Akämi Daughter of None

Akämi, as drawn by my lovely and talented friend Morgan

## General

A quaint, 237 year old Dark Elf who decided to tag along with the party for her own selfish reasons. Lives on her own in a wooden cabin built deep in the woods, she prefers the company of her books and scrolls over other sentient creatures. Her long exile has made her a bit of an eccentric person, often getting far too close in other peoples personal bubbles and interrupting conversations that she doesn't need to be a part of. She's also quite a huge flirt, and although its mostly an act, she has been known to take a joke too far.

## History

Long ago, she was exiled from her Drowen City, for reasons she can no longer remember, nor wishes to. Her first few years on the surface were difficult, with her onyx skin clearly marking her as a Dark Elf, and thus everyone she met was innately distrustful. She eventually learned that the best way to avoid the darting eyes and second glances was to avoid civilization all together. She built herself a cabin out in the woods and lived in relative peace for a decade or so. One day, wandering the forest, collecting various herbs and alchemical ingredients, she came across an unusual structure, a sort of trapdoor in the forest floor. She had never seen it before, perhaps recent rainfall had helped to wash away all the detritus covering the old metal panel. After awhile, she managed to force it open and found herself in some sort of old sanctum. Burnt husks of old candles lay on the desks, puddles of long hardened wax cementing them to the wood, piles of books and scrolls in a strange language lay strewn about, and a handful of strange objects floating in glass jars sat on shelves along one wall. She took a few trips to bring all the items back to her home and started working on figuring out just what the hell all this was. It took her almost twenty years to decipher enough of the strange characters to understand what it was she was reading and in that instant her eyes went wide, her mind went blank, her body went limp. Suddenly her consciousness was elsewhere, drifting through the infinite expanses of the Far Realm. Twisted, maddening creatures drifted by; impossible, geometric shapes that strained the mind to picture, monsters that just....couldn’t be. The laws of the universe itself were twisting and warped, in some places they seemed to not even exist. Time itself felt like it had no power here. Her spirit suddenly lurched forward, passing through layer after layer of the Realms, going faster and faster, until suddenly she stopped. An empty expanse of void stretched around her in every direction. She floated there for a few moments, until she felt the distinct feeling of being watched. A section of the blackness appeared to shift for a moment, and she could vaguely make out a shape. A massive, impossible shape. More than one? Tens of them, no, hundreds! Wholly alien beings, masses of tentacles, grinding teeth, constantly changing, shifting, bending reality itself just in existing. Just as she was thanking the gods that they didn’t seem to notice her, one leviathan form floated past her spectral body, twisting itself around and peering at her with one huge eye. The instant their visions connected, something in her mind snapped. Everything was pain, and rage, and despair, and chaos. She suddenly bolted upright, finding herself upon the floor by her desk. Her head aching from the dream she could still remember, clear as day in her mind’s eye, she reached up to rub her temples and stopped. Carved along her hand and forearms was flowing, pale markings, symbols similar to those that she had translated on the scroll, but these were different. Rushing to her cauldron, she sees in her reflection that they don’t end there. The flowing runes have been etched down her forearms, across her back, down her legs, on her neck. She flings the cauldron aside out of frustration, horrified at what had happened. She only read a scroll? How could reading do something like this? As she lay there, she felt an odd, intangible pull in the back of her mind. Curiously, she slowly tried to just kind of....push outward with her thoughts. It took a bit of practice but she felt a strange sort of energy coming from whatever it was. She learned to tap into it, to harness that power and use it to cast crude spells. She fashioned a simple wand out of a nearby white oak tree and learned to use it to focus the magic, casting her first real spells. She started to go back to work, deciphering the ancient scrolls and journals, no longer having any visions like the first time but she could feel that dull connection in the back of her mind growing, her connection to the magic became stronger and she spent the next century deciphering the knowledge contained within. With all her current texts translated and learned she decided to try and hunt down more, for surely this couldn’t be the extent of this alien knowledge, and she won’t stop until she learns everything there is.

## House

She lives in a wooden cabin in the woods a few miles outside of a medium sized human town, close enough to travel to if she needs some supplies, but far enough away to keep out any prying eyes. The cabin itself is decently built, nothing to really write home about. A two story cabin, the bottom floor is divided into a kitchen, a large workshop/common room, and a simple bathroom. The top floor consist of only a bedroom. There is a basement, accessed from both the kitchen and outside, that functions as storage, she keeps a small fungal garden and growhouse down there.

The common room holds a large desk, cluttered with various bits of parchment, note paper, rolled and unrolled scrolls, large tomes stacked in the corner, an inkwell, and a small cup with a handful of quills. An interesting perch sits in a corner of the desk A number of drawers are set into the desk, with the top one holding a slot for a key so it may be locked. Along one of the walls are a pair of bookshelves, filled with more large tomes in varying languages, journals, etc; all seeming to be about ancient histories of the planes and forgotten or forbidden magic. A large orc skull, along with a few small goblin skulls, decorate the empty spots amongst the books. Some shelves decorate the other walls, containing a strange assortment of odds and ends, magical and cursed knick-knacks that she has found amongst her travels. In the kitchen, you can find a small wood stove, an iron cauldron, shelves and an icebox. Dried herbs hang on twine along some of the walls and ceiling. The upper floor consists solely of a bedroom; featuring a simple bed, a small chest at it’s foot, a closet set into one of the walls, and a vanity with an assortment of brushes, jewelry, and various other accessories on top.

The basement can be accessed through a staircase in a corner of the kitchen, locked behind an iron door, and via a sloped hatch on the outside wall of the house. The basement itself is slightly larger than the rest of the house, seemingly expanding far beyond where the upper walls end. The main room at the base of the stairs seems to function as a simple storage, with a few old chests and crates lying around and has both entrances, one to outside and one to the kitchen, and one other door on the far wall. Through this door you can find her fungal garden, growing a large variety of mushroom species ranging from the simple death’s cap to the fantastical shrieker. Through another door in this room you can come upon her growroom, where she grows the absolute dankest of fantasy weed.

## Trivia

Her house contains an odd assortment of magical or cursed knick-knacks she's "acquired" over her travels including

* Cursed Doll - A small cloth doll, bound tightly with red twine with 3 ivory needles jutting out of it in various places
* Hell Spice - A small container of an extremely concentrated powdered hot spice.
* Orphan's Ruin - 6oz of Milky drink. 1oz pacifies any unease, 2oz causes a deep sleep, 3oz eternal sleep.
* Brain Jar - A jar of brine and wires that appears to be able to sustain the brain of a freshly killed creature, allowing it to psychically project its thoughts.
* Alien Bone - An oddly shaped wishbone, that appears as if it came from another world..
* Lycanthrofork - A cursed spoon that turns into a fork during a full moon.
* Tiefling Horns - Above her fireplace she has a large pair of black horns mounted on the wall. Closer inspection reveals that these horns were sawn off a tiefling.

* Golem Manuals - In her bookshelves you can find a number of manuals detailing the creation of Golems of various kinds.