Shea
"Disobedience isn't a flaw-- it's how I survive. It's how I know I'm still a living person. If you just roll over and bare your neck and do what you're told, then in my book, you may as well already be dead. Always bite the hand that feeds you."
Shea is a rambunctious young adventurer and self-proclaimed hero travelling the Warlands, trying to do as much good and help as many people as possible. She's bold, brash, cocky, and crass, and she's somewhat of the 'brawn over brains' type, but she's soft at heart, loves deeply, and is extremely loyal. She's also a tank, a heavy-hitter, a brawler, who takes no shit and no prisoners. Her sense of justice is both very strong and kind of black-and-white, so if she's identified you as an evil-doer, then don't expect any mercy. She can be pretty intense both on and off the battlefield-- but off, she's more like an overexcited puppy than a raging killing machine. She claims folks call her 'the Hellblade Hero', but really, she just calls herself that and is hoping it'll catch on. The reason for the moniker is her distinct weapon, a massive, sinister-looking, hellish greatsword. Whenever anyone asks where she got such an unusual blade, Shea smugly declares that she 'stole it from a god', but the details of that story are a mystery she isn't keen on unveiling.
Something that sets Shea apart from other adventurers is that whereas most adventurers operate in teams, she works alone-- or so it would seem. Unbeknownst to most, her sword is inhabited by a Blade Demon, who is also her best friend, named Canorsolanim. To explain Blade Demons in Shea's own words: "Basically just think of it as, the sword is alive, and the alive part is Canor." When others are around, Canor usually stays hidden within the sword, only manifesting outside of it to fight, or when they're alone. The element of surprise gains them advantage in battle, but the main reason is just because Canor is kind of a cunt and he doesn't like people. Shea is the only exception.
They are an unlikely duo, to be sure, given Shea's stubborn dedication to being a legendary hero and the fact that Canor is a bloodthirsty killing machine, just barely kept from true villainhood by the power of friendship, who goes along with Shea's noble antics out of sheer fondness but would just as happily set fire to orphanages for fun. However, they have a deep bond that far surpasses the formal one they share through Shea being Master of Canor's blade.
"Because he trusts me. He’s my best friend, and I’m his, more than we are wielder and blade. The trust, the loyalty that we share, we earned that from each other. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to understand."
They have fought side by side for many years, and have had no one but each other for a long, long time. Their backstory is intense as it is secret, and the truth is, they both ow each other their lives many times over. It was actually Canor who taught Shea how to fight, and it was Shea who taught Canor how to trust. Their bond of friendship is utterly unbreakable.
Despite her young age, Shea is an extremely seasoned adventurer, though her energetic rascallyness doesn't do much to dissuade others from assuming she's just an eager rookie, either. She's travelled all over Gilden, and actually got her start adventuring in the Monsterlands as a teenager. While the Monsterlands has more professional adventurers, there are more people in need of help in the Warlands, which is why she currently sticks around there.
Shea is originally from the northern highlands of Gilden, and set out adventuring when she left her home in the evil empire of Dymin. 'Dymin refugee' is not an uncommon background amongst adventurers in general-- as the unstoppable Dymin forces conquer more and more lands, spreading its oppressive shroud of darkness further and further still, more and more people try to flee its crushing fist. Many people in the central regions of Gilden come from conquered northern kingdoms, whether they be adventurers, refugees, or conquerors themselves. Though one would still be surprised by just how dark Shea's past really is, and what kinds of nightmares she's actually running from, especially given her stubbornly sunny demeanour.
Lo, be warned, brave traveller, for there be spoilers ahead!
Mental characteristics
Personal history
None of this is anything Shea wants anyone else to know, but she wasn't actually raised in a barn like most would assume based on how she acts. The truth is, Shea was born the youngest daughter to the royal family of a certain kingdom to the far north. And not any of the (frankly numerous) ones that were conquered by the empire of Dymin, either, no, she was a princess of Dymin. Being born right under the seat of power in such a ferocious empire did not afford Shea any power of her own, though, nor did it make her life any less full of suffering than anyone else's in the kingdom. When Shea was born, she had six older siblings. By the time she was a year old, she had four. By the time she was ten, she had two, and by the time she was thirteen, she had one. The king and queen of Dymin were cruel, cold, and malicious, who treated their children with contempt and hatred, and would even have them killed if they proved too odious a failure by a certain age. Some of Shea's siblings killed each other, some killed themselves, but most of them were killed by their parents. Shea herself almost met the same fate.
