[/b] Teshka Elessamorn
Aliases: Thorn
Gender: Female
Age: Appears mid-twenties
Affiliation: Eldrid / Battleborn
Species: Eshteni Aelfin
Homeworld: Eshteni (Darkened)[/ul]

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Like many Eldrid, Thorn tends to armour based on the natural word she fights so fiercely to protect. Like others that fight for Ekkunar, natural themes are woven throughout her choice of attire - appearing organic and earth-toned. The chitinous appearance Thorn has chosen echoes primitive undertones of plants and insects, hard, much like her, and ending in sharp points akin to her namesake. It is also designed to provide protection without limiting her movement, especially as one of her greatest strengths is her natural-born agility. As such, it is light weight and has a number of obvious spaces between plates which are layered atop a dark under-suit - exposing thighs, knees, elbows and ankles - the parts of her body requiring most room for movement. Her right arm - her bow arm - is encased in a gauntlet, protecting her wrist and hand from Kreshek's bowstring. Her left arm and lower right leg are left bare of armour altogether - the arm to allow her to quickly and easily draw her bowstring, the leg more for personal preference.


Physically, Thorn is similar to many of the Aelfrin, in that she is both tall and willowy, with sharp features and long, pointed ears - beautiful even if often grumpy. Her youth is seemingly eternal, as her race are capable of surviving for millennia if their lives are not ended unnaturally. Many could describe her as gangly, her limbs seemingly longer than her body, and the image isn't aided by the fact she hunches, an assumed position from years stealthily ranging the wilds. Her hair, shock white, is voluminous and tends to be tied back by dark ties, occasionally plaited with red beads. She keeps long fringe from her eyes with a headband - a part of her armour. The left third of her face is painted with red woad - a simple streak of crimson running from forehead to jaw. She accentuates her jade green eyes with dark makeup, making them stand out against her otherwise pale skin.



Personalized Weaponry:



Kreshek (translated as 'One Who Hunts the Shadow') is a collapsible Ekkunai longbow with a long and colourful history - particularly the Aelfrin warriors who repelled the Varelsi during the inaugural invasion of Ekkunar. It was during this battle that Kreshek's considerable legend first emerged.

It was initially wielded by Ilna, an Aelfrin warrior whose arrows pierced the skulls of over one hundred first-wave Varelsi troops. However, Ilna was not to survive the attack and was tragically slain soon after. Minutes later, the bow was taken up by the UPR's Kevin Mahoney- a visiting delegate and peace keeper, who had never seen battle in his life. Mahoney loosed two arrows during his brief tenure as Kreshek's ward. Neither shot was aimed. The first inexplicably found the head of a Varelsi conservator, killing it instantly. The second ricocheted off a tree and killed Mahoney - who is remembered for being handsome, but deeply unlucky.

Reports are scattered, but best accounts state that six different combatants wielded Kreshek over the course of that single battle, and since then, the bow has been lost several times, broken, and passed from warrior to warrior, each who gave their life in defence of darkened star systems. Now wielded by Thorn, she has taken up her ancestor's fight, and Kreshek aids her as it did them.

Not operating like a normal bow, Kreshek must be used with a paired archer's gauntlet - one that is specifically designed to function in tandem with Kreshek. Between the pair, arrows are fabricated from trace elements in the surrounding air; the bow producing the arrowhead, the gauntlet producing the shaft. The wielder, thus, needs no quiver. Also, the gauntlet is capable of drawing latent energy from its wearer, shaping those energies into various hurled projectiles.


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Thorn has an ancestral link to ancient Eldrid magic, most notably that of corruption and rot. Named 'Blight', she is capable of using the effects of said magic in battle to rapidly damage her opponents, be they of flesh or robotic consistency. The young Aelfrin is able to cover a specific area with thick, poisonous mist, which damages those stood within it over time. This magic is not often long lasting, for it requires incredible concentration to maintain.


Drawing energy from the natural world around her, Teshka can create a orb of living emerald power that, when charged with said energy, becomes highly destructive. When hurled at opponents, channelled through Kreshek's gauntlet, the orbs explode, causing massive damage and knocking enemies backward and away from her as the stored energy is unleashed upon them.


As aforementioned, Thorn often charges her arrows with magic, imbuing them with her natural link to nature and cursing their tips with hexes of the natural world's design. Those then struck bear nature's curse, and suffer more damage from attacks following. Much like her Blight magic, the curses do not last long, but are deadly while they do.


Like all Eldrid, Thorn carries no shield, relying instead on her race's rapid health regeneration to survive in combat.

Battle Tactics: Thorn is a master of ranged combat and having spent her life training in the wilds of Ekkunar, has a tendency to fight like a hunter; setting traps for her unsuspecting opponents to spring and staying out the thick of the fight. She has developed a rather unique fighting style, and is capable of fighting alone or as part of a group, though when part of a team she often hangs back from those about her, in keeping with her ‘loner’ nature and sniper role.

