Appearance

Physical Description

She's short and perpetually exhausted from stress and lack of sleep, but she keeps an active life, has recovered from her past under-eating, and adventuring has begun to tone her.

Body Features

Her skin shows her wood elven heritage pretty strongly. Her hair, however, rather than being silky like an elf's, is matte, messy, and poofy. If you look closely at her skin, it seems like parts of it are cracking and splitting like scales, revealing a fiery light within.

Facial Features

She has a long nose, somewhat angular features, wide eyes and long, thin eyebrows. There are perpetually bags under her eyes.

Identifying Characteristics

Continually frustrating her desire to wear shoulder-less dresses is the existence of a mole located just below her right clavicle, which used to make her fidget with her dress to make sure it was hidden.
 
When she accepted the Pact, her Chosen's Mark was located on [REDACTED], but it has since disappeared.

Physical quirks

She tends to hunch over. She often walks tiptoed or sidesteps around even when there is no need to be quiet.

Apparel & Accessories

She most often wears plain light-colored Ordean dresses, accessorized with tall traveler's boots and a variety of belts and pouches.
 
At the bottom of her backpack is an oversized, fuzzy, dark red cloak and an odd, symmetrically-marked mask. She uses these when she doesn't want to be identified.

Specialized Equipment

Even though she doesn't really need them, she carries daggers and a crossbow on her belt, partially as a way of discouraging robbers from mistaking her for an easy target.
 
Much more useful on that belt is her pouch of arcane components and her healing potions.

Special abilities

She doesn't really understand why she has arcane powers. She's not aware of any draconic bloodline in her family, but all the people she could ask about it are dead, and it's not the sort of thing they'd have told her, anyway. Most of her magic centers around fire, but it's not entirely clear whether that's because her magic is predisposed to it or if it's just the sort of power that's on her mind most.

Mentality

Personal history

Ariadne Haywood grew up in a small village out in the east of Orde, living with her human mother and elven father. She envisioned her life being spent peacefully in those beautiful woods, hunting, chopping trees, and living a long, quiet life with her father, who would likely outlive her.
 
When her village was destroyed, she was one of the only ones who survived. She was found trapped in the ruins of her home, on the verge of starvation, by Watch Wall soldiers after Richard York and his entourage cleared out the eight-legged monsters that had killed everyone she knew.
 
In a country as big as Orde, such events were part of the mundane efficiency of life. Certificates are stamped, money changes hands, and orphans find their way into the arms of one of the many cults staining the beautiful country of Orde, hiding in plain sight: the Martyr's Blessed Orphanage.

Education

She was taught many things directly by her father, including the Elvish language.
 
She's a self-taught cook.
 
The madness cult gave her a full Ordean secondary education, but much of the information was distorted. However, she was also able to access some esoteric knowledge from the dark corners of society.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Despite everything, she's proud of having killed Father Patrick, and feels he's better off dead.
 
She managed to talk down the Draconic Harpies and convince them to help her kill their creator.
 
(At level 4, she once nat20'd initiative and killed an optional boss in a single turn. She later described this event as "I once blinked at something and it died.")
 
Slew the manticore Grey Eyes. Has killed two manticores so far.

Failures & Embarrassments

She almost summoned a demon once but a Hkari Knight blew up the portal
 
Though the spirits found peace, she failed to deliver vengeance to the tortured souls of Ordean soldiers who had sought Lorita's aid.
 
Despite her being present, she was unable to save the life of a Night Guard captain who had received prophetic visions from Oloken'hai. She's not really sure if she should feel bad about this one or not.
 
She bit off more than she could chew seeking out a Priest of Madness.

Mental Trauma

She doesn't really trust smiles anymore.
 
Being a part of a madness cult has filled her mind with a lot of incorrect facts about world history. She's still untangling the truth from the nonsense.
 
 
 
Like fire, you are a temporary thing, and before you burn out, you will have destroyed more than you created.
 
Casting fire spells causes the character to accrue Madness. At each tier of Madness, the character's personality is somewhat different. The tiers of Madness are as follows:
0: Ashes
1: Embers
5: Blaze
10: Inferno
20: Pyre
The amount of madness accrued per fire spell is based on the spell's level.
Cantrip: +1
1st level: +2
2nd level: +3
3rd level: +5
Madness disappears on a long rest and goes down by one tier on a short rest. The current tier of Madness is listed on the token/in the discord nickname with a 3 letter abbreviation.

Intellectual Characteristics

In general, she tends to think emotionally. At her best, she can be highly empathetic and thinks in terms of how other people are feeling. At her worst, she is completely self-absorbed, only considering her own whims.

