Neala is a tall woman with a sturdy build and dark skin that long ago used to be associated with the people of the North. She has the tone of a well practiced athlete, and dresses with a flair and often a style that is unusual even among her family. She usually wears her sleeved cloak as a cape and a pair of metal gauntlets. The rest of her outfit tends simple and practical as she often works in her clothes they get ripped and torn, a simple shirt of any kind and a pair of jeans, a pair of average shoes or boots depending on if she is going into rough terrain or not. Since her outfits are simple, and overall mostly the same, she doesn’t worry about them being torn or ruined. Because of this attitude, her clothes are sturdy but lightweight built to keep heat in and due to the warm climate usually are cut in strategic places to keep cool. She does however have a dress that she will wear that is made from the same design as her little brother’s vest, Actually she shares a few outfits that look like they made their outfits together from the same material. Mostly because they did.
Like most of her family Neala is covered in scars, with the most noticeable ones being the large tear across her back and a scar that rips across her face From the top of her left eye to the bottom of her right cheek right across her nose.
Neala almost always has at least a soft smile on her face and her eyes hold a fierce gaze giving her the impression of a mother bear, sizing up a meal for her cubs. She has a strangely smooth appearance the only part of her skin not smooth are the near the scars she bears, which makes her slightly self conscious about them. Because of her nature a part Dryad she ages slower than most humans and retains her mature looks. Her face is ever so slightly less angular than the average persons, like the rest of her family she has blonde hair and brown eyes.
personality
Positive Traits:
Doting, Intelligent, carefree, calm, and enthusiastic.
Negative Traits: Quick to anger, quick to resort to violence, Vindictive, enjoys messing with people a bit too much, and stubborn.
If it needed to be said in one sentence; Neala is a kind person who seems a bit unhinged. Neala is a very easy going person, always enjoying herself with a smile on her face. Finding entertainment at almost every opportunity, and Freedom at the end of every dark tunnel. She likes to do as she pleases, she is not lofty however and works for those she cares about with an almost obsessive fervor. She is a determined well meaning person with a strong sense of right and wrong, who will willingly put everything on hold to help somebody on the wayside, or to defend a helpless person from attackers. While many would view this as reckless, self-righteous or even naïve, to Neala it is none of these things, one should expect trouble especially when helping others. Doing the right thing is often not the easy thing, hardship is to be expected, met with full force and driven to the side like the inconvenience it is.
Because of her beliefs and upbringing Neala has lived a hard life, and this has led her to be a realist, she knows that life is hard, and things will very rarely be easy. She knows that pain and sadness are a part of life that is here to stay, and therefore she isn’t bothered by much, and will often find no issue with things people would normally see as rude or dangerous. She sees nothing wrong with violence among friends and family, as long as it’s a fight and not a one sided beating. Loyal and hardworking she holds her values in high regard, the ones she holds close are family and “Family must be taken care of.” because “You take care of your own.” Her family is close knit and everyone depends on everyone else in some form or another, The creed is ingrained deep into their lives. Nothing is taken for granted, favors were repaid in kind, kindness was freely given and reluctantly received. Regardless of the family member’s opinion of each other, they strove to take care of each other. Else they would fall apart, leaving her convinced she wouldn’t be alive today if her family had lived in any other manner.
Far from perfect, Neala is quick to anger, it only takes a few wrong words to get on her bad side, thankfully few people would trip on the phrases that set her off. Once she’s angry she quickly resorts to violence, as she was raised to solve her problems through might as well as cleverness. Along with being quick to anger she is stubborn and hot headed, rushing along a path once it’s been chosen, almost outright refusing to consider other options. She’s very observant, and isn’t afraid of speaking what’s on her mind, exactly as it is on her mind. Her emotions are set in stone but can be turned on or off like a switch, because of this she tries her best to simply be happy, and she does this best by either practicing fighting or studying how to attend to injuries, the few things she can just root herself into. Yet she acknowledges her failings in her anger she can be petty, cruel even, and she knows this. She is unapologetic for her actions most of the time, however she can see when she has crossed a line and at the very least will back off when doing so. She has a habit of judging herself harsher than others, constantly complimenting others on their work and praising others freely while denying that she herself has done much of worth, despite her brimming confidence. She is also a tad bit easy to lead along viewing others as more important to herself. She is also a Tree, which means that she can be quite abrasive with others, but really her bite is worse than her bark.
history
Neala was born in the small frozen forest of Furan on the Northern continent. Unlike her two younger brothers however she was gifted by her mother a second heritage. Neala was Half Dryad, Which only meant that she’d live a bit longer and could recover from more lethal wounds than people as long as her tree was kept safe. As she grew up alongside her siblings, she trained with her mother while her brothers went out and hunted. Not needing to eat nearly as much as the other members of her family, she chose instead to spend the time where everyone else was eating by training and growing her powers. It gave her a distinct advantage when it came to their sibling sparring matches.
Not needing to eat or drink as much as the others she found herself delving into other hobbies; sewing, wood carving, woodworking, Cooking, and others. Unlike the majority of their clan who spent their time learning every form of combat there was, she spent her free time learning skills to improve the other’s overall quality of life. She wasn’t the best out there at what she had learned but she was good enough to sell her skills. Then everything changed when the fog spread across the northern country of Furan. Fallen warriors rose again, demons and the like began coming through the holes that lead to the void. The village Neala called her home became a fortress that took in any trying to escape the hell that was spreading from the furthest reaches of the north lands. Neala then began learning medicine in response to this crisis and became obsessed with the idea of improving the body.
