Esperanza Alnilam

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Esperanza Alnilam

Art by JaeltheJust

Relatives	Ensueno (sister), Dolor (sister)
Languages	Common, celestial, primordial, Druidic
Affiliations	Sister of the Crystalline Conclave
Place of Birth	Western Amusa
Species	Earth Genasi
Gender	Female
Height	5’7
Eye Color	Silver
Relationship	Partner to Allinor Kalth

Esperanza Alnilam is an Earth Genasi Circle of Stars Druid charting stars with the Tempest Brother Expeditionary Company in the Wicked Wilds

Physical Appearance

Esperanza has rich sapphire blue skin that shines and is smooth along the surface and small star patterns are clear to see in the light. Her hair is long and seems to nearly be made of the thinnest strands of silver, her matching eyes are a liquid silver as well. She wears the white robes of her nomadic conclave and has a grey cloak that protects them during travel. She has a round star sapphire pendant, that when she holds up to a light, shines a map of the stars, passed down to her from the previous star mapper. She also wears round glasses when she is working on drawing charts.

When she takes her starry form, Esperanza’s skin becomes an inky blue-black like the night sky and her joint each shine with one of Vela’s stars. Her chosen constellation lays on the spine of her back.

When Esperanza chooses to take any of her wild shape forms, it usually has silver fur like her hair in the case of fur covered creatures, or deep navy blue skin for creatures with no sure, such as snakes and lizards.

Personality

Esperanza has a tendency to not only be a physical wanderer, following wherever the nomadic peoples and stars take her, but also let her own mind wander. She will often be seen sitting in a room, staring off, thinking of her next star chart or corrections to her previous, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t completely aware of everything around her. She is keenly observant and it is difficult to hide anything from her peripheral vision or to sneak up on her. She almost seems to be savant, but actually is acutely aware of the nature and state of the energy around her. She also has gained a skill of reading lips from across a room, a skill learned from her sister, Dolor, who is deaf.

She is kind and has the sort of demeanor that makes you feel safe and that the things that she is going to sell you, such as her star charts and spell components, are going to be worth your money and time. She is passionate about her conclave and the good work that they do and loves her sisters dearly. She is protective of her youngest sister and never says a bad word of her, despite the tragedy that her birth caused.

She will do anything to avoid a fight, and when called into arms, she will attempt to restrain or incapacitate, rather than kill.

It goes without saying that as a druid, she loves animals and plants and the sky.

History

Esperanza was raised as a member of the Crystalline Conclave. From the moment she was born, she was destined to chart the stars, protect the land, or birth the next generation of their tribe. Not everyone in their conclave was a genasi, but it was a majority. She knew who her mother was, but all members of the conclave were their own family and would address one another as brothers, sisters, mother and father. She felt a special bond with her mother, but the matriarch, Alsephina, was the one who gave her her name.

Esperanza’s mother had another baby soon after, another Sapphire like herself and her mother, but with dark hair instead of the stark silver she had. Her final sister was born while she was only 5 years old and unfortunately there was a complication that caused her mother to die, giving her final sister a more opalescent skin tone and the fever had her born deaf. Despite their roles in the conclave being that all of their generation were to be seen as sisters and brothers, Esperanza gave special attention and favor to her blood sisters, especially Dolor, since she needed more help growing up.

When Esperanza showed promise as a mapmaker, recognizing stars and spacing and the dimensional changes when moving from location to location, she was pulled into a specific circle within the conclave to begin learning the druidic powers of Vela and the stars and how to adapt her body to embrace their energy and use the constellations to change herself, like other druids were learning to wildshape. She learned to wild shape into animals as well, but favored what she learned about the stars’ power.

When she graduated from the circles’ teachings, her mentor, Kalausi, began sending Esperanza to the market to sell her maps at the market and crystals and other things that the conclave has been selling while in Galik as a part of their fund raising in order to continue their nomadic travels.

It was during this time that Esperanza found the advertisement for the Tempest Brothers’ and how they were heading out into the Wilds, a part of Amusa that her conclave had struggled to venture out into for making their maps. With permission from the Kalausi, she then applied to join!

Powers and Abilities

Esperaza can transform into a Starry Form, her joints taking the form of Vela’s stars, and her deep skin covered in the constellations over the top of Quelmar’s red skies. She uses this to give extra healing, cause extra damage, or maintain her concentrations.

