Lanadie Myer

[Lanadie Myer]

Name: Lanadie Myer
Sex: Female
Age: Real age is 78; she looks about 30 years old due to her Elven blood
Race: Elf; allegedly has some Fae blood

Physical Description:
Lanadie has long, light brown hair which almost reaches her elbows, she usually wears it loose or sometimes bound together in a ponytail. Her soft Elven skin slightly blushes around her cheeks which make her would make her look even younger if not for the lack of a cheerful smile to finish it.
While she usually does not notice it herself, she commonly wears her fine face with a certain hint of arrogance.

While completely blind her dark green eyes do not appear different on first glance, though they somehow appear cold and empty when one would look closer. Most of the time she does use her eyes during conversations, but since she can never be completely sure where someone's is she sometimes seems to gaze at nothing.

Lanadie is a tall and tender person, while her female feature are still clearly visible. Even when she has to use her walking stick for guidance she moves with certain grace. While Elves tend to be quicker then the average human, her blindness restricts her speed.

Her most beautiful features are her hands, which are delicate and soft as well as fast and accurate. She uses her hands to identify objects, deal cards and feel someone's face to get an idea of how they look and who they are. With all which she does with her hands they are equally mysterious as sensual.

Personality:
One reason why the rumor of Fae blood running through the Myer family persists, is because of their unfathomable personalities. While her mother was rather calm and trustworthy, Lanadie has a more troublesome nature.

One of her most authoritative characteristic is her arrogance which, while mostly subtile, will ruin any conversation when Lanadie feels she is being pitied upon, especially if it concerns her blindness. At the same time, however, she also strongly longs for affection and physical attachment; maybe even stronger because of the fact she can not see if someone likes her or is attracted to her.

Another peculiar quality is the way she can mix half facts, whole truths and cold lies all in one sentence. She sees no reason to tell the true story if another version might be more useful at the moment; or visa versa, if she feels like it she won't hesitate to serve you the bitter truth.
Wether lying caused distrust or distrust caused lying is something we will probably not know, but Lanadie trusts other people like they should be advices to trust her: not at all. On a bad day she would not even trust herself.
Again there seems to have ben some kind of queer mix-up as Lanadie does both not trust people as she wants to trust them. Usually this climaxes when she becomes closer with someone. All the confusion and struggling caused by distrust and longing at the same time is one reason why she warns herself from getting too close with anyone.

Lanadie has shown a great amount of loyalty and willpower, especially during the long period of traineeship under Alexei, her old mentor. She is a hard worker and remarkable ambitious for a blind woman.


Lanadie is in almost constant struggle with all her personal contradictions and dual emotions. From the outside she appears as a strong, will-full woman and while that is also true for the inside she is also insecure and lonely.
To an outside however it would appear that she will not give in or be persuaded, she just changes her mind. Nobody will ever help her out, they are just hired or told to do so.
On one day she will be kind and loving but on the next she can be mischievous and untrustworthy.

To be able to come closer and learn more about her one would have to treat her careful and tactful, and have patience. In the end she is worth it though, since she'll be very loyal and care deeply for you.

Possessions:
Preferring light and easy travel Lanadie usually does not carry a lot with her, she does not posses a lot anyway. On a random day she would have this on her:
- Basic cloth travel dress
- Wooden walking stick
- Small silver knife (carried for self-defence purposes)
- Leather purse with some Bishans
- Small leather backpack, inside are:
- Deck of Rune cards (see Powers) with small hight differences so she can identify them with her fingers
- The book "Treatise on Runes", a 287 page long book covering most aspects of proper and improper usage of runes. It's specially designed with higth-dots to be readable (only) for blinds.

In Thar Shaddin she has a simple, one room house she bought with money received from selling her old mentor's house. Because she does not and can not value visual objects it is quite soberly designed. Other then a bed, a table with three chairs and a small kitchen corner, their isn't much else.
For privacy purposes and an extra hint of mystery she can split her house in two with a purple curtain. She usually does that when she expects customers.

Powers:
Compared to humans, Lanadie already lived a long life and as such has quite some knowledge and wisdom to share. Being well educated by Alexei she has a sharp and well-trained mind. Especially when dealing with icons, puzzles and logical problems one would notice her fast brain.
However since most of the education she received was related with runes one way or another, her knowledge is somewhat single-sided. The great lack of literature readable by blinds also adds to this.

Because she is completely blind her other senses have automatically increased and sharpened. Since Elves commonly already have sharper senses then most other races, all her senses but her sight are now far beyond those of humans.
She can identify most drinks and food by smelling and/or touching it. When alone with one or two familiar people in a room she can even identify those people by smelling them or recognize their perfume, but usually their are too many people around or the air is not clean enough.
Her best sense is her hearing though, which she also needs the most to function as normal as possible. While she can not see emotions on people their faces she can hear emotions through their voice. When it is silent she can hear people or animals walking from great distances even if they are trying to stay silent; however the wind needs to be in the right angle.


Lanadie's most characteristic power is her affinity with runes and the powers they posses.

