Tower Mountain Character Information Sheet

    April 2001

    Includes Old Settlement, Hidden Valley I, New Hope and 4th Millennium Tower Information


    Originator of Character: Barb Cummings

    Name: Alethian (in actuality Alethe; she made up the name Alethian as a small child to help develop shields against her mother's sending. A few people probably remember her "real" name; she herself has almost forgotten it.)
    Mraal Epithet(s): None known
    Soul Name: Alethe (sort of)
    Soul Name Known By: Piet
    Soul Name(s) Known: None

    Gender: Female
    Species: Elf
    Status: Alive
    Generation/Age: 1st; Born TWR -5340
    Origin: The Old Settlement
    Current Residence: Tower Mountain
    Declared?: N/A

    Hair: White, straight, cut very short during her stay with the trolls. Will grow it out after her rescue.
    Eyes: Silver-grey
    Skin: Fair to average
    Height: 5'3"
    Build: Athletic; wide shoulders and hips. Gets too much exercise at the forge to qualify as voluptuous, but definitely not thin.
    Voice: Throaty, rich alto, a torch-singer voice.
    Other Physical Attributes: Full mouth, straight nose, high cheekbones, oval face with strong jaw and slightly pointed chin, gorgeous legs. Missing little finger on left hand and the tip of one ear; old whip scars on back.

    Parents: Betirai, Auiriath, birth parents; Ceara, Weral (3-mating plus 1)
    Siblings: Valkirah and Attai, full sibs; 1/2 sibs Nez, by Betirai and Weral; Serroi, Paccarr, Fiellys, and Lest by Auiriath and Ceara.
    First Cousins:
    Nieces/Nephews: Gyaen, Reevirah, Rhesa, Tiirz, Geibryl, Xylene, Wynorra and Sascha; also Aylirah, Synf, Rehn and Shi, deceased
    Other Relatives:

    Current Mate: In development
    Previous Mates: Davrille, Jinan, Crystel, others TBD; prefers female lovers
    Recognized?: Yes, to Piet
    Child: Methyr, son
    Closest Friends: Valkirah, (D) Davrille; Pearl in New Hope; others TBD.
    Bondbeast(s): None

    Talents: Rock/metal-shaper senses, very small amount of actual rock/metalshaping talent; very strong (but untrained) sender. Can 'go out' and has used mind-snare at least once; both are (at least at her current level of training) very draining for her.
    Skills: In the Old Settlement, sailor. In the HV, metalworking/mining.
    Hobbies: Reasonably good dancer, exceptional singer. Spelunking and rock-climbing.
    Weapons: Trained in harpoon and spear, mainly used in fishing.

    Jewelry: Prefers simplicity. Favorites are silver ankle bracelets.
    Clothing: Tunic and breeches when working at the forge. Off work, has a weakness for short-shorts that show off her legs. Prefers simple, comfortable clothing but will dress to kill for special occasions (likes very daring slit-up-to-here gowns.) Woefully aware that bright colors wash her out and usually settles on shades of grey with something small and bright, like a sash, for accent.

