DoodleMonkey

Gwendolin Azeralil was born to a farming family as an only child. Her childhood, against her current nature, was exceptional. Both parents loved her dearly, often pampering the young girl and looking highly upon her. From a young age, she was a prodigy in the arts, being an exceptional musician and dancer very early on, holding many friends and generally being a well-liked young lady. As she aged, she progressed from a cute and lovable little artist to a beautiful, social, friendly bard, living along the countryside of The Empire, near the border. However, around age 7 her family moved into the confines of safer walls. Their previous unfortunate location had led to the home being ransacked by Dwarven invaders not weeks before, prompting their retreat and overall giving the young girl a distrust for the short and stubby kind. Though the fear didn't last long, as when she was 16, she took to traveling about the realm, sharing her music and stories while picking up as many more as she could along the way.

During her adventures, however, word came to her of a grim event: her mother had fallen ill and passed, and her father, in his grief, took his own life shortly after. With sorrow in her heart Gwen returned home, to the old cottage that marked her upbringing. Warm memories flooded her mind of all the wonderful times she shared with her family, only more as she entered the building. The smell of delicious home made food, the warmth of the fireplace, so much joy... now reduced to a dreary dusty shack. She took about the house for a short while, before entering her parents' room. Their old bed, her father's small corner library and desk, it was all there... though just before she chose to leave, the wind blew throughout the room through an open window. Gwen scowled, storming over and shutting the flimsy window, just as another gust came... a cold whistling still remaining. Confused, she followed the noise and chill, soon coming across a secret panel beneath the large bed. With great effort she moved the bed aside, and swung the trap door open, revealing a cold and dark cellar that released a musty plume of old air and dust. Curiosity overtook her fear, as she descended into its depths. Within, she found a small stone sanctum, with bones and ancient books upon a worn bookshelf, a candled altar. Investigating the shelves and the altar, she came across dozens of dark tomes that spoke of necromancy and accursed magic, the raising of the dead, curses and hexes, and most importantly a worn research journal written in her mother's hand. Cracking its dusty seal she found within rituals, alchemical recipes, and black spells belonging to a lost art, all concerning the forces of life and death. The later parts of this journal were contributed to one concept and one concept only: immortality. Gwen looked up in disbelief, as her eyes were drawn to a final thing within the corner of the room, one she had missed before... an instrument rack, where a lute sat untouched. Making her way over and removing the object from its stand, glancing it over. Beautiful craftsmanship, expertly made and tuned to perfection, and within its center hole, magical runes engraved in secret. Taking the lute and her mother's journal, she departed the secret alcove and fled the old cottage, confusion and curiosity inhabiting her mind.

Gwen took to studying her mother's journal, soon discovering that this lute was made for her by her mother, who turned out to be a dark sorceress of her own.Her mother had planned to take her daughter under her wing into the powers of life and death, though not for sinister motives... she used these powers for her own protection and research, not antagonizing of the innocents. However in Gwen's reading of her mother's work, the aspects... got to her. The promise of endless life, the power, it was all so alluring... but the dark arts were not for her innocent and emotionally unstable eyes so soon after her parent's death, and such an event in compilation drove her mad. Her mother died while researching immortality, her father following suit, such grief and ironic agony... Gwen could not allow this to happen to her. And with the dark writings within her mind and the wicked magic pulling at her being, she changed... she was to do what she wanted, what she needed, and not a soul was going to get in her way. Taking this new magical trinket and her limited knowledge of the dark arts, she continued on her adventures, though now holding not such bubbly motives, but she used her profession as a guise, her travel to escape being found. She was to become one of the most powerful black casters of this age, she was to discover the secret of immortality through undeath, and she was to make those beneath her bow.

(This story is conceptual and slightly dramatized. Her knowledge of magic is still extremely limited despite having access to works, as she herself knows very little of it. She has no magical potential, and little to no usable knowledge of how it works. It is also known that necromancy is no longer a learnable magic. This character is temporary, and thus such will not really come into play.)