or getting out of the situation alive. She is proficient in the use of a knife, but anything much bigger or heavier than that hinders her ability to move.
Signature Skill:
Illusions - For someone who grew up in the dark, perhaps this is an ironic skill, but Lienne is a firm believer in the power of manipulating another's sight. When she was little, she mostly worked with illusory shadows, darkening lights or causing someone's shadow to appear to move, and this is still the thing that comes easiest to her, but being exposed to different places has expanded her range somewhat. She prefers to use it to confuse, distract, and if possible frighten opponents, but it's also helpful when the surroundings are too bright.
Major Flaw:
Magical Vulnerability - Lienne pretty much sucks at dealing with or deflecting anything magical. She is susceptible to her own illusions, very vulnerable to ranged magical attacks, and still hasn't figured out a way to defend against people with magically enhanced physicalities.
Other Strengths:
Exceptional Climbing - Having grown up for years climbing up and down craggly rocks with the threat of death involved in getting to and from home, Lienne's pretty damn good at climbing anything with a foothold.
Fair Night Vision - Lienne can see better than most, and in fact fights better, when it's dark.
Speedy - Considering she's toast if she couldn't dodge in time, she needs to be quick enough to scramble out of the way as fast as possible.
Decent Dodger - Despite her poor vision in most contexts, her reflexes are good and her feet nimble, the two together helping save her from most really bad blows, though she can't dodge everything.
Other Weaknesses:
Sensitivity to Light - Lienne is not technically nearsighted, so far as she knows, but she has never fully grown accustomed to living above ground in the burning light of the sun, and actually cannot stand to open her eyes the whole way when the setting around her is much brighter than a typical lamp. She is easily blinded by bursts of light, and relies on the shadows of buildings to survive most daytime fights.
Frail - While her arms and legs are strong enough to get her by in a fight, she has no healing or shielding capacities, and does not do well taking blows. She'd actually prefer a knife fight to a fist fight. Cuts are easier to bounce back from than hard punches.
Low Offense - Since she relies so heavily on traipsing and trickery to win a fight, she is a poor match against someone with very good defenses or greater reach than hers.
Conspicuous - Stealth is not her middle name. It may also not exist in her vocabulary. While quick on her feet, Lienne's hair-color, arrogant loud mouth, and lack of dexterity when it comes to anything besides climbing makes her easily spotted and at times likely to outright antagonize other people.
Special Gear
Knife - This dagger is a short, curved blade and lacks magical powers, but its hilt is inlaid with gold and the blade is carved with intricate designs. It was a gift from her mother, who offered her a magical dagger as well, but she refused. It is something of a miracle it hasn't been lost, stolen, or mugged off of her thus far, though that may have something to do with the fact that she will do anything to get it back if someone takes it.
Mirror Necklace II - This necklace is a long simple chain she keeps tucked under her clothes at the end of which is a small mirror not much larger than a big coin lined with black metal engraved with runes. It does not look like much, but it gives her a direct line to the holder of the matching necklace, if she pushes a little magic into it. Although it is simple in aesthetic and intended function, because its design is from the Mactian Empire's style of magebrands, it is a relatively expensive item. It is another gift from her mother, who acquired it when she was pregnant with Lienne, and she holds the second mirror.
Biography
"Vengeance is Justice motivated by the anguish of an inconsolable heart that has turned to hatred instead of grief. Retribution is Justice that refuses to show mercy. The two are not the same thing, but nor are they separate."
Scion though she is, Lienne sees herself mostly as a dark elf, considering her mother manifests as one and her father supposedly is one. She spent the first 12 years of her life in Valas Vorma, in an offshoot network of natural caves that most of the other dark elves avoided because they consist of a series of sudden drop-offs and sharp inclines somewhat like little cliffs. Rather unusually, Lienne was raised by her godly parent in the mortal realm, and has never met her father. From a young age, she showed some natural aptitude for magic, and her mother, seeing this, demanded she refine her control and endurance in using it. Her mother was her whole world during this time. Despite often being sent to the more inhabited caves to get things and run errands, Lienne did not make much in the way of friends, and the Goddess of Retribution taught her everything, from cooking to the use of a knife. Then, when the little girl was 12, her mother kicked her out, telling her to explore the rest of the world and gain valuable experiences, to expand her worldview, learn to survive practically, and not damn well come back unless she found a solid reason to return after seeing all she could.
At first the outside world was utterly terrifying (and waayyyyyy too bright), and naive young Lienne struggled, but as she grew more experienced, she found a love for the wandering (and picking stupid fights) that has kept her adventuring ever since. She now mostly survives on what she can mug out of other people, and what she gets from putting on shows as an entertainer with her illusionist skills. She does, however, avoid Jaka. She first arrived there when she was 26, and was caught up in a trap by Goblin mages who ganged up to mug her for her money and dagger. Upset that they had taken her dagger, she stalked them down, but unable to figure a way around their magical abilities, she was caught and prepared to be sold. For the first and last time, she desperately used the mirror, which they had miraculously missed, and contacted her mother for help. She's not completely certain what happened after that, because a few days later, she woke up to find herself free of the Goblins in an inn outside of Jaka, with her dagger returned to her and her coin purse stuffed full, but she does know she doesn't want to face that situation ever again and has stayed away from Jaka ever since.
She has never really figured out what her mother's abilities are or why she chooses to live in the mortal world or if she has any Servitors, or how she even came to give birth to her, but these are all questions she intends to ask when she finds a good reason to go back, exactly as her mother instructed. She does know that she has no siblings (at least no living ones), and her mother doesn't care much for mortal worship, as she considers every act of grudge or corrected injustice as an act of worship to her. More importantly, she knows that her mother greatly cares for the balance of the world, and this impression that has been left on her has informed a number of her decisions, including the one drawing her Varden to help with the problem with the leylines. Particularly knowing the story of how Mithilbras fell (a tale her mother was fond of telling her as a bedtime story when she was a child), she is curious to see how this next unfortunate set of natural phenomena will play out. And it may also not hurt if they just happen to save the town and she gets to become pointlessly, fabulously wealthy.