Heralia il Gardlanda (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
awryprincess) wrote2019-12-28 04:04 pm
awryprincess) wrote2019-12-28 04:04 pm
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aefenglom
Player Information
Name: Reslari
Age: 31. Ew.
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Reslari ; Reslari#9561 on Discord
Other Characters: Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
Character Information
Name: Heralia il Gardlanda
Canon: Original
Canon Point: Just after the lord she serves finished "destroying" the world so they could try to rebuild it into a less craptastic place.
Age: 29. Appears more in her early twenties; she's in the early stages of "will live a lot longer than most humans" so her actual age hasn't significantly outstripped how she looks quite yet.
History: Heralia was born the youngest of 12 children to King Arond Il Gardlanda III, King of a country known as Gardland; there are 6 boys and 6 girls among the sum of her siblings, though her father was going into his golden years when she was born. Heralia's mother, his fourth wife, would thus be his last. Being the youngest, and a daughter, Heralia was mostly ignored by her parents for her older male siblings, as they were groomed to become heirs and powerful dukes and lords over vast swathes of the kingdom. The general lack of supervision meant that as soon as she was old enough to be mobile and curious, she often would slip from the castle and explore around the capital of Gardland, Blackmill. She quickly learned the hard way that a comfortable life in a castle did not prepare her for how life on the streets of a large city looming in the over-taxing shadow of a King's castle would be, and after some bad scrapes and tumbles with the street urchins and city folk, she started to teach herself some basic combat skills. Being that she was relatively small, she preferred short blades, daggers, and throwing knives. Occasionally, she could get the Master-At-Arms of the castle to teach her some techniques, which she took to with a veracity that was probably quite unbecoming of a young princess. After some years, she could navigate even the seediest back alleys, either through her wit, or her daggers, and she relished in it.
Around the time she was 17, the castle received a visitor from the neighboring country of Solmark. It was a land of elves; those who had been cast out of the greater lands constituting the Empire of the Sun for not being "pure" enough of blood. The Solmark elves were beginning another crusade to retake what they thought was their own birthright from what called themselves High Elves. Due to how poorly the last few wars had gone, they sent an ambassador to the human kingdom to see if they could use old connections to curry favor enough for an army. It was not an attempt without merit: long ago, Solmark and Gardland had forged an alliance for another Crusade, where troops were exchanged for trade deals and many other favors. Once Heralia laid eyes upon the deacon who visited as ambassador, she was absolutely smitten, and determined to make him her husband. She pulled every string she could think of, set up every situation she could, and tried to talk him into the marriage with her. After all, a deacon was not a very high ranking official in the elves' church, and she was nobility - she could get him connections that he needed. It took two years, but eventually her father relented, and Lunas, the elf, agreed. The two were wed, and immediately, Lunas wanted to set about visiting the other human kingdoms to continue his work at trying to build the army the Solmark elves needed to retake their holy homeland. It was a struggle - the diplomatic relationships between the three major human kingdoms of the continent were tense at best, and a royal of Gardland was not always seen as a good thing.
During their travels, the two ran into a caravan traveling toward Moira, the largest (in general land and population) of the kingdoms, which contained a mysterious hooded stranger. After a bit of a comedy of errors, Heralia learned that the individual was a half High Elf, from the heart of the Empire of the Sun. While Heralia initially had mixed feelings - after all, the High Elves were enemies of Solmark, and her beloved husband, she was also quite curious. Half-breeds were considered heresy in the high church of the Elves; a contamination of their pure blood. So how one had survived to the age she had, and how she had escaped the Empire was interesting to Heralia. She decided to keep the Half-Elf's identity a secret from her husband, after the Halfbreed, Laurel, promised that she was just trying to escape the tyranny of the empire and find a peaceful, quiet life. Eventually they even opened up to each other, and became friends. After several months, their paths took them separate ways. On parting, Laurel gave Heralia an enchanted necklace that was connected to another; for Heralia's kindness, the half-elf repaid it by promising to come if Heralia ever found herself in dire circumstances.