Shea was treated like a failure since she was born. She always struggled the most out of her siblings to live up to their parents' impossible expectations, and she was incorrigibly, inherently disobedient. She asked the wrong questions (she questioned, period, which was already wrong) she spoke out of turn, neglected her lessons, snuck out to play outside and got dirty, and doubted the kingdom's church and faith, perhaps her most erroneous crime. From a young age, Shea was acquainted with corporal punishment-- she has many scars today, most of the obvious ones from her years as an adventurer, but none of those are her oldest marks. Before she was ten years old, she already had scars on her back from being whipped for her disobedience.
The only kindness Shea ever received as a child was from her nursemaid, Bruna, who raised her from infancy and attended to her until she was thirteen. Bruna was like a mother to Shea, far more than her actual mother ever was. She treated her injuries, whether they were the result of her own youthful recklessness or torture-disguised-as-discipline, and comforted her when she cried. The only lessons Shea ever valued were taught to her by Bruna, whether they were practical lessons or pieces of wisdom the nursemaid imparted on her. Bruna was the only reason Shea was ever convinced when she was young that she wasn't born broken and worthless-- despite everyone else around her saying otherwise. Shea loved and respected Bruna, and knew she spoke truths, so if Bruna said she was worthy of love and tender affection, and that it wasn't her fault her family wouldn't give it to her, then she must have been right, because Bruna never lied to her.
Her only other solace was in prayer. The kingdom of Dymin was founded from the cult of E'erendar, and worshipped him, the god of the End of All Things-- the secular and spiritual were utterly one in the same, and the Church of E'erendar and the royal rule were intrinsically linked; the Harbinger at the time, the leader of the Church, was even the king's own brother. Worship of E'erendar was mandatory, and no other faith was tolerated within the empire, and prayer to any other entity was punishable by death. E'erendar's followers believe in absolution through obliteration, and pray and actively work towards the eventual corporeal return of their god to the mortal realm, so that he could cleanse the world through complete and utter destruction and reward his loyal followers with the eternal void of nothingness that would come with being consumed by him. They believe pain is sacred, that through pain comes clarity, loyalty, and devotion. Suffering was a virtue, and oblivion was ascension. But Shea never believed in any of that.
Shea hated pain. She thought suffering was pointless and that there was no honour in flagellation, self-inflicted or not. She thought that no one who really had the choice would ever truly choose suffering over peace-- she certainly wouldn't. And she never prayed to E'erendar, no, she saw another icon in the palatine cathedral: Canorsolanim the Disavowed. On display on an altar at the back of the royal cathedral of E'erendar was the sword the god of the End of All Things wielded during the ancient War of Nine (a war he lost, Shea always had to bite back a wry smirk every time she recalled). It was the Death Sword, inhabited by the blade demon Canorsolanim. Canorsolanim was once E'erendar's most loyal weapon and servant, and was the one to break him free of his divine prison a century after the end of the War of Nine. When E'erendar's second conquest of the mortal realm was undermined by his enemies, the blame fell on Canorsolanim, who was branded a traitor, and discarded like refuse. He was sealed within the blade by E'erendar and his cult, and left until now on display to be mocked and degraded for his failure. What Shea always took from this story was that not even perfect loyalty could protect anyone from the cruelty of their master. No amount of power or strength could shield anyone from the weakness of obedience. Shea believed that, like her, Canorsolanim must have been damned from the start, but she would not make the mistake he did, and believe servitude would save her, his story only firmed her resolve to be disobedient to the teeth, even if it got her killed, and even then, she swore she would go down fighting with all she had.
So during mass, she would go through the motions, and she would mouth the same words recited by the congregation, but her devotion was never given to E'erendar, and her prayer was directed past the Harbinger leading the worship, at the gleaming sword suspended among the towering panes of crimson, gold, and midnight purple stained glass. She was the only mortal who ever prayed to Canorsolanim.
Ironically, it was the power of that prayer that made it possible for both of them to eventually escape.
