Wilva of Rowangrove

## Sister Wilva

The Firebrand

Though corruption flourishes in their own order, **Sister Wilva** is among the few with the fire in their bellies to prove righteousness is still to be found in the Church of the Eternal Fire. Taken in as a ward of the church after displaying her gift for invocations and fearlessness in wielding them against the darkness of the world, **Wilva of Rowangrove** has dedicated her heart and soul to the faith, and finds the flagrant exploitation of the church's power by so many of her fellow clergy a perversion of its power for good. Taking her leave of the politics in the order's center in Novigrad, Wilva seeks out corruption both in the false piety of her fellow priests and the warped bodies of mages to purify through flame.

## Biography

### Early Life and Entry to the Church

The winter of 1262 was especially harsh on northern Redania. Rivers froze solid, game fled south, and snow forced travelers off the roads. In the village of Rowangrove, food and firewood both ran low, but the villagers dared not cut from the surrounding trees nor hunt in the few places beasts still dwelt. Nearby lived a druidic circle who had preceded the village by centuries, and forbidden the village’s founders from taking more than they allowed each year, or face the perils of nature they guarded. Thus, as the cold and starvation set in, nine-year-old Wilva lost her mother to hypothermia, and not long after they’d burned her body for warmth, her father fell dangerously ill. And yet, in the midst of all this misfortune, their family still offered its meager hospitality when a priest of the Eternal Fire trudged into town seeking shelter.

Their kindness would not go unrewarded. The priest cured Wilva’s father of his illness, though he remained weak, and provided the villagers with blessings, listened to confessions, and officiated ceremonies as an ordained minister. Soon he’d developed a congregation, in which Wilva sat at the fore. The priest taught her to see into the flames, and through long sessions of meditation, Wilva reached a trance in which she believed she could commune with her mother. But the fuel to sustain these fires for so long drained an already drying well, and Rowangrove could soon spare nothing more to burn. Unwilling to let the villagers suffer needlessly any longer, the priest led those still strong enough to follow him into the forest on a woodcutting mission. The druids, however, took notice, and—deeply offended by the felling of their ancient trees—drew the venerable leshen they guarded to the site of their cutting and let it attack the village.

The few starved hunters who dared challenge the creature, including Wilva’s father, were quickly slain. But as the rest of the village fled for their lives, a lone child stood her ground, bearing a torch lit with holy oils stolen from the priest’s satchel. By inducing the trance she’d spent hours learning and focusing on the Eternal Fire, Wilva was able to control the flame and used it to drive off the forest spirit. The villagers hailed her as a hero, and though she was left an orphan, the priest offered to take her to Novigrad when the winter subsided, to be trained by the church. Wilva accepted at once, and the priest made good on his promise. At the Grand Picket, the church’s headquarters, Wilva was taught to understand her connection to the Eternal Fire and excelled as a student, driven by the power it granted her to commune with the spirits of her family where others were motivated by power for its own sake.

Wilva believed without reservation in the Eternal Fire and its role in protecting mankind from the threat of the White Frost spoken of in Ithlinne’s Prophecy, and as such had no tolerance for corruption in the church. Unfortunately, by the time of the Third Northern War, such ingrates were all too common throughout the organization, and Wilva’s zealousness against their grabs for power made her many enemies. Repeatedly, she failed tests from her superiors by reporting incidents of church members engaging in extortion, fisstech dealing, and other crimes rather than filling her own pockets, and became increasingly incensed as these crimes were brushed aside or forgiven. Finally, she crossed a line by taking the Eternal Fire's justice into her own hands and publicly immolated a priest dragged from a brothel for breaking his oaths. As her actions were in keeping with Church doctrine and had been widely witnessed, the Church could not openly denounce her, but Wilva knew those who had allowed these transgressions before would seek retribution in other ways. Rather than wait on its coming, Wilva chose a role which would remove her from their spheres of influence while enabling her to do the most good; like the priest who had found her, she became a missionary, converting the people of the Northern Realms as a wandering emissary of the Eternal Fire's light. All to happy to expel the firebrand, the Church gave Wilva its blessing and sent her on her way.

## Personality & Traits

Though witnesses to her pursuit of mages and other threats to the Eternal Fire could aptly describe her as ruthless, Wilva was far from the simple zealot her reputation would suggest. Having begun life a starving peasant, she had great sympathy for the common people of the Northern Realms and the many struggles they faced, placing charity highest among the church's proclaimed tenets she strove to live by. Often, she would offer her services as an ordained priestess in the villages and burgs her band visited, providing blessings, performing communion and marriage ceremonies, and hearing confessions all free of charge. Her sympathy even extended to some of those she persecuted; having broken with Church doctrines in acquiring a basic comprehension of magical theory, Wilva understood those who used magic were forced to do so—that their power would kill them if left uncontrolled.

Nonetheless, Wilva remained merciless unto those who embraced their contamination for their own gain. Knowing both their life experiences and the teachings of their academies encouraged most mages to act out of nothing but self-interest, she spared no forgiveness for those she hunted once convinced they had and would continue to do harm. Wilva came to view magic as a disease to be purged from humankind, one cell at a time. Though she bore no special hatred for elves, dwarves, or other non-humans, witnessing the aftermath of brutal Scoia'tael attacks did nothing to endear them to her, and creatures such as dopplers she lumped in with monsters as predators and natural enemies of humanity to be driven off or killed whenever possible. Witchers, too, she regarded as deviants for voluntarily undergoing mutations, but at times was forced to admit their past necessity when one was required to slay a more powerful monster threatening a population.

Despite her remorseless use of violence against mages and monsters, Wilva's sincerity in her dealings with friend and foe alike won her many followers, despite her youth and gender. A retinue of nearly a dozen fellow witch hunters—some hardened soldiers twice her age who'd lost their comrades to the terrible powers of a warlock, some mere criminals who saw the Church's power as means to easy living—congregated around her, devoting themselves to her personal crusade throughout the Northern Realms without question or qualm. Her honest belief and strength of conviction made her a natural leader, for good or ill.