They did not see each other again for nearly two years. Heralia became pregnant, and the diplomatic connections began to run dry in the human kingdoms, with frustratingly little to show for it to aid Solmark. Once she was too far along to travel much, Heralia and Lunas settled down in a cabin deep in the mountains of Tyfor, the third of the great human kingdoms. Winter came along, and it was a harsh one, with food stores quickly running thin. Lunas left one day on a hunt, promising he would return with some food to restore their larder.
He never returned.
Days, weeks passed, and Heralia's belly swelled, even as her stomach growled in hunger. She began to starve, late in her pregnancy, trapped alone in a cabin in unfamiliar, hostile lands. The stress of it led to a miscarriage - a bloody, messy one that found Heralia on the ground of the cabin, dying. She doesn't remember much of what happened that night, aside from the intense, shooting pain. She remembers the necklace she wore throbbing with magic. She remembers, briefly, huge, imposing shadows against the snow. She was pretty sure one of them was a dragon.
When she woke again, she was in an unfamiliar castle. In pain, tired, but alive. She made her way through the castle, learning very quickly that the entire servant staff were dead; ghosts or reanimated corpses. The lord of the castle was out, they mentioned, but would be back. In time, Heralia discovered where she was - the place called Castle Timatus in a dreaded swamp called the Sanguinaquia. An old elven castle, from when their empire stretched across much of the continent, before the humans pushed them back. It was supposed to be a cursed place, completely unaccessible by mortal and immortal alike, and yet here she was.
She explored the castle, and learned that the castle itself was still in great repair, warded magically against rot and ruin. The lands around it were rich with greenery and fertile farmland, as though the haunted, cursed swampland of the Sanguinaquia was merely an illusion. Eventually, the lord of the castle returned, and Heralia was more than surprised to learn that it was... Laurel. Laurel, who had somehow trekked deep into cursed land and claimed a forbidden castle. Laurel, who had bonded with one of the dragon keepers of said castle, and now was allowed to use him as her personal steed. Laurel, who was now calling herself an almost laughably cheesy title of "Lord Darkstorm".
Heralia and Laurel held some discussions as Heralia recovered. Laurel was not quite the timid, demure woman that Heralia remembered from their travels before, so shy to show her face and reveal her half-blooded nature. In fact, she'd grown in confidence significantly, and power, as well. Furthermore, Laurel had come to start to have a sort of deep-seated rage and hatred toward the world they lived in at large. For the violent, greedy, stupid nature of all who inhabited it - whether they be humans, elves, or whatever else.
Heralia wondered if Laurel would keep her as a political prisoner. Laurel told her she was free to go at any time, but Heralia decided to stay anyway. She was curious; she wanted to know what had changed Laurel, and what she planned to do.
Weeks, months passed. Little by little, Laurel began to trust Heralia more. Little by little, Laurel let Heralia see her plans, her rage at the world and what she was going to do with it. Little by little, Heralia sort of began to see Laurel's point. The real turning point, however, was after she was feeling well enough to travel again. It happened by chance, as they visited Gardland in secret to learn about a council of nobles that had been called with some urgency regarding the threat of the castle within the Sanguinaquia.
Lunas was there. As fine, or better than the day he left the cabin. The rumor around Gardland was that Heralia was dead, and that as her husband, it was his right to claim any inheritance of hers. Though she did not reveal herself at the meeting of nobles, she did, hurt and angry, go to confront him about what had happened afterward. The plot was laid bare with a bit of gentle persuasion (a very sound beating) from Laurel: He knew about Heralia's manipulations to get him to wed her, though he did not want to. However, he saw the opportunity to use her to get his political gains. It was when she became pregnant, though, that he realized he could no longer keep up the act, nor bear the thought of ever siring a disgusting half-breed (an ironic thing to say, in front of a half-breed), and in his crisis of faith, and disgust at himself, he set it up so that, with some luck, she would die along with the child, and he could claim her rights as her husband.