When Shea was thirteen years old, all hell broke loose in the royal palace of Dymin. The Harbinger staged a coup against his brother the king, and the royal guards and soldiers were suddenly at war with the Church's elite warrior enforcers within the palace walls. The king and Queen were killed. Bruna tried to escape with Shea-- she had heard only days before the coup that Shea was going to be executed, and she'd told the young girl, promising she wouldn't let that happen, that she knew people who would help them escape the capital city and hide, and bring her somewhere safe far away from all this darkness. The sudden coup and uproar in the castle threw a wrench in those plans, though, and they were separated in the chaos. Shea found herself hiding in the inner sanctum of the palatine cathedral, and watched from the shadows as the Harbinger pulled Canorsolanim from his sword, withered and weak, intent on sacrificing him in E'erendar's name so he could become the god's mortal vessel. He was interrupted and usurped by Shea's only remaining elder sister, Maria, who killed him and claimed the throne of both the empire and the church.
When the dust of their battle settled, Maria swiftly abandoned the sanctum in favour of quelling the chaos and bloody violence still raging throughout the palatial complex and exerting her newfound utter control over Dymin, leaving behind both Shea and Canorsolanim, forgotten and discarded. When Shea crept out of her hiding place and approached the vulnerable blade demon still lying crumpled on the sacrificial altar, he recognized her. He told her to pick up his blade and plunge it into the large, glowing amber gemstone in his chest, his core which connected him to the blade. She asked if that would hurt him, and he said "yes, excruciatingly-- do it now." The sword was massive, and almost too heavy for Shea to lift at all, but she did it, driving the blade down and in until it disappeared within the demon. Sustained by Shea's own faith, and with a sliver of power returned to him by fusing his blade into him, granting him freedom of mobility, Canorsolanim was then just strong enough for both him and Shea to flee the palace and city with their lives.
The two of them escaped east, crossing the volcanic Multahn Mountains that Dymin's western border pushed against the base of, disappearing into the asylum of anonymity within the Monsterlands. Things weren't always so sunshine and rainbows between Canor and Shea-- Canor was a bloodthirsty villain at his worst and a prickly grouch at his best, and Shea believed in doing good and was, of course, as loudmouthed and disobedient as ever. They argued often, frequently antagonizing each other on purpose, but they were already bonded by a mutual life debt and as infuriating and aggravating as they could both be, they could never bring themselves to hate each other, and they stuck together through thick and thin regardless. Eventually their bond evolved into true friendship, trust, and loyalty, and the arguing became banter. Early on in their journey, Shea demanded that Canor teach her how to fight, so she could be strong like him, so she could be strong enough to stop other people from getting hurt the way they had been. Canor agreed, though at first he insisted it was only because she was too headstrong and reckless and he was fed up with having to save her from the mortal peril she was constantly getting herself in. Before she'd even turned fourteen, Shea had become a proper adventurer, and begun her training with the blade under Canor's instruction. He was a strict teacher, but as a blade demon, none could have asked for a more mythically skilled master in the art of combat.
By the time she was sixteen, Canor deemed Shea worthy (and physically capable) of wielding his own blade, the Death Sword. It was around then that the two of them hatched a plot to return to Dymin and get revenge on the agents of their suffering, and to destroy the throne of Dymin and the Church of E'erendar forever. They snuck back over the empire's borders and stole away into the capital, infiltrated the palace miraculously without getting caught, though of course it helped that Shea remembered every crevice and secret passage still like the back of her hand. Their target was Shea's sister Maria, now both Queen and Harbinger of Dymin. Ten years older than Shea, she was already an extremely powerful warlock, and they were prepared to contend with that. What they didn't know was that Maria was also now the vessel of E'erendar. To become the mortal vessel of such a high god is no small feat, nor is it a simple process, and at that point the fusion was not yet complete-- only the barest fraction of E'erendar's power flowed through her, and that was Shea's and Canor's only saving grace. The battle was fierce, and it was close, and they posed a deadly challenge for the new God-Queen, but in the end they failed to kill her, and were lucky to escape with their lives. They fled Dymin once more, this time barely getting out by the skin of their teeth, retreating back to the Monsterlands to lick their wounds.
After that, they travelled around more of Gilden, focused on getting stronger, knowing they would have to be leagues more powerful if they were ever to face Maria and E'erendar again, especially knowing their enemies' power, too, would only grow. Shea was now determined to become a legendary hero in order to prove her might, and to try and do enough good for the world to somehow balance out all the pain and suffering that existed everywhere they went, and the kind of cruelty that she knew still pervaded Dymin, the evil still inflicted on all the empire's victims. They haven't yet made any knew plans to return, though, nor expressed the conviction to. The desire for justice (in Shea's case) and revenge (on Canor's part) burns intensely still in both their minds and hearts, but since their failed attempt, they've not been ready to actually consider putting it to action. They're still running, not talking about it, not wanting to admit to themselves or each other how afraid they are, that that might have been their only chance and they failed, and that they might now not ever be able to win against the masters that have always had power over them, and as long as they fear them, perhaps always will.
