Recorded possession
Field notebooks & source trail
Indexed, dated, cross-referenced records, samples and provenance; older volumes are stored with trusted contacts.
See complete recorded mechanics for limitations.Story
Stories & continuity
Elia’s Researcher Arc →
Established biography and a flexible story plan, including an introductory Chapter 1 brief. No finished prose chapters. Levels follow earned experience; 42 chapters is not a fixed structure.
History, relationships & development
HISTORY
Academy phase
Elia is trained at a Bardic academic institution rather than a performing-arts school. The institution teaches history, religion, magical theory, rhetoric, lore, old texts, and performance as part of Bardic scholarship. Elia specializes formally in History and Religion. After completing her education she is retained for roughly six months as a junior researcher/research assistant and TA. Her work includes archive/catalogue duties, helping senior faculty, tutoring, study sessions, and occasional lectures. Before the forbidden-research incident she is considered promising, personable, useful, and employable; no one treats her as an obvious problem case.
Forbidden question and dismissal
During legitimate research, Elia notices a discrepancy suggesting deliberate suppression: possible missing citations, removed pages, quotations of a source the academy claims does not exist, mismatched expedition records, or similar evidence. The exact trigger is not yet fixed. She follows the thread immediately. Academy restrictions are intended to be defensible and include dangerous compositions, true names, ritual instructions, cursed texts, entity records, hazardous histories, and similar material. Elia pushes restricted access/asks the wrong questions/follows leads beyond institutional comfort. She is eventually dismissed. The academy's action is not intended to be cartoonishly malicious; it can still be defensible even if her later research proves important. By dismissal she has enough of a lead to continue independently.
The mark
Shortly after leaving and before the campaign/story proper, Elia follows the lead alone to an old ritual site in the woods. She interacts with or completes something. The ritual works as intended and claims/marks her. She is too focused on the discovery and notes to notice her appearance immediately, camps/sleeps, then sees the split transformation in a stream reflection the next morning. Outward reaction is intended as "Oh." Internally she immediately begins testing hypotheses: curse, transmutation, persistence, boundaries, eye changes, etc. She instinctively thinks of academy resources/people, then remembers she no longer has access. She is concerned and fascinated.
Independent career
Adventuring becomes the best available research methodology. Elia follows leads across regions and between institutions. Travel is not random: each destination follows a research tree that can look absurd to outsiders because they do not understand the subject. Cheap/light leads she checks herself; many are dead ends, mistranslations, unrelated ruins, or false connections. Enough discoveries are real that she builds a professional reputation. She develops practical field skills over years, including using magic such as Tiny Hut and Speak with Plants for field survival/navigation. She works with recurring friends/colleagues and institutions but does not require a fixed party. Institutions may contact her with discoveries because "Verin, we uncovered something you may want to see" is an effective way to summon her.
Institutional reconnection
By high level, institutions respect her results even if the old academy still considers the original dismissal justified. She has a newer institution she repeatedly works with, a professional home-away-from-home rather than an employer. Teleportation Circle represents a mature institutional network. Elia likely copied the old academy's circle sigil years earlier into the margin of an academy notebook with a note such as "Academy TC sigil — restricted. Don’t use. Interesting geometry." Years later, at an extraordinary site, she can dig out that old notebook and appear at the academy unexpectedly to bring them a major discovery. This is a proposed planned scene, not written prose.
Final GOO investigation
The late build order is Bard 9 -> Bard 10 -> Warlock 9 -> Warlock 10. This means Elia first becomes a mature, connected, broadly capable researcher: Legend Lore, Teleportation Circle, Telepathic Bond, Commune, Commune with Nature, Insight/Survival Expertise. Only then does she deliberately turn those mature methods back toward the original GOO question. Warlock 9-10 represent a final, sustained research push, not patron corruption. Contact Patron allows direct questioning; Contact Other Plane generalizes the method. The final revelation is that the ritual/puzzle did not malfunction: it was designed to create/cultivate precisely the kind of researcher Elia became. The GOO may want some lost knowledge recovered, but its ultimate motives remain beyond Elia's conceptual framework. Elia's own choices and relationships remain real; the source understood her and placed the right question rather than puppeting her. Her intended reaction to the revelation is simply "Huh." Then she moves on to the next interesting question.
Future/legacy
Elia likely never retires. Older Elia may rely more on Dream, Arcane Eye, correspondence, and younger field researchers, but she continues pursuing knowledge. Her notebooks/reports/transcriptions/correspondence could become a "Verin corpus." She does not seek fame; the value is that centuries later someone can know something because she recorded it. Future scholars may be frustrated by references to lost/missing notebooks, accidentally creating "lost Elia knowledge."
RELATIONSHIPS
- Named people
- None established.
- Academy
- Major formative institution/community. Relationship shifts from belonging -> strained boundaries -> dismissal -> long-term professional distance -> potential later reconnection/collaboration.
- Students/former students
- Elia was liked by students. Proposed reunion dynamic: former student recognizes her by voice/behavior/tangent rather than changed appearance; may call her "Professor Verin," which she could correct because she was not actually a professor.
