Venia of the Deep by Alira

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Venia of the Deep

Female Human

Level	Class	Feats	Class Abilities
1	Druid1	Abberant Heritage:Flexible Limbs, Deep Spawn, Inhuman Reach, Inhuman Vision Flaws:Wild, Metal Intolerance	Aniaml Companion, Nature Sense, Wild Empathy
2	Druid2		Woodland Stride
3	Druid3	Bestial Hide	Trackless Step
4	Druid4		Resist Nature's Lure
5	Druid5		Wild Shape 1/day
6	Druid6	Natural Spell	Wild Shape 2/day
7	Druid7		Wild Shape 3/day
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Equipment:

+1 Bestial Studded Leather Armour(darkwood studs)

+1 Animated Darkwood Large Shield

Everfull Mug

Pouch of Everlasting Rations

Silver Alchemical Sickle

Cold Iron Dagger

Sling

Beltpouch

Signal Whistle

Signet Ring

Holy and MistleToe

Physical Description:

Physical Description:Venia is easily seen for what she is, a Druid. Her hair is a wild tangle, with knotted fetishes twined in among countless braids and beads. She wears a headdress with feathers splayed out against the back od her head and neck and a pair of short stag-horns standing out from the mass of her braids. A half-mask shrouds the upper half of her face with only her shimmering yellow eyes looking out with an intent gaze. Sometimes the yellow is that rich gold of the hunter wolf, while others it seems the sour yellow of a creeping disease. Her lips are drawn into a thin line or a mysterious smile depending upon her mood.

She is a small woman, 5' 4" in height with narrow shoulders and a slight physique. Her clothing like her person is a mismatched affair, further bits of bone, hair, and stones threaded throughout the soft cloth. Browns, greens and grays, suitable clothing for a Druid. She wears a simple tunic with a vest over it, leggings and soft leather boots. Over this all is a flowing thick cloak she keeps wrapped 'round herself most of the time. And it seems her tunic is cinched at the waist by a doubled up length of rope.. though, curiously, there's no weave to the ropes. She carries with her a staff that is likewise bedecked with the bones of creatures and most notably a deer-head with a human jaw affixed to the top. Despite her unsettling appearance she is what some might call the 'pretty ugly girl' There is something there, a subtle charm, perhaps from the simple primal power of this woman that speaks to others. It comes in waves however, the attraction inverted at times as a near supernatural presence seems to loom over her, causing even nature itself to temporarily withdraw.

Background:

Background:

There are stories that Druids steal away babies in the night, and sacrifice them to fuel their archaic bizzare magics. It is a child's story, one meant to quiet younglings late at night, so tired parents can sleep. It is a myth, a fairy-tale...it is the truth.

It is not some random kidnapping however. Those that the Druids choose are foretold in augries. These children have a strong link with the earth, and would come to no good if left among more civilized peoples. The Druids spirit away the children, occasionally leaving a changeling in the child's place to hide the theft untill the spirit gets restless and moves on. The abducted babies are indeed a part of a ritual, thier old life symbolicly 'sacrificed' before their natural spirits are awoken and their new names chosen. During this ritual a second augery is cast, that the child's role in the order might be known.

Venia's Augery was dark and worrisome, even to the heathen druids. Still, they would not cast out one of their own, even if the child was dual marked by nature and un-nature alike. And so Venia was raised among the circle, apprenticed off to one of the wandering druids between meetings. In this wild uncertain teutalage she began to grow into the young woman she is today.

Some excerpts during Venia's life:

"I can not be her Keeper. There is something wrong with this one... she is unnatural and I fear, cursed" The old druid sighed, and glanced down from the promontory where a wolf was stalking a deer in the glade below. The wolf was the apprentice. She spent so much time transformed as soon as she had learned the magics to do so. Another druid glanced down as the wolf lept, bringing down the doe with jaws clamped firmly against it's neck. The second druid sighed, and lifting his staff to the wind, considered the way it played against the feathers tied to the end. He spoke after long consideration,"We will give her to Dondannon, so long have we kept the newly born from him; he will jump at the chance to get his hands on one."

The first Druid frowned again, stroking a hand through his thick white beard,"Yes, but what will she become under his care?"

"If you are right about her, nothing worse than she already will."

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"Every Druid is responsible for themselves, dont' ever let the others try to tell you how to enforce the will of the earth. They are weak willed, fools, they do not hear the world clearly." Dondannon, Venia's Mentor spoke his lessons while bending over the body of a fallen travellor. The man was still entwined in the vines that had strangled the life from him. Dondannon began cutting into the man's chest with a wicked silvered dagger while Venia looked on silently. "They would say this man was harmless, feh. Harmless, all these civilized folk would drain the earth dry to make a single gold coin." Dondanon drew the man's heart from his chest and dropped it into a pouch. "We'll save this for later and see just how we can pay them back for cutting into our woods." he said, grinning up at his apprentice. She didn't grin back, she never did, she just looked at him with those eyes. He frowned and growled,"Get the entrails and his eyes girl. We might find a use for them too." He straightened and turned, the joy gone from his kill. The girl did that to so much of his work. Perhaps one day he would simply kill her and add her blood to another ritual. Though, he wondered at her progressing affliction, her blood may spoil a ritual as it was. Better to make her a tool. Behind him the girl bent silently, setting to butchery of the dead man's body with quiet efficency.

