Hiraeth

Name: Hiraeth Sharpe (born Hiraeth Inaste)

Quori's Name: Falon

Race: Kalashtar

Alignment: True Neutral


Class: Artificer

Specialty: Battle Smith

Background: (NOTE- 1st would like a ping when her lore updates!)

Hiraeth Inaste is the name she was born into.

Raised in a traditional Kalashtar family, Hiraeth learned from a very young age that discipline and control were prized above all else. Kalashtar's believe that emotions cloud judgement, thus making people stray from their Path. They are a traditionally monastic people, following the Path of Light in an attempt to turn the tide against the darkness invading the quori spirits' home realm.

This emphasis on discipline is due to the duality of a their race's existence. You see, a quori spirit always co-inhabits a new Kalashtar's body. The two are essentially dual souls intertwined, bound to one another until death. From the very first breath Hiraeth took, she was never alone in her mind.

Falon is her spirit. He rarely speaks more than a sentence or two at a time, preferring to observe and gather information. He is a gentle yet worldly spirit and loves his host with all his metaphorical heart. He will always put her well-being above his own needs.

Unlike most quori however, Falon finds the Path of Light too restrictive. He feeds off of Hiraeth's wild soul, her desire for freedom, and in turn amplifies it. They believe that there are other ways to combat the darkness, that prayer and control are not the only true Path. This hunger for a more visceral life caused the two to clash with the girl's parents.

Hiraeth was thus raised strictly, often times brutally, in order to help teach her control. There are many ways a monk father and paladin mother can utilize their skills to break a seemingly unruly child into submission. No way to lie due to Zone of Truth. Maces backed by smite spells to teach her to master pain.

Stunning strikes to lock all of her muscles in place for hours...teaching her patience.

Situational lethal vibrations set off in her body after the right nerves are hit to teach her to master fear...

The worst part of it all was that when her younger sister Rashana and even younger brother Dalavash were born, each one was subjected to similar ordeals.

For a time, discipline and terror, pain and despair were all Hiraeth and her siblings knew.

But her spirit wanted a more visceral life, and he would not be denied.

After a time she heard of a magical school for aspiring adventurers. Perhaps, if she and her siblings escaped and made it there...they would be safe. They could learn to protect themselves, become self sufficient and never have to see their parents again.

So on the eve of her eighteenth year, Hiraeth and her siblings attempted to escape...but they underestimated their parents' abilities.

In the end, Hiraeth had to abandon her brother and sister in order to save herself.

She still hasn't forgiven herself for that...

Upon reaching Basilwick School of Hero-craft and Adventuring the girl participated in the entrance trials and caught the eye of gnomish artificer Pfingsten Plymrock. He's now taken her under his wing and is teaching her his craft.

When he asked for her name...she decided that Inaste had held enough power over her, and that it was time for a change.

Hiraeth Sharpe was the name she chose for herself. For her broken edges, cutting tongue, and even sharper wit.

Eventually under Pfingsten's tutelage she built a steel defender named VEGA. He's a mechanical greyhound who can shoot bullets out of his muzzle. He's made out of a gas mask and has a stone Hiraeth enchanted to have a heartbeat in his chest. He's considered her best friend, even if he isn't technically alive.

During her second year her managerie grows as she adds DOOM, a tiny pink-and-white mechanical bat. His heart is made around a piece of jagged glass created when Zheri, the winged tiefling bard, shot a fireball at a giant purple worm.

Sometime later Hiraeth made a deal with an agent of Zariel, powerful fallen angel and now leader of the Nine Hell's armies, in order to safely bring her siblings out of their parent's clutches. Rashana and Dalavash were thus transported to the city of Silverplane, where they now reside in the prestigious local library as students. Though she could not go to them yet, Hiraeth was content knowing they were finally free.

Third year Basilwicks students are sent out on missions to get to know the empire and help out where needed, after pledging their fealty to the Empress in a public ceremony. Headmaster Aceiks, upon realizing the Empress had begun to recognize Hiraeth's classmate Airic as the legitimate heir to the throne, attacked her as a distraction. Ultimately he was cut down and sacrificed his life to keep Airic a secret, horrifying the party.

But there was no time to truly mourn, as everyone was ushered away on their third year assignments. Luckily for Hiraeth, she was sent to the Silverplane library and managed to get in contact with her sister, who seemed guarded and upset but willing to show her to an individual dubbed "The Professor" who had been watching Dalavash.

Upon fighting through swarms of security bots and almost losing her sister to them, Hiraeth finally got to meet with Professor Adela Maravela. Learning that this woman was a Kalashtar like her, Hiraeth got to learn more about their people's history. It turns out that long ago, a quori spirit had fallen to the dark side after their host died and thus caused a massive calamity, costing countless people their lives in an almost extinction level event.

That quori's name...turned out to be Falon.

This information shocked Rashana, and while Hiraeth also got to reunite with her brother, he only saw her as a monster and refused to speak with her.

That night, Hiraeth communed with Falon in her grief and asked him to speak to her about the individual he lost...the one who had caused him to fall.

After a weighted moment of silence...he did...

