Arda

Information

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Her garments usually shift depending on where she is, where she’s going and what she’s currently doing. She’s commonly dressed in a set of dirtied, shoulder-less brown robes accompanied by a pair of simple sandals whenever out and about with unofficial business, keeping her dagger and staff well at hand while dressed as such. Her secondary attire consists of a shirt and thick cloth vest, fingerless gloves, whole trousers and tall boots. She generally keeps these clothes handy when she plans on travelling greater distances by foot, striking a very “adventure”-y impression with the chosen getup.

She has a number of additional attires for different occasions, though these don’t see as much use as the ones mentioned above and are therefore not particularly important to mention. If you see her, you’ll likely see her dressed in either of the above; most likely the former.

Personality

Alignment: Lawful Good

There is nothing but pure goodwill in Ardanna. Her whole life has been cast aside in order for her to serve a single purpose; protect all life. It is what she was doing before she was discovered by the Red Dragonflight, what the Dragonflight wants her to keep doing, and what she'll continue doing until she dies. True to the concepts of altruism, she holds no prejudice close to her heart and sheds her doubts and suspicions in order to give each and every individual the benefit of the doubt. She does not question another individual's motives or causes needlessly unless it's part of the healing process, respecting boundaries and meddling in peoples' lives only so much as she needs to in order to save them.

Because she has adapted to such a generous mindset, one could say that Ardanna has in many ways surpassed the standard mindsets of the common mortals. She thinks in the larger scale of things first and foremost, worrying about the trivialities later. This has caused her to deny herself many of the things that come with her mortal nature, such as the regular pleasures of everyday life. While she craves like any other sane being, she has found ways to keep herself healthy and sane without falling for distrations that would pull her away from her path.

This is also something that causes her greater grief than she would ever admit. She suffers just like any other mortal on Azeroth, but has practiced enough not to let this show. She guards her secrets and weaknesses very closely, calling them trivial or denying their existance altogether in order to protect herself. Believing firmly that her weaknesses can be the death of her, she shields them from the outside world and instead downplays her own competence quite purposely to never leave her sides open. It is better to keep the ace up your sleeve and lay low. She is not the type to play her whole hand on any table and would be rather satisfied should she not win. The longer people believe her to be weak because she makes herself out to be, the longer the ball will stay on her side of the court. It's a safety precaution; three hundred years on the road have taught her well how to survive the greatest menace of all; other humanoids.

While she is an altruist in every sense of the word, her ideas of health and happiness do not necessarily coincide with those of her patients. She will go to great lengths to pursue her goals, and it does not usually concern her much if she does not earn the approval of those she intends to save. She does go out of her way to secure approval most of the time to let the healing happen on the patient's terms, but when all peaceful options run out... Ardanna is not one to stop and roll over. She will persist in her efforts and take to potentially unorthodox means in order to protect the individual, the immediate area, the environment, the society or the world. The scale does not matter in the slightest.

As a woman with wordly experience, Ardanna is very adept at acting. She knows what is and is not expected of her and many times she knows how to use this to her advantage in order to manipulate peoples' disposition towards her. She is knowledgeable in the inner workings of the mind and the body alike and she has studied environmental and social factors on the psyche for a very long time. Educated and experienced, Ardanna carefully absorbs knowledge as she goes and puts her theories and experiences to practice in order to perfect her art and further her cause. She lets every new case teach her in preparation of her future endeavours, always trying to stay one step ahead as far as information is concerned.

History

Born and raised in Quel’thalas some four-hundred years ago, Ardanna was brought into a rather devout and strict family. Faith had always been a large part of their lives and the tenants of the Church were introduced to her very early. At the time, admittedly, Ardanna was rather skeptical to her family’s teachings and often found herself shunning and dismissing the wise words spoken by her elders and resisted their efforts to bring her up in a faithful and true mentality. Her rebellious and youthful self instead sought to practices in other fields, finding fascination in the arts of Arcane magic and became an avid reader early in her life. Her studies took up most of her time—spanning the various fields of magic and its history—and she found herself travelling abroad to further her understanding in the arts of magic by witnessing the study and practice in the human kingdoms. Possessing a bright mind, the adult Ardanna was greatly appreciated amongst her fellow Arcanists and spent a few years tutoring young apprentices in the kingdom of Lordaeron before urgent news from home sent her packing.

