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Ariane grew up in a family strongly linked with the Church of St John, and as such follows its ideals, though healing people through alchemy and surgery rather than by miracles. |
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Ariane is the daughter of a senior priest of St John, and as such grew up in the Temple of St John in Yorvik. She has followed St John all her life, although until recently she healed people only with surgery and alchemy, not with miracles. More on that one later... |
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Her childhood contained several potentially angst-causing events including severe illness which left her permanently frail, her father being horribly spirit-wracked, and her mother walking out as a result of this. However, she remained resolutely cheerful and idealistic... |
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Ariane's teenage years possibly should have caused her more angst than they eventually did, beginning with a debilitating illness which left her permanently frail and continuing with her father being spirit-wracked (and then redeemed), and her mother losing faith in St John as a result of these incidents and others, and walking out on the family. |
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...until early in 1287 she accidentally blew a reasonably large hole in the wall of the Yorvik alchemists' guild. This resulted in her being thrown out for appearance's sake, and being told by her master it would be a really good idea if she went to another Guild a long way away. Given her natural ability to be in the same place as trouble, of course she managed to pick Grantabrugge. |
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After spending her late teens working in the temple as a first aider and midwife, Ariane started to train as an alchemist, a career which she took to very quickly, but also very explosively when the combination of an unattended lantern and a somewhat exciting experiment resulted in her blowing a wall off the West Wing of the Alchemists' Guild at the start of 1287. Thrown out for appearance's sake, she found herself with a letter of recommendation from the Master of the Yorvik Guild and a strong suggestion that if she wanted to continue her career, she should do it somewhere a long way away. Her natural ability to be in the same place as trouble reared its head at this point, and she ended up in Grantabrugge. |
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Since her arrival in the city, Ariane's idealism and good nature have been worn down by being possessed by a demon and then falling in love with (and being punished for illegally meeting with) the city's most wanted criminal, Brother Gilbert Of Seeker. The deaths of Den Tellin and Esme? didn't help either, nor did spending far too much time trying to figure out just what the Bavarians were up to. On the other hand, she seems to be managing to command a reasonable amount of influence in the Arms, possibly due to having saved the lives of around half the regulars during the time she's been there. She just about managed to keep on the side of Good despite all of this, and maybe even regained a small amount of stability. Possibly. |
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Every city has an adventurers' tavern. It's the one where all the weird stuff happens, and the one where you go if you need someone to do something strange, unbelievable or downright dangerous. A lifetime of hanging around the Orc's Head in Yorvik with her father and brothers had mostly prepared Ariane for the Wessex Arms, and the way in which the patrons were able to defend the place against the Norscan attacks on the first night she drank there convinced her she was in the right place. |
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Except any stability Ariane had managed to recover went out of the window when Borric returned in June from wherever he'd been, triumphantly bearing Gilbert's head and claiming the reward from the Children of the Light. But somehow she still managed to stay on the right side of The Line, certainly in part due to Sesqui's somewhat unusual methods of counselling. |
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She's been there for three years now, and still enjoys it and might even claim she goes there to relax. She's lost all her idealism, but has somehow remained firmly on the side of Good despite her possession by a demon (exorcised), her falling in love with, and having to cope with the imprisonment and then death of, the infamous Brother Gilbert of Seeker, near-torture at the hands of the Children of the Light and the inevitable deaths (and occasional undeaths) of several good friends. |
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Ariane and Gilbert's son John was born in October 1288, with the possibly encouraging result that she is now too tired, frazzled and generally Busy to think about all the Bad Stuff that happened to her, and maybe, finally, she is on the road to recovery. :*snerk* ::What? I only said maybe... |
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All that lot broke her a bit. Towards the end of 1288, the birth of Ariane and Gilbert's son John, some slightly unusual counselling from Sesqui and the arrival on the scene of an apprentice, Francis meant she started to mend a bit, or possibly was just kept too busy to think about being broken. |
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So. It's now March 1289, and Ariane does indeed appear to have at least partially recovered. She's outwardly more stable, though she still twitches when a Child of the Light comes anywhere near her. If anything, the past year appears to have tempered her; she's colder, more calculating, but possibly also more compassionate. And she thrives on stress even more than she used to, which is just as well considering she's been named a Master Alchemist by the Guild. |