Having thus finished their third year, the group enters their fourth by attempting to return to Basilwicks...and finding that there had been an attack on the royal castle a few weeks prior. As a result, the Empress has increased military presence throughout the Empire, and due to Aeciks' attempt on her life, the city of Ville Humid has had a particularly intense crackdown. All magical items across the realm are being confiscated while mages are made to register and follow new laws in regards to the use of magic.

There are new leonin guards watching the gates and they seem to be vigilant for something, often checking people's blood and actually detaining Zheri, Jenny, and some of their friends for a while as Hiraeth, Airic, and Moett find another way to sneak through the sewers to the school. They manage to get there just before the newest curfew comes into effect.

At Basilwicks they find a new Headmistress, Viviana LeFerum, along with various new faculty members among old, familiar faces. The amount of new students in attendance is far lower than previous years, making it clear that Aeciks' actions tarnished the school's reputation. There's also a clear idea that the school is now basically a de facto dumping ground of sorts where the Empress sends those she is displeased with, considering a position here as the lowest of the low.

Upon seeing how Ville Humid, Silverplane, and various other cities are chaffing under increased military presence and racial tensions, the party decides that it is high time to do something about the Empress. They spend the next year quietly gathering allies, including renegade mages, pirates, and druids and rebels who had been displaced from their homes.

These new allies eventually included the Southern Baron, who had been continuously left out to dry by the Empress while holding the southern border against Tearlach, despite the official war having ended almost a generation ago. Upon rescuing him from the clutches of the changeling army, he pledged his loyalty to Airic and the Goldenvine bloodline.

This all culminated in a winter coup that put Airic back on the throne as the rightful Emperor. But not before Jenny almost lost her life during the battle...and Hiraeth made another deal with the archduchess of the Hells, Zariel, for her friend's life. The fallen angel had been masquerading as the Baron's commander Ezrial for years.

Once they had all rested up, Zheri found a book with information about Asmodeus in the palace library and realized that the author Philogestes had lived and died in Hiraeth's homeland of Adar. This led to the group (minus Airic, who couldn't abandon his new duties) and Tosk making a impromptu voyage across the sea to the continent (despite Hiraeth's misgivings) in order to find his tomb. It turns out it was high up on a hill in her hometown's cemetery. Thankfully a powerful magical seal had kept his body from decomposing during the thousand or so years he'd been dead and they were able to glean much from his corpse.

However, that night ended in disaster as Hiraeth's parents found the group, culminating in a brutal scuffle that left Zheri dead before they escaped with their stunned daughter in tow. Managing to revive Zheri though Jenny's healing magic, the party gave chase and found that Hiraeth's parents had chained her to a stone altar in the woods, its surface covered in strange carvings.

It seems they intend to kill her.

Thankfully the party manages to

Tosk removes the chains binding her and Hiraeth grabs her fallen rapier, goes to her father, and starts stabbing him again and again, screaming the whole time. Even exhausted, she goes to her mother, and does the same, until she slows down and sobs, exhausted.

Zheri and Jenny both hug Hiraeth while she sobs, trying to provide comfort.

They take a rest by the altar that night, thought Hiraeth refuses to be near it and instead camps on the edges of the clearing. Though they know her experience was traumatic, the group still has Hiraeth use Identify on the altar to help them discover what it was for.

The writings turns out to be Infernal with an older dialect on top of that. The altar is a spirit breaker and it's used to rip apart the souls of fiends and devils and any fragments therein. It splits two souls. Whatever harbors the soul has to die to make the splitting happen successfully. The altar was created through powerful celestial magic combined with a little bit of infernal magic.

Because they were working so hard to kill her, Hiraeth's parents were either trying to get rid of both souls or at least one.

Jenny uses her ability to detect good and evil on the altar; overall it feels bizarre to her to open her senses to it. She was expecting to find some kind of familiar sense of evil but instead there's a sense of hallowness to it. Even though there's infernal writing on it, there's a sense of warmth and comfort coming from the altar.

Hiraeth however insists there is nothing good about this artifact.

Upon returning to Basilwicks, she and Zheri have a falling out as Hiraeth calls her selfish for going off on such a ridiculous mission, not even knowing if Philogestes' body would have been preserved enough for them to talk to. Zheri states that she will do anything to bring down Asmodeus and that she had to try. The two part on bad terms and as a result, Hiraeth decides to stay behind while the rest of the party goes to infiltrate Tearlach.

That night, her goddess Venehya comes to Zheri in a dream, warning her to stay away from Hiraeth. She says there's a darkness in Hiraeth that will consume her, that she doesn't want Zheri caught in the crossfire. She states that that no matter what their party does, Hiraeth will fall to darkness. It is in her nature. When Zheri asks the goddess what she knows, Vehenya says Hiraeth's soul is a light in the darkness. The other she harbors is that darkness; Hiraeth is the only thing keeping it back right now.

"Once he awakens and realizes what and who he is, nothing will hold him back..."

Despite this warning and their ugly parting, Zheri refuses to give up on her friend.

Only time will tell whether she succeeds...

Faceclaim:



Steel Defender: (V.E.G.A)








Homunculus Servant: (D.O.O.M)

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