<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Vylara of Stonewood Forest</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0f/21A2C091-10B3-4EBF-AFA6-3A4D9CE24C5A.png)</div><br/>Name: Vylara of Stonewood Forest<br/><br/>Race: Elf<br/><br/>Class: Arcane Archer<br/><br/>Age: 143<br/><br/>Appearance: Unlike the picture, she traditionally wears studded leather armor and doesn’t braid her hair.  How she and other elves are able to do various acrobatics with their hair never seeming to get in the way of their vision has led many a hard to speculate some sort of pact with ancient wind spirits.<br/><br/>Personality: Vylara mixes a kind-heartedness with a simple practicality that comes reminiscent of the gentler sides of nature.  She rarely has much money but is happy to share her talents, bartering for what little she needs.<br/><br/>Background: For those few who have heard of it, Stonewood Forest is weeks of travel away on foot, a strange land originally known as Emerald Forest that used to be elven territory.  A few decades ago, something happened to turn the entire vegetation and most of the wildlife (but thankfully none of the elves themselves) into stone, rendering the entire area uninhabitable.  Although some say it’s the work of an evil spellcaster, the truth is not widely known.<br/><br/>Since then, Vylara has left her homeland in the hopes of finding a cure, performing various good works and helping out where she can.  Her hope is to build enough goodwill to draw the attention of a powerful spellcaster who might be able to lift the curse, but she understands just how long such a process might take.  Still, she’s quite young by elven standards and has centuries ahead of her.<br/><br/>For the most part, Vylara is content with the wilderness and has little use for money, but she does have a bit of a penchant for elven wine, and even though she rarely has much in the way of gold coin, it can be nice to have for emergencies or unusual situations.<br/><br/>Skills:<br/><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Her elven heritage lets her do things like see in as little illumination as starlight, trance for four hours a night, and so on.</li><li>The bow that Vylara carries is actually a focus, with the actual wood consisting of little more than the grip.  Her arcane skill allows her to manifest the rest of the bow out of magical energy, amplifying the weapon’s usual draw strength and distance.</li><li>Vylara can manifest a single object (not counting the bow) out of magical energy at a time, not to exceed a yard in any dimension, though it only persists for a few moments after she releases it.  Most commonly, this is an arrow.</li><li>Other minor magical effects are likewise within her purview, such as igniting or extinguishing highly-combustible objects (such as a torch or campfire), cleaning and drying a person and their belongings (how do you think elves avoid being caked in filth as they traverse the wilderness?), and mending damage to inanimate objects.  She’s been trying to master the spell of whispering into the wind and having her words carry, but attempts have ended in failure so far, let alone hearing a reply.</li><li>Her quiver is half full of arrows that can channel various magical effects, such as calling forth a mana storm that damages all living things within a few yards, freezing its target in a block of ice, phasing through inanimate objects that were providing cover in order to hit a living enemy, or restrain the target in magical chains.  Although the bards commonly tell stories of arcane archers who fire arrows to make people fall in love with them, Vylara claims not to know how to work that spell.  Each arrow must be painstakingly carved and then etched with specific runes, a process that takes several hours per arrow but doesn’t require absolute concentration, allowing her to carry on light conversation during the process.</li><li>Vylara is exceptionally talented at gymnastics and acrobatics.  Given enough space to operate, such as jumping from rooftop to rooftop, she can effortlessly maneuver to positions to get off good shots, as well as evade mundane throwing weapons.</li><li>Having grown up in the forest, Vylara’s woodland survival skills are exceptional.  When dealing with expensive cities, she often teams up with a tanner, although she won’t hunt animals she knows to be endangered.</li><li>Although she’s not exceptional with a flute, she’s more than passable, and knows a few dozen Elvish songs.  When times are hard, game is scarce, and she needs coin, she’ll sit and perform for money with a magically conjured flute.</li><li>Her weaknesses are exactly what one might expect.  In a cramped hallway in close quarters, she might conjure a shortsword and hold her own against a goblin or mundane bandit, but an accomplished swordsman or monster would slice her apart.  Anything that moves faster than a thrown weapon so that she can’t see and hear it in order to dodge it will prevent her from dodging.  Being in an area of anti-magic means she can’t do much more than run or draw the dagger hidden in her right boot.</li></ul><br/>Language(s): Vylara is fluent in Common, Draconic (the language of her magical runes), Elvish, and Sylvan.  She’s also picked up a handful of useful words in trading languages like Pantazian and Zawla’ Yazani, not allowing for significant conversation but allowing for barter for meat and furs with trading sailors and other traveling merchants.  Mistaken words aren’t uncommon, and she often has to draw pictures in the dirt when she doesn’t know the right word, but reasonable patience and effort usually allows for enough communication for a trade.<br/><br/>Extras: I can’t shake the feeling I’ve forgotten something, but if I remember it, I’ll ask later.<br/></div></div>