    Personality and History

             Born in the Old Settlement, the second child of Betirai and Auiriath. Her childhood was fairly ordinary, though she sometimes felt overshadowed by siblings--her parents didn't neglect her by any means, but she was a middle child in a very large family. Between the larger-than-life flamboyance of Valkirah, Fiellys and Lest and the moods suffered by Serroi, Attai and Paccarr, Alethian was often overlooked because she was quiet and didn't cause trouble. She inherited some portion of both her her parents' Talents, but there was always a strain between her and Betirai. Alethian disliked the fact that her mother's deep sensing ability always seemed to be set permanently on "high" and felt that her mother was always "in her mind, poking around," and kept as much distance as possible between them; the one part of her sending Talent she developed early on was strong shields. As she had no desire to study under her mother, and there was no real call to develop her much weaker rockshaping senses, she paid little attention to her Talents and instead became a sailor on her father's ship.
            Unlike many of her pragmatic relatives, Alethian had a rich imagination and was forever inventing stories. She usually kept her fantasies to herself, as she was not outgoing enough to make a good actor or raconteur. Always somewhat quiet, Alethian grew more reserved as she grew older. She had very few relationships, and rather bad luck with the ones she did have. (It should be noted that despite Alethian's outward desire for a permanent relationship, she actually had a deep fear of getting too close, possibly stemming from her resentment of her mother's too-strong Talent. She tended to fall hardest for those she had the least chance of catching, and had a tendency to sabotage her own relationships.) It was all the more depressing that one by one her siblings paired off (except Lest, who had no desire for a permanent mate to begin with.) Despite the liking she felt for her father and most of her brothers and sisters, Alethian often felt that she had been born into the wrong family by mistake.
             The decision to move from the Old Settlement was a painful one for Alethian, for she, like her father, loved the sea. However, after settling in the Hidden Valley she found a new love: exploring the caves and cliffs around the valley. For the first time her shaper's instincts seemed useful, and she learned to use them to find ore or gem deposits or water (she never developed the power to shape large quantities of stone or metal; about a cupful at a time is her limit.) Mainly, however, she used them to aid her in her climbing, to find the best place to place pitons or to tell whether or not a cave continues behind the low spot in the wall. She also learned what little the Hidden Valley elves knew about smithing. She designed and made some of her own jewelry, but her main craft was making small household items-- tableware, candlesticks, lamps, trivets, and the like, working in gold, silver, pewter and tin (if they had tin). Far from working on a epic projects, she became known for creating art on an intimate (pardon the phraseology) "human" scale.
            Ironically, Alethian felt less and less in touch with other elves. With the work aboard ship no longer available to keep her in daily contact with Auiriath, Alethian drifted away from her remaining family. Strong as her sending was, she was seldom completely cut off from contact, but even when in the Valley and among other elves, she felt increasingly lonely.
             Alethian met Periel on a rare trip to the Hometree Grove. Periel was one of the younger elves who'd been born in the Valley. Gentle, vivacious and strong-willed, she fascinated Alethian immediately. Elated and yet wary of repeating earlier disappointments, Alethian spent several years building elaborate fantasies about their future, occasionally leaving her small anonymous gifts. Periel, who barely knew Alethian in the first place, had no idea why this notoriously unsociable elf began to seek her out and try to make painful small talk. When at last she realized what was going on, she tried to let Alethian down gently: she had no interest in a lovemating, but (the Official Kiss Of Death) they could still be friends.
            Alethian was crushed by the rejection, the more so because she had half-suspected that this would be the case all along. She spent as much time berating herself for being so foolish as in raging (quietly) at Periel's heartlessness. She returned to her caves and hills, sick at heart and convinced that there was something wrong with her; everyone else in the world could attract someone. News that Periel had Recognized Lord Meiron did nothing to make her feel any better. She transferred her hurt and anger to Meiron and planned numerous unlikely scenarios in which she showed him up and Periel suddenly realized what a terrible mistake she'd made.
            After the birth of Periel and Meiron's son Piet, Alethian left the Hidden Valley--for good, she thought. In the course of her journey Alethian discovered a troll. Though she had heard of trolls, she had never met one and was willing to forget their bad reputation of legend in order to coerce new metalworking techniques out of him. When the troll refused to cooperate, Alethian tried to follow him back to his home warren. The troll, on the other hand, was equally determined to follow her back to her tribe. For almost a year the two of them played hide-and-seek through the mountains. Alethian was able to lose the troll more easily simply by returning to the surface; her shaper's senses allowed her to find cave entrances and exits that even the trolls didn't know about. However, she became overconfident and was eventually caught.
