Description:
A very pretty woman who seems vaguely uncomfortable with her own body.  She appears to be a serious tomboy, but tries, on occasion, to be more feminine, though does so as if she's following instructions reluctantly.  Her dark, lustrious hair falls to her shoulders, but seems a bit unkempt, even for its beauty.  Dark brown eyes reveal memories of pain and sorrow, but twinkle with merriment when the mood strikes her.
She wears well-made armor, that fits tighter and more form-fittingly than she's comfortable with, but she knows that loose armor is a bad thing for a warrior.   She shuns more ornamentation, normally, except a jeweled dagger on her belt.



Personality:
Aliana is very headstrong and stubborn.   Though she seems to be trying to keep herself calm and in control of her emotions, she's still very impulsive and quick to anger and quicker to jump into a fight.
Aliana is also very quick to defend others, especially women and children.  She has a very dark and quirky sense of humor, and is at home with both the courtly conversation of the nobility and with foul language that would make an orcish mercenary blush.
She's bitter about her past, though she's more angry at herself because she knows it's her fault.
Aliana is, however, MORE than willing to take out her frustrations on her enemies.




History of Aliana Fustan:

  Sir Gregor Andros of Cormyr was a rising star in the Purple Dragons.  He was dashing, handsome, valiant, strong, and tenacious.  Though not well known at the time, many thought he was the man who could go far, perhaps even one day leading the armies of the crown.
  Sir Gregor was proud to serve.  A little too proud, if truth be told.   He began believing the praises of friends and family and soon his ego know no bounds.  He was challenging strangers to fights, imposing his will on others, and, believing he was Helm's gift to women, he cut a proverbial swath through the women in the villages around the kingdom, leaving angry words and broken hearts.  Lost in his own ego, the skilled warrier would merely shrug and move on to more "conquests".   One woman, though, a brewer's daughter named Aliana Fustan, was so upset that she actually commited suicide, or so it was thought.

  The distraught peasant woman, already emotionally unbalanced, but pushed over the edge by the uncaring attentions of Sir Gregor, had stolen an ancient tome and managed to summon a demon, offering it her heart and soul for revenge.  The fiend gladly accepted, directing her, with her last breath, to use an even more ancient spell to "make him suffer as I have suffered".  With that she died.  Or, at least, her soul left her body.   The spell put the body to quick use.

  Miles away, in the Inn of The Restful Griffon, Sir Gregor was awoken from deep sleep by a woman's scream.  Looking around, he saw the tavern wench who'd shared his bed the night before.  She was screaming at him to get out before "he" came back.  The angry serving maid finally jumped onto the bed, reaching out with long-nailed fingers to claw at Sir Gregor.   Confused, the knight's reflexes took over and he backhanded the woman across the room.   It was then he realized that the arm he'd used to strike his former bed partner was ALSO a woman's arm.

  Horrified, the knight rushed to the mirror, only to see the face of Aliana Fustan, a pretty but unimaginative brewer's daughter, looking back at him.   The tavern owner came in, and promptly declared the "woman" to be tresspassing, laughing uproariously when she actually claimed to BE Sir Gregor.  There was no way to prove it, as all of the knight's possessions were obviously for a man.
  The normally arrogant warrior was still in such shock that he could do little as "she" was dragged naked out of the tavern, thrown into the mud like a common whore, and contemptuously tossed a dirty blanket to 'cover her shame'.   Midmorning townsfolk stopped their labors and began laughing at the dirty naked woman.  When she swore revenge on them, they laughed harder.   Sir Gregor ran through the streets, cutting her delicate feet and tripping on the blanket and falling several times, to the Temple of Helm.   Several children had taken to throwing mud and horse manure at the "fallen woman' as she ran, and several townsfolk joined them.

