Mindara Phova

Mindara Phova is a a Chaotic Evil aasimar, and the medic of The Jewels Of The Night.

## Backstory

Mindara was born to a family of meager means. Members of a small poverty-stricken village on the coast of one of the many islands of Binea. A village so small and mick it had no name to outsiders rather it was merely referred to by its residents as “home”. Her parents made a living with her father being a fisherman going out to the reefs and diving with spear and net in hand to hunt large tropical fish. Mindara was occasionally taken out on these fishing trips against the traditions of the village. She proved to be a skilled swimmer and adapt to the net. Her mother meanwhile served as the town healer practicing medicine and medicinal herbs. together her family made a modest but humble living and served as a key cornerstone of the community. Her three other younger siblings helped with both their father's and mother's jobs. however, their aasimar identity was something that was kept a deep secret. Why her family was hiding in the village was something she never learned but it seemed to her that her parents wish to keep their true nature a secret and to avoid ever being in contact with other aasimar. Despite their skill at hiding their true nature, some aspects of it seeped forth, their irradiating energy and subtle auras seem to always create a sense of unease in the people about the village. aasimar’s energy and auras reflect their personal emotions for the most part, the family managed to maintain a positive aura however, one day everything changed forever.  One day after getting into an intense argument with one of her younger siblings and eventually being disciplined by her parents Mindara's personal emotions turned sour and deeply negative, and from her, a dark and angry aura took over and expanded across the village turning the village people against her family. The villagers descended upon the Families Hut and pulled forth her family members to The Village Center. Mindara meanwhile had fled in anger to the coral reef where she was waiting out the anger of her mother. From a perch atop an outcrop of the coral reef that stuck forth from the water Mindara saw the smoke of her family's home burning in the distance. Swimming with haste and pain she reached the shore too late to stop what had happened. Emerging from the surf and foam of the sea she saw the bodies of her siblings strung up beaten and their throats opened. her parents meanwhile struggled with the crowd revealing in their anger and pain their own Aasimar identities, great wings sprung from their backs, and beautiful golden rays of light shown forth from their bodies. Yet their own unique nature was not enough to save them as the numbers of the village overwhelmed them. Soon daggers of black steel impaled into their necks, and their golden blood dripped down into the sand and soot that lay across that barren village. Mindara choked with fear and terror as she saw her whole life taken away from her in a bath of fire smoke and blood. At that moment she felt her own blood erupt with fire and rage. Deep within her something awoke, something more than just her own Aasimar being, something sinister and dark, something bloody and cruel. seeing red and no sense of self left Mindara reached forth stepping into the town square extending her hands forward dripping from cuts on her arms made by the sharp coral upon which she had rested before. Her blood dripped outwards onto the ground and from it sprouted plants of red and gold, blood-sharpened spikes. It burst of dark bloody magic sent forth from the corpses of her dead family eviscerating most of the villagers around her. Friends, cousins, schoolmates, and neighbors all died in a horrific and terrible mass of mangled corpses. Mindara not of her own mind and lacking her own will set about the entire Village killing all that she saw turning the blood that ran through the sand and the mud of that tiny village into crystallized red rubies. However, she was young and not truly strong yet, the rage and hate wore off as the truth of what had occurred dawned upon her, the death of her family, the death of her friends, and her neighbors had been her fault. Stricken with grief and unbearable guilt Mindara attempted to turn her own magic against herself. Hoping to join all those who had died just now, but her blood rejected it, the magic of her blood refused to let her go so easily. Thus she passed out in the sand next to the ocean which now ran thick with blood. As a full-blood moon shown forth from the dark night sky, unbeknownst to Mindara a coven of witches had, since the eruption of magical power in this forgotten and lonely town, descended carefully the stealth upon it. The coven’s leader, an old crone found the young Mindara strewn out on the beach and took her in her arms away from the graveyard of her own making. Waking to the faces of unfamiliar people Mindara looked about detached from reality at a hut filled with snakes, hanging skulls, bones, and various instruments made of twigs and sticks stretched into the figures of people. The Witches took time to care for her and to nurse her back to stability. The pain, both physical and emotional, had taken a toll on Mindara's body. Eventually, the coven revealed to her what had happened, for Mindara in her rage and anger Remembered Little of what had occurred. Filled with pain and grief, again the coven cared little for her tears and instead told her of a gift. They said that they had been drawn to the village after the eruption of pain and anger has set forth a secret power within her blood. They spoke of how she had manipulated and controlled the blood of not only herself but others to harm and kill. The old Crone told her that she was gifted with the rare and terrible power of blood magic. They promised to teach her and to train her in the magical arts of the witch to hone her powers and sharpen her skills with her rare ability. With nowhere else to go and no hope to survive on her own Mindara had no other choice but to stay. Inducted into the coven she found life there grueling and hard. yet she grew in power and skill learning the magical arts of the arcane and the occult. The coven was not that of evil nor was it that of the dark, the coven rather professed an adherence to Magic that strived to respect it in all aspects, that they did not deny or exclude any forms of it. They held that magic itself was like a god that it must be respected and even in a sense worshiped for all its sides and nature, good and bad. They instilled within her a deep respect and neigh sense of fear and reverence for magic. Unlocking her blood magical skills was a hard and painful journey. While blood magic is powerful it exacts a