Appearance

Physical Description

Very curly red hair, pale skin with a few freckles, round glasses (if glasses have been invented in your world?), average height, chubby and unathletic. She’s 26 years old, but naïve from her sheltered life and somewhat baby-faced due to her elven blood, so reads as maybe 20 in human years. She tends to wear layered clothing– cardigans, shawls, and full skirts– to keep warm in the drafty libraries where she spends most of her time. She likes to wear lots of accessories, especially anything of elven (particularly wood elven) origin; on the budget of a young scholar, this often means secondhand items or repurposed trinkets rather than fine elven jewelry. She prominently carries a little burgundy notebook that she constantly consults for information or wisdom.

Mentality

Personal history

Zarai is the youngest of quite a few children (maybe a dozen?) born to a wood elven mother and a human father, Enrik and Willow Wainwright. Willow truly loved Enrik when they eloped as young adults, to both of their families’ dismay. But the man grew bitter as he got older, envying his wife’s seemingly endless energy and youth. They would have a child together every so often, hoping it would make them both feel like young newlyweds again; once the child was old enough, they would usually either apprentice them away to a trade or temple or send them off to some boarding school.
Enrik withdrew in on himself as he grew old, shutting himself away from his family even as it kept growing. He was well into in his 60s when Zarai was born, though Willow– by then at least 200– still looked and acted like a young adult. Zarai’s birth, like the birth of so many of her siblings before her, didn’t fix the fundamental problems in their marriage. No one in her family seemed to care much that she was there. Nor did they particularly care that she was often gone, wading through the stacks of the Kenning Library down the street, losing herself in the tales of bygone (especially elven) heroes as she learned everything there was to know about them and the worlds they lived in.
When Zarai was in her early teens, Willow finally fled Keim and her family, never to return. Enrik sent Zarai off to the temple training program at this point. When he died a few years later, she was already entrenched in the life of a student-acolyte. Even if she had much to mourn, she hardly had the time to do so.
Zarai has continued her studies ever since. She’s spent well over a decade working tirelessly to connect with Haz and perfect her magic, and she’s long been one of the most successful students of her program. By now, she can perform quite a few powerful spells, and she knows a great deal about the history and lore of the world around her.

Known Languages

Zarai speaks a number of languages, and probably has at least passing familiarity with several more. She’s had to translate from a lot of different sources to get the answers to her questions.
Her bardic background is less performance-based and more knowledge-based. Her mother was a skilled singer and lutenist who taught her to play, but she’s not a terribly strong performer. However, her knowledge of music theory and history are extensive (to the annoyance of anyone around her who mentions either one). She sometimes tries her hand at writing ballads inspired by the heroes of old, though she’s a bit embarrassed to share them.
She’s good at working within bureaucracy and traditional institutions. She’s earnest, respectful, and polite, so she comes off as trustworthy. Because of this, she’s also a surprisingly good liar.

Personality

Motivation

Zarai’s alignment is Neutral Good. She wants to use her knowledge and passions to help the people around her as much as possible. She’s extremely eager to volunteer for extra projects, even when it means stretching her own time too thin.
If Zarai had a catchphrase, it would be “Don’t worry, I can think my way out of this.” This works incredibly well for Zarai in academic and theoretical settings. She has pulled off many, many academic projects at the last possible moment to an incredibly high standard. At the beginning of her journey with the party, she would start off confident that this applies just as well to the real world. This will almost definitely not be as true as she thinks.
What appeals to Zarai about the worship of Haz is the idea that, despite our best efforts to believe that we’re logical creatures, emotions are ultimately at the core of why we act the way we do. She knows about the terrible things that have happened throughout history because of powerful people’s ugly emotions– fear, greed, wounded pride. If she, through her work with the worshippers of Haz, can convince the Houses and other people in power to act from love, compassion, and empathy instead, she believes she can build a better world.
Zarai’s deepest fear is that she hasn’t actually earned anything she’s worked for. She overcommits herself, has to bluff her way out of situations, and eventually feels like her success is solely based on fraud and luck. She does her best not to admit this to anyone.

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