In practical usage, her abilities using runes can be divided into two parts: Rune Reading and Rune Drawing. The former is the observer power and the latter the acting one, both work with the help of runes.
Runes (or sigils or symbols as they are also called) are representations of all aspects of life. They have no magic or powers themselves but they can be used to see and change the flow of probabilities, chance, favor and luck.

Using these cards with runes Lanadie is able to 'see' and change probabilities of what will happen. She has no access to supernatural abilities though, she can't make herself fly or turn invisible. Instead she has only the power to change how likely it is for something already possible to happen.

Rune Reading:
Rune reading closely reassembles reading tarot cards. Using a large deck of cards showing different runes and sigils she can 'tap' or 'look' into the flow of probabilities concerning a specific subject or person.

While heavily focusing on a specific subject of choice Lanadie will shuffle the deck, then the subject person has to split the deck.
No longer required to focus intensively on the specific subject, Lanadie can now start dealing the card in any fashion. Every time a different amount of cards can be dealt and spread in any form, though most of the time she spreads about 3-9 cards in either a cross or a v-shape.
Every time a card is dealt, Lanadie uses her knowledge of the rune in question and, while taking the subject in mind explain it to the person in front of her. Because Rune Reading is all about probabilities there are no absolute meanings for each rune. Instead each rune has a multitude of possible meanings. It is up to the Lanadie to choose the correct one(s) and translate them.
While shuffling and interpreting the runes it is important for Lanadie to keep focused on the question(s) and subjects she focused on while shuffling the cards. Not being to keep focus will scramble the meanings of the runes, effectively making it useless to try and translate them.

The subject of choice can be pretty much anything, from questions concerning the future live of loved ones, the winning horse in the next race, who murdered the farmer, wether someone will become very rich or where an escaped criminal is hiding.

Translating the dealt runes will give Lanadie and the asking persons clues about such questions. A possible answer for the question of "who killed the farmer?" could be:
First card, which is placed apart from the others:
- The 'Tower' Rune for loneliness, being abandoned, distance, difficulty to attach.
Second and third cards, placed right next to each other:
- Upside down 'Snake' Rune for absence of truth, evading.
- The 'Two Trees' Rune for caring, finding each other.
Horizontally on top of the those cards lies the:
- The 'Square and Circle Rune' for an unequal equation, disagreement, clash.

Possible explanation: after an argument (Square and Circle) concerning lying (upside down Snake) about loving someone (Two Trees) the killer felt betrayed/abondened (Tower) and then killed the farmer (subject/question). This could mean that either the farmer's wife found out about him having an affair and killed him or his mistress killed him for wanting to stop seeing her.
Or... it could mean something totally else.

Because you can not think independently from and neutral about yourself it is impossible for Lanadie to read her own runes. It is however possible to recognize herself or her acts while reading some else's runes.

Rune Drawing:
Rime drawing is a equally more difficult as it is powerful then rune reading. Using her knowledge and experience with runes Lanadie is able to not only read the courses of probabilities but also affect it.
Simply put, Rune Drawing is the skill of 'wishing'.

This is done by drawing runes. First Lanadie has to focus intensively on what she wants to accomplish. After she has meditated on her intention/goal/wish for an amount of time (ranging from minutes to hours or even days) she will draw a number of runes which can represent her goal. Drawing the runes can be done with pen on paper, with a stick in sand or even by 'writing' in the air. The Drawing itself is not the important part, it is merely a physical representation of Lanadie's goal.

Her wish can be anything from stumbling into a long lost friend, hitting a moving target with bow and arrow, not being seen by the guards while sneaking or winning the lottery.
It all depends on probabilities though. Meeting a long lost friend tomorrow will be highly unlikely if said friend is hundreds of miles away. However if he lives in the same city it can be made very probable that you will both go to the same shop while you could also not accidently meet each other in years.

There are multiple ways to increase the chance of success, those are: having a clear and reachable goal, ignore all other thoughts and focus only on the goal ahead. Living beings are harder to influence because they a will of their own, however if someone for example already wants to buy new clothes it is not that hard to influence which ones.
Like Readings, Drawings are generally more successful when more energy and focus is put into it. An easy wish (a drunken person trips over his own feet) however can be 'cast' in a few minutes if not sooner, yet more difficult wishes (a professional dancer falls) should be given more time and energy.

While Lanadie can influence almost anything by affecting probabilities, there are limitations. She can not make the impossible possible or create supernatural effects. She would however be able to, for example, have an other wizard change the weather "because he just felt doing so".
But again, Rune Drawing is all about probabilities and chance and therefore success can never be guaranteed. It might happen, or it might not happen. Also, it can also happen at at different time. A wish can be granted right after the Drawing, or days later.

All Lanadie can do is make it more or less probable that something will happen.

