Shae'la
Cha’i Priestess
Race: Half-First
Sex: Female
Age: 24
Height: 5’6″ (1.68m)
Hair: Blonde, length just past shoulders.
Eyes: Hazel
Grandfather: Paran’ti (First) – Deceased
Father: Naros’ki (Human) – Deceased
Mother: Jain’te (First) – Deceased
Appearance:
Shae’la’s blonde hair is straight and is worn just past her shoulders in length. She has almost an innocent appearance about her.
Personality:
Shae’la is a kind and compassionate person, who always looks for the best in a person or situation. She is not niave, though, and realizes that not everyone is as nice as she would hope them to be. In conflicts, Shae’la will try to find peaceful resolutions to issues, and will rarely resort to any form of violence. Shae’la’s also an honest person and will do her best to avoid lying. She enjoys finding ways to help others, and will go out of her way to do so.
Powers:
As Shae’la is half-First, instead of having her First powers blocked, they are actually filtered through her mauve symbiont.
Telepathy: This minor telepathy allows Shae’la to communicate with another, provided they are within 100 yards of her. She can’t read minds or thoughts, the telepathy is communication only.
Empathy: Shae’la can sense the emotions of those nearby. Using her empathy, she can even tell if someone is lying or telling the truth. This power isn’t foolproof, though, as there are those who can mask their emotions so that Shae’la won’t be able to sense them.
Empathic Suggestion: This allows Shae’la to “send” emotions to others. These emotions come across as strong feelings to the target. In the case where it enhances an already existing emotion (happiness to laughter), there is a greater chance that the emotion is felt and acted upon. In the case where Shae’la tries to change an emotion (sadness to happiness), it may not have as much of an effect. Someone who is adept at controlling their emotions would be unaffected by this ability, whereas someone who can’t control their emotions could be very easily swayed, regardless.
Portal Creation: Shae’la has the ability to create portals, like those found on the Grove Planet, that connects to and from the Grove Planet. These portals are identical in form and function to the naturally occurring portals on the Grove Planet, except that Shae’la can create them where she is, and they disappear after she closes them.
Equipment:
Pendant of Mental Protection: This pendant belonged to her grandfather. After his death, she had inherited the pendant. It is very important to her, as it is one of the few things that she has from her grandfather. The pendant protects her mind for all forms of mental intrusions and attacks.
Background:
Shae’la was born in an underground Cha’i civilization on the Grove Planet. Her father, Naros’ki, was a high-ranking Ka’an soldier and her mother was Jain’te, a scientist. Shae’la’s grandfather was Paran’ti, Jain’te’s father. Paran’ti and Jain’te worked closely together on both private experiments and experiments for the government. Growing up wasn’t easy for Shae’la, her father was extremely abusive to her and her mother. Because of his position in the government, his abuses towards his family was often overlooked.
When Shae’la was eight, she started finding ways to be away from home during the day. At first, she spent a lot of time with her grandfather, who was very protective of her. Unfortunately, all the scientific stuff he was working on soon began to bore her. When she was ten, she started venturing out into the town, and when she was twelve, she found her way to the surface. The surface held untold fascination for Shae’la. She had never seen anything like it before, the sun, the sky, and all of the beauty of nature. As she explored the surface, she found herself drawn to an unusual grove of trees and the mysterious portals that converged in the grove. As time passed, she noticed that she was somehow connected to those portals, and was able to make them open and close as she desired, but she never did figure out what the portals were for, other than an unusual and beautiful array of colors.
The abuse didn’t get better as Shae’la got older. Even though she stayed away as much as possible, when she returned home in the evening, her father was always there. When Shae’la turned sixteen, she had enough. After a severe beating on her birthday, Shae’la snuck out of the house and went to the surface. She had spent enough time on the surface to know what plants and berries were safe to eat, and thought she could live up there forever. She did manage to stay away for a week before she started to miss the convinces of her home. She also missed her mother and grandfather, so she decided to return home. Afraid to go directly home and face her father, she first went to see her grandfather. He was very glad to see her, and after his joy of finding her, he told Shae’la the tragic news. When Shae’la didn’t return home, her father went into a rage and killed her mother. The news devastated Shae’la, as she knew it was her disappearance that caused her mother’s death.
Her father’s trial lasted six months, and during that time, Shae’la remained locked in her room at her grandfather’s house, refusing to come out to do anything more than eat small portions. She lost an incredible amount of weight during that time, which only worried her grandfather. At the conclusion of the trial, Naros’ki was executed for his crime. Even more, due to the heinousness of the crime, his name was purged from every database and record and he was buried in an unmarked grave, an extremely dishonorable death.
