Character Name: Cassiel
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Character Class: Arcanist
Archetype: White Mage
Race: Elf
Cassiel was born in the far Eastern land of Jinin, on the continent of Tian Xia, to a family of noble elven clerics whom served the sun god Shizuru. As elves develop natural hair color based on the plants around them rather than the genes of their parents, Cassiel's birth in the early spring granted her a natural pink hair color, just as the sakura trees bloomed. This oddity would set the trend for Cassiel's own insecurities of feeling like an outsider within her own community. Being born to important healers of the holy temple, it was expected that she would grow up to continue the family tradition of maintaining the church as well as healing the sick and wounded. Yet to her family's dismay, Cassiel's magical interests as well as talents, leaned more towards the arcane than the divine. Her skill in a school of magic dissimilar to that of her family provided many challenges for her tasks as a priestess; rather than call upon the glory of Shizuru to heal the wounds of the injured, Cassiel had studied and experimented with her own magic in unique ways, finding ways to exploit loopholes and subvert even the most fundamental rules of magic in order to scrape by as a local healer. Forcing arcane energies to perform tasks most would claim they were never meant to severely hampered her abilities as a priestess, however, and her ability to mend those in need of aid were limited to alleviating flesh wounds and providing basic first aid. The sick, the cursed, and the weak would find no help from Cassiel, and the resulting glances of disappointment bestowed upon her by the clergy were enough to cause Cassiel to turn her worship to another. It was in the god Qi Zhong that Cassiel could finally find peace, a god whom revered both the healers and the magicians of the world, and one whom was more willing to accept Cassiel of her own merits, caring about who she was, rather than who she was not. The resulting scandal of a priestess leaving her own birthright in pursuit of another deity was spoken about, however, not viewed as incredibly outrageous due to the good relations between the two deities, yet Cassiel still felt out of place. As long as she remained in Jinin, she would be haunted by the curious looks of those who knew her, and even among her new acquaintances, she would always be seen as "the other temple's outcast". Cassiel did not resent those around her, but always felt awkward in the presence of those whom would always view her as a woman who was unable to become what everyone felt she "should have been". It was this feeling that drove Cassiel to make her decision to leave, yet the question was now "Where to?"... She could not stay anywhere close to her home town, yet many far away places were not quite as accepting of the arcane arts as Jinin, so it seemed almost as if Cassiel had nowhere to turn... But there was one place...
There were rumors of a far off land to the west, a land between two continents, known as the "Inner Sea" where magic was openly practiced, taught, and studied. A land of adventurers and technology, and a land in desperate need of aid. The Inner Sea was plagued by monsters in a land called Belkzen, demons in World Wound, paranormal storms in The Shackles, and savage wilderness in the untamed Mwangi Expanse... It seemed such a place was in desperate need of a person like her, a healer, yet capable of so much more; the place almost called to Cassiel, and using up what little she could secure of her family's fortune, she found and hired a ship willing to make the perilous journey across the Okaiyo Ocean, to the trade city of Senghor, just at the southern tip of the Mwangi expanse. It was on this journey through the jungle that Cassiel ran into her first group of adventurers, who saved her from a necromancer as he rampaged across the expanse. Upon displaying her own unique skill set ,the adventurers gladly accepted her into their group, and took her to the city of Kibwe, where she became the group's enchantress, fashioning all sorts of magical equipment to outfit their expeditions, and it was with these friends that Cassiel would find her true calling.
Upon inquiring of the adventurers' business in the Mwangi expanse, Cassiel learned that they had been stranded in the jungle after an accident involving a set of strange monolithic structures that teleported them far away from their homeland of Chelliax, a nation further North in the Inner Sea region. It seemed the jungle itself was home to several stones designed in the same fashion as those that comprised the monolith. Cassiel studied the nature of these stones, which she found to be a network of intersecting nodes that can be used as a magical transport system. It was upon activating them and using these nodes for herself that Cassiel learned of their true purpose. As Cassiel's body was whisked through space to a new location, her spirit entered another realm. It was a sacred place, created by the goddess of travel, Desna. It seemed her servants were the ones whom had constructed the monuments all over the Inner Sea region long ago for the purpose of safely guiding travelers to their destination. Being a disciple of Qi Zhong, an ally to Desna, Cassiel was given the opportunity to enter a divine covenant, to travel across these waypoints and aid those in need; guiding travelers home and keeping them safe on their journeys. Cassiel accepted, becoming a wandering caretaker to all who would call the roads their home. Legends now tell the tale of a pink-haired elf, arriving seemingly out of nowhere to save merchants, messengers, and civilians from bandits, monsters, and beasts, then disappearing as swiftly as she had come once their destination had been reached, yet none yet know of her true origin.
