Complexity: 3

Summary & Strategy: 

TBA

Bio

See also: Punchline for additional information about the Sylvantii.

On the Sylvantii homeworld of Rist, one foundational belief predated divisions of cultures, nations and even language across history, and endured across generations: the aspects. From the most primordial through the earliest 'civilized' Sylvantii, it was believed that each individual's 'soul' was formed to a particular branch of Sylvantii evolution, and that their growth, potential and capabilities across their life tied into this immutable notion. 'Aspects' were a means by which these branches were identified, and ultimately shared by most Sylvantii cultures.

An individual Sylvantii's aspect is broadly hereditary, but further reaffirmed through spiritual ceremony during infancy. Though the way aspects were presented was not always consistent, most Sylvantii cultures shared in one's aspect being as much a part of one's identity as their name. It was not uncommon for some Sylvantii cultures to have formed caste structures based around an individual's aspect, while even within various cultures, there were those Sylvantii who shirked or renounced their own.

Just as some humans have managed to manifest the potential of 'sorcerous' power on Earth, so too had many among the Sylvantii - though the ways in which this was made manifest could vary greatly from individual to individual. Mali-Zhi was one such Sylvantii: born to the aspect of Zhi, promising great potential in a mastery of the elements. Mali's sorcery most acutely manifested through scrying, remote viewing and fleeting glimpses of what humans would consider 'divination'.

For Sylvantii of Zhi, however, Mali's talent was considered feckless, superfluous, unimpressive: there was very little practical application in waging battle directly, and far more potent forms of intelligence gathering among their upper echelons. With Zhi most prominently known for their formidable offensive capabilities, Mali's was profoundly lacking.

Without her sorcery to command respect, Mali's lack of physical or martial prowess left her seemingly destined for a life of menial duties at best. Yet one among Mali-Zhi's brethren did not cast her aside, perceiving a greater potential in her than her supposed failings as one of the Zhi would suggest.

Vira-Sae Vaelari, of the rarefied Sae aspect, believed that Mali's quiet Serenity held value others overlooked. Where most saw only weak scrying and uncertain flashes of divination, Vira-Sae saw the beginnings of a gift that might one day guide the warring Sylvantii cultures toward peace. But as Mali's visions sharpened under her mentorship, they revealed a far grimmer truth: something ancient and terrible was stirring in the void beyond the stars, and it was coming for their world.

At first, the warnings were dismissed: those visions revealed only fragments, uncertain glimpses of oily shadow through scrying's lens. Mali-Zhi was tacitly dismissed, for the great houses saw little reason to heed the fears of an unproven 'failure' and the mentor who championed her.

Vira-Sae persisted, and in her own aspect's power gleaned a Whisper from spirits of the beyond - providing a foci through which Mali's visions crystalized. With the weight of Vira-Sae's standing and these signs growing harder to deny, word of the coming threat spread among the courts, councils and hegemonies. War was coming, but the nations of the Sylvantii excelled most greatly at the promise of such - over countless wars before, they had been honed, and had a certainty that they could face whatever emerged from the void.

But the horrors that emerged were not foes the Sylvantii understood: they did not conquer through strength alone, but fed upon the very forces which defined the Sylvantii civilization: ambition, desire, a relentless will to triumph. It was these qualities and more upon which the masters of the void feasted and thrived, and the very foundation of opposition on the Sylvantii of Rist fueled their own downfall.

In those final days, Vira-Sae and Mali-Zhi were among those few who would turn their power not towards the void, but a sliver of threadbare hope. Through a desperate ritual drawing upon the guttering remains of the ley energies of their homeworld, a path was opened through the multiverse, affording a handful of Sylvantii a chance to flee and survive on a distant, unremarkable world called Earth.

Most Sylvantii were scattered upon their arrival, not just in place, but in time. Mali-Zhi and Vira-Sae remained together, however, swiftly drawing the attention of the Society of Sorceries. Though humans were 'alien' to the pair, they forged a ready bond with kindred of sorcerous aspects unknown.

Mali-Zhi, then called Serenity, found great wonder in her refuge among the vast archives of the Arcane Sanctum - while Vira-Sae, then called Whisper, began to explore the multitude of spirits which inhabited this world, and begin to aid in preparations for threats yet to come