Weaknesses:
Lanadie is completely blind.
Because of that, she's unable to move quickly in an unknown environment and almost completely dependent on a guide in rough terrains like forests. Being visual impaired also handicaps her social life, most people prefer to go out with 'healthy' or 'normal' people. She can not see people's faces and is therefor not able to interpret their emotions other then by the sound of their voice.
Lanadie is also practically defenseless against thieves and hostile men and animals. She can point her knife in the direction she thinks someone is and then run, but that's about all she can do.
Depending heavily on her hearing she can not afford to loose it. Constant loud noise from a machine effectively 'blinds' her. Because sound travels through air she always hears more from the direction the wind is coming from and a lot less from the opposite direction.


Because of the mysteries surrounding Rune Reading and Drawing and the magical atmosphere it has, people could see Lanadie's powers as illegal magic, which can get her in trouble. Wether it is in fact real magic or not is something even Lanadie does not know for sure.

The major disadvantage of her power is the fact that success is never guaranteed. She also has no way of telling what she exactly has done with a Rune Drawing or when or how 'it' will happen or wether her interpretation of a Rune Reading is correct or not.

Another disadvantage is the amount of time it costs to Read and especially to Draw Runes. While most basic Readings will last between 15 minutes and 2 hours, difficult Drawings frequently require at least half an hour for a quick and dirty one and hours or even days for a secure and powerful one.

History:
Lanadie was born as the daughter of a single gypsy mother. They never staid at the same place for more then a year, most commonly they left after a few weeks. The gypsy caravan could be found mostly around the northern trade route.
From the moment she could read her mother taught her about the Runes and what they represented.
Because they travelled around so much and more importantly because they were gypsies, Lanadie did not have any real friends other then the few other kids traveling with them. It was quite common that the local children and or even the adults despised and bullied them.

At the age of 19 she sort of had a boyfriend for a couple of weeks, Juan. While he actually liked her he also wanted to force her to give herself to him. Lanadie knew she was far from ready for that but did not want to push him away either since she loved the attention he gave her.
After a few weeks of being kept at bay Juan took her for a walk into the woods. Their he tried to persuade her again but she refused and wanted to go back, but Jua lost his patience and forcefully tried to make her his. Lanadie had no chance against the stronger and older farmer boy. Being miles away from both the village and the gypsy camp nobody could hear her screaming.

Too ashamed about what happened Lanadie told her mother nothing of what had happened. Luckily for her, the gypsy caravan left two days ago. Though she would forget nor forgive him, she at least never had to see Juan again.

The years following her raping Lanadie completely focused on training her skills with Runes. She was beautiful to see, even among Elves, and received quite some attention from the opposite sex but she rarely gave attention in return. While she still yearned for attention she has had only a few relations, only one of them being close to become serious.

At the age of 30 she became a full member of the gypsy society. That mend she was introduced to many camp secrets, including the details of her bloodline. She was told of the legend of her mothers grandfather who apparently would have been a Faerie. She also had the right to learn about her own father; it was her mothers hard job to tell Lanadie that she was the product of a raping.

Shocked by the nature of her existence Lanadie packed the few things she had and left the gypsy camp, leaving her lone mother behind in tears. She knew she had broken her mothers hart and soul by leaving her, but by simply seeing her mother Lanadie would be reminded of her unwanted birth... and of Juan.

After weeks of travel Lanadie finally found a good friend of her mother, Alexei - who lived in Marn, a city in the Thar Shaddin region. He took her in his house and continued her Rune training.
While her mother had only taught her about using runes on cards to read the flow of probabilities and luck, Alexei explained her that Rune reading was only part of the power runes possessed. It was also possible, he explained, to actually affect the course of favor and chance by drawing runes.
Rune Drawing was, as Lanadie learned, both very powerful as a very dangerous thing to do and required great sacrifices. Alexei had spend nearly three quarters of his Elven life (about 244 years) studying the powers of Rune Drawing neglecting all other aspects life.

Eager to explore these dangerous powers - and having nothing left to loose - Lanadie eagerly accepted Alexei's offer to become her tutor and teach her the skill of Rune Drawing. After years and years of training Lanadie wanted more and grow more quickly. According to Alexei that was possible, but she would have to undergo a dangerous ritual.
Trusting Alexei completely Lanadie agreed and followed his orders to prepare the ritual. In order to be more open for the runic powers and receive more control over them she would have to be blinded... completely. The runes were all she had left in this live, so she barely hesitated when Alexei told her of the sacrifice she would have to make. Throughout the ritual, which lasted nearly two full days, she slowly lost her eyesight while increasing her bond with the runes. At the end of the painful process she could not see at all, but she could feel her increased powers.

Only nine years later Alexei died of old age. In the mean while Lanadie had learned how to get around as a blind, so she was partly prepared for this event which left her alone. However emotionally it was almost unbearable since he had been practically her father the last decades.
After a month she sold the house and bought a small, one-room cottage in the other part of town. While she wanted to leave Thar Shaddin she could not because of her blindness. She was already used to walk around in Marn and she could even make the trip to Shim without a guide.
However now Alexei had died all she wanted was to get out of Thar Shaddin. While she could hire a guide or travel with a caravan she wanted to be able to travel independently. She wanted her sight back, while maintaining her increased affinity with the runic powers.

[Sir Karsimir]

Approved.