Ariane Carnath-Emory

Ariane Carnath-Emory
Information
Archetype	Atrocity (reformed)
Hair Colour	Black
Eye Colour	Gray
Height	5'9"
Build	Slight
Notable Features	Deeply scarred from cheekbone to lips.
Born	189 AR Northern New Dauntless
Spouse(s)	Vargan Chernevog (deceased)
Profession	Marshall, Myrken Wood Militia
Religion	Atheist

History

The Sellsword

When our problems were simpler, and generally solved with steel.

Ariane was born some twenty-odd years ago in the distant colony of Northern New Dauntless. Youngest child of mingled House Carnath-Emory, she grew early to adulthood, as is the way of things in this remote outpost. While she seldom details the events which transpired during her twelfth year there, this much is clear: that there was trouble enough that she felt the need to flee both House and home, and seek out her fortune elsewhere.

Years of wandering followed, during which she continued the fencing lessons she'd begun years ago, at the hands of her brother's tutor. A sellsword of gradually-growing repute, she found work in various companies (frequently posing as male) -- from a stint in The God-crushed War, to service within the ill-fated group set to guard the Sorcerer's Guild in the distant city-state E'strielle. When the disaster befell them, the explosion of unshaped magical energies responsible worked a particularly strange effect upon young Ariane. The plate armour which was her uniform was liquified in an instant, and driven through the pores of her skin to flow with the very blood in her veins. Endowed with a sentience -- or perhaps only a sensitivity -- the armour rises in monofilaments from her skin at almost random periods, there to reform briefly into the platemail that it had originally been.

In the weeks which followed the disaster -- which had left a great, smoking crater in the heart of E'strielle -- the city's favour turned against magic and its derivatives. Being newly transformed into one of those herself, Ariane fled... nursing a newfound hatred for all things sorcerous.

The Tavern

When we were very young, and the night was full of wolves.

The travels which followed eventually led her to Amasynia and the city Myrkentown. Some days after taking up residence at the Broken Dagger, she was fortunate enough to be employed by its then-proprietor, Raegan Darkblayde, in the capacity of tavern bouncer. For years, she worked alongside Quincy Randall, Tempestro Starr, Jarek, Lenore -- and even crotchety Pritchard.

Everything changes, given enough time, and so was the case for Ariane. Over the years, she developed close friendships with her fellow bouncers, even taking Quincy for her beloved sister, regardless that there was no blood shared between them. At the capable hands of Johan Vornheim, she began the slow process of learning to read what passes for Amasynia's common tongue -- for such things were not taught to girl-children, in Northern Dauntless. Starr taught her some mercy for magic-users, as did the sorceror Coran D'zir, with whom she entered into a very odd bargain. In the company of these friends, she even journeyed to Kanpar Village, there to battle monstrous Zayken.

For the first time in many years, Ariane new contentment -- which in turn bred ambition. Almost inevitably, that ambition led her to seek employment of a more particular sort: as personal guard to select members of Myrkentown's own Judiciary Council.

The Council

A series of unfortunate employments.

What had seemed like a straightforward sort of employment (particularly when compared to the outlandish horror that regularly plagued the Broken Dagger) swiftly became something else altogether. It was to then-Governor Gad Phuri that she first presented herself as a guard -- and who became her first tutor in the dangers of politics, scandal and greed. She travelled by his side from coastal Westenford (there to confront corrupt Aloisius Treadwell) to the furtive pit-fights of Myrkentown itself; braved the lechery of obscene Avarante and the Order of Straka, which remained a persistent threat to her ward up to the time of his violent death.

Following that death, and after some small time of mourning (for over the years, she'd developed a grudging fondness for cunning Gad)), she entered into the service of Treadwell, the very man she'd once terrorised at Gad's behest, and eventually moved on to serve as personal guard for Governor Altias Bromn.

This service led her to horror and mutilation at the hands of drow Audmathus, obsessive persecution by mad Thadius Dhrin, torture courtesy of the Order of the All, and is generally considered to have been a bad idea. Why she continues as Bromn's guard remains a mystery.

Orvere and The Order

Somehow it all went wrong.

Her most recent expedition took Ariane far from Myrken Wood, travelling with a hooded figure to Thessilane's trouble-stricken Orvere to seek vengeance for the assassination of Duke Burel, and to put an end to the wild ambitions of the wicked sorceror Jorn Lundstroem. On their arrival there, it was revealed that the Duke indeed lived; she was able to aid Coran D'zir, Kerrak al'Nerun, Aeryn Karolinger and several others in the retaking of the city.

Following their return to Myrken Wood, she took on her very first fencing student: Agnieszka Kaczmarek, in whom Ariane sees the girl she might have been -- were she not of Dauntless origins.

It was at this point that conflict with Dhrin and the Order began for true. Ariane now wears scars of their inflicting upon her back, and upon the death of her ward, Governor Bromn, she has commenced a systematic slaughter of the Order's members. Several of those slain thus far were members she'd encountered at a meeting of the Order which she was once forced to attend; the names of several others were supplied to her by Suede Roschen and the drow Jirai, in exchange for a significant quantity of coin. It is speculated by some -- and quietly -- that the murder of both the Governor, and Ariane's sister Quincy, might have driven her to madness.

Resume

Myrken Employers

• Raegan Darkblayde
• Governor Phuri
• Governor Treadwell
• Governor Bromn
• Duke Burel
• The Myrken Judiciary Council

Plots/Stories

• The Bloody Flux
• Zayken Perfect and Kanpar Village
• The Dreamwaking
• The Order of the All
• The Ashfiend
• The Red-and-Gold Summer