Danuše (DA-noo-sheh)

Description:  Danuše is not very tall and fairly thin, though she is filled out with proper curves.  She looks considerably younger than she should for a human, apparently in her mid-20's; as a half-elf she is really near 40 years old.  Her hair is pitch black, a deep inky black and her eyes grey.  She has a scar on her left eye, not severe enough to affect her vision, but parting her eyebrow.  She usually wears black: a dress with a deep decolletage, black boots, a belt to match and her cloak reminiscent of bat wings.

Personality:  Though Danuše tends to keep her cloak's hood up and stand behind the others, she has a personal magnetism that is undeniable along with a dark if melancholy beauty.  Her presence and force of personality is one reason she covers up, as she prefers not to attract attention.  She leaves that to Gisele.  She has a strong sense of justice and refuses to be a victim or to let others be victimized.  Unfortunately, she sometimes talks to unseen spirits - at least, unseen to others - manifestations of her Patron; and sometimes is overcome by fits of madness.

Background:  Danuše was born and raised in a distant land, a far county of the Realm.  That place was ruled by an evil necromancer, who tormented the people and stole all that was valuable or good.  She never knew her father and her mother suffered under the societal disdain accorded an unwed mother, left to find work of the most menial and degrading kind.  It was a miserable existence, until a man came who was different.  This man was a teacher who claimed understanding of the fates and heavens.  He came to her village one day to organize the peasants, teach them a better life and overthrow the necromancer.  Danuše was infatuated with him in her youthful naivete and he taught her and others to fight, to think, and to organize.

Unfortunately, he was betrayed, captured, tried for his ‘crimes,’ and burned at the stake.  Despite torture he never gave up the names of his conspirators and Danuše and the others witnessed the execution, helpless to save him.  She was enraged, distraught and disturbed; he had been trying to fight injustice and the unjust won.  That is when the Great Old One spoke to her in her mind, as her mentor and father figure was burning, and offered her the power to right wrongs and fight injustice; all it asked in exchange was understanding.  The scene of the man burning was seared into her memory and she is still haunted by it.

She accepted and it took her some time to figure out that the Old One is almost impossible to understand, it is a being outside human awareness and understanding.  But trying has brought her power and she uses it for good, even if at times it threatens madness.  She left her home that evening and joined with a band of adventurers.  They had overlapping goals: wealth, fame, honor, and a desire to do good in the world.  She grew to love them as a family, and perhaps one or another as something more intimate.

During the course of her adventuring career she discovered that she is a half-elf.  She always saw clearly in the dark, thought nothing of it, and as time passed and she did not age at the same rate as other humans.  It became clear her father was an elf.  Unfortunately, it was too late to ask her mother about him, mother died at the hands of the necromancer's minions in a raid while Danuše was on a quest.

Eventually she and her friends were instrumental in overthrowing the necromancer ruling the county.  The necromancer himself she burned in a fit of passion and rage for the execution of her teacher and the death of her mother.  It was a moment in which she lost herself to the madness.  That moment of lost control is why she retired to a life of contemplation and study.  She spends her days meditating on her Patron, seeking forgiveness for the cruelty she displayed and reaching for understanding, though she also maintains her fighting skills, knowing all too well that most people distrust her kind.