<strong>Name:</strong>Roshira Valefort<br/><br/><strong>Description:</strong>A female of approximately 22 years of age, 5'5" (1.62m) and 125lb (57kg).<br/>Roshira's natural colouring is fair although the pallor of her skin speaks more to unhealthy amounts of time spent indoors and perhaps the unsuitability for her colouring of the clothes of mourning that she wears.<br/>The young woman is never seen abroad in anything other than black or grey, although the clothes themselves bespeak respectability in both cloth and tailoring.<br/>Blond hair hangs below her shoulder blades when loose, but that is seldom how it is seen, being most commonly scraped back flat against her skull then pinned so as to be thoroughly out of her way.<br/>Green-grey eyes regard the world from beneath  light brown lashes, often appearing too thoughtful and sombre for a young lady Roshira's age.<br/><br/><strong>Likes/Dislikes:</strong>Roshira has always spurned the company of those her own age, finding enjoyment more through the perusal of her fathers tomes and aiding in his experiments than in preening and attempting to attract the eye of suitable husbands, the latter appearing to her to be the main preoccupation for most young women.<br/>Even her own mother seemed to Roshira to be overly obsessed with externals such as appearance and propriety rather than celebrating her husbands intellectual prowess and pursuits.  Roshira would choose a non-fiction book before a ball or a new dress, and therefore has great difficulty relating to a large percentage of the population.<br/>Roshira's views on magic are that the success of that art is more to do with co-incidence than design and consequently while she has an intellectual curiousity about spellcraft, the interest is more in the underlying alchemical principles that grant success than in the mysticism attached.<br/><br/><strong>History:</strong>Henri Valefort, Roshira's father, is an unsung hero of alchemical research.  His essays and groundbreaking experiments paved the way for the growing science to travel the paths towards respectibility, although his is far from the most well known of names in the field since he preferred scholarly pursuits rather than the showmanship of many of his peers.<br/>His wife, Celeste Valefort, was the daughter of one of his History tutors and it was assumed that in choosing her, Henri hoped that he'd found a suitably matched mind to assist him in his life's work.  He was, unfortunately, doomed to disappointment as Celeste strove in rebellion against both her father and now husband to create a life of social respectability.  Beyond granting her wish to get her with child, Henri retreated from her early in the marriage and left her to her own plans and schemes.<br/>The child, a girl, was yet another blow to Henri who'd hoped for a son who might carry on his work and it took him many years to see past the barrier of the child's gender and realise her intellect was more than a match for all he had to teach.  Putting his foot down for the first time in their marriage, he insisted on taking over the girls education, and she was soon spending time in her fathers laboratory learning the secrets of the alchemical elements for one afternoon a week.<br/>The Valefort home was an uneasy one for many years with Celeste fondly hoping and unsubtly planning a good marriage for Roshira, who blithely thwarted her every way she could, hiding behind her fathers books and in his laboratory where Celeste adamantly refused to set foot.  Beyond passively letting his work areas become a refuge for his daughter, Henri refused to more actively stand up to his wife with regards to her plans as he had an awful lurking fear that maybe she was in the right on this matter.<br/>Tragedy recently struck the Valefort estate, high in the mountains of their native country when an explosion rocked the building one afternoon when Roshira was grudgingly out horse riding with a suitor who had an eye firmly on her dowry.<br/>The cause of the explosion was uncertain.  Against all expectations it did not originate in Henri's laboratory and Roshira has come to suspect that maybe some of her fathers intellectual rivals may have been responsible.  The outcome, however, was catastrophic.  Celeste was killed outright, and Henri left in an unconscious condition from which he seems unable to wake, his strength and will slowly dwindling.<br/>Roshira has gathered his notes and has vowed to continue his work hoping to uncover the holy grail of Alchemy, the Elixir of Life in time to revive the person dearest to her in the entire world.<br/>Unfortunately, to do so will cost money and require many materials.  One of those ingredients, the Spirit Stone (also needed in the manufacture of gold and silver) can only be created from one material.  Sulphur - the element of the spirit.