<div class="floatright">(https://static1.e621.net/data/5f/6e/5f6ecf22aef9993bbc362959226192d0.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">Zimora</span>(https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1649887)<br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">NG Gnoll Investigator(Lamplighter)</span><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Background</div><div class="spoiler_body">Scrawny and weak, Zimora was born to a gnoll tribe near the foothills of the Brazen Peaks: an island of jagged stone rising above Osirion's southern desert. Early on, the young cub listened and spoke to the sand and air, and sometimes seemed to know things which no one could have told her...Or even knew things which hadn't quite happened yet. Saved at first by her mother's position as matriarch, and later when the young girl's apparent madness caused one of the wise-women to take her in, her good fortune didn't hold much past puberty. Shortly after she became a young adult, her mother was killed in a dominance fight. The new matriarch had her own preferred wise-woman, and an eye towards profiting from the more heavily armed caravans by trying to trade with them rather than attack them. Zimora found herself a slave alongside a few of her mother's supporters. The spirits she spoke to seemed okay with this, and continued to coach her in healing arts which she used to assist the other slaves. Slavery outside the gnoll-tribe was a bit of a revelation to her. As someone who'd been randomly beaten much of her young life whether she was useful or not, the idea that by <em>being</em> useful she could avoid such treatment was incredibly freeing, shackles be damned.<br/><br/>For a short time, she was the happiest slave in the caravan.<br/><br/>Sadly, it didn't last. Zimora was sold as part of a lot to a group of archaeologist/adventurers bent on tomb 'exploration.' Putatively, the slaves were porters and excavators, but, when the ruins proved more deadly than expected, it became quickly apparent that their new masters were quite happy to use them to find and disable traps.<br/><br/>Whether it was due to her spirits or a keenly observant eye, Zimora survived the longest. She survived right up to the point when a group of undead guardians awakened to slaughter the tomb robbers, and for whatever reason showed no interest in the cowering gnoll. Tacitly understanding that she shouldn't take anything, she wandered out into the desert...And somehow survived. She remembers this as a time of dreams, when she wandered the sand under sun and stars, and spoke with many different things, some of which seemed far more likely to be real than others. There were dunes that sang and stones which moved on their own, winds which danced and stars which whispered secrets. There was a pillar of fire which taught her how to hold a spark of itself in her hand, and hinted at ways to burn away that which was unclean. Her memory of encountering a massive, quite conversational creature which was part woman and part lion seemed quite surreal...Except that somehow, she still remembers the language they spoke in, even if she doesn't remember <em>how</em> she learned it. <br/><br/>She was found by a bemused paladin of Sarenrae. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Zimora's spirit had cast aside whatever ancestral impulses it had towards evil. Perhaps it was a result of her efforts to heal other slaves. Perhaps it was burned out of her during her wanderings in the desert. All the paladin knew was that she wasn't evil. A long-term wanderer of the deserts herself, the paladin, Na'eemah, felt fairly certain that despite Zimora's apparent circumstances, the young adult gnoll wouldn't survive much longer in the desert alone. She persuaded the gnoll to accompany her back to Wati, and along the way the two traded many stories. <br/><br/>Na'eemah left Zimora at a small shrine in Wati, tended by a priest of Sarenrae...Who, being a touch more overworked and less tolerant than Na'eemah herself, gave Zimora a few chances to convert to the faith before explaining that the shrine really wasn't a home for itinerant gnolls, and booting her out into the street. <br/><br/>For much of the last half-decade, Zimora has been a part of the more impoverished side of Wati's community. She's learned that the other city-gnolls are likely to be even more insular and tribal than her own people, and she doesn't belong with them any more than she does with the Sarenites. She's also learned a great many things from the spirits which speak to her. In fact, she has an odd tendency to learn whatever it is that she needs to know, regardless of how weirdly obscure the knowledge may be. She's taken over a slumping hovel against the wall of the Necropolis which overlooks Bargetown, and she has plied her trade as a seer, healer, and finder of lost things to the poor of that area, often working for favors rather than coin, save when the spirits told her that a customer could spare that coin. As a result, she's comfortable but far from well-off. There are those who question her sanity, and others who question her reliability (She has told them that “Some things <em>don't </em>want to be found,” but customers tend to view this as an excuse, particularly when the customers are parents seeking a wayward child, or criminals seeking those who've evaded them.). She frequently teases other prophets and wise-folk in the markets of Bargetown and the Veins; a little competition is good for the market, and not everyone can be right all of the time. <br/><br/>What few know is that she sometimes finds herself called by the spirits to solve mysteries that none have brought to her door, or to answer questions that none have asked. At such times, she wanders the streets at night, bringing light and curiousity into places which prefer shadows and obscurity. Sometimes these lead to simple solutions: a missing ring, a lost kitten, a family heirloom whose owners did not even realize it was lost. Other times, the voices have shown her terrible things, and led her to find those who perpetrated them. Sometimes, others could be led to these perpetrators who would bring justice with them.<br/><br/>Other times, Zimora found her own ways to punish those who the spirits required to be punished. They were invariably helpful in such matters.<br/><br/>The spirits have been content for quite some time to let her live so, but something has stirred them, now, and recently Zimora finds herself drawn to listen to the pronouncements of the Pharasmin priests, about the latest opening of a tomb to explorers.<br/><br/>After all, some things <em>want</em> to be found.</div></div><br/><br/>Zimora is an Investigator (Lamplighter) refluffed slightly in that she isn't some amazingly over-educated scribe/student who has studied all the world, she just has some kind of odd spiritual connectivity which sometimes tells her what she needs to know...When the spirits decide she needs to know it. Which means it might be terribly convenient or terribly inconvenient. Same thing with her other Inspiration-based abilities. She doesn't get better odds in melee or on saves because of extensive study of her enemies' style, but because when something whispers 'duck' in her ear, or 'strike now,' she obeys without hesitation. Hopefully this refluffage doesn't bother anyone. It doesn't in any way, shape or form affect the game rules/abilities.<br/><br/>Zimora is a recent (five years) resident of Wati, and has quite a few strands of connectivity to elements of its poorer side, particularly around Bargetown, where she has been an occasional seer/finder of lost things, living in a hovel butted up against the outer western wall of the Necropolis itself. While her actual 'family' is down south around the Brazen Peaks, she has an 'Auntie Na'eemah,' a confirmed bird of passage and human paladin of Sarenrae who wanders through town on occasion, as well as her 'Uncle Sharpfang' (who hasn't got any fangs, sharp or otherwise, anymore), an elderly member of the city gnolls who, like Zimora, is not affiliated with any of the small urban 'tribes,' and who makes a living as a storyteller down near the waterfront. She is also known to other seers, some few priests who she occasionally pesters with too many questions, and a few of the city guards who've figured out that when she says she's<em>found</em>something, she's serious about it.<br/><br/>The spirits help her find lost things, mostly. And that's why she's interested in joining this little group of tomb-runners.<br/><br/><strong><em>Something wants to be found.</em></strong>