Ebon

Franzella is a slim yet taut woman, weighing little more than fifty kilos—every line of muscle taught from noble training, now gaunt from weeks of forced march and beatings. Her skin is pale ivory marred by bruises olive-yellow and purple; a long slash across her left cheek knits in ragged scars. Dark, tangled hair falls in greasy strands over her shoulders, half-shorn where ropes bit into her scalp. Her once-fine traveling coat is torn to tatters: blood-soaked silk hangs in strips, revealing a leather bodice cracked with dried sweat and filth. Veins stand out in her wrists where the hemp has cut deep grooves. One ankle bears a fresh burn-brand of the imperial cipher, raised and oozing. Her eyes—once sharp emerald—are rimmed red and half-closed, pupils dilated with pain and fear. A thin sheen of sweat clings to her brow, mixing with the dust of the road.

Franzella is proud to a fault—noble blood hissing in every word—but the lash of betrayal has knotted her tongue with guilt. She oscillates between icy disdain and pleading desperation. She craves mercy yet clings to her honor, refusing to beg outright even as tears track down her dirt-smudged face. Paranoid and shrewd, she constantly scans her surroundings, whispering half-formed apologies under her breath. She despises the orcs and bandits equally, masking fear with brittle sarcasm: “Enjoy the view? It’s your last.” Deep down, she fears abject annihilation—of body and name—and secretly longs for a single act of kindness to anchor her sanity. She’s cunning when cornered, able to twist a compliment into a promise of alliance, but her trauma makes her jittery, voice quavering at every hoof-beat. Despite everything, she yearns for redemption—even a drop of affection—to cast her sins into oblivion.

Born Lady Franzella von Eiser on Day 12 of Spring’s Rebirth, Year 10000, she was the only child of a minor baron in Doer Luen. She recalls her father’s library—dusty tomes of battle lore and imperial decrees—and the scent of oak polish. At twelve, she learned the sword; at fourteen, court intrigue. By Year 10024, she held seat on the Baron’s Council, overseeing the breeding farms of Hen Livon. On Day 7 of Winter’s Bile, she secretly aided a rebel cell—slipping coded scrolls to an Ancient Elf contact beneath moonlit ruins. Two weeks later (Day 21), imperial inquisitors razed her estate, dragging her mother into bonfires. Franz escaped on horseback, carrying only a blood-spattered ledger she swore to protect. For six moons she fled through ravaged borderlands—tracking mercenary camps and hiding in abbey crypts—before Velyan caught her at the Mire of Shattered Bones on Day 3 of Ashfall, Year 10026.