Kiara

Appearance
Kiara is a wood elf, and a druid. Bourbon colored skin with hazel-green eyes. Her hair is a medium brown, bleached a bit by the jungle sun, and kept in long dreadlocks. The locs are decorated with thin green ribbons and golden beads. She’s likely never cut her hair, though she does style the locs much like any elf, catching it up away from her face and letting the bulk of it sway freely down her back.

She wears leather armor, fashioned from the mottled, boiled, hide of dinosaurs and edged inexpertly with angular markings.

Family

 * Xochiquetzal


 * Mellisandre

Students

 * Tezcacoatl
 * Zuli
 * Meriele
 * Firash
 * Zolin

History
Kiara was born into a small Orroyen tribe deep in the Rifenmist Jungle. There were always whispers of monsters beyond the tents, and s often shining eyes watching from the verdant dark. Children that strayed sometimes went missing from the tomenda. Sometimes strange symbols appeared in the trees, draped in moss and vines with bones clicking in the breeze.

Kiara didn’t stray, but did fall ill with one of the fevers common to the rainy season in the jungle. She fell asleep near the edge of the shelter, away from the smothering heat of the fire, where she could breathe better. She awoke to find herself enveloped in stench-drenched rags and a rattling bony chest pressed against her cheek. Bony hands dug into her, and she screamed, striking out at the hooked nose and jagged teeth leering above her.

Fire flared from her hand dancing in her palm before leaping out at the creature. It hissed against the hag’s face, scorching a trail across her mottled skin and she dropped the child. Kiara cradled her own blistered hand against her chest and backed away from the monster until a tendril of choking vine whipped out and wrapped across her mouth. Thorns dug into her skin and brought with them a pulse of pain and burning lethargy that pulled Kiara back into the darkness.

Her next awakenings were blurred, eyes refusing to work right and her shivering set to rattle her bones from her skin. Once, there was shouting and growls. Kiara woke again to the hot breath and dagger-like teeth of a jaguar closing in on her. She tried to scream, scramble away, anything, but she felt the sickness – worse than before - pulling her away again, and she slipped away.

She saw things in the fog of dreams: foreign landscapes and people, heard snippets of a musical language – like Elvish but … wilder – as she slept. When she woke, a massive beast with strange green eyes and spotted fur lazed in a patch of sunshine just inside the open doorway of the strange hut. Kiara scrambled away… or tried to. None of her limbs obeyed, and she managed more of a flopping roll than a scramble. Even that much knocked the breath from her. The monster chuffed and lazily rolled to its feet before padding outside.

A woman appeared moments later, one that looked like she was a piece of the jungle made animate. Her green hair was flowering vines and flowing moss draped her form in place of clothes. She introduced herself as Xochiquetzal, and the jaguar as her partner Mellisandre. When she asked where Kiara had come from, Kiara couldn’t answer. Even with prompting, asking if she was Orroyen or from the North, she couldn’t answer.

She knew things, like her name and how to speak in Elvish and Common and even Goblin, but not how she knew them. The fever and the hag’s poison had burned something out of her and awakened something else. She could summon fire to her hand, and once or twice a flower spontaneously bloomed under her touch. But she’d lost something in exchange.

Kiara ended up staying in the grove, adopted by the dryad Xochiquetzal and the jade-eyed jaguar Mellisandre. She even learned the strange language that was not quite like Elvish (which she eventually found was known as “Sylvan”) from the other inhabitants that were drawn to the druid’s grove. And she continued to dream.

Long seasons later, her dreams shifted.

Dream 1
A robed figure stands in front of a pool of water, they stare into it's depths with a cold contemplative look. A snake seems to curl out from behind the hood hissing at the mirror like surface of the water. Reflected on it, a vision of destruction. A stone tyrant rages through a city, immense in size and strength. People run in fear only to disappear moments later as a crashing of stone falls upon them. A quiet laugh extends from the figure and moments later their deep voice calmly slides out. "Pathetic fools, the elements will win as they always have. We are cancerous to something far more valuable than us. It's time for the disease to be cured." As the rays of the morning sun threaten to end the vision the figure turns. A large symbol, a triangle with a line halfway up the middle, emblazoned on the robes of this figure becomes the last thing the vision grants her.