Enraged, Heralia killed him, with a bit of prompting from Laurel. It was then she really began to see the disgusting parts of the world. Everything that seemed so normal to her - the lies, the manipulations, the overtaxation of the poor by the wealthy (her own family, things she had benefitted from), the murder and worship of violence and death. The elves of Solmark weren't just looking to take over the holy land they thought they were denied, they were going to kill every last high elf in that realm after they took it over so only their blood would be considered pure. And there were other plots afoot: conspiracies, plans for war and domination. The world was a much darker place after that day, and she started to understand why Laurel's plans sounded like she was going to completely unmake it.
So Heralia dedicated herself to Laurel's cause. She named herself a retainer, and dove into work. She used her political know-how and training as a noble to set up and manipulate diplomatic relations, to bribe lesser lords into mutiny, and eventually spark a war that pitted all the human kingdoms against each other. She helped negotiate with the sellswords and mercenary companies to build an army, and after winning a brutal fight with a mercenary company leader twice her size, she became one of their commanders, as well.
But Heralia never completely lost her optimism. She never completely lost her empathy, either, and every time she met a person she could consider "good" - someone kind, or charitable, or even just simply trying to live their lives without harming anyone else, she did what she could to also bring them to the Sanguinaquia. To set them up as farmers and tailors and hands about the place, to support their army, but also let them live in relative peace and safety. Many did not complain - especially as there was no taxation from the regent lord; all that was asked is that they do their part and contribute somehow to the whole war effort. Some even happily took up arms for the cause.
Over time, Laurel's plans started to fall into place, and Heralia was right there with her at every step. The human kingdoms fell, the elven kingdoms soon after, and the world was "engulfed in flames"... though in truth there was very little fire anywhere. And from the ashes, they began to work to rebuild it anew. Hopefully, it would be better this time.
Personality: Heralia was originally not quite so duplicitous. Or at least, not as dangerously so. What originally was a selfish desire to get what she wanted - using her knowledge of court politics and noble maneuvering to land her what she thought was the man of her dreams - eventually turned into using that same knowledge to help orchestrate the downfall of entire kingdoms, and destroy the lives of thousands of people. She enjoys playing the game of angling herself into the best possible position, manipulating circumstances as much as possible for the most favorable outcome for herself, and people as well. She does as such while never being outwardly broody or overly dark. In fact, she does so with a bright and cheery smile on her face. She's a master of ominous positivity - "You'll be alright. You don't have another choice." "It has to go well for us!"
When the chips are down, Heralia is looking out for herself, her own interests and, if her Lord is anywhere in the picture, Laurel's wellbeing and interests. Heralia does have a soft spot for children, however, even if they are not hers. Children are much more honest with their emotions and intentions; their selfishness is easy to read and accommodate, and they're teachable - they can be shown how to be genuine... or they can be made to be liars as she is. The fact she is occasionally struck by yearnings for the child she lost, and the life that was robbed from her, contributes to her generally soft nature toward children. It tends to be in circumstances where kids will be directly harmed that Heralia will try to rein Laurel in the hardest, or at least try to divert the half-elf's more destructive tendencies and keep her on task in targeting the people that could do the most immediate damage.
In fact "keeping Laurel on task" is what she ends up doing quite often. She is most knowledgeable about political maneuverings, but she also has enough foresight to see there's advantage in keeping some people around and not totally purging the whole world with fire and assuming it will rebuild itself naturally. It won't, of course, if the earth is too scorched and salted to regrow anything. She's questionable as a moral compass, but tries to be one all the same; destroying the world for its corruption doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with rebuilding it with better people and better circumstances. That's the kind of world she wants to live in, so that's the kind of world she tries to angle things toward.