- Senior faculty/Professor X
- Specific names not established. Elia may instinctively think of academy resources or a professor after the mark; exact person is unresolved.
- Newer institution
- Exists as a planned recurring professional home-away-from-home; unnamed.
- Great Old One/source
- Not a conventional patron-employer relationship. It reached her through the ritual/mark; Warlock progression is primarily Elia learning to understand/reproduce the phenomenon. Ultimate motive remains unknowable. It may have deliberately cultivated a broad, curious, socially capable researcher to recover knowledge.
- Companions/expedition specialists
- No named characters yet. Mature Elia increasingly brings specialists instead of handling major discoveries alone.
DEVELOPMENT
Established intended progression
- 1. Academy Elia
- all-black visual; promising junior researcher/TA.
- 2. Marked Elia
- split transformation after ritual.
- 3. Early field researcher
- learns survival and practical distance.
- 4. Level 10 B5/W5
- first literal half-and-half class milestone.
- 5. Mid/high Warlock research
- summon, Gaze, mental/alien methods.
- 6. Veteran field researcher
- Resilient, Freedom of Movement, Observant, Dimension Door.
- 7. Bard 9-10
- mature connected researcher; Survival/Insight Expertise, Teleportation Circle, Legend Lore, Telepathic Bond, Commune, Commune with Nature.
- 8. Warlock 9-10
- deliberate final investigation; Dream, Arcane Eye, Contact Patron, Modify Memory/Telekinesis, Contact Other Plane, Thought Shield/Eldritch Hex, final revelation.
- 9. Years-later epilogue
- confidently interviewing a devil in its own domain because it knows something.
Unresolved development details
- Exact city/academy/world names.
- Exact suppressed source/discrepancy that starts the forbidden investigation.
- Exact sequence of expeditions and named relationships.
- Exact chapter count; previous 42-chapter structure was a proposal and user explicitly prefers working it out as the story develops.
Continuities & appearances
ELIA VERIN — STORY CONNECTIONS
CONTINUITY 1: UNNAMED ELIA VERIN MAIN CONTINUITY
- Status
- Current and only established Elia continuity in this conversation.
- Story title
- Not established.
- World/setting name
- Not established.
- Role
- Main protagonist / principal character.
STORY SUMMARY
Elia begins as a happy, promising young scholar and TA at a Bardic academic institution. While conducting legitimate research, she notices evidence that material has been suppressed. Her curiosity leads her beyond institutional boundaries and eventually to dismissal. She follows the surviving lead alone to an old ritual site, where a ritual/source marks half her body white/dark/red while the other half remains black/pale/gold. She treats the transformation as a research problem.
Her career develops from inexperienced ex-academic into independent field researcher. Bard levels represent broad academic growth, travel, collaboration, institutions, communication, and learning from increasingly diverse sources. Warlock levels represent her focused attempt to understand the specific alien phenomenon that marked her. She becomes exactly half Bard / half Warlock at level 10 for the first time, then ultimately at level 20.
By late career she reconnects professionally with institutions, learns to bring specialists rather than work alone, replaces Charm Person with Rary's Telepathic Bond, learns Legend Lore, Commune, and Commune with Nature, and turns those mature methods back toward the original GOO question. The final Warlock levels reveal that the ritual worked as intended and appears to have been designed to cultivate precisely this kind of broad, persistent researcher. Ultimate motive remains beyond her. She reacts with "Huh" and continues her life.
APPEARANCE/BUILD BY ERA
- 1. Academy Elia
- Bard 1-2, pre-mark, all-black hair/ears, ordinary academic life.
- 2. Marked early Elia
- Bard 2 / Warlock 1-2, newly split black/white appearance.
- 3. Early field researcher
- Bard 3-4 / Warlock 2-3, learning practical survival.
- 4. Independent researcher / level 10
- Bard 5 / Warlock 5, first literal half-and-half class milestone; accessible visual design material likely belongs here.
- 5. Research-at-distance era
- Bard 6 / Warlock 6-8, summon/Gaze/psychic methods.
- 6. Veteran field researcher
- Bard 7-8 / Warlock 8, Observant/Dimension Door/field competence.
- 7. Connected master researcher
- Bard 9-10 / Warlock 8, Teleportation Circle, Legend Lore, Telepathic Bond, Commune/Commune with Nature.
- 8. Final GOO investigation
- Bard 10 / Warlock 9-10.
- 9. Epilogue
- years later, exact age/build beyond level 20 not established.
RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN STORY
- Bardic academy: formative home/community -> conflict/dismissal -> later potential collaborator.
- Students/former students: positive; proposed reunion scene exists but is unwritten.
- Newer institution: recurring professional base, unnamed.
- Great Old One/source: research subject and source of mark, not conventional boss/patron relationship.
- Expedition specialists/companions: increasingly important by late career, but none named yet.
DIFFERENCES FROM GENERAL PROFILE
None; this is the general/current Elia profile.
OTHER CONTINUITIES / ALTERNATE STORIES
No unrelated Elia continuity is established in the accessible conversation. Do not merge Miri/Jane/Eira project materials with Elia.