She returned home, having spent roughly twenty years amongst the humans, only to find her father on his deathbed. Soon after she had left their home, her father had fallen ill. He had rejected the caring attention of his wife and other children, succumbing slowly to the affliction that ravaged his body. The entire family had no choice but to stand by his side and watch him slowly fade away before their eyes, respecting his wishes and honouring his integrity. A few months into his never-ending suffering and agony, he finally passed away and the large family gathered to pay their respects, performing a burial rite in his honour. His wife joined him soon thereafter, inexplicably falling ill only weeks after their father’s passing and failing to respond to any efforts to bring back her spark of life. She was buried alongside her husband and honoured in kind.

The following years were spent near her home, where Ardanna aided her elder brother in taking care of what was left of the family estates. At this time, she was no older than seventy. Her interest in the Arcane dwindled and she soon forgot most of what she’d practiced back in Lordaeron, the techniques and rites escaping her memory to leave little else but scattered paragraphs she’d read while in the midst of her most intense period of studying. Instead, she decided to honour her family’s long practice and took to studying their literature, occasionally making her presence known during sermons locally in Quel’thalas or travelling once more abroad to witness the humans during the practice of their faith.

Quite frankly, she was mesmerized by the effects that the faith could have on people. She could look in the eyes of the downtrodden and see endless hope and relief even as they starved and withered away in poverty, and the pure conviction in the words of the preachers truly did astound her and shake her up intimately. It took her a while and many more visits to the sermons and long and hard discussions with the priests before she finally got serious about succeeding her parents in the practice of the divine arts. While she didn’t so much honour a divine force and entity, she recognized the effects that the faith had and what it could do for someone, pouring her heart and soul into her new creed as she set out to spread hope and good health. The religion surrounding the Holy Light was merely a tool and means to an end at this point in time, and this wouldn’t change much as she continued her work throughout the Eastern Kingdoms. She concentrated her efforts in the human kingdoms and travelled through villages to lend her hand and smooth words to the needy.

In her travels, she saw much suffering. Whereas there weren’t many wars at the time, poverty and crime still ravaged the various settlements to leave their inhabitants crippled and deep in their own misery. Ardanna spent herself trying to help these people, one person at a time, sometimes employing faux techniques such as palm readings or the reading through cards in order to fish them for information that she could use to slowly but surely set them on the right track and start their personal healing process. She would subtly spread the teachings of the Church to give the people hope and the strength to carry on with their lives, bringing peace and compassion into the lives of many through her subtle techniques of persuasion. Her growing conviction in her cause made Ardanna extremely determined, and she started practicing basic medicine along the road in order to be further available to the people she reached out to. It wasn’t until later that she gained access to the divine disciplines, however, when her conviction gained another significant boost.

This boost was named Terastraza. In her travels, Ardanna came upon a stunningly beautiful woman covered in dirt and bile on the side of a country road. It was in the middle of the figurative nowhere of Alterac. There were no settlements nearby and the area was generally known to be ravaged by highwaymen attacking caravans on the roads. Judging by the look of this woman, this was what had occurred. It didn’t dawn upon Ardanna that there was no debris after a caravan; however, as she dedicated the following hours to carry the taller woman on her own to the nearest place she could build a shelter. Unfortunately, she couldn’t manage to reach a settlement before sundown and was forced to camp out in the wilds for the night. After building a makeshift camp with her limited abilities and expertise, she tended to the woman’s various injuries to make sure she was stabilized, brewing a pain suppressant over an open fire with the use of a few local herbs she managed to find not too far from their campsite. She didn’t sleep at all that night.

The following morning, Ardanna carried the woman into the nearest settlement and made arrangements upon arrival to give her proper lodgings until she could make a full recovery, sticking by her side for the two days to follow until the woman finally awoke. At that point, the woman thanked Ardanna kindly for her kindness and bestowed upon her a small trinket—a golden locket with a hatch to allow it to open, though there seemed to be nothing inside. Ardanna reluctantly accepted the gift of gratitude, staying with the woman until she could walk again on her own and then saw her off safely from the settlement before Ardanna could be on her way again. She kept her locket close at hand and found herself looking at it more often than she would’ve expected. There was something about the locket that fazed her and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, though she refused to be rid of it. You don’t throw away gifts.