Dream 2
A blinding flash of whitish grey energy leaps across the ground like a rolling wave, seconds later the ground it passed through erupts forth spraying the area ahead with pellets of rock and dust. Broken people lay on the ground as a familiar voice to you Kiara laughs that same quiet laugh. The robed figure turns away before you catch a look at the face, all you see are several hissing snakes curling around the hood. The sound of small pebbles sliding and smattering against the ground whisper to your left, as your vision turns to face the sound. A robed man shakily gets to his knees, the white/grey current of energy still sparking through his injured form. Slowly he extends a hand daintily grasping a gnarled wand and utters "Drown in the breathless stone you seek, never will you be flesh again while broken, never will you be made whole unless the earth will have you back, begone for my brothers, my sisters and the good of heart you madman". A streak of green energy springs forth from the wand and strikes the figure who arches his back, holding a war pick up high to the sky screaming in pain slowly the robed figure begins to turn to stone. As the petrification completes the caster turns the wand and a pulse of blue energy travels along the green ray and blows apart the now stone statue of the man sending numerous pieces rocketing off across the night sky in all directions. The man with the wand slowly crumples to his knees as you see the wisps of the energy around him slowly start to turn his body into flecks of white aura as his companions who were motionless on the ground do the same. The mountain top now sits quietly, vacant of any presence.

Dream 3
Small drops of water daintily glide down the side of a stalactite inside a darkened cave. As your vision expands you see numerous openings, tunnels winding up and down every which way throughout the area. Your eyes focus again on the stalactites on the ceiling as you observe one of the droplets of water fall onto an iron rod. It continues to run down the form of this rod, gliding unimpeded across it's smooth surface. As the water settles into a dip near the bottom of this rod you see an iron head of what you now recognize as an immaculate War-pick, embedded into a stone protrusion jutting up from the ground. This object lies at the center of a pool of murky water that seems to be collecting from the dripping above. For the first time you feel as if you're actually present in this place, not just looking on from somewhere else. You look down and see your lower body. Moisture from the air clinging to your skin, sending a slight chill across your body. While looking upon this scene you hear a voice, echoing along the walls of the cavern.

"They seek salvation through their cluttered streets and towers. Cancerous tumors across the land, bubbling to the surface. Civilization is a plague, draining the life from the very roots of nature itself until run dry. They care not for sustaining the beauty they have grown blind to, only furthering their insatiable hunger for convenience in a world that seeks to reject them. Come to the earthen throne1, gaze into the form of the mighty Ironfang and see for yourself, all that they have brought upon themselves. I see a heart aligned with the forest and nature itself, I see a heart that pulses to the beat of the wilds. A heart that grows heavy, wandering among their abominations of stone and dead wood."

As the voice trails off, a harsh wind runs through the tunnels into the large cavern, carrying with it a low growling moan that shakes you awake.

Notes:

 * 1) There's a mountain range called the Iron Seat near Westrun.
 * Quynn has said that Zarantha is entwined with Kiara and the Rifenmist, and there's some sort of personal connection there. It's also harder to connect with her than it would normally be. But it's definitely going to come home to roost at some point.

If you use Crueler Vine & Tanna Leaf, they can be combined in a tea that can prompt shamanic vision quests.

 * Q1: Are we needed in Kaermen direly or soon?
 * Unclear

interference?
 * Q2: Will the Maleen’s son die without our
 * There is turmoil but no loss of life.


 * Q3: Are Waykka and his tribe safe right now?
 * They’re fine.
 * Q1: Is Delphine in mortal peril?
 * No
 * Is Home/the Grove in any danger from our delay?
 * Unclear. You, specifically, brings both misfortune and salvation. Though it’s not clear which is more. Your presence within the Rifenmist causes both misfortune and salvation.
 * Will we find things that are useful in the North?
 * Yes. You’ll find more in the North.