Flora

Information

Player: Dae

Character Full Name: Flora Venfield

Character In-Game Name: Flora

Nickname(s): None

Association(s): None

Race: Forsaken

Class: Hunter

Age: 34

Sex: Female

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: a pale, cerulean ghostlight. These are relatively dim for a Forsaken.

Weight: 160

Height: 5'7"

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Flora typically wears simple cloth or leather, though will don light armor when appropriate and available. She likes wearing aprons and smocks as a novelty.

Other: From the bottom of the ribs to the pelvis is a wide metal band with the seam along the spine, holding her top and bottom half together. This makes her posture stiff and erect, but does not hinder her her motility too significantly. Below the waist her skin is a slightly different sickly tone, leaving her uncertain of whether her legs are truly hers. Her left hand has lost most of its soft tissue. Her face is carefully stitched back together along the cheek bones.

Personality

Despite being undead, Flora enjoys the company of the living, as well as practices the loved in life, such as cooking and farming, though she is well aware of how illogical it is for her to do so. Having generally come to terms with her undeath, she isn't afraid to express her curious, sometimes childish behavior. Having been raised on the rural outskirts of Lordaeron, she isn't particularly educated or classy, but she does enjoy learning and is very earnest about her feelings. Flora feels that the living and dead can reconsile their differences and live together peacefully after finding a brother in a Lordaeron paladin. The current war effort of the Forsaken following the Cataclysm leaves her quite torn, however, as she still considers this undead faction as the source of her rebirth, and the residence of many people she cares about or owes her (un)life to.

Alignment: Neutral Good

History

Flora grew up in a quiet Lordaeron hamlet, raised to be a sweet and gentile woman. Her mother suffered from an uncertain health condition, and as the oldest child of two, Flora took it upon herself to take care of her and her brother when the illness manifested in full force after a taxing miscarriage. Flora had an insatiable curiosity and a love for the few books she could get her hands on, borrowing all the books in town. They included volumes on the Holy Light, her family's almanac, a few books on history, fairytales and a tome of exotic creatures from around the world. She cherished her fantasies of far off places, strange creatures and great feats of magic, but when her mother finally passed away when she was fifteen, Flora lost hope. Her father became cold and domineering, and her brother delinquent, and the tiny community that she had known her entire life was shaken. Dismissing her past dreams as childish and selfish, she dedicated herself to others to an unhealthy degree. She became the spouse of another youth of the Hamlet in a marriage of convenience at 18. Flora was a selfless young wife, but he found her distant and the unresponsiveness to romantic gestures alienated him. Though she lived with his family, they had little to do with each other in the short time they were together.

The plague of undeath reached their home only a year and a half later, and Flora's father and brother were some of the first to fall ill. Most of the villagers feared for their lives greatly, but Flora came to the aid of the sick, caring first for her own kin, then for the others when they grew ill. As they died, she and another local who had volunteered his horse and cart would also carry out the task of burning the bodies. While carrying these corpses to a pyre, the horse pulling the cart was spooked and bolted, knocking her over and crushing her midsection under the wagon wheels. Wounded and weakened from having contracted the sickness herself, she called out desperately for help. Only a short distance from their settlement, her husband and inlaws came into view, but did not heed her pleas out of self preservation. Flora died alone and in a terrifying delirium brought on by pain and fever, their fearful expressions burned into her mind.

When Flora regained autonomy among the undead, her memories seemed to return to her in reverse, with the first being of her family's inaction preceding her death. This enranged her, and this made it quite easy for her to follow her old habit of acting for the sake of others, this time adopting the Forsaken cause. She had no magical ability but with her undead stamina, she took up arms and became a warrior of rudimentary skill. As her past became more clear, however, Flora realized that her path of aggression felt very wrong. She came to understand that her short life had been a misguided but sincere effort to make people she loved happy. And, as the earliest of her thoughts came back to her, that she once had dreams that made her happy, as well. Flora became frustrated with the common attitude of bitterness and cynicism and made only a few bonds with her fellow undead that she would continue to hold dear.

Leaving the Forsaken cause and culture, Flora found new friends and purpose, particularly among the Argent crusade in Hearthglen. She fed her interest in learning with their vast library and attempted to do the same with their philosophers and holy men when it came to spiritual matters. Unable to consolidate her nature with the state of undeath, however, being confronted with the ways of the Light and the hope it gave these people only furthered her lingering denial about her current state. She found someone to live for in the form of Cristovao DiSilvo, a paladin and citizen of Lordaeron in the days before the plague of Undeath. His kindness and acceptance of her childish demeanor allowed her to shed the hostile exterior she had developed for survival among the Forsaken and accept the person she had become as an undead woman.

It was not until she experienced the accursed magic of Northwind that she would come to terms with undeath itself, however. Her experiences- which Flora still fears was a brief stint in the afterlife -placed her in a bitter, winter environment while in the body she bore before death. Starved, cold and at times immolated, (when not possessed by malevolent forces) Flora realized just how painful and difficult it was to be alive. The experiences which led her to be the person she now was, with the friends she now had, would never have happened if she had been alive this whole time. Having been engulfed in the seemingly holy fire of one of the spirits of Northwind, she experienced her second death.

Afterwards, she found herself in the presence of her dear friend Cristovao, who had revived her back to unlife. Unsure of whether anything she had experienced in Northwind had actually occurred, she was left in a state of physical and emotional limbo for a time, while her undead form recovered from the ordeal of resurrection. Eventually, Flora would resolve to simply turn to what would make her happiest, and she again took up farming, reinvigorating farmlands at the edge of the Plaguelands, assisting the Argent's efforts to restore the region to its former health. She would go on to sell much of her worldly possessions to come into ownership of a farm to call her own, and settled down for a time. She would again be uprooted after finding a particularly spirited though dismembered undead creature of some sort. Striking a deal with a gnome necromancer, she acted as their assistant for the better part of the year while they hunted down and dispatched mindless and still dangerous undead within Northrend. In exchange, they repaired her undead beast into a functioning, bear-like companion, which by now Flora had dubbed "Ratter." From them, Flora also learned to wield guns, which Flora has become quite taken with for their showmanship and fascinating mechanics.

Skills and Abilities

Proficient with most martial weaponry, but most adept with swords and polearms. She also possesses farm-related knowledge (agriculture, minor veterinary skills, etc) as well as competent cooking and alchemical skills. She is comfortable with animal husbandry, though requires a creature who does not mind her undead state in order to perform well at it.

Flora does not display the typical mental fortitude of the undead, and does not have the Will of the Forsaken, except for the logical sleep immunity. After her second death, physical exertion takes more effort and focus than it once did, and it is taxing for her to commit feats of strength she was once able to accomplish, such as wearing full plate and wielding heavy weapons. She is reasonably handy with a crossbow, and is learning the finer points of gun use.