Phessa Emberwing

**Place of Birth**
 **Title(s)**
 **Occupation(s)**
Judge
 **Affiliations**
 **Faith**
 **Family**

A callous and self-aggrandizing worshipper of the Sun, Phessa Emberwing is known to the citizens of Goldsea as 'The Harpy' - a nickname not at all meant in fondness. Appointed as the Grand Judicator by Lady Rae Sunshatter, beyond the Lady herself, it is Phessa who casts the final judgement on those who commit crimes within the province, and her punishments are never kind. She takes exceptional delight in burning traitors alive for their deeds against the House of Sunshatter, and, quite frighteningly, she seems to have eyes and ears all through Goldsea; there is no crime that goes unwitnessed, no whispers that go unheard.

Obsessed with gold and glittering trinkets, there is little that a shiny chit can not sway her towards; though she worships the Sun with a maddening zeal, it seems her moral compass is pinioned entirely on the morality of those who hold the greatest weight of coin in their palms.

There are many things about the Grand Judicator that seem... out of sorts. For one, she squawks like a bird when angry, and at times her fixation with her own reflection seems to go beyond the bounds of simple self-obsession... but whatever secrets the Harpy holds, she holds them close, and viciously so.

## Appearance

Bird-boned and delicate, Phessa might be beautiful by some standards, but the sneer that slants across her face often ruins any image of dainty perfection. She is tall, hard-cut and almost worryingly slim, and though she drapes her sun-kissed skin in crimson and gold, she often bares the majority of her skin. Favoring high heels and higher boots, the Grand Judicator and her woefully thin form stand at a solid six feet, though if you count the inches of her ever-upwards-bound hair, you might eek out an additional few inches. Where her body is oft-draped in chains of gold, so to is her hair; the golden-blonde tresses do not escape the compulsive need to display her hoard of trinkets, sometimes to the point of gaudy hilarity.

Her fingers - and her nose, in the effort of truthfulness - are long and bony and pointed, though luckily her nose lacks the long, lacquered tips of her nails. Rings seem about the only jewelry she has no interest in, for her hands are always bare, or beneath gloves; or, perhaps, it's because she is always clutching her staff, a dreadful creation of gilded metal and roiling magic that snaps and sizzles with the raw energy of the Sun, harnessed and barely contained in a chamber at it's peak.

## History

Once, Phessa Emberwing went by a very different name. Known as Pheryxa, she served as a Herald of the Dawn, a religious leader amongst the Arakkoa, with prestige enough to sate her fetid desire for importance and tribute to be heaped upon her shoulders. Tasked with leading prayers, she tended not only the religious rites of the whole of Skyreach alongside her fellow Heralds, but fostered her own cult within the halls of the Arakkoan capital, a group of zealous worshippers who devoted their time and energy to unlocking the mysteries of the lost city of Apexis. For Pheryxa, religion and technology went hand in hand - twisting the purpose of archeological and scientific discoveries and casting them beneath the veil of religious rites and supremacy kept her devotees squarely in her clawed grasp, while assuring her own desires and endeavors were seen to.

### Cast Down

It was hubris, in the end, that did Pheryxa in. Among the Arakkoa, teachers and students alike share glory and praise for advancements and discoveries - and ideal that assures those who taught the next generation are honored for their efforts and acknowledged for being the pillar which their students stood upon to reach beyond, even if their students surpass them - but the thought of sharing a shred of fame was too much for the self-obsessed Herald; she stole her student's research into Apexis and it's long-forgotten powers, and claimed them as her own.

Enraged by her betrayal, her students sought to set the record straight, and dole out justice for their teacher's selfishness. Under cloak of night, her student's slipped into her study and ambushed her, laying her low and casting her out of Skyreach to the rocks a hundred miles below. She survived - barely - and narrowly avoided a fate worse than death in the corrupted pools of seething blood nearby; she did not fall to the body-breaking madness of the curse that stole many of her traitorous kin, and, wounded, Pheryxa abandoned Skyreach with nothing short of hate and self-righteousness in her heart.

### The Grand Judicator

It did not take long for Phessa to realize her mistake; the 'City of Silver Moons' was not, in fact, a civilization that worshipped the moon, at all. Their magics were many and diverse, and oft-centered around the sun, and while such a fact was inherently pleasing to the zealous priestess, it left her plans of mass conversion... a little lackluster.