Reine Arlynson
Race and Gender: Human FemaleDeity: Ilmater
Initial Alignment: Lawful Good
Base Class & Proposed Development: Paladin (1-30)
Age: Appears in her early 30s now. Isn't actually aware of her name day any more.
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 158bs
Eyes: Greenish Blue
Hair: Muddy Brown
General Remarks:
Reine is generally seen in two forms. When she is not expecting combat, she wears either form fitting monk robes or washed robes of cotton. Her shoulders are eternally crested by a muddy coloured cloak and hood which does not flatter her figure in any real sense. A well postured, moderately shouldered woman, she bears both the callouses and visible scars of hard and heavy work and carries herself with a trained martial stance.In her armour, her rugged and muscular upbringing becomes apparent. Battle scarred armour with heavy reinforcement on the gauntlets and shoulders allow her grip and stance to rely on strong, measured strikes with a longsword from behind a defensively borne shield guarding her flank. Her stance has developed over time, dropping traditional swordplay for something much more martial and body orientated.
Notable Features:
- Reine carries four scars on her face. Two beneath her eye and a much more ragged one
on the cusp of her cheek. She also has one on her neck line. They have healed, but are angry scars which have come from small blades. - Around her wrists are symbolic red wraps which are pinned to her gloves and gauntlets by a lanceboard knight piece. She removes these only to change her armour or to wash.
- Though well maintained at some expense, Reine continues to keep her armour professional and mercenary looking. She does not favour the more elaborate and expensive glossy finish of her paladin-kin.
- Her hair is quite clearly cut by a knife.
Personality Profile:
A kind, charming woman with a rough and ready manner of speech, Reine presents herself to the world as a worldly woman who has surprising depth to her thoughts. She is quite often seen meditating in the Church of Ilmater, mopping floors or patrolling local roads in order to keep them clear of bandits - duties she seems to take quite personally. Her posture is indicative of the seriousness with which she takes her duties and to see Reine with a stoop is to see her with an unhealed injury.Reine could never be mistaken for a socialite, clearly lacking the glistening blood line and the accent of the upper class. Though when pressed she can easily slip between a formal clipped accent and her normal woman of the farms drawl, she does so under duress and as she has grown more comfortable with the Gate, increasingly opts for her common tongue. Hints of dwarven pronunciation litter her dialect, as well as local influences.
Her interests are not traditional and her body is honed for work, rather than for a courtroom dress. She also has no concept of how to sing or dance and on those rare occasions where she is genuinely inebriated, her lack of breeding comes through painfully clearly.
Strengths:
- Leadership - Reine was the third, then second in command of the Irregulars and once managed up to forty men. She is organised, quick to decide and extremely convicted to her duty. Sveta Asperan has given Reine trust in these matters on a number of occasions, something that the woman takes great pride in.
- Woman of the Commons - Reine is of the common folk. She picks up local dialects with ease and finds common ground with many of them. Her common breeding shows through and her charisma is that of the common people.
- Hardened And Worldly - Reine had already lived a full life before she swore her duty to Ilmater. She has few vices that have already not been explored and finds little temptation in indulging them.
- Natural Strategist - Reine has an exceptional natural talent for strategy and picks up concepts relating to it very quickly. Devoted to the study of strategy and tactics, Reine is becoming a devotee of the Red Knight and wears her symbol meshed with her Ilmateri bands.
- Driven - Reine aims to succeed in everything she does to the greatest degree possible and works relentlessly to achieve those goals.
- Paladin of Ilmater - Reine aims to reduce suffering by any means necessary. She is furiously devout, though this is not always immediately obvious. She has a rigid moral centre and a unique take on the theology.
- Devotee of the Red Knight - In recent months, Reine has begun to offer devotions to the Lady of the Lanceboard. Her approach to this is polytheistic and motivated by her devotion to ending suffering. She maintains a library of personal texts on military strategy and those texts are one of the few things she actively owns and pays for.
- Dark Humour - Reine has a dark, cynical sense of humour which often endears her to those who expect paladins to be stuffy.
- Dwarven - A number of Reine's most treasured friends have been dwarves and she has a natural affinity for their culture and customs.
Weaknesses:
- Short Temper - Reine's ability to be diplomatic is limited by situation. As situations become more tense, she will snap and she has a very short fuse when this happens.
- Combat PTSD - Due to past events, severe combat situations can cause her to lock up and go into herself. This more frequently appears as ferocious bouts of anger, particularly at her own perceived flaws or failures. This is linked to personal responsibility she feels for the events in her past.
- Bluntness - A double edged sword, Reine's unrefined bluntness and lack of consideration for regular manners can sabotage her efforts with those of higher refinement. She does not understand why this happens.
- Woman of the Commons - Her common breeding is woefully obvious to anyone with any understanding of noble blood. She rarely sits on chairs, preferring the floor and often appears childlike in her misunderstanding of noble concepts.
- Zealot of Ilmater - Reine's take on the Ilmateri faith is ruthless. She is not given to mercy in combat and will kill without hesitation once on a combat high.
- Ignorant of Politics - Reine's experience of high politics ends at the town hall. She has no understanding of noble politics, nor the intricate web behind it.
- Commoners Comportment - In obvious high society, Reine's common origins and lack of refinement causes her to becomes stuttery, quiet and nervous, blurting out inappropriately or freezing up entirely.
- Perfectionist - Reine despises failure and will punish herself if she fails at a task at which she thinks she should succeed.
Health:
Reine is a fairly powerful looking woman but lacks the sheer size required to be intimidating. She has a number of permanent scars on her body. These are on her face and on her torso which includes an old healed wound in her shoulder. She is seeking help in healing it.As a paladin, Reine is virtually immune to natural disease, of extremely strong constitution and of ever increasing fitness. She has a morning routine of exercise which she sticks to before morning meditation.