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Venia walked quietly behind Dodannon as they approached the village at night. Her voice broke the silence and is was such a strange occurance that it brought Dodannon up short as she spoke,"Master Dodannon, have you not been specificly warned against this course of action by the other Druids?" Dodannon frowned at the girl. She had become his apprentice in appearance, her body bedecked with the proper fetishes, with the items and affects to aid in communion with the earth. She had absorbed his knowledge fully, but she was still an unknown quantity. Her affliction was so much more clear to him, though she tried to hide it. He saw how it had changed her, and even though she spent so much time changed now, he could still see it in her. He frowned and turned his back on her, continuing towards the village,"What have I told you? Listen to the earth, know it's ways. The others are weak, never let them tell you what is right. A Druid must know the earth's will in his own heart, and never be afraid to act." Dodannon stopped just at the edge of the cleared land around the village. He plucked out the items of incantation; the hearts of three maidens who had not Known a man, dried then ground to a powder and a coal with which to burn the powder. He drew these items together and raised them, the smoke from the coal curling around his forked beard. Dodannon opened his mouth to begin the spell but no sound emerged. There was a tightness in his chest, and his clothing felt wet. Dodannon looked down and was shocked to see the tip of a silvered, serrated dagger poking from over his heart. Behind him his apprentice spoke for the second time in one night,"Yes sir."

The next morning villagers were startled to find the scourge of their lives dead on the village green. Holly was stuffed into his mouth and his eyes plucked out. If they had bothered to look the villagers would have found them stuffed down his throat into his stomach. They did not look, indeed they burned his body as quickly as possible and whispered about what could have brought an end to the hated Druid. Their answer came soon enough as a new, strange young woman was glimpsed here and there. She was unapproachable, wild, every bit as frightening as Dodannon to behold, but the abductions and murders stopped, the forest became a safer place to venture as long as one observed the markers and wards left to show where they were 'allowed'

Aquiring her current Animal Companion:

Venia moved through the woods quietly, each step placed so as to not leave a mark of her passage. Behind her moved Atlus, the wold who had been by her side for two years now. Atlus had not been young when he had come to her, and was older stil. Though what was coming was needed, it would be hard, on both of them. She reached a line, no true demarkaction, just a subtle change in the foliage only the trained eye would know.

Atlus stopped at the line and sat back on his haunches. The old wolf let out a soft whine, raising a paw to brush the hem of Venia's tunic. Without looking back the young druidess reaches a hand down to brush at her companion's ears. He leaned his head into the touch, and she could picture his tounge lolling happily in her mind's eye. Still he would not come foreward, they both knew he wouldn't, couldn't follow her here. It was time for a parting, time for her to enter a new stage of her life. Dodannon was growing steadily worse as time drew on, his mind going further and further into the dark recessess of hate. Now Venia too stood on the threshold of Darkness, though darkness of an entirely different sort. Venia forced her hand away from Atlus' worm fur. She could not, would not, look back. If she did, she would surely fail. There was one last heartbreaking whine as Venia dissapeared through the leaves.

The land changed subtley as she descended into the hidden valley. Ancient earthen switchbacks, cut along a hidden trail no mere wanderer could pass, descended into the ever warming wetness below. The plants grew more wild, strange fronds and blooms unseen for years... decades.. ever.. by human eyes. Down into the heart she went, and all about her she felt it, the Unwelcoming. That peculiar sensation that places of old magic gave off, the tangible palor of dread that only the knowledge of the druids could penetrate. Whispering silent prayers of placation Venia waited silently. They came quickly, first one, then two, soonan entire pack was around her. Lean, hungry, they were but the first of guardians for this place of old magic. They had been here since before time was measured, andwould be long after the cities were turned to dust. One stepped foreward, the grasping claws on it's forelimbs only slightly less deadly than the hooked talons on it's powerfull hindlegs. It's reptilian head flicked left, then right, each eye observing her in turn. Venia did not move untill the creature, so ineffectually named a Fleshraker, came to a stop within arm's reach. Without hesitation but being sure to keep her motions slow Venia reached out and placed the tips of her fingers upon the Fleshraker's muzzle. It's notsrils flared as it caught the scent of her, and only then did Venia speak,"I have need of you." She spoke, and gave no more reason. Animals rarely cared for reason or justification. The need was there, and in her scent they could sense the urgency. The Fleshraker lowered it's head, scenting her aain and letting out a secondary growl. Now was the moment of truth, would her Unnature also be her undoing, or would they accept her in spite of it... Nojaws came to end her life, no slashing violence to cleanse her from their presence. When Venia left the valley, it was with the form of a primordial stalker behind her. They stepped past the boundry back into the realms of man, and Venia could not stop the shedding of a tear as they passed the peacefull everslumbering form of her dear grey wolf at that boundry.