On a normal day, and to most normal people, they will never really see the negative, manipulative side of her; at least not obviously. After all, most people don't have something she wants, and don't really have the authority to help her or the lord she serves. Occasionally, one might run afoul of her if they possess something she individually desires, but that's a fairly rare circumstance. To most people, Heralia will be a nice young woman; very outgoing, willing to share stories and laugh at jokes, with a strong matronly side. She looks on the brighter side of things, and frequently sees the most positive outcomes possible. She lends a sympathetic ear, and can be quite insightful into problems in people's lives, if they come to her with troubles. If a person seems like a "good" person - to her own judgement, and doesn't show what Heralia would consider their true nature - they will even be able to continue seeing this side of her.
She can be playful and energetic, and isn't above pranks and sleight-of-hand - all things that amuse her personally. A lot of that feeds back into her true selfishness, of course, but if it makes her friends and connections in the process, all the better. One needs connections to get at the rotting heart of the world to rip it out, after all. Her diplomatic side is strong, as well, and she's great at mediating fights, proposing solutions, learning how to put forth win/win ideas, and compromises when all else fails. So long as the game she's playing interests her, at least.
If they're not... well, it's fine. All that listening, all that lending an ear, sharing stories; it's all been to learn about the other person, to find out what makes them tick. Where she can hit them the hardest, or lord over them to get the "positive outcome" she foresaw - whatever works out the best for her. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, the saying goes, and she's not entirely shy about using what she knows against people. Even if they are "good" people, and they turn on her, she is more than willing to return the favor.
Her temper is slow to come to bear; she's only really lost it once by her own recollection, but she doesn't need to be angry to kill someone. Her daggers have slipped between ribs on more than one occasion, and she's not afraid of doing some dirty work to see her goals come to fruition, but she does tend to prefer a more quiet method of dispatching people, or forcing themselves into orchestrating their own downfall. The last one is especially a favorite of hers - letting people just bring their own doom, and gently pushing them down that path is one of her favorite games to play. Encouraging things that will get people killed, if she doesn't like them (or doesn't know them well enough to care).
Anyone who reminds her of Lunas might just find themselves unwittingly put on her "unkind" list, regardless of how deeply she knows their personality. It's a more hot-button issue than her usual careful, measured observations and manipulations, occasionally a way to get her to jump to conclusions and make mistakes or become reckless. She also has a bad habit of assuming most people are as duplicitous and manipulative as she is, and they're simply putting on a good face until they get what they want. If they never show that other side, then she might even be able to be convinced they're a genuinely good person, and not just one that's acting good to save their own face. But so long as they put on a good act, she's not frequently interested in trying to uncover how awful they can actually be.
And if they find out about the sorts of things she can, and has, and probably is still doing? Well, either she set it up that way, which is most likely, or it slipped in some way, which is less likely but still possible. Either way, she's not really ashamed. After all, she does assume everyone has that side to them - her ex-husband, her father, her mother, all her siblings. It comes out of everyone eventually.
It has no choice.
People are just like that!
Abilities & Skills: Heralia is a physical combatant, adept with daggers, knives, short swords, and throwing knives/implements. While her family's bloodline means she could, in her own world, become a decently powerful spellcaster, she never really pursued true magical abilities for combat. The only things she ever learned were how to dampen the sound of her footsteps and noises, and to somewhat conceal her presence. Given that she is a Monster in Aefenglom, that potential will similarly never be fully realized; and of course, she gets to lose the little magic tricks she learned to help with spying and sneaking, though their loss won't really put her at a disadvantage. She's been doing the "sneaking around" thing for years - the magic just helped an already keen skill.
Her fighting abilities are physical, muscle memory, and taught and honed. There's not much she can do that a similarly trained human would not be able to do.
Inventory/Companions: Her two daggers, a couple throwing knives, and her horse. Who is just an average horse, albeit a pretty palomino one. Like this.
Choice: Turnskin
Reason: Duplicitous nature meet duplicitous physical form, with the greater potential for danger once her 'other' form is revealed. Furthermore, I chose a leopard for an animal because leopards tend to be quiet and stealthy, and are one of the species of cats most deadly to humans. Gardland is also a heavily forested region, and an arboreal species fits with the theme of that from her backstory, as well.
