Elinoa Taldel

> *“Being ‘good’ is hard. Like, really hard. It looks so easy when the shiny folks do it, but the people like me? Might as well be asking me to grab the moon and bring it closer.”*
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Tally is a half-elven rogue with the Metalhearts, as well as the adventuring group, New Dawn.

## History

Tally grew up in the port town of Altissia on the northern coast of Ursatia. Her father was a human merchant who fell in love with a spy for an elven merchant’s guild in Aindor, the northern island of Orcran. Before she was old enough to remember, Tally’s mom vanished en route to the merchant’s guild to report on Altissian trade routes and agreements. Her father believed it was directly related to the fact that she’d been feeding Altissian merchants information on the elven traders’ intentions as well and told Tally as much when she was young.

When she was young, no more than twelve years old, Tally's father fell ill and was no longer able to conduct business as he used to. Their financial situation was dire. To support her father, Tally became something of a skilled thief and archer, running with a group of thieves named Jack and Stash. A major heist Jack had been planning went south and Tally's face was seen. She went home, hoping to wait for everything to blow over when her father's condition suddenly worsened and he passed away. A pair of halfling bakers, John and Erika, who owed her father a favor, helped her escape the city, where she decided to put her skill with a bow to work adventuring.

## Early Life

Tally's childhood in Altissia was, for the most part, as peaceful as one could hope for. Her father, while often away seeing to various trade opportunities, spent as much time as possible trying to bring his daughter happiness, sending her to school and making sure she never went without. Whenever he was away, his longtime friends, John and Erika, would keep an eye on Tally, who, at the time, went by the name, "Ellie."

When her father fell ill, Tally didn't know where to turn. She was barely twelve and nearly everyone he'd worked with stopped replying to his letters. On top of that, Sarvic refused to go to the local temple to seek healing or reach out to anyone in town for help. It fell to Tally to find a way to provide for the two of them.

Unsure of where to start, Tally started stealing scraps of food to keep them fed. She knew it was wrong and tried to take only what she needed to survive and, at first, that was all. Then, when Tally was about sixteen years old, she met Jack and Stash, a pair of human thieves her age, casing the same market stall as her. After a brief argument, the three decide to work together to get what they need.

The collaboration worked better than any of them anticipated and, before long, the three were inseparable. Jack became the self-appointed leader, coming up with plans for nearly every heist. Stash, by comparison, was quiet and seemingly content to let Jack run things. Tally never quite objected to Jack running things, though she often was the only one to speak up when a job seemed too risky.

Tally's role within the group quickly became that of the distraction. She would fire arrows into crowds to stir them into a panic or fire specially-crafted whistling arrows to get the attention of a guard and run. For the most part, it was an easy job, until one day, Jack came in with the biggest scheme yet.

## The Heist

A foreign diplomat was scheduled to arrive in Altissia by the end of . Supposedly, the city's leadership intended to offer the diplomat a gift of fine diamonds in the hopes of brokering a new international trade agreement. Jack, who had been spreading word of the trio's exploits throughout the darker alleyways of Altissia, was approached by a man who claimed he would pay twenty-five thousand gold for the diamonds.

Never one to turn down an opportunity to show off, Jack agreed to take the job before talking to Stash and Tally. For Tally, the heist seemed far too big, but, since her father refused to seek treatment from the temple, she had to pay healers unaffiliated with a religious organization to attempt to cure him. Naturally, those services didn't come cheap, and Tally decided against her better judgement to go along with Jack's plan.

The night of the heist, however, the three discover that there have been more guards on duty than they expected. Tally balks at the news, but Jack insists on going through with the plan, giving her an alternate escape route through the crowd expected to gather near a well-known tavern. Everything goes well until Tally slips off the roof during her escape, costing her precious seconds as the guards catch up with her. One gets close enough to see her face and nearly strikes her down, but Tally wounds him in the shoulder with a dagger and narrowly escapes.

She reaches the hideout and waits for Jack and Stash, but they never show. Assuming the worst, Tally gathers anything valuable she can carry and heads home to lay low. When she reaches the house she and her father share, she discovers that he's fallen out of bed. Tally rushes to his side and finds that he's much weaker than she left him. In his last moments, her father mistakes Tally for her mother, telling her how proud she'd be to see how Tally's grown in the years she's been gone.