Part one here! Original template here!

5. background: what’s your watcher’s culture and background? tell us a bit about their life before traveling to the dyrwood! 

Not doing these in order, sorry. This is my first time playing through the game and it’s difficult to RP when you can’t predict what your options are going to be. I’m basically reverse-engineering Kardiel from the decisions I’ve already made.

Anyway, the short answer to what Kardiel’s background is: Old Vailia - Dissident.

The long answer is that she was born in prison. Her mother was a political prisoner during a revolution in one of Old Vailia’s many fractured lands, and so Kardiel spent a good chunk of her early childhood locked up along with her mother. When the revolution was over, her mother became favored by the new lord, but the country was very shortly plunged into another war with one of its neighbors. By that point, Kardiel was old enough to fight and it was considered lucky to have a fire godlike in the militia.

She was captured during a battle and, because of her mother, and because putting a child of Magran to death during a war seemed like a bad idea, she was kept alive, but the threat of her death was used as bait to lure her mother‘s soldiers into a trap. Kardiel’s countrymen managed to free her, but not without sustaining heavier losses than it was probably worth saving her, including her mother.

Kardiel then grew tired of battle and deserted. That landed her in prison for a few more years.