Sample: One and two.
Name: Reslari
Age: 31. Ew.
Contact:
Other Characters: Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
Character Information
Name: Heralia il Gardlanda
Canon: Original
Canon Point: Just after the lord she serves finished "destroying" the world so they could try to rebuild it into a less craptastic place.
Age: 29. Appears more in her early twenties; she's in the early stages of "will live a lot longer than most humans" so her actual age hasn't significantly outstripped how she looks quite yet.
History: Heralia was born the youngest of 12 children to King Arond Il Gardlanda III, King of a country known as Gardland; there are 6 boys and 6 girls among the sum of her siblings, though her father was going into his golden years when she was born. Heralia's mother, his fourth wife, would thus be his last. Being the youngest, and a daughter, Heralia was mostly ignored by her parents for her older male siblings, as they were groomed to become heirs and powerful dukes and lords over vast swathes of the kingdom. The general lack of supervision meant that as soon as she was old enough to be mobile and curious, she often would slip from the castle and explore around the capital of Gardland, Blackmill. She quickly learned the hard way that a comfortable life in a castle did not prepare her for how life on the streets of a large city looming in the over-taxing shadow of a King's castle would be, and after some bad scrapes and tumbles with the street urchins and city folk, she started to teach herself some basic combat skills. Being that she was relatively small, she preferred short blades, daggers, and throwing knives. Occasionally, she could get the Master-At-Arms of the castle to teach her some techniques, which she took to with a veracity that was probably quite unbecoming of a young princess. After some years, she could navigate even the seediest back alleys, either through her wit, or her daggers, and she relished in it.
Around the time she was 17, the castle received a visitor from the neighboring country of Solmark. It was a land of elves; those who had been cast out of the greater lands constituting the Empire of the Sun for not being "pure" enough of blood. The Solmark elves were beginning another crusade to retake what they thought was their own birthright from what called themselves High Elves. Due to how poorly the last few wars had gone, they sent an ambassador to the human kingdom to see if they could use old connections to curry favor enough for an army. It was not an attempt without merit: long ago, Solmark and Gardland had forged an alliance for another Crusade, where troops were exchanged for trade deals and many other favors. Once Heralia laid eyes upon the deacon who visited as ambassador, she was absolutely smitten, and determined to make him her husband. She pulled every string she could think of, set up every situation she could, and tried to talk him into the marriage with her. After all, a deacon was not a very high ranking official in the elves' church, and she was nobility - she could get him connections that he needed. It took two years, but eventually her father relented, and Lunas, the elf, agreed. The two were wed, and immediately, Lunas wanted to set about visiting the other human kingdoms to continue his work at trying to build the army the Solmark elves needed to retake their holy homeland. It was a struggle - the diplomatic relationships between the three major human kingdoms of the continent were tense at best, and a royal of Gardland was not always seen as a good thing.
During their travels, the two ran into a caravan traveling toward Moira, the largest (in general land and population) of the kingdoms, which contained a mysterious hooded stranger. After a bit of a comedy of errors, Heralia learned that the individual was a half High Elf, from the heart of the Empire of the Sun. While Heralia initially had mixed feelings - after all, the High Elves were enemies of Solmark, and her beloved husband, she was also quite curious. Half-breeds were considered heresy in the high church of the Elves; a contamination of their pure blood. So how one had survived to the age she had, and how she had escaped the Empire was interesting to Heralia. She decided to keep the Half-Elf's identity a secret from her husband, after the Halfbreed, Laurel, promised that she was just trying to escape the tyranny of the empire and find a peaceful, quiet life. Eventually they even opened up to each other, and became friends. After several months, their paths took them separate ways. On parting, Laurel gave Heralia an enchanted necklace that was connected to another; for Heralia's kindness, the half-elf repaid it by promising to come if Heralia ever found herself in dire circumstances.