Shae’la’s seventeenth birthday marked a year since she had last seen her mother. That day was extremely difficult for Shae’la, and she struggled with finding meaning out of her life, and couldn’t find a reason to keep living. Paran’ti had done much to try to help her during the year, sending her to therapists and trying to console her himself. On this day, though, he knew that there was no more that he could do, so he decided to send her to the temple. There the priests and priestesses would be able to help her and start her on the path to becoming a priestess herself. Shortly after, he accepted a position in the Council of Intelligence.
Staying at the temple proved to be beneficial to Shae’la, and slowly, her mood and attitude began to improve. By the time she turned eighteen, she had decided to use her tragedy to help others. Instead of focusing on herself, she would spend her time trying to help others, in any way that she could. As a priestess, she would come into contact with many people who needed help, and that pleased her greatly.
When Shae’la was 21, she heard about a woman who’s Cha’i had grown. She had heard about that disease from her grandfather before, but such outbreaks were almost unheard of. Curious, she went to the hospital to find out what was going on. There, she met Jas, Qwaring and Oreina’ga for the first time. She had a brief encounter with them before they were determined to be spies, and the Ka’an soldiers tried to apprehend them. Shae’la had never seen powers like theirs before, and the three were able to escape the hospital and the city. Curious, Shae’la followed them from a distance, so as to not be seen. It was the first time in five years that she had been to the surface. She was amazed that they went straight to the grove, opened a portal, passed through, and vanished with the portal.
Shae’la never would have guessed the portals would do that, and she wondered if she’d ever see the three strangers again. It was doubtful that they would return to the city, but perhaps they would return to the grove itself, through the portal they disappeared through. Excited and curious, Shae’la returned to the city and went to her grandfather’s house to talk to him about the strangers. He appeared concerned, but didn’t tell Shae’la much about them, except to stay away. Slightly saddened, Shae’la returned to the temple and her duties, never actually forgetting about the strangers.
A few months had passed, and Shae’la never fully forgot about the strangers. Life had pretty much returned to normal a few days after they had left, but for Shae’la, the fascination still remained. Every now and then, Shae’la would talk to her grandfather, hoping to get some information from him. She could sense that he knew something, but was protecting her. Finally, she was able to find out more about the strangers. Apparently, Oreina’ga had used the portals frequently, and he was able to intercept her at one point and speak with her. She didn’t want Shae’la to meet her sooner because he knew that Oreina’ga blamed him for her grandfather’s death. Paran’ti told Shae’la everything about her First heritage, how the Cha’i suppress the First abilities, and that he had created a device, after her mother had died, that would separate a Cha’i from a First without killing them, as it had worked for Oreina. He wanted to do the same to Shae’la, to protect her, so he wouldn’t have to watch her die, the way Jain’te had died. Shae’la refused, knowing that her Cha’i was important to her physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Undeterred, Paran’ti gave her the device anyway, in case she changed her mind.
When Shae’la was 22, the city again came under attack by strangers from another universe. The might of those who attacked proved to be too much for many of the Ka’an. During the invasion, Paran’ti was killed by one of the generals that attacked the city. Shae’la wanted to find a way to help, and tried to use her grandfather’s device to free herself from the Cha’i and unlock the powers that he told her she had. As she was only half-First, though, the device didn’t work as planned. Shae’la and her symbiont nearly died as a result. When she recovered a few days later, she discovered that her empathic abilities had strengthened. In addition, she discovered that she could make portals wherever she was, instead of only opening the portals in the grove.
The city was occupied by the Negation forces for several weeks before they left on their own, apparently being called to places where battles were being lost. With her family dead, she didn’t feel called to remain in the city anymore, but needed to go out and find out more about the universe they lived in. She needed to find ways to help others, beyond those in her own city. Taking the only thing she had left from her grandfather, his pendant, she went to the grove, opened a portal, and passed through, leaving her home behind.
As she began her journey, she learned that the Negation had attacked many worlds, not only her own. The Negation War, as it had come to be called, spread through the entire universe bringing death and destruction. The Negation Forces were eventually pushed back to the Negation Universe, but the damage in the universe was going to take a long time to heal. It was on one such war-torn world that she found Jas, lying near death. She remembered him from when he came to the Grove Planet all those years ago. She decided to help him recover from his wounds.
Over the next few months, Shae’la helped Jas recover. Jas had many gaps in his memory as a result of his near fatal battle, and there wasn’t much that Shae’la could do to help him remember. Jas told her that his Memory Crystal would help his memory return, he only needed to find it. Shae’la agreed to help him recover his Memory Crystal. Her ability to create portals would prove to be extremely beneficial, as their search would take them to several different worlds, seeking clues to the location of Jas’s Memory Crystal. The search eventually led them to the world of Kenos and the legend of some island known as Isla del Dios. Jas believed that he would find his Memory Crystal on this island, but knew he would need to get the help of the locals to find it.
Story Line: CrossGen Campaign
