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| "It has a name, a name it told to me when I held it... It's the Central Grubistan." |
| ~Shrine Maiden Speaking of the World Spine |
Background[]
The Shrine Maiden was a priestess from the Thousand Fold Clan of Dwarves, from the Land of Wa. She was born with albinism, which was a sign for her clan to make her the next shrine priestess, and forcing her to live on the top of a shrine on the mountain home. The Shrine Maiden learned several practical skills to help with her duties, including brewing, tailoring, firework making, medicine and food preparation.
She was often called to brew beer, make fireworks and cook for festivals, and treat anyone who was injured either in good times or an impromptu emergency doctor. The Shrine Maiden also had the duty to deal with supernatural elements about the fortress and defeat or expel them, which lead to her appearance in Rakust Dosîm after encountering a void possessed object.
History[]
Appearing before the dwarves in her unusual garb, and pale hair, pale skin and bright pink eyes, many dwarves were initially convinced she was a ghost; they were also usually taken aback by her clan not naming her. She lived within the Shrine of Beor Fellhammer and served as the primary religious figure, and as one of the primary brewers of the fort; she perfected and recorded several recipes for tea, beer, spirits and medicine within the fortress archives. She would knit adamantine cloth armor, should smiths not be creating plates of the material, in order to keep newly awoken dwarves safe.
She created an Artifact monorail, with the Kobolds while being consumed by an overwhelming possessive mood by an unknown spirit. The Rail later mysteriously vanished.
She located a strange underwater altar within the Seaway and the body of Shalak Irontower, and acquired the artifact Preywhisper along with several watery altar gems swirling with black spots within and dripping with water even after drying. This was the beginning of her unlucky streak, though she was yet to know it.
She found the Central Grubistan, an overall positive experience. However, everyone soon after renamed Central Grubistan, the World Spine, which she didn't understand, claiming it was the will of the Grubistan to be called the Grubistan.
She called for an election for new Overseer due to a lack of the current Overseer's, Lotar Duergar, activity. The winner of the election, Kindello Lonoti, turned out to be a vampire.
She was killed by Kindello Lonoti via being flung from the top of his Mansion onto his courtyard.
She was resurrected by Tabbetha Bronzeleaf via an Artifact created through the magic of the Gray Lady.
She met with the Elves as part of the first group to ever travel the warpways all the way to the then unnamed Elven World.
During a battle soon after, against the Spirit of Fire, she used the gems to unleash unspeakable evil upon the world after Beor told her it was worth trying to see if the gems would help. The gems released a second void avatar upon the world, one intrinsically linked to her.
Soon after, she claimed Doublecrown the Endurant from R3P41R, and sought out a person to use it as its champion, little knowing she was the perfect candidate for its hunger to chop apart dark spirits.
She and McGuire created a new barrier after two crazed elves damaged the Central Grubistan, which also lead to chunks of the magic dirt above it to go missing.
Shrine Maiden says Farewell to Tabbetha, Tabbetha assends into being the next Spirit of nature.
After being notable in fighting off the hordes withing King's Grave Keep during ritual to resurrect the then fallen King Obsidianbeard, and butchering through several lesser forgotten beasts to open a path to the exit for others that conducted the ritual, she found The Seed of Humanity. She immediately knew what it was, and where to plant it.
Shrine Maiden planted the seed of humanity, deep in Rakust Dosim, it immediately grew into a potato of several magnitudes larger than a normal potato. She proceeded to care for the Seed. She misses the first humans called to the Cave World by the Seed.
The Maiden becomes overprotective of her "Children", and begins to knit armor, and breed horses for them. She negotiates with King Obsidianbeard to not harm her children if they are not hostile, unfortunately she couldn't talk him out of going after Bernassi humans.
Her "children" reject her help, but she continues trying to assist them the best she can.
Goes into a panic when the King and Warden Civeri take away the Seed of Humanity from her garden in Rakust Dosim, is put into prison.
The Maiden ices over the lake of Rakust in grief.
One of the last goblin seiges upon Rakust Dosim, the Maiden mounts upon Maximule and somehow properly utilizes the might of the mount to charge previously untouchable goblins. One of the last Goblins in Big Booty's gang dies by mistakenly jumping into Rakust lake, which was still iced over.
Shrine Maiden has idea to use the goblin's hand to give one of her "children", Geiger, back a working appendage.