They did not see each other again for nearly two years. Heralia became pregnant, and the diplomatic connections began to run dry in the human kingdoms, with frustratingly little to show for it to aid Solmark. Once she was too far along to travel much, Heralia and Lunas settled down in a cabin deep in the mountains of Tyfor, the third of the great human kingdoms. Winter came along, and it was a harsh one, with food stores quickly running thin. Lunas left one day on a hunt, promising he would return with some food to restore their larder.
He never returned.
Days, weeks passed, and Heralia's belly swelled, even as her stomach growled in hunger. She began to starve, late in her pregnancy, trapped alone in a cabin in unfamiliar, hostile lands. The stress of it led to a miscarriage - a bloody, messy one that found Heralia on the ground of the cabin, dying. She doesn't remember much of what happened that night, aside from the intense, shooting pain. She remembers the necklace she wore throbbing with magic. She remembers, briefly, huge, imposing shadows against the snow. She was pretty sure one of them was a dragon.
When she woke again, she was in an unfamiliar castle. In pain, tired, but alive. She made her way through the castle, learning very quickly that the entire servant staff were dead; ghosts or reanimated corpses. The lord of the castle was out, they mentioned, but would be back. In time, Heralia discovered where she was - the place called Castle Timatus in a dreaded swamp called the Sanguinaquia. An old elven castle, from when their empire stretched across much of the continent, before the humans pushed them back. It was supposed to be a cursed place, completely unaccessible by mortal and immortal alike, and yet here she was.
She explored the castle, and learned that the castle itself was still in great repair, warded magically against rot and ruin. The lands around it were rich with greenery and fertile farmland, as though the haunted, cursed swampland of the Sanguinaquia was merely an illusion. Eventually, the lord of the castle returned, and Heralia was more than surprised to learn that it was... Laurel. Laurel, who had somehow trekked deep into cursed land and claimed a forbidden castle. Laurel, who had bonded with one of the dragon keepers of said castle, and now was allowed to use him as her personal steed. Laurel, who was now calling herself an almost laughably cheesy title of "Lord Darkstorm".
Heralia and Laurel held some discussions as Heralia recovered. Laurel was not quite the timid, demure woman that Heralia remembered from their travels before, so shy to show her face and reveal her half-blooded nature. In fact, she'd grown in confidence significantly, and power, as well. Furthermore, Laurel had come to start to have a sort of deep-seated rage and hatred toward the world they lived in at large. For the violent, greedy, stupid nature of all who inhabited it - whether they be humans, elves, or whatever else.
Heralia wondered if Laurel would keep her as a political prisoner. Laurel told her she was free to go at any time, but Heralia decided to stay anyway. She was curious; she wanted to know what had changed Laurel, and what she planned to do.
Weeks, months passed. Little by little, Laurel began to trust Heralia more. Little by little, Laurel let Heralia see her plans, her rage at the world and what she was going to do with it. Little by little, Heralia sort of began to see Laurel's point. The real turning point, however, was after she was feeling well enough to travel again. It happened by chance, as they visited Gardland in secret to learn about a council of nobles that had been called with some urgency regarding the threat of the castle within the Sanguinaquia.
Lunas was there. As fine, or better than the day he left the cabin. The rumor around Gardland was that Heralia was dead, and that as her husband, it was his right to claim any inheritance of hers. Though she did not reveal herself at the meeting of nobles, she did, hurt and angry, go to confront him about what had happened afterward. The plot was laid bare with a bit of gentle persuasion (a very sound beating) from Laurel: He knew about Heralia's manipulations to get him to wed her, though he did not want to. However, he saw the opportunity to use her to get his political gains. It was when she became pregnant, though, that he realized he could no longer keep up the act, nor bear the thought of ever siring a disgusting half-breed (an ironic thing to say, in front of a half-breed), and in his crisis of faith, and disgust at himself, he set it up so that, with some luck, she would die along with the child, and he could claim her rights as her husband.