Morality & Philosophy

Having been schooled in an Ordean orphanage, even a fake one, she's studied fair amount of philosophy and religion, but her perception of it has been colored by her generally low opinion of Orde's corruption.
 
Overall, she prefers not to think about morality much.

person.sexuality

She feels kind of disgusted with her body and would rather not interact with anyone else's right now.

person.gender_identity

Femininity helps remind her of simpler times.

Taboos

Taboos as well as morals tend to fall away from her under stress, though there are a few things she would avoid otherwise.
 
She would avoid hurting children.
 
She hates those who experiment on people.

Known Languages

She knows Grass Common, Nomadic Elvish, Abyssal, and Noble Draconic.

Personality

Motivation

She doesn't want to be a burden on others. She would like to go back to the simplicity of her former life, but she sees that as impossible in her current state. She feels sympathy for those whose situations seem to mirror her own. She thinks the gods pay such wrongs in blood.
 
Right now, she just wants to be safe from those who are after her and to do something useful with her powers.

Quotes & Catchphrases

"It's fine. This is fine."
 
"I once blinked at something and it died."

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Her cooking is so bad it's terrible.

Likes & Dislikes

She likes cool guys with a heart of gold and knights in shining armor. She likes overcooked food and bitter things and weird-looking monsters and reading about adventures. She used to be a huge Watch Wall fangirl. She likes the woods.

Virtues & Personality perks

She's good at talking to people. She likes to help out. She's not super judgmental.

Vices & Personality flaws

She tends to ignore things that are uncomfortable for her to think about. She's a bit of a wimp sometimes. Sometimes people seem like bugs to her.

Personality Quirks

She sometimes stares off into the distance in the middle of a conversation.
 
Her hand twitches when she's agitated.

Hygiene

Her room looks like it's been repeatedly trashed and put together again.
 
She always looks like a homeless woman and tends to smell faintly of either smoke or bat guano.

Social

Birthplace

A small village in the east of Orde.

Current Residence

The Hold of Horror.

Contacts & Relations

Fears that Dame Davis will be the death of her. Not even in the cool way, like he'll kill her dramatically for vengeance. He might just do something incredibly stupid and catch her in the blast radius.
 
Has been on several missions with Balzhdeep Innum, and they seem to have gained a mutual respect for each others' competence.
 
Archer and she have become acquainted with each others' oddity.
 
[REDACTED]

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Cultist Slayer
[REDACTED]

Wealth & Financial state

She doesn't really act with any particular interest in money, and the money she gets often does nothing but pile up in her sacks.
 
She does like looking at large piles of gold, though. Maybe it's a bit of the dragon blood in her. Then again, who doesn't?

Family Ties

Sometimes, she feels an odd kinship with followers and victims of Oloken'hai. With her family and the orphanage staff dead, and the wards gone, those may be the only people she'll meet who can relate to her young adulthood.
 
She almost considers the Dark Pact her family. Almost.

Religious Views

She believes Lorita saved her. She believes the Dark Gods are willing to play a much more active role in watching over their followers and fixing what's broken about the world than others.
 
She suspects the information Oloken'hai offers is both true and useful, but is skeptical of his advice, his methods, and his followers.
 
She doesn't think very highly of oaths, but appreciates that Babylon is willing to inflict terrible vengeance on the people who break them.
 
She was taught in school that the white pantheon gods were dead. Theologically, she's pretty sure that's not true, but somehow she still finds the thought invading her perception of reality.

Social Aptitude

She was extremely charming as a young girl.
 
Experiences have made her anxious, awkward, and shy, but somehow, she still retains that girlish charm. People look upon her ineptitude with pity and give her a great deal of slack that they wouldn't give otherwise. And when her unrefined manners and simple, persuasive way of expressing her emotions gives way to threats, it can be terrifying.
 
It's hard to say she has a good poker face, but since she always acts with anxiety and fear, it's hard to tell when she's actually guilty of something. It's more likely for people just to reassure her that she didn't do anything wrong.

Hobbies & Pets

She likes to recall the faces of people she's met by sculpting them in the fire.
 
She likes to make pastries in weird shapes and cook with whatever's lying around.
 
She has been trying for a long time to make a fireproof cloak, but can't seem to get it right.

Speech

The higher her Madness, the more monotone her voice becomes. She can almost sound strung out.
 
Otherwise, she tends toward stuttering and uptalk.
 
When in masquerade, she sometimes uses magic to obscure her voice with many voices saying the same thing, to prevent her voice from being identified.