Gender Identity
Shea has never had any dilemmas about her gender-- she was born female, and raised as a princess, thus expected to uphold a certain standard of femininity, but femininity was just another pair of shoes she couldn't quite fill, a role she didn't fulfill very well just the same as every other role she was assigned by the circumstances of her birth. She was always loud and rambunctious, a silly little rascal if ever there was one, and liked to be active and play outside in the dirt and mud, uncaring if her hair got tangled or her clothes got grass stains, and she didn't care for dresses (it was harder to run around and climb trees and jump in ponds in a dress) or for pretty things in general. To summarize, Shea has always been quite the 'tomboy'. To her, none of that had anything to do with her being a girl, and it never made sense to her why everyone else cared so much. "Girls don't do this, they don't like that," she would be told, but she brushed that off with the knowledge that she was a girl and she did and liked those things, and she never felt the need to give it any more thought than that.
Today, Shea is still quite masculine, not out of any desire to emulate men or distance herself from other women, but because she just does whatever feels natural for herself and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Having grown into a strong, stocky and solid build, with her wide, rectangular torso, small chest, and beefy arms, if Shea put more effort into it, she could easily pretend to be a man-- a pretty short man, sure, but still. But again, Shea doesn't care whether anyone thinks she's a man or woman and wouldn't bother, anyway. Her hair is only as long as it is because any longer would be bothersome, but she's also too lazy to cut it any more often than she does. Convenience and comfort has always been her priority over looks, anyway. And she likes being herself.
Sexuality
They don't use this kind of more modern language within the actual world and story, but for efficiency and clarity's sake, I'll tell you that Shea is a lesbian. She's never felt any interest towards boys, and never payed them any thought-- people around her as a kid assumed she was just a late bloomer, and she is, but not in that direction. Shea is kind of painfully oblivious, and relationships were never the subject of her focus growing up, even when she was a teenager, adventuring occupied most of her attention. That said, her being attracted to women is also extremely obvious. She gets flustered and tongue-tied around pretty girls, she excitedly vies for their attention at any given opportunity, and oftentimes looking at particularly beautiful women makes her want to bite something, destroy furniture with her teeth like some sort of unruly dog. Most people would identify the feeling of being horny, but not Shea. Unfortunately. Canor lost his patience waiting for her to figure it out herself by the time she was around nineteen and had to inform her, with no small amount of exasperation, that she was into girls. Shea had absolutely no business being as shocked by the news as she was.
Now, at age twenty-one, she still hasn't managed to get laid. She's working on it! But alas, as eager as she is to touch boobs, she's had no luck in that department so far. Once again, someone else might have to take the situation into their own hands if it gets any more dire, because it will, because Shea is Pent. Up. Bad.
Mental Trauma
Though she tries to act like it's not a big deal and insists it doesn't bother her, Shea is to this day deeply affected by the abuse she suffered at the hands of her family throughout her childhood, both directly and institutionally. She doesn't believe that submitting to a cruel overlord is worthwhile, but while she never accepted her family's terms for worth, the idea that she had to prove herself worthy of existing was still deeply ingrained in her from a young age. Instead of feeling like she has to justify her own life and presence on this earth by bending to her family's will, though, she now tries to justify herself to the world by doing as much good as she can and helping as many people as possible.
The dilemma is also further complicated by the guilt Shea feels over having been born into the royal family of Dymin, knowing how dark and sinister her family's entire history and continued legacy is. Even though she knows it wasn't her choice to be born to that family, and she knows she never had any power to change anything for herself or anyone, and she knows it didn't make her anywhere near safe, she is also aware that being a princess put her in a position of privilege not afforded to the poorer and more vulnerable people of Dymin-- even if that privilege came at a steep price. She feels responsible for her family's and ancestor's crimes, and refuses to live up to that legacy, instead determined to overcome it and right their wrongs.
All of that combined with everything else she's experienced and seen, all the death and pain and suffering, both from her time as a princess and as an adventurer, make for a heavy and dark burden on her mind and shoulders.
The party's fighter, the shoulder
Aaaa I absolutely love her and she deserves all the best things <3 Your art is stunning!! I love her connection with Canor, and their backstory is so exciting and unique! This was a really great read ^_^
omg thank you so much!!!