Enraged, Heralia killed him, with a bit of prompting from Laurel. It was then she really began to see the disgusting parts of the world. Everything that seemed so normal to her - the lies, the manipulations, the overtaxation of the poor by the wealthy (her own family, things she had benefitted from), the murder and worship of violence and death. The elves of Solmark weren't just looking to take over the holy land they thought they were denied, they were going to kill every last high elf in that realm after they took it over so only their blood would be considered pure. And there were other plots afoot: conspiracies, plans for war and domination. The world was a much darker place after that day, and she started to understand why Laurel's plans sounded like she was going to completely unmake it.
So Heralia dedicated herself to Laurel's cause. She named herself a retainer, and dove into work. She used her political know-how and training as a noble to set up and manipulate diplomatic relations, to bribe lesser lords into mutiny, and eventually spark a war that pitted all the human kingdoms against each other. She helped negotiate with the sellswords and mercenary companies to build an army, and after winning a brutal fight with a mercenary company leader twice her size, she became one of their commanders, as well.
But Heralia never completely lost her optimism. She never completely lost her empathy, either, and every time she met a person she could consider "good" - someone kind, or charitable, or even just simply trying to live their lives without harming anyone else, she did what she could to also bring them to the Sanguinaquia. To set them up as farmers and tailors and hands about the place, to support their army, but also let them live in relative peace and safety. Many did not complain - especially as there was no taxation from the regent lord; all that was asked is that they do their part and contribute somehow to the whole war effort. Some even happily took up arms for the cause.
Over time, Laurel's plans started to fall into place, and Heralia was right there with her at every step. The human kingdoms fell, the elven kingdoms soon after, and the world was "engulfed in flames"... though in truth there was very little fire anywhere. And from the ashes, they began to work to rebuild it anew. Hopefully, it would be better this time.
Personality: Heralia was originally not quite so duplicitous. Or at least, not as dangerously so. What originally was a selfish desire to get what she wanted - using her knowledge of court politics and noble maneuvering to land her what she thought was the man of her dreams - eventually turned into using that same knowledge to help orchestrate the downfall of entire kingdoms, and destroy the lives of thousands of people. She enjoys playing the game of angling herself into the best possible position, manipulating circumstances as much as possible for the most favorable outcome for herself, and people as well. She does as such while never being outwardly broody or overly dark. In fact, she does so with a bright and cheery smile on her face. She's a master of ominous positivity - "You'll be alright. You don't have another choice." "It has to go well for us!"
When the chips are down, Heralia is looking out for herself, her own interests and, if her Lord is anywhere in the picture, Laurel's wellbeing and interests. Heralia does have a soft spot for children, however, even if they are not hers. Children are much more honest with their emotions and intentions; their selfishness is easy to read and accommodate, and they're teachable - they can be shown how to be genuine... or they can be made to be liars as she is. The fact she is occasionally struck by yearnings for the child she lost, and the life that was robbed from her, contributes to her generally soft nature toward children. It tends to be in circumstances where kids will be directly harmed that Heralia will try to rein Laurel in the hardest, or at least try to divert the half-elf's more destructive tendencies and keep her on task in targeting the people that could do the most immediate damage.
In fact "keeping Laurel on task" is what she ends up doing quite often. She is most knowledgeable about political maneuverings, but she also has enough foresight to see there's advantage in keeping some people around and not totally purging the whole world with fire and assuming it will rebuild itself naturally. It won't, of course, if the earth is too scorched and salted to regrow anything. She's questionable as a moral compass, but tries to be one all the same; destroying the world for its corruption doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with rebuilding it with better people and better circumstances. That's the kind of world she wants to live in, so that's the kind of world she tries to angle things toward.