Geiger's surgery fails due to a curse from a previous world, Ahmiliahk resurrects Geiger into a berserk undead. Geiger attacks and defeats all that were in witness of that day's events, nearly killing several. Shrine Maiden blames herself for the death, in her grief she begs King Obsidianbeard to kill her to restore her honor for her misdeed. He at first, refuses, but the Maiden then threatened him with Doublecrown, though in a very weak manor having shown in the past she is incapable and unwilling to harm other goodly races, the King, still concussed from the fight with Geiger then grants the honorable suicide to the Maiden.
The Death of the Shrine Maiden brings forth the wrath of the void Avatar, killing the Water Spirit and draining the world of its waters.
Death[]
Shrine Maiden had died twice on her tenure upon the World of Caves.
Her first death was by falling a great height after Kindelo the vampire flung her from the very top of his mansion onto the training ground below. This, however, was not her end. She was resurrected from death by Tabbetha Bronzeleaf and became the first to relay information about what happens after death. Though she did preface the experience as being heavily influenced by the strange artifact Tabbetha used, many became convinced of wild ideas that the Maiden had tried to correct given her experience with death.
Her second death was of her own choosing. Having failed a hand surgery upon the cursed human Geiger, and Geiger being resurrected into a rampaging abomination by Ahmilahk, a great deal of grief fill the Maiden's heart. With the mass blame of the situation upon her, she decided the only way to reclaim any honor for the situation was ritualistic suicide. In a broken state, she slogged back to the fortress, having been knocked out by the rampaging Geiger monster, and approached the King. Upon making a pathetic attempt of harm to Siegfried Obsidianbeard, and him making a cryptic comment about needing her for sacrifice, he relented and decapitated the Maiden as she wished. This was a terrible idea, as she was the only anchor keeping a Void Avatar in check, a fact no one ever told her.
Skills and Belongings[]
A known healer, though she rarely got to use her talents in the art of medicine, and unfortunately her final act of mending resulted in death from previous complications of the patient (though she blamed herself in the end). She was able to brew a sacred God medicine to give Beor his health back after repeated abused from others had left him in dire straits.
She was a notable alcohol and tea brewer, having discovered several well loved alcohols and drink cocktails that she wrote into books for the general public to learn from should she ever die.
She was a devout follower of Beor, and a pacifist, believing dwarves should never fight other dwarves, and that she should never harm an intelligent living creature. Though she was in the role of a priestess, her sacred rituals rarely ever had any effect to prevent or ward anything. She also lacked any ability to see spirits.
Across two lives, the Shrine Maiden owned a number of Artifacts and objects she held close to her:
- Bad Stick, an Artifact the kobolds gave to her at Chrism, it was an extremely easy to wield weapon that could crush and burn evil in a single tap. It had crushed several powerful undead in its tenture as the maiden's primary weapon, including the King of Dust.
- Preywhisper, an Artifact created by Shalak Irontower, a crossbow mounted with a bayonet and enchanted with unlimited ammo, it possessed an aura that returned damage to attackers, and its shots held more knockback than its peers.
- Doublecrown the Endurant , an Artifact Created by Thora Steelsmith, an unusual double bladed battleaxe, it possessed the ability to grow in power from the divine blessings given to it by Gods. It has a will of its own that pulls towards chopping trees, and dark spirits, as it was made to fight the hostile tree spirit, the Grey Lady. In the tenure as holder of the axe, The Shrine Maiden secured blessing from the Old Gods of Beor's world, and Mira the Elven Demi-god. The legend of Doublecrown is one passed down upon many Dwarves, being used to cripple the Grey Lady enough for Tabbetha to strike a killing blow, face down the first encounter with the King of Dust, killing the blade of damaged psyche, and even being used against the corrupt resurrection of Shalak Irontower long after the Maiden's death.
- Hotboots, due to the curse of the void, the Maiden would often frost over areas she walked, this became a regular occurrence for many across the fort to clean up after her trails of snow. Eventually this caught the eye of R3P41R the Golem, when she was waiting in front of the Golem lab and had ended up making a massive pile of frost at his doorstep. In order to prevent further pile ups, he created self heating boots to put upon the Maiden's feet. Further frost pile ups never happened again.
- The Slickle, a sickle greased with sacred ash beard oil, it bound to the sickle in odd ways and infused it with extra precision, the Maiden used this for grass and ice harvests.