It would be a while before Ardanna saw the woman again. She spent a couple of years carrying on with her duties as a healer of body and mind, occasionally getting the spooks from the locket she always carried on her person, before Terastraza appeared before her again. In recognition of her goodwill and remarkable efforts towards fostering hope and wellbeing amongst the populace, the woman came forth to the elf that she was looking for people like her to work for her and further her cause throughout the world. Ardanna accepted her offer, thus taking up arms for the cause of the Red Dragonflight from that day forward. She was barely a hundred years old at the time.

Her conviction in her cause deeper than ever following the recognition of the Red Dragon, Ardanna continued her travels and took her practices the step further into full-blown physical and mental therapy, the force of her conviction in her cause allowing her to call upon the divine powers to mend flesh and calm worried minds, different domains of magic working in perfect harmony while in her hands. Under the guidance and supervision of Terastraza, Ardanna was pitched into areas of dire need in order to calm rising tensions and aid in the preservation of peace and hope for the people in order to prevent major outbreaks of dissent which could lead to bloodshedding conflicts; both of which worked against Ardanna’s and Terastraza’s interests.

Confident in her calling, Ardanna travelled alone up and down the continent and steadily grew into a fantastically independent and strong-willed woman. She became a survivor in her own right to travel such great and perilous distances on her own, learning quickly how to use the divine magic to subdue whomever would wish to take her life; man and animal alike. She could not slay, however, simply incapacitating before moving on and disappearing out of their lives before they could come to their senses once more.

She continued to travel like this for many, many years. Or, at least, until the wars began. With the opening of the portal, Ardanna was swiftly called into duty to move quickly between affected settlements that came under siege by the Orc invasion. She travelled through human territory and dedicated her time to assisting in caring for the wounded and saving scattered survivors after raids. Her tenacity was truly put to the test once these conflicts arose as the hope and will of the injured and those who lost their homes and families were many times so beyond repair that it crippled Ardanna’s own faith, though she kept going by the force of her own will and conviction and helped save many lives along with the other doctors. A somewhat shameful stain on her record after the Second War would be that she even assisted the management later in the internment camps, looking over the health of the inmates and at times speaking words of inspiration to the soldiers keeping watch over them. She wasn’t allowed to stay for very long in the proximity of these camps, however, due to confidentiality, risk and the fact that duty called her swiftly elsewhere.

Testing her will and endurance for years, Terastraza instructed the worn Ardanna to assist in whatever way possible. Ominous rumours of a plague set Ardanna abroad again and she was unfortunately not able to make it back to Quel’thalas before the sacking and destruction of their beloved Sunwell. Still in human territory at the time of the sacking, Ardanna suffered intensely from the sudden lack of its magic to sustain her. Terastraza once again appeared before her and put a ruby--a small and perfectly rounded, red jewel, within the locket she had previously been given by her. While it didn’t sate her symptoms of withdrawal, it did make it easier for her to endure the suffering as she made the journey back to her homelands.

There, she assisted in the rebuilding of Silvermoon and was bundled in with the rest of her people, dubbing themselves Blood Elves at this point in time. In the absence of their beloved Prince, the spirit of her people was at its lowest and she dedicated all of her time to assisting her fellow kinsmen and doing what little she could to heal their broken spirits enough for the weaker to make a recover eventually. The addiction to magic became too much for some to handle before the new methods were introduced to them and these individuals slipped out of her grasp, forever leaving deep gashes in her own spirit.

Eventually, their prince sent an envoy to educate the people in new methods to sustain themselves. Ardanna joined in on the charade to continue holding on to the bond of kinship with the rest of her people and keep their trust and confidence, secretly thoroughly disgusted in what they were forced to do. Terastraza understood her grievances but ensured her that it was for the better. For her to continue her work, it was important that she remained a part of their people, whatever that might take. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It didn’t take long until the Sunwell was eventually restored and the people recovered their spirits for the most part. The betrayal of their Prince wounded many very deeply, however, and the previous betrayal of the Alliance had cut the Blood Elves off from their former allies. Associated with them, Ardanna realized her duties would forever become so much more difficult to carry out now that she no longer had access to many of the domains that she formerly worked in. Either way, Ardanna spent the time between the Sunwell’s destruction and it’s recovery to heal and aid the population of Quel’thalas and eradicate the Scourge that closed in too much on the city, contributing some to the overall efforts before once again being called away by her duties. It was time for her to do her part in the eradication of the Scourge as a whole, and for that… She had to join hands with the Argent Crusade.

