Name: Helen Eloise Smith (nee Shivaliansen)
Appearance: Helen is a fairly short woman. Slender and a bit frail looking due to age. She has white hair and her skin is pale and wrinkled. She dresses, when not in her Candlekeep assigned attire, in high quality garments. No matter how she is dressed she has a fondness for jewelry and is near always wearing fine rings, earrings and bracelets. She has a particular fondness for mithral and pearls. She carries an enchanted dragon shaped walking stick. The silver scroll holy symbol of Oghma hangs at her neck. The glasses she wears are mithral framed and of great quality. She is always well put together and tidy, wearing her hair up in a bun, held in place by a mithral pin.
Race: Human
Sex: Female
Age: 73
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 119 lbs
Eyes: Blue, faded with age.
Hair: White (formerly auburn)
Skin: Pale, wrinkled.
Personality Profile: Helen is a serious and rather humorless woman. She does not jest often and dislikes, and often misses the point, of jokes and humorous things. She rarely laughs and even getting a quiet chuckle out of her is a rare thing. She find puns and wordplay particularly displeasing, feeling that one should mean what they say and use language to convey precise thoughts, not twist it for the sake of a jest, no matter how clever. She takes decorum and dignified behavior very seriously. She does not approve of cursing, gossip or ribald behavior. While she is a kind and unfailingly honest person her serious temperament can leave her seeming a bit stiff and dry. While she would never engage in cruel or evil behavior she is prone to a somewhat clinical detachment in her studies and can at time strike others as a bit harsh and unforgiving in her opinions. She takes obeying the law, honoring her word and speaking the truth very seriously. Her familiar, a lantern archon, has a tendency to temper some of her more harsh tendencies. She finds the fact that she was incapable of having children to be a regret and for this reason objects to being called "Grandma". She also finds being called Miss a bit irritating, mostly as after over fifty years of marriage she deems Mrs. to be the proper form. She is a brave person, both in general temperament and also because she feels she has lived a long and fulfilling life and has little fear of going on to serve Oghma in whatever will come next.
General Health: Helen was a reasonably healthy woman during her younger years, but led a fairly sedentary and settled life. Due to her parent's, and later husband's, wealth she never had reason to engage in physical labor. As she aged her strength and stamina naturally declined. She is now slow moving and has poor eyesight requiring glasses to see properly. Her hearing declined less than her sight, but is average at best. While she is now a bit frail as a older woman who never undertook much physical labor, her early monastic training has helped her retain at least a small amount of physicality that she might not have otherwise managed at this stage of her life. Still, she relies heavily on magic to fortify her physical stamina and does not travel or risk facing danger or combat without ensuring she has cast spells to enhance her physical abilities. Properly warded she can be sufficiently spry, but without the aid of spells and her enchanted possessions, she is frail and slow.
Deity: Oghma
Initial Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Proposed Class Development: Monk 3 / Wizard 9 / Cleric 18
Profession: Loremistress of Oghma
Languages: Common, Arcane, Celestial, Draconic, Elven, Infernal, Netherese, Yypyak.
Weapon of Choice: Her roaring dragon cane. The sonic enchantment causes a roaring sound to emit from the mouth of the head of this dragon shaped walking stick when swung. She has adapted her training with quarterstaves to the use of her cane and is surprisingly effective with it as a weapon, if less so than in her younger years. Due to it's enchantments and her training in youth when she has warded herself to enhance her physical abilities she is competent in using it in self-defense. She also remembers her lessons in unarmed combat, yet would only resort to this as a last resort when left no other options, and is no longer particularly talented or effective, though she might still surprise a lesser foes with a sudden stunning blow. She also carries enchanted shurikens, as she lacks the strength to reliably draw a bow or lug about a crossbow.
Background: Born in Amn to travelling merchant parents, by age three she had returned to the family home in Neverwinter. Her parents were successful merchants, primarily dealing in construction supplies and various tools for both construction and farming, as well as having some livestock and herding interests. While a member of the common class, her parents wealth allowed her to live a comfortable, even luxurious life. These tastes for the finer things, particularly fashion and jewels, have stayed with her throughout her life. Her intellect and common sense beyond her years was noticed early in her youth. Finding it difficult to satisfy her interest in books and learning her parents made the decision to send her to the House of Knowledge in Neverwinter. Here she took monastic and clerical training, using knowledge to improve herself, both body and mind. Her studious and serious nature served her well and soon she had begun her lifelong career as scholar and Loremistress in service to Oghma. At age twenty her parents introduced her to a young man, the son of a merchant in their acquaintance. The courtship went well and a year later Helen Shivaliansen married and became Mrs. Henry Smith. She and her husband were well suited and had a happy and successful marriage. When her own parents died she and her husband inherited the family business as she had no siblings. A more outgoing and personable man than she, Henry saw to much of the day to day management of the business while Helen pursued her duties as a Loremistress and scholarly interests while handling the accounts and finances of their businesses. Many happy years later her husband decided he wanted to move them to the town of Secomber, feeling a less urban environment would be beneficial to their construction business and be closer to the farms and ranches of the livestock they traded in. Helen, now in her fifties, was not as enthusiastic, yet agreed, as she had always been accommodating to her husband's happiness. For twenty years they resided in Secomber, conducting their business dealings and Helen filling much of her spare time teaching the local children and serving as a legal scribe to the complicated court and government system of Secomber. She now considers law, government and court proceedings as one of her chief areas of expertise. After a short illness she was left widowed at age 71. Finding little interest, and some sadness, at managing the family business after loosing her husband she spent the next two years slowly selling off her various business interests. She had long wanted to visit Candlekeep, yet had never been willing to be apart from her husband to do so. Now an unattached widow she used the proceeds of her various business interests to equip herself for travel and fund passage in a caravan bound for Baldur's Gate. Not long after she arrived at the gates of Candlekeep. After a careful study of the laws, customs, history and mission of Candlekeep and a number of conversations and meetings with members of the Avowed she made the decision to request admittance as an Acolyte. She was accepted and now has embarked on perhaps the final, and greatest, chapter of her life.
Lucis: Helen's familiar is a lantern archon. Lucis, the celestial word for light, is the name her gave her on meeting. Why Lucis responded to her ritual to obtain a familiar is something he has never been all that forthcoming on, stating only that she is his task if asked. He invariably refers to her respectfully as Mrs. Smith and looks after her with a paladin-like zeal. Due to his status as a sentient, celestial, being Helen allows him complete free will when he is summoned to her side. She never makes any attempt to use their deep connection to force any action on him he does not desire and allows him full access to her spells. She has come to trust him completely and often sees him as a guiding light, literally and figuratively. In many ways he has become her conscience and always works to temper any tendencies toward clinical detachment, pushing her always to goodly and righteous behavior and decisions.
Misc Facts/Plot Hooks: During her time as a legal scribe in Secomber, Helen's research and work helped convict many criminals. While it has never really occurred to her there are likely many such people who hold a grudge against her, or families and criminal associates of those condemned to death for their crimes who may hold a grudge. Perhaps one day someone with such a grudge might come looking for her.
The exact reason why Lucis appeared to her as a familiar is not clear to her, and even he is only partly aware of the full reasons for this pairing. ((Additional information available to any interested DMs))
Coming across a copy of Translations of Yypyak during the course of her studies left her fascinated with the language and it's draconic roots, eventually becoming an overall scholarly fascination with kobolds in general.