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And then she ended up in a relationship with Francis, and was named a Master Alchemist by the Guild, and things started to look up a bit. She mended. She found herself able to talk to Children of the Light again, though she still shakes a bit when there's a Hand nearby. On May 12th 1289, Ariane and Francis got married. Their wedding was attended by St John himself, who blessed them personally, and Spiritually Awakened Ariane, who had finally given up being stubborn about it. She didn't tell the temple though, feeling that it's an intensely private matter that she didn't want to discuss with certain of the high-ups in the Temple whose policies she... doesn't entirely agree with. So she kept it secret, telling only her family and close friends. Then followed a quiet few months of approximate stability, by which I mean Ariane working hard in the Alchemists' Guild and even harder in the Temple (free time? Um, that's what you do on Friday nights in the Arms, isn't it?) followed by the birth of her second son, James, in January of 1290. Life just got even *more* frantic, but she loves it really, and thrives on stress. Of course, as some people noticed, she cast a miracle in the bar on Friday. So even though there were fewer remarks made than she was expecting, she's decided to come clean. It's going to get interesting... |
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Time for another update! Ariane and her apprentice, Francis, were married on May 12th, and do appear to be insanely happy. In the couple of weeks leading up to the wedding, Ariane seemed to mend; she can talk to Children of the Light without breaking, and her faith in St John grew stronger, to the extent that he turned up in person to bless her marriage (and enjoy the buffet, it seems...). It remains to be seen what effect this will have on her, but it can't be bad, and will probably involve Stress, so she'll be practised at dealing with it. |
Ariane's teenage years possibly should have caused her more angst than they eventually did, beginning with a debilitating illness which left her permanently frail and continuing with her father being spirit-wracked (and then redeemed), and her mother losing faith in St John as a result of these incidents and others, and walking out on the family.
After spending her late teens working in the temple as a first aider and midwife, Ariane started to train as an alchemist, a career which she took to very quickly, but also very explosively when the combination of an unattended lantern and a somewhat exciting experiment resulted in her blowing a wall off the West Wing of the Alchemists' Guild at the start of 1287. Thrown out for appearance's sake, she found herself with a letter of recommendation from the Master of the Yorvik Guild and a strong suggestion that if she wanted to continue her career, she should do it somewhere a long way away. Her natural ability to be in the same place as trouble reared its head at this point, and she ended up in Grantabrugge.
Every city has an adventurers' tavern. It's the one where all the weird stuff happens, and the one where you go if you need someone to do something strange, unbelievable or downright dangerous. A lifetime of hanging around the Orc's Head in Yorvik with her father and brothers had mostly prepared Ariane for the Wessex Arms, and the way in which the patrons were able to defend the place against the Norscan attacks on the first night she drank there convinced her she was in the right place.
She's been there for three years now, and still enjoys it and might even claim she goes there to relax. She's lost all her idealism, but has somehow remained firmly on the side of Good despite her possession by a demon (exorcised), her falling in love with, and having to cope with the imprisonment and then death of, the infamous Brother Gilbert of Seeker, near-torture at the hands of the Children of the Light and the inevitable deaths (and occasional undeaths) of several good friends.
All that lot broke her a bit. Towards the end of 1288, the birth of Ariane and Gilbert's son John, some slightly unusual counselling from Sesqui and the arrival on the scene of an apprentice, Francis meant she started to mend a bit, or possibly was just kept too busy to think about being broken.
And then she ended up in a relationship with Francis, and was named a Master Alchemist by the Guild, and things started to look up a bit. She mended. She found herself able to talk to Children of the Light again, though she still shakes a bit when there's a Hand nearby.
On May 12th 1289, Ariane and Francis got married. Their wedding was attended by St John himself, who blessed them personally, and Spiritually Awakened Ariane, who had finally given up being stubborn about it. She didn't tell the temple though, feeling that it's an intensely private matter that she didn't want to discuss with certain of the high-ups in the Temple whose policies she... doesn't entirely agree with. So she kept it secret, telling only her family and close friends.
Then followed a quiet few months of approximate stability, by which I mean Ariane working hard in the Alchemists' Guild and even harder in the Temple (free time? Um, that's what you do on Friday nights in the Arms, isn't it?) followed by the birth of her second son, James, in January of 1290. Life just got even *more* frantic, but she loves it really, and thrives on stress.
Of course, as some people noticed, she cast a miracle in the bar on Friday. So even though there were fewer remarks made than she was expecting, she's decided to come clean. It's going to get interesting...