She is Observant, with a passive perception of 23 and the ability to lipread.

Attacks and Weapons 

Esperanza uses a quarterstaff that is actually a mapmaker’s measuring stick, and a sling.

She more notably uses spells such as Ice Knife and Moonbeam, but uses Call Lightning in desperate times, which she learned from her sister Ensueno.

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Out in the Wilds

Leave the Wizard Alone

Esperanza's first adventure out into the wilds took her to a Wizard's tower in the woods where she was to help regain a portrait of a celestial baby back for a nearby kingdom. On this adventure, she found that she was torn between the job they had taken and what seemed to be the right things to do. The wizard had not stolen the painting intentionally. He had just taken it down and used it to defend himself as he tried to escape. He did not want to be held captive by the royal family and be their wizard just for the sake of their demands and so he left. Esperanza, as a free spirit herself, admired this actually and did not want to try to take this wizard care or punish him with the intention of him left with next to nothing. She also was not very comfortable with him being stolen from, even though in the end, he allowed the part to take from his workshop in hopes it would just make the adventurers leave. During the adventure, other members of her party continued to say that they ought to just kill the wizard outright so they could retrieve the painting and complete the job, but that made Esperanza even more unconvinced of her position in the company. Specifically, the ranger K'jhan, made Esperanza wonder if she truly should just continue her journey to map the stars outside of the Tempest Brothers. She was content when they found the painting, used mending to fix it and then continued back to royal family to deliver it. From this encounter, she retrieved an Astronomer's Orrery, which allows her to briefly see potentials in the future and rewrite them before they are set in stone.

A Big Headache

On her second mission, Ranni felt much more at ease as the healer of the party and in group of people she felt more comfortable with. They ventured into the jungle with an explorer called Gumpter Flynn who had heard of a caravan who went missing with the son of the local caravan master. They pushed themselves to travel out to try and find the missing cargo and people and when they made it to where the caravan had been lost and went off the main path, they found themselves in an encounter with a group of jaguars. Esperanza knew that jaguars are not normally pack hunters and felt conflicted hurting the creatures, as she knows that the law of the jungle is that humanoids had moved into these creatures territory and built a road through their home, so she did not think it right to out right kill them. It was upon seeing that the creatures weren't actually real, but rather some kind of false projections, that she did not mind assisting and encouraging the others to take them out. Following where the jaguars came them, they found themselves in a cave and in that cavern, they discovered the home and work of a mind flayer, which surprised them from the ceiling of it's lab and blast them with it's psychic powers. Esperanza was knocked out from the blast and upon reviving, found she had fissures in her stone skin near her temple, a scar of the pressure her mind had felt. They were able to find and recover the caravan master's son, but some of the others that had been with that group were found with their heads slice and brained already consumed by the mind flayer. When she returned home, Esperanza was once again discouraged by her performance. Although she had healed well and no one had died, she still felt weak and like an obstacle at times.

The Wayfinder's Delight

Her third mission took her back out with Gumpter. She was much more excited as she was thrilled at the idea of helping to navigate and find a way for a Kobold village made from an airship to make their way to the waystation to trade! She helped map the way as the others made sure that their survival and the way they were going was going to be safe enough for the kobold to use when they came back from the other direction. The most exciting part of the journey was when they came across a large canyon that had been created by a supposed meteor that felt a thousand or so years ago. She was so excited at the idea that the heavens have touched the planet and that she would possibly be able to go down and touch it. She also was fascinated by the fact that the water is currently just pooling down inside of it, though she is even more curious about the wyverns that have made their hope in the sides of the canyon. Are they attracted to something about the meteor crash?

Along their way, whenever it was Esperanza's turn for watch, she would share it with 22 and she would chart the stars on clear nights and made small talk with them about their life as a autom druid, since it was fascinating to her. She did not find it so weird though, since she is an earth genasi and metals are just as natural as stone.

On their way to the Kobold village, the major obstacle aside from going around the side of the crater was a group of Chimera that they were waylaid by. They managed to take down the monstrosities and make a safe path for the road to be built upon. They continued on their way and finally arrived at the Kobold village! They delivered their survey findings and had done such an excellent job that it was going to greatly help the future for these airship dwelling kobolds. The journey took 15 days and after which, Esperanza found herself very happy to be back at the waystation for a couple days.