toll upon those who use it, the pain is the way to unlock its power. Over the years Mindara grew in age and skill and came to view the coven as a new home, her sisters in magic helped train her and saved her, and to them, she owed an unpayable debt. Indeed though Mindara still held hope that in the power that she now was learning to unlock, there was a way to get her family back. The Coven taught her the ways of her magic, that its nature was archaic and its origins a deep mystery. That blood witches as they were called, were rare and unique, with a 1 in 100,000 chance for one to ever be born. The coven more importantly took note of the unusual combination of her Aasimar identity and magic, the unique nature of her Aasimar blood seemed to have an impact. However, while the coven enhanced her skills and taught her ways to survive she never let go of the grief and anger that held so strong in her heart. The coven had taught her to harness that pain and that hate for her own purpose and her own power. Thus her form of blood magic was born a magic born of suffering grief and loss, a magic that unlocked with the physical harm to oneself would only be as powerful as the trauma and grief that was within. Mandara continued to seek a way to save her family to return them to living however the coven pushed back on this consistently arguing that there was no way to revive the dead after such a long period. Mandara however delved into her studies and sought to find the path. Doing so she enveloped herself in even darker magics like blood healing and that of death, the necromantic Arts. She soon developed a skill with the preparation of the Dead and became a skilled mortician. One day during her studies she discovered a possible solution, a tome of ancient power was discussed in one of the dark books the Coven had in its possession. This Tome was supposedly created by an ancient vampire lord. one who himself was also skilled in the art of blood magic. It spoke of a potential ritual within this tome that had the ability to resurrect the dead not only in flesh but in spirit as well. This was important as Mindara had come to realize that the reason it would be nigh impossible to return her family to living was due to their Aasimar nature that their souls were now in a plane of existence far outside the reach of most necrotic magic. Thus the only way she and her mind believed that her family could be returned to the living was through this blood ritual that was only within this tome. Presenting the opportunity to the crone of the coven, Mindara was met with mixed reactions the Covenant urged her not to pursue this path as though they held all magic equal, that this vampire Lord's ritual was a particular horrid nature and that its necessities within its practice would be too much to bear even for Mindara. Despite the warnings of the coven sisters Mindara made the difficult choice to leave the coven to pursue her desperate mission to find the tome and to bring her family back from the dead. Before departing her coven she was met by one of her sisters And gifted a ruby red crystal hung upon A necklace of reed. This was to be her Arcane Focus, an important part of a witch’s magical ability, the object to which they focused their arcane Powers to manifest their spells. The sister revealed that this red Crystal was from the crystallized blood of her family and village, for it shined within the crystal a hue of brilliant golden light, a hint to the aasimar nature of the blood crystal. Embracing her sister of magic one last time Mindara set forth on her journey. Deep within she felt fear, she would not lose them again, she vowed that she would return to the coven with her family in hand and that they would finally live together peacefully and safely. Mindara thus set about on her journey traveling along the coast of Binea, moving through town after town. She soon discovered an important piece of her journey, a piece of a map she discovered on the body of a dead Merchant this map matched the other piece of the map found in the book in the coven’s possession. This confirmed her suspicions that it was indeed a portion of a map that could potentially lead to the tome’s location. Realizing that the merchant had had it in his possession and that he was a sailing merchant traveling the seas she quickly set forth to establish herself in a port where she could further gather information. She chose the town of Syabel, and set up shop conducting herself in the trade as a mortician and a healer but most importantly a practicer of the voodoo arts. Selling her skills in death art and healing she exchanged these for information hoping to gather more knowledge on the remaining pieces of the map. In and out of the port came many merchants who spoke of many treasures and rare objects. From trials beneath the sea in a kingdom long lost, to great dragons in the west who had awoken amidst a mighty burst of golden light, to a kingdom of machines who had arisen from the dirt to establish a terrible Empire. None of these tales and none of these merchants had was she needed. she soon began to slip in hope, doubt crept in her mind that the tome could not be located, that she had been misled. in spite of this Mindara had developed a reputation within Syabel, Her work as a mortician, as a healer, and as a voodoo witch gained her great notoriety and fear. Mindara was not to be trifled with she brutally punished those who would dare disrespect her and her art and would often seek out and even kill those who stole and betrayed. Her desperation and grief took over her mind yet again as she sought to find the tome. One day though a mysterious man entered her shop seeking a fortune to be told, yet he asked her what she desired. A stark contradiction to what she typically was asked, for it was always the customer who demanded to have their desires revealed. In an unusual moment of weakness, she spoke the truth, that she desired a tome of blood. The mysterious man then told her that she would not find what she was looking for sitting idly here in her shop, that she would have to take up a life on the seas to find this tome. For it had been cast along with its map upon the waves of the Old Gods, scattered about the islands of Binea and beyond. The only way to find this map would be to travel the seas herself. Yet before she could inquire further this man disappeared upon a flash of smoke and she was left with questions. Now in Syabel, she needs to take a choice, either stay put and continue to falter as she has or take a great step as she had done in her past into the great unknown, protected by only her magic and what she was taught by her sisters. Mindara could take the chance to change her own life yet again all she need do is ask….