Not built for resilience, Teshka is often found a way away from the fray, using accurate and powerful shots from Kreshek to support her allies and destroy those that oppose her. Arrows are often charged with curses, rendering shields helpless, enemies crippled and slow, able to be finished by those fighting up close or by a second arrow. She rarely stays in one place too long, moving quickly between vantage points so as to always stay ahead of her enemies and not become an easy target. If her allies find themselves outnumbered, Thorn is capable of forming her arrows into a volley that spreads over a wide area, dealing damage to a number of opponents and diverting their attention from her fellows. Further support is leant in the creation of blight fields, often tinged with other damaging effects, the magic that she creates slowing and cursing her enemies over short periods of time.

When fighting alone, Teshka’s ability to outmanoeuvre her opponents is paramount. Quick, nimble and agile, Thorn rarely stops moving and keeps herself away from those wishing to get close to her. Rapid use of blight fields slow enemies down, allowing her to loose a number of arrows before they close in, generally firing quickly in order to make the most of opponents’ brief reduction of speed. If possible, she lays blight traps upon groups, keeping enemies close together to allow the ever following volley to be more effective. As blight magic has no effect upon the Aelfrin warrior herself, Thorn often runs through areas affected by her curses, leading enemies that way- before turning to finish them off with her bow and arrow or a projection of energy – Nature’s Wrath.


Weaknesses:
Shieldless and Fragile: Like all Eldrid, Thorn outright refuses to use any form of shielding. This unfortunately means that while others are protected from initial damage dealt by attacks, Teshka isn’t. As she isn’t overly ‘built’ and is naturally quite a fragile creature, she is much more easily hurt than others.

Ranged Combatant: Thorn has been trained in ranged combat, but has received little close combat training. When enemies close in on her, her options become limited, and backed into a corner, there’s very little she can do to protect herself against more skilled hand-to-hand combatants.

Reckless: Despite being physically weaker than many other Battleborn, Thorn rarely, if ever, runs from a fight. Quite the opposite, in fact, she’s more likely run into danger than find a way to avoid it. This can lead to getting both herself and others into troublesome situations; as her team mates tend to find themselves rushing to her aid.

Lone Aelfrin: Teshka is incredibly difficult to get along with. Unlike others who lost their home worlds and people, Thorn has found it difficult to integrate with others and at times deliberately separates herself from them. She deems very few her friends, and those that aren’t are liable to get shouted at, snarked at and bear the brunt of sarcastically cutting off-hand comments. She’s not liable to offer much help either. She’d not let a teammate die – but beyond that? They’re on their own. Unless of course said team mates were of Jennerit origin – then she might have been the reason for their predicament in the first place.


Character Trivia, Notes, Clarifications, etc:

• Thorn is part of a book club with Montana, one of the few humans she likes (And she likes him quite a lot!)
• Despite her often vile mood and harsh temperament, Thorn cares more than she lets on, especially for those of Ekkunar.
• She is a very spiritual young woman who believes the souls of the dead become one with nature following their passing.

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Their mechanized voices skipped syllables and grated, sounding vastly out of place in the Ekkunar wilderness. In their hands, they carried varied items, two cutting tools, two what looked to be firearms of a sort. Occasionally, they twitched, and they set the Aelfrin on edge.

Whatever their purpose, she doubted it was one she would approve.

Stepping out from behind the vessel she’d used as cover, she took hold of the arrowhead Kreshek held, pulling back so that it produced a shaft, which she could then knock to the string of her longbow. Drawing it taut, she took aim at one of the robots and spoke clearly, her heavily accented voice unwavering.
“I think it is time you leave.”
She had not bothered to ask them why they had even come – for it was not important. They didn’t belong upon her planet. All four turned in perfect synchronicity, eyeing her with their blank lenses. They made no move to answer her or beg for their existence – merely continued to repeat the same two words over and over.
“I don’t know if you understood me o-“

She noted one raising its weapon before it had chance to fire, and with a quick adjustment of her aim, she changed her target and loosed her arrow, the pointed head piercing the robot’s cranium with ease, causing it to drop and spark. The other opened fire soon after, but not before she had chance to duck into cover. Apparently they had no desire to leave.

“Not that it matters,” she muttered to herself, “I was hoping they wouldn’t. I've not sent scrap back to the LLC for a while now.” And that’s all they’d be when she was done with them – scrap. Closing her eyes for a moment, and tapping into the magical energy that flowed through her veins, just as it had her parents before her, a black and green glow began to form about Kreshek's next arrow. "I wonder if they are immune to rust and rot?" she pondered aloud - wondering quite how the blight magic she wielded would affect the more durable robots of the LLC.

She assumed the same as it affected everything else. Destructively.


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[/b] Red
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