Redemption Core

Redemption “Reedy” Core

Art by JaeltheJust

Relatives	Ferdinand Core (Father), Glasya (Mother)
Languages	Common, Infernal, Draconic
Affiliations	LongHunters, Beggar’s Guild
Aliases	Reedy
Place of Birth	Nessus, the Ninth Hell
Species	Glasya’s Tiefling
Gender	Female
Height	5’10
Eye Color	Firey orange-yellow

Redemption Core (further referred to as Reedy) is a Glaysa’s Tiefling Drakewarden Ranger who wants to make her own path and is ready to explore the wilds of Amusa with the Tempest Brothers Expeditionary Company.

She is accompanied by her companion, a black opalescent Drake named Daq.

Physical Appearance

With skin the color of red wine, and hair a raven black, Reedy can come off looking like quite the demon to most common folks. Her eyes are a fiery yellow orange, and when she summon’s Daq, her drake, her hair ripples with the same iridescence that his scales do. She mostly wears greens and browns to offset her red skin and blend with the area around her. When in the city, she can often be found wearing a cloak to conceal her skin and horns until she makes it to her next location, choosing to only hang out in places she is going to be welcome.

Like most Glasya Tieflings, Reedy has horns in the front of her brown that go straight up instead of curving back. She has several piercings in her face and ears, and will usually smoke out the area around her eyes with ash to make her eyes stand out all the more.

She is slender but strong, and stands at a height of 5’10.

“Daq is a small-ish Drake, if I’ve ever seen one. He certainly isn’t ready to ride yet, but he does scare the crap out of anyone who’s not expecting him when I walk into a room. He has white horns and I try to keep them clean like my own. He has black scales, but they have this really pretty iridescence until I declare what element I want him to use, then they get the hue of whatever dragon matches that. I’ve seen him go red, blue, and green.” – The Journal of Redemption Core

Personality

Perhaps it was being raised by a father out alone in the forest of Amusa that made Reedy so reclusive for so many early years, but once she escaped and rejoined society in the city of Galik, she opened up and went from a rough outsider to a rough bounty hunter, who has a good sense of humor but it can take a decent amount of time to become truly on her good side. She enjoys games and problem solving. She also enjoys throwing punches when her name is brought up in conversation. Tavern keepers will tell you that Reedy’s good at heart, but just enjoys the fight a little too much. They also will tell you that the only people they’ve seen go up to Reedy’s room at night are ones who are a match for her own strength.  

“Daq is silly for a guardian drake. If I summon him just because I need a pal, he’s goofy and wants to play fetch the bone or chase the goose, which has a tendency to upset whoever I’m crashing with. I have paid quite a few people for geese. When I summon him when I’m on a hunt or in the midst of a fight, he’s immediately ready to defend me though. I give him a target and that’s his only focus. We are like one mind, but two bodies and it makes us a perfect team. Thank Corellon.” - The Journal of Redemption Core

History

Following “The Tragedy of Ferdinand and Glaysa” (see below), Ferdinand Core has two choices. He was allowed to either give up his Tiefling daughter to the orphanage in Galik and never see her again, or he would have to give up his connection and life in the Core estate and raise his daughter outside the city, where his shame would not affect their family’s name. Ferdinand couldn’t bare to part with the baby girl, no matter how she looked or what she was, and so he gave up his place in the Core legacy to take her out in the woods and raise her.

Ferdinand named the Tiefling girl “Redemption”, hoping that he could prove his family wrong, raising her to be a proper lady and bring her back to the estate to be welcomed into the Core family.

Ferdinand took the time to teach Redemption, assuring she had a proper education, even hiring tutors with what money he had. He also taught her skills of hunting to help protect herself out in the forest of Amusa where they lived. Ferdinand shared his beliefs with her, of the elf-God of the moon and beauty, Corellon, and how he would protect them and their little cottage. He would tell her stories of the grand estate and how one day, they would go back and live there, if she learned to control her Tiefling urges and behave herself.

As she grew older though, it became more and more evident that Redemption didn’t want to simply be a tool for her father’s use to make up for what he’d done. She wanted to be her own person, to make her own choices and she enjoyed being out in the woods and hunting and chasing to be locked down in some musty estate and stuck in silly frocks all day.

This is when she was approached for the first time by her mother, Glaysa. Glaysa could see that Redemption had great skill and potential to be a great thief, as so many of her children were. She made Redemption an offer to leave her father, go to the city and become a thief, stealing artifacts that would bring Glaysa more power, and that she would be rewarded with a seat beside Glaysa in the ninth hell when she died.

“She told me I could have revenge for all the time wasted trying to turn me into a perfect lady of the court. I would be nothing but a toy to my father, a spectacle for my grandparents, the Tiefling turned respectable. The devil’s daughter come home to be a Core prodigy. Hunting would become a sport, pants would become skirts. Mother truly told me what I wanted to hear, that I had an opportunity to free myself from becoming my father’s redemption. But what she didn’t realize that is that in her encouragement, she made me realize that I would just be her tool as well. The prodigal daughter. The half-elf devil. I would constantly live looking over one shoulder, in fear of those who would have me dead for what I was and what I took in her name. I didn’t want to do good in my father’s name or evil in my mother’s. I wanted to make my own name, forge my own path, become my own person. So I refused her.” – The Journal of Redemption Core

Redemption left the cabin in the forest, her father’s safety, and her mother’s offer behind. She headed for Galik on her own and when there, realized she’d put herself into a bit of a situation. No money and no connections. She sure as hell wasn’t going to use her family name to get anything because she didn’t want to owe them anything. She changed her name from Redemption Core to just Reedy and when asked for a surname, she would lie and say she never knew one.

The Beggar’s Guild took Reedy in as she started to find and take work in the city. She would pay the guild fees, give and take information for various people, hunting down secrets. She found herself helping out those who were less able than her quite often, the older and physically disabled, trying to get them food and shelter when the weather went foul. She remained a member of the guild even after she took up bounty hunting and was able to buy rooms around the city depending on where her marks came and went.

It was while hunting down information when Reedy got her first bounty. Someone offered her 50 silver to find the location of someone, but 50 gold if she brought the mark back to her employer alive. She applