Lena Gildenmane

“*Destiny wants me to perish. To let some other lament my passing, a beautiful corpse for the bards to set fools weeping over. Plough destiny. My fate will be of my own make.*”
―Lena
Violence and prejudice wash over the Northern Realms in cycles. Ire begets ire, blood begets blood. When nothing is gained by turning the other cheek, why not embrace the rewards offered by even the most heinous legacies? Such became the outlook of **Lena Gildenmane**, heir to the infamous reputation of the School of the Cat. When the people of the North and witchers of other Schools reject her for bearing a Cat's medallion, she turns to profiting from non-humans and their endless enmities. If no contract exists for a dangerous, mindless beast, she'll be all too happy to slay an intelligent monster for the coin their trophy will bring. If thoughts of lesser evils she could've sustained herself on haunt this witcheress anymore, Lena certainly doesn't let them show.

## Biography

### Early Life

“*You'll do.*”
―Lexandre's first words to Lena.
When she was born to a poor fisherman and his wife in Condyle, Zaklena was one of their few causes for joy. The filth and continual decay of the swamps around them, under sway of the Ladies of the Wood, kept them always on the brink of starvation or worse. But Zaklena soon looked to grow up a young beauty, giving her parents hope she might wed a well-off merchant or even be chosen by the Ladies during their Sabbath. Doted on by her family, Zaklena grew accustomed to such treatment and looked forward to the rewards of the life laid out ahead of her. For better or worse, this was not to be. When she was nine years old, Condyle was attacked by raiders of Clan Dimun. The Skelligers burned much of the village, slew many including Zaklena's parents, and took Zaklena and the others they spared as captives to sell into slavery.

Aboard the Dimun longship for a month as they sailed south toward Nilfgaard, Lena witnessed a strangely blunted cruelty from her captors. The strongest captives were forced to row for hours at a time, but were fed well in turn. The crew, made up of both men and women, forced their prizes couple with them, but in return replaced their roughspun clothes with fine foreign fabrics. As a child, however, Zaklena was left alone until the day she tried to jump overboard in hopes of swimming to shore. When the sailor who caught her tried to beat her, the longship's captain instead thrashed the man. Through the rant which accompanied their row, Zaklena learned their treatment was only to preserve their value in the southern slave markets. Caged after her attempted escape, Zaklena could only feel resigned to her fate.

As the ship made port to trade in Ebbing, however, a man was brought aboard to peruse the vessel's wares. When his slitted eyes fixated on Zaklena, she recoiled in fear, but the Skelligers accepted the handful of florens he offered for her. Torn away from the last familiar faces she'd known in Condyle, the man seated her on a horse and led her inland. The man, Lexandre, explained he was a witcher, and would take her to become a monster slayer like himself. The pair arrived in a sheltered vale deep in a leagues-wide wood as the first snows began to fall. There, dozens of wagons had been anchored and unloaded to create myriad large tents. This was the Dyn Marv Caravan's settlement for the winter, where Zaklena would begin her training.

### Training in the Dyn Marv Caravan

“*She's a little hellion, no doubt, but too proud of that damn golden mane of hers. Tried to shave her down, and she nearly bit through my glove.*”
―Axel
The day after her arrival, Zaklena joined the other witcher trainees in a brutal physical training regime, whom took to calling her Lena. Smaller and weaker than her peers, she was often pushed around and went to bed bruised whenever the trainees were pitted against one another. Listening to them at night, she learned the other apprentices had endured their own hardships to get there, some worse than her own experiences. One boy, Bendek, had even been taken as a Child of Surprise, who felt certain he was fated to become a witcher. Feeling her own fate had been taken from her, Lena fell into despair, becoming even worse as she overheard the master witchers speak of how few were expected to survive their training.

While their training progressed over the years, Dyn Marv would often pack up and move as contracts in the area dried up and nearby kingdoms began to suspect their presence. Each time, they would make camp in places they'd secured years before, and the apprentices were tested in new ways using features of the local terrain. Along the Velda River in Geso, they struggled through complex obstacle courses and jungle gyms built between the trees, and in Mettina were taught the basics of stealth from Aen Seidhe rebels. Only when they reached the highlands of Mag Turga, however, would they face their greatest challenge: the Trial of the Mountains.

Set loose in the untamed foothills between the Amell Mountains and Tir Tochair, the mere children were told to return with a silver ring retrieved from a high bluff or not at all. Hunted by the region's abundant monster population, many children were killed long before sighting the bluff where the rings supposedly lay. Lena tried to advance while a nest of nekkers dismembered one of her comrades, only for a stray from their pack to happen upon her. Convinced her luck had finally run out, Lena's struggles became more feeble as its claws left ragged scars across her back. To her surprise, however, her life was saved by Bendek, who smashed the creature's head in with a rock and helped her away from the nearby pack.

Traveling together, the pair managed to reach the cliffs the master witchers had spoken of, where several threadbare tightropes connected the bluff with a stone spire. Each candidate would have to choose a rope to cross with, and a wrong choice would leave them to plummet to certain death. Certain she was destined to choose the wrong one, Lena declined while Bendek selected his rope. As he did so, however, a thought occurred to Lena. As Bendek made ready to cross, Lena stepped behind him and pushed him from the bluff, then crossed with the rope he'd intended. Cruel as it was, her choice proved wise. Lena crossed safely and retrieved her ring, while the same rope snapped when the next candidate tried to cross with it.

Now determined to reject her own destiny and seize life for herself, Lena threw herself into her training with zeal. Her small size, as it happened, proved a boon when they began to learn swordwork, perfectly adapting to the Cat School's fast and agile fighting style. In Sodden, Lena led the other children when their masters tasked them with scaling rooftops and stealing fine jewelry from the townspeople. Soon, she was looked upon as the most promising candidate of her class. Though her peers resented her excellence, Lena only responded with the same contempt as they'd shown for her weakness before.

## Abilities

* Witcher mutations
* Signs
* Alchemy

## Equipment

* Cat School Steel & Silver swords
Capped with the likeness of a cat's head on each pommel and worn across the back, these twin swords marked their bearer unmistakably as a witcher. Their silver or steel edges honed razor-thin around a meteorite steel core, the signature blades of the Cat School were made lighter and thinner than those of other guilds. While their slender construction made them more delicate than swords meant for open battle, their keen edges were adept at piercing gaps in armor and making deep cuts prone to bleeding. Their decreased weight also suited the Cat School's emphasis on a fast, agile fighting style, allowing wielders to rapidly make attack after attack with little effort. Lena sought out an Ofieri runewright to enchant her blades with a charm of preservation, which kept her blades more resistant to dulling or breaking.
* Harpy Claws & silver daggers
* Cat School armor