            She confessed the location of the tunnel into the Hidden Valley after several moons of questioning, partly because she wanted, somehow, to get back at Periel and Meiron by dumping a large problem in their laps, partly because the troll leader offered to show her new forging techniques, partly because she was alone and depressed. The sack of the Hidden Valley was far more brutal than she had expected--if she'd thought about the consequences of her actions at all, she'd figured that the trolls would barge into the valley, rough a few people up, and cause some trouble. She was horrified at the actual outcome; when Lord Meiron brought down the cave-in upon the survivors, Alethian was struck in the head by debris. Ever since her memory of her role in the sack of the Valley has been fuzzy, whether due to actual physical damage or to guilt seizing on the injury as an excuse to forget isn't clear.
            After the slaughter she was confined with the only other elf to (as she thought) survive; Faih, another minor rockshaper. As Faih's Talent was barely stronger than Alethian's own, neither of them were of much use to the trolls, who were bitterly disappointed at losing all their useful prisoners in one fell swoop and took it out on the remaining two. She and Faih reacted very differently to their capture. Faih became stoic and simply endured it all while Alethian became suicidally reckless, conceiving escape plan after escape plan, all of which failed and earned her a number of lashes and lost her several body parts. However, since neither of them were of any practical use to the troll clan, each was sold or traded to other clans within a few years. The two elves lost track of each other almost immediately.
            Alethian eventually ended up with the Island Troll Clan, a much less militaristic group. As they were a metal-poor tribe, even a shaper whose Talent was as rudimentary as Alethian's was useful to them as an ore-finder, and as they were sea-going, her sailing expertise was a plus--unfortunately it was revealed when the ship taking her to the Island hit a storm on the way; Alethian had planned on keeping it a secret and making an escape by sea. As things fell out, she was not allowed near a ship without supervision. She eventually struck up a friendship with the Island trolls' matriarch, whom she genuinely likes--but not enough to prevent her from evolving a new hopeless escape plan every few years. In her latest attempt, since physical escape had proven ineffective, Alethian began exploring the other half of her Talent, that from her mother's side of the family, eventually teaching herself to "go out."
            Eventually she was able to contact Piet in New Hope by this method. She was very much surprised, as she thought he'd died with the rest of the Hidden Valley elves. Terrified that the New Hope elves would not take the trouble to come get her, she mind-snared Piet and announced that she would release him after her rescue. New Hope sent a ship after her, Alethian was rescued in short order, she returned Piet's spirit to his body--and the two of them promptly Recognized.
            If Alethian is questioned about the sack of the Valley, her answers will be vague; she will blame Meiron, bad luck, the trolls, but never herself, refuse to talk about it at all if pressed, and grow quite angry and defensive without being able to explain why. The only living elves who may have evidence that she is the traitor who led the trolls to the Valley would be Piet and Faih, neither of whom realize what they know. (The other Hidden Valley survivors, Avensyn and Fiellys, left long before the trolls attacked.) A clever and determined investigator might be able, to piece the story together, especially if Alethian were forced to allow a deep senser or healer to look into her memories. Alethian would fight this sort of invasion tooth and nail, of course.
            Alethian spends thirty-some years in New Hope, in a sort of mating-of-convenience with Piet and his lovemate Rahirah. She has no interest in Piet sexually, but his totally loving and accepting nature makes him an object of both fear and fascination to someone who has all the bizarre intimacy issues Alethian does. Alethian does her best to raise her and Piet's son, Methyr, and tries to train her strong but unreliable sending talent. Methyr, as he gets older, bears a strong and disturbing resemblance to his grandfather Meiron, and rather weirds Alethian out. Around the end of that time, she regains some of the suppressed memories regarding the fall of the Hidden Valley, and her own role in letting the trolls in. Consumed by not-very-useful guilt, she immediately tells Piet everything (because it "wouldn't be right" to keep the truth from him) and immediately runs off to the Tower to "spare him the pain" of living with the person responsible for the deaths of his parents.
            Once ensconced in the Tower, Alethian may either continue to find new and interesting ways to screw up her own life, or finally get her head together, or both...

    Humans: Has seen very few and has no real opinion of them.
    Trolls: Mixed. Has liked individuals but has a poor opinion of them overall.
    Preservers:Thought they were pesky but was willing to put up with them for their useful qualities. For some reason they make her uneasy now.

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