  Literally crashing into the main foyer of the church, Sir Gregor was roughly grabbed by the head abbot and escorted out, scoffing at the smelly, naked trollop's claims.   Enraged past his breaking point, Sir Gregor's combat training kicked back in and she attacked the old man, knocking him down and putting the cleric's own dagger to his throat.  The man surrendered, claiming to get a female cleric to help with the distraught woman's "delicate condition".  Gregor stared for a second, until it clicked that the man was assuming he was some pregnant harlot seeking help.   The knight's overstretched temper snapped, and she nearly plunged the knife into her former spiritual leader.  Something stopped her, though.   With a scream of rage, she pushed the man away and ran from the church.   Before she knew it, she was deep in the surrounding forest.


  Amid this soul-crushing ordeal, the new inductee to womanhood looked up at the heavens, trying to find the words to ask what "she'd" done to deserve what had happened.

  It started raining.

  At that final insult, the ex-paladin ran off deeper into the woods.  Alone in the forest, naked but for the dirty blanket and the old cleric's dagger, the woman who was once Sir Gregor considered using the knife on herself.

  Then, the rain cleared and a pleasant looking man appeared before her.   He wrapped a warm cloak around the shivering woman and commiserated about Helm and the god's rigid rules and hateful followers.  The man told, in his soothing voice, that another god, Cyric, was more...accomodating.   After fifteen minutes of conversation, the humiliated knight turned his back and her wounded pride on his old god, and was on the verge of converting to a new diety, who's apparent representitive promised to help her exact revenge on all those who'd wronged her.   She was on the verge of accepting the evil god into her heart.

  But, again, something stopped her.

  The same kernal, the same inner core of goodness that had, perhaps, been the real Sir Gregor, before his pride corrupted him, couldn't allow falling into the clutches of The Prince of Lies.   Tossing the cloak away, the shivering woman rejected Cyric and began backing away from the handsome preacher.

  The preacher promptly turned into a Balor demon, the same one, unbeknownst to Gregor, that had been summoned by Aliana.  The monster's plan to also corrupt the knight disrupted, it decided that it could at least slay the fallen knight.   After all, after rejecting Helm, Gregor was doomed to wander the Fugue Plane, easy prey.

  A lone, naked woman in the woods, armed with only a jeweled ceremonial dagger, Gregor knew she was going to die.    She was bitter, but decided that death was, literally, the lesser of evils at the moment.   She stood her ground.

  As the Balor's flaming sword was about do descend, music began to play.   Music that had the demon rolling around the forest floor in agony.   He vanished back to the Abyss screaming.    Gregor looked around for the source of the music and saw and old man with a lute walk out of the woods.

  He also gave the woman a cloak.   Seeing that the "once bitten, twice shy" lass was recluctant to trust strangers in the woods, the man introduced himself.
  He was Finder Wyvernspur, newly made God of Art, Life and Transformation.   The latter domain, of course, being very important to Gregor at the moment.

  Finder offered himself as a new patron to the young woman.   When the knight scoffed at her new body and Finder's apparent inability to change it, the old man merely smiled and showed Gregor his entire life.

Through the eyes of the women he'd wronged, including Aliana Fustan.

  It took only an instant, but the former knight of Cormyr was soon on her knees, weeping at the thoughtless cruelty she'd wrought on so many innocent women.   Finder gathered her into his arms and promised redemption.   If the woman was interested in earning it.   Though her pride was still stinging, Gregor accepted.

  When she left the woods a few months later, she was on the other side of the continent, far from Cormyr and the old lives of both Gregor Andros and Aliana Fustan.    She'd been trained in bardcraft, and charged with defending women whereever she went.   The woman's new patron diety helped her to build a new life, one of humility and service, bringing stories and aid to people everywhere.

  Finder refused to change Gregor back to a man, instead encouraging her to "explore her new life fully".   While the new bardic student didn't fully appreciate the God's sense of humor, she reluctantly agreed.

  In honor of Sir Gregor's final "victim", she even changed her name to Aliana Fustan.