Professions:
She is currently a servant of the Ilmateri Temple and is most often seen cleaning floors or attending to more senior members of the temple.In her past, she has been both a farmers daughter, working on a farm and a member of a local militia.
Spheres of Knowledge:
Reine is a reasonably smart commoner woman who is well read and an able learner. She is more wise than she is smart and her knowledge is not encylopediac by any means. However, her understanding is extremely focused on a handful of domains. She can be considered fluent in these areas and her lore focus is on those.
- Warfare - Reine reads military theory relentlessly as part of her faith. She believes deeply that the only way to reduce the suffering in conflict is to win it swiftly and decisively. She was also grandfathered into this by Antrak, who taught her a great deal about battle tactics. She is working on learning the faith of the Red Knight.
- Religion - Reine is a late comer to the Ilmateri faith and justifies her faith philosophically as well as devotionally. She is extremely invested in convincing others of her faith and somewhat evangelical about it. She particularly understands how the poor and common folk think and will often reach out to know and help them.
Habits/Hobbies:
Reine seems to have very few hobbies beyond serving her God. She is, however, a relentless reader when she has time to herself and a clever thinker. Reine is a terrible dancer but enjoys visiting local taverns filled with the working class.She has a number of dwarven hobbies and a liking for dwarven ale.
Languages:
Completely fluent in both the formal and informal dialects of common speech and the common dialects of dwarvish.Weapon of Choice:
Reine has been seen with both a longsword and shield. Her longsword appears to be a magical flaming longsword of some considerable power. She seems to prefer a defensive approach to fighting. Background:
Born to Maryln and Devin Arlynson close to three decades ago in a little farming community forty six leagues outside of Neverwinter's south gate, Reine was the youngest in the family of two boys and a girl. She had what could be described as a trunkated childhood as the troublemaker of the family, forever causing trouble for her overworked farmer father and his handful of workers. Perpetually climbing trees, getting into mischief and generally annoying her brothers as only a little sister could, she never settled into the farmers daughters life and had little time for the trappings of the common woman.A number of harsh winters in her adolescent years took their toll on the local farming community where her father worked, as well as a rash of bandit attacks which left their community's food stores depleted. The death of her mother coincided with both brothers leaving home as young men to seek work elsewhere, leaving only Reine with her father and a handful of adopted uncles and aunts who helped her grow. The continuing travails of the young troublemaker lead her frustrated father to exasperatedly encourage her to troublemake elsewhere.
The result was that at a mere fifteen years, the young Reine found herself learning how to fight and guard the community from minor pests. Already an athletic and strong tomboyish woman, she developed a skill with buckler shields and an old rusty long sword she named "Ringa."
The years went by and she joined a small mercenary group who wandered the various farming communities as security. It was in the Southwind Irregulars that Reine would find the first taste of the life she sought. This arrangement lasted for a number of years, until her early 20s, during which she honed a number of fighting skills, developed a defensive combat style of her own. It was there she met what she thought was to be a lifelong dwarven friend, Antrak of "No Clan Worthy Of Note", as the dwarf himself put it. Antrak taught her the dwarven tongue, a gift she remains thankful for to this day.
This ended abruptly when, responding to a recent spate of bandit sightings some fifteen leagues out of Neverwinter, the Irregulars were ambushed and slain almost down to a man. Reine herself was dragged off the field semi-conscious and awoke in an Ilmateri seminary, seriously wounded. She has hazy memories of this event, often changing her story based upon half remembered dreams. Antrak's body was never found amongst the slain.
During the next three seasons, Reine slowly recovered from her injury and came to be convinced that there was a reason this had happened. With no strong faith in the family, an encounter with an Ilmateri priest by the name of Anish Wilson convinced her that her suffering had a purpose. Study and a naturally keen philosophical mind only developed an understanding of Ilmateri theology in the woman. A natural student, the years passed her by and eventually, she came to understand her calling. The seminary taught her how to speak, how to present herself and eventually, how to fight again, recovering the use of her near crippled sword arm.
Never a priest, but a knight in the testing, Reine Arlynson now serves as a paladin of Ilmater. For a number of years, she was a knight errant, ghosting from place to place in an old, battered suit of armour absorbing what suffering she could, solving local disputes and learning the land. Not the grandest of paladins in the land, but a solid presence with a steady and kind demeanour.
Finally, she arrives in Baldurs Gate, seeking the Temple of Ilmater and its renowned Ilmateri priesthood.
Long Term Goals:
- Study under disciples of the Red Knight to further her strategic training
- Expand the activities of the Temple of Ilmater, primarily in the sewers below Baldurs Gate
- Befriend the dwarves of Kraak Helzak
- Get the Temple of Ilmater a new floor
Long Term Goals Done!:
- Reine now commands the Baldurian chapter of the Everwatch.
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Misc Facts:
- She sees herself as lower class and is uncomfortable in high society. Being an Ilmateri has done nothing to curtail this.- She is partly addicted to the adrenaline rush of combat. She occasionally has to catch herself to prevent herself from rushing into combat when her passions are inflamed.
- Reine was severely injured during what she believes was an ambush by a party of heavily armed bandits while serving as a militiawoman. Her group were slaughtered almost down to a man. She believes it was Ilmater's work and tells that story to this day. She still carries the scars from that day, both mental and physical. Her recollection of this day and its events is faulty.
- She believes her mother is dead and that her father is a good man and former farmer who works as an artificer. Neither are true. Her brothers died escaping the world her parents dragged them into. She was told they died of a disease.
- She is a good cook, but can't hunt to save her life.
- She is allergic to cat hair.