Lending her hand to the efforts of the Crusade, Ardanna assisted their organization with her medical expertise as well as her proficiency in mending the spirits of the shaken soldiers. She spent most of her time in their camps, tending to the wounded, though was occasionally found out in the battlefields with the rest of them to use her divine magic to vanquish many agents of the Scourge. She followed the Crusade all the way into the Citadel where Arthas was eventually defeated and the Scourge officially neutralized on the larger scale of things. She was never there to watch the final showdown itself, though she was close enough to hear the cries of joy and relief when it was all over. At that moment, she couldn’t help but smile.

With Arthas removed, Ardanna no longer had any particularly urgent matters to tend to. Terastraza once again made an appearance to her faithful servant, granting her one final gift for her dedicated service. A pebble and a recipe, along with the instruction to give more of herself to those she couldn’t, for whatever reason, help entirely. She had been given the recipe and ability to craft protective trinkets much like the one she had been given by Terastraza. Nevertheless, it was a gift that Ardanna cherished and showed great gratitude for, immediately setting herself loose on perfecting the crafting of said trinkets. Meanwhile, she started travelling again through afflicted areas, looking for individuals she could aid and heal. Her pursuit often brought her to Goblin cities where she would tend to the downtrodden and corrupt in hopes of helping to turn their lives around.

This did not change at all come the Cataclysm and the Shattering. If anything, it only made her more busy, requiring her to travel far and wide with increased frequency to answer the calling of her matron and the Flight. The Shattering bought about plenty of victims; many of whom Ardanna threw away everything in order to reach out to.

And that’s where she’s at, now. Making the world a better place to be; one person at a time.

Skills and Abilities

Harmonious Discipline: Her conviction to her cause and using several means to the same ends makes Ardanna adept at utilizing and combining the beneficial effects of both Light and Shadow disciplines, maintaining a harmonious balance between both types of magic in her practices in using them to mend both body and mind/spirit.

Spiritual Hot-Wiring: As part of her creed, she heals not only the body but also focuses on damages done to the soul itself. With the careful use of mental magicks and techniques, she can with physical contact and consent, with the cooperation of the recipient, "reprogram" memories to a degree by using cognitive therapy combined with magical effects. This requires the recipient's full attention since they have to actively focus on memories and emotions that are to be "reprogrammed".

Unorthodox Education: In part due to her past expertise in the Arcane arts, in part through recent literary, active and visual studies, Ardanna is well versed in the effects and symptoms of various curses. She knows the tell-tale signs of most simple curses and can quickly detect and identify them. In addition, she has become adept at the removal of said curses and similar magickal effects such as hexxes.

Tongue of Scales: Due to her many years of service to the Red Dragonflight, Ardanna has picked up a thing or two about the language spoken and written by the draconic race. As such, she is adept in its usage and can read and understand much of it when it is spoken. She struggles to imitate it when attempting to speak it, herself, but she can utter a few basic words and phrases. Not that she would, mind! She is far better at writing and reading it than she is at speaking it, herself.

Saviour: Ardanna is adept at the use of herbs and natural ointments to mend injuries and other kinds of afflictions, an experienced healer and doctor since before she started using divine powers to assist her in her medical practice.

Terastraza’s Locket: The initial function of the locket was to ease her suffering from her magical addiction, though this has become less of a problem in recent days. The locket simply functions as decoration now, giving a slightly calming and pain-suppressing effect when worn on your person. Nothing significant, however.

Recipe to Salvation: The recipe she was given as a final gift by Terastraza allows her to craft trinkets with a special enchantment on them. The basic effect of the trinket is that it staves off your death for a time, though this is depending on the afflictions you suffer from. Instant and definite death will be unaffected, such as being beheaded or gibbed by explosive forces. Situations where death is instant and unavoidable. For situations where death is near-instant, such as heartstop, crippling blows to the head or severed arteries will stave off the death by approximately twenty seconds to a couple of minutes; this is long enough for someone nearby to perform emergency healthcare. If the condition isn't instantly deadly (such as bleeding out slowly, succumbing to poison, starvation or dehydration), the trinket will be able to stave off the wearer's demise for approximately a day (provided their condition doesn't change during this time for whatever reason). When the trinket takes effect, Ardanna will know. However, she will not know where, how or which; merely that an amulet is currently active.

Arda

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