On a normal day, and to most normal people, they will never really see the negative, manipulative side of her; at least not obviously. After all, most people don't have something she wants, and don't really have the authority to help her or the lord she serves. Occasionally, one might run afoul of her if they possess something she individually desires, but that's a fairly rare circumstance. To most people, Heralia will be a nice young woman; very outgoing, willing to share stories and laugh at jokes, with a strong matronly side. She looks on the brighter side of things, and frequently sees the most positive outcomes possible. She lends a sympathetic ear, and can be quite insightful into problems in people's lives, if they come to her with troubles. If a person seems like a "good" person - to her own judgement, and doesn't show what Heralia would consider their true nature - they will even be able to continue seeing this side of her.
She can be playful and energetic, and isn't above pranks and sleight-of-hand - all things that amuse her personally. A lot of that feeds back into her true selfishness, of course, but if it makes her friends and connections in the process, all the better. One needs connections to get at the rotting heart of the world to rip it out, after all. Her diplomatic side is strong, as well, and she's great at mediating fights, proposing solutions, learning how to put forth win/win ideas, and compromises when all else fails. So long as the game she's playing interests her, at least.
If they're not... well, it's fine. All that listening, all that lending an ear, sharing stories; it's all been to learn about the other person, to find out what makes them tick. Where she can hit them the hardest, or lord over them to get the "positive outcome" she foresaw - whatever works out the best for her. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, the saying goes, and she's not entirely shy about using what she knows against people. Even if they are "good" people, and they turn on her, she is more than willing to return the favor.
Her temper is slow to come to bear; she's only really lost it once by her own recollection, but she doesn't need to be angry to kill someone. Her daggers have slipped between ribs on more than one occasion, and she's not afraid of doing some dirty work to see her goals come to fruition, but she does tend to prefer a more quiet method of dispatching people, or forcing themselves into orchestrating their own downfall. The last one is especially a favorite of hers - letting people just bring their own doom, and gently pushing them down that path is one of her favorite games to play. Encouraging things that will get people killed, if she doesn't like them (or doesn't know them well enough to care).
Anyone who reminds her of Lunas might just find themselves unwittingly put on her "unkind" list, regardless of how deeply she knows their personality. It's a more hot-button issue than her usual careful, measured observations and manipulations, occasionally a way to get her to jump to conclusions and make mistakes or become reckless. She also has a bad habit of assuming most people are as duplicitous and manipulative as she is, and they're simply putting on a good face until they get what they want. If they never show that other side, then she might even be able to be convinced they're a genuinely good person, and not just one that's acting good to save their own face. But so long as they put on a good act, she's not frequently interested in trying to uncover how awful they can actually be.
And if they find out about the sorts of things she can, and has, and probably is still doing? Well, either she set it up that way, which is most likely, or it slipped in some way, which is less likely but still possible. Either way, she's not really ashamed. After all, she does assume everyone has that side to them - her ex-husband, her father, her mother, all her siblings. It comes out of everyone eventually.
It has no choice.
People are just like that!
Abilities & Skills: Heralia is a physical combatant, adept with daggers, knives, short swords, and throwing knives/implements. While her family's bloodline means she could, in her own world, become a decently powerful spellcaster, she never really pursued true magical abilities for combat. The only things she ever learned were how to dampen the sound of her footsteps and noises, and to somewhat conceal her presence. Given that she is a Monster in Aefenglom, that potential will similarly never be fully realized; and of course, she gets to lose the little magic tricks she learned to help with spying and sneaking, though their loss won't really put her at a disadvantage. She's been doing the "sneaking around" thing for years - the magic just helped an already keen skill.
Her fighting abilities are physical, muscle memory, and taught and honed. There's not much she can do that a similarly trained human would not be able to do.
Inventory/Companions: Her two daggers, a couple throwing knives, and her horse. Who is just an average horse, albeit a pretty palomino one. Like this.
Choice: Turnskin
Reason: Duplicitous nature meet duplicitous physical form, with the greater potential for danger once her 'other' form is revealed. Furthermore, I chose a leopard for an animal because leopards tend to be quiet and stealthy, and are one of the species of cats most deadly to humans. Gardland is also a heavily forested region, and an arboreal species fits with the theme of that from her backstory, as well.
Sample: One and two.