Still need to sort out some gear and details, and I've left the recent stuff vague to fit into however we start the game, but this is the gist of it all. Tried to take the notion of magic as the scary unknown and run with it.
Aesa WyrmbornArcanist 6
It was clear from her birth that Aesa was no ordinary elf, with her flame-bright eyes and feverish skin. As a toddler she began playing with flames, laughing as she held her hand within them as though it merely tickled. As a child, she began to focus her will into magic.
It was not unexpected. Years before a massive dragon had descended from the sky upon the wooded mountain village, great beats of its ruby wings sending waves of ash through the streets. It demanded sacrifice, and Aesa's mother Aella was chosen as the most beautiful maiden, chained in the forest and left for dead as the beast instructed. But she was not devoured; for months she served the creature - both as beast and when it took the form of a man. Finally, having stolen as many riches as it could find, it departed with barely a word. Aella was abandoned pregnant on a remote peak; she took weeks returning to her village and never fully recovered, dying during Aesa's childhood.
The clan accepted the child as they had accepted Aella's sacrifice: stoically and honorably. Not compassionately. The girl was too different, too full of rage, anger, and destructive magic. For her part, Aesa wished little to do with the near strangers who had left her mother to her death. She took their courtesy as her due, devoured the knowledge of their library and minor talents, apprenticed with craftsmen and prepared for the day she would seek revenge.
With little more than her magic, clothes, and a sword she secretly crafted herself, Aesa set out to find her father Ciamar and devour his heart. She quickly came to realize how kind the elves had been. In time, she would even come to think fondly of the home she'd exiled herself from, where no one reviled her eyes or grew terrified of a simple cantrip. Where no one turned to violence against the outsider. Aesa soon learned to use the fear for protection: to intimidate or manipulate those who would otherwise turn against her, to keep them cowed for their own safety. It was a surprisingly easy lesson.
She has spent the intervening years pursuing her quest, chasing rumors of a massive, scarred red dragon across the land and beyond the sea, burning anyone - and anything - that dared to stand in her way.