By this time Neala was a young women in her late teens when her mother revealed to her the depths of her heritage. As a half Dryad she was gifted with a slightly more powerful body, and a longer life span. However the real heritage was the tree that represented her life growing in her family home. Her tree was tied to her life if it died so would she and moving it was a dangerous gamble. She could still die without harming her tree but it was difficult to do so, painful, extremely painful. Not that she was any better off thanks to the spreading chaos the ground itself was tainted and she was forced to remove her tree from the ground.
When the siege of unholy horrors became too much to stand against and her family decided to flee to Fiore, Neala had to spend most of the trip frantically holding onto a tree. She spent the entire boat ride and the refusal war protecting her tree from harm and when things finally calmed down she began wandering Fiore to find a place to plant her tree to keep it safe. Her family had separated anyways with her parents practically vanishing as far as she knew and her little brothers leaving to join a guild and to run a shop, (Seriously why did everyone just leave?)she spent most of this time of peace by wandering about looking for a place she liked to plant her tree. Then she met this strange young girl with white hair and violet eyes, she wore a headband upon her head a war robed in a kimono and asked her to help her with a small problem. That problem being a strange little man who called himself ‘Mooch’ needing help with a job. Against her better judgement she decided to help him.
Throughout the job (which was basically an extended escort mission) she learned that mooch wasn’t just some spazzy incompetent but more of a brilliant thinker with no direction or focus (she also met his talking fox which was a fun time on it’s own). Her family may have separated to pursue their own goals, her family was still what drove her. While keeping their charge safe from dark guild members, she suggested that he find a group to be a part of. People who have some of the same ideals, would be good for him. and after making him at least promise to think on it they continued escorting their vip and delivered him to the magic council. She parted ways with him after that and wouldn’t see him for a while.
During the Council civil war and the other major Events, Neala, not at all amused by what was going on, and not really having a compelling reason to be get involved. She mainly stayed back avoiding the conflict not sure she had a right to say how the country should be run(no one was paying her to take a side anyways). The entire thing skipped her by, she almost didn’t even notice it when things settled. Not long afterwards she was approached by Mooch again to create a guild. not wanting to let her friend down she decided to join his new guild the Hawk Talons and she’s been assisting him ever since. Even when she heard that her brother had disappeared in the fight with the shadow lord she did not leave her friend guild to look for him. Though that was due to her guild master being a pretty swell guy and helping her out in that department. Needless to say she has been spending a lot of her time perfecting her skills making her useful in general crafting situations, as well as a deadly combatant.
Primary Magic
Name: Dryad’s Legacy.
Description: Neala’s magic is based entirely in her tree half, she has little magic power without it. with it though she has impressive control over plants, being able to direct vines and roots as she pleases. Smaller plants with smaller roots aren’t very useful. To make up for this she gets physically more powerful around these smaller plants while her control over plants gets more powerful over the larger ones. Ideally her magic is best used in a vivid combination of both large plants and small ones so she can switch the benefit back and forth. She can also summon her tree to her if he has enough energy allowing her to use more than the simple buff spells her magic uses.
Her magic has two main uses, Buff spells based around plants, and controlling plants themselves. There are only a few offensive options with her magic being mostly supportive. her main offensive option comes from using strong vines to assault and restrain her enemies, if she wants to beat people up otherwise she needs to do it herself. A cool side effect of tying her senses to the local plant life means that the way she perceives things is different than normal peoples, illusions may not work on her properly while in her home field
As far as weaknesses goes obviously there is lack of combat use outside of supportive roles, most plants are susceptible to fire, though she and her tree are slightly resistant due to their nature as northern waste trees but that only helps them specifically and not by much. A resistance is totally not an immunity. Also looking through the plants to locate enemies leaves her body slightly open as it can be easy to get lost among the plants and lose your sense of self.
Signature Ability
Name: The Tree of Life.
Element: Plant
Description: Neala plants her tree or a part of her tree(normally a branch) in an area creating a home field where Neala is connected to the plants of the area. The creation of this area is signaled by the tree(Or whatever branch she jammed in the ground) setting it's bark on fire like the trees do back in the Furan forests. Her senses are then tied to the local flora, making it difficult to sneak up on her It also gives her better control over the trees in the area allowing her to use her magic to the fullest. While not her best or most powerful ability it is the most convenient and most used allowing her to utilize her magic with more ease. The distance that the home field covers isn't extremely large, about the size of a large backyard. She can extend this distance with a bit of effort and energy poured into the spell, but outside of her maximum range(Near 50 feet in every direction, with 30 being her optimal range.) her power peters off and weakens, quickly becoming useless.
As an aside if she uses this spell with her actual tree it affects and entire area such as an entire building, instead of a range. it can not be undone either meaning that her tree will be stuck there forever forcing her to break branches off of it if she wants to continue using this spell. which hurts, a lot. Though it does promote the growth of other plants in the area, leading to a better home field.
Leaving a home field makes the spells of her Dryad Legacy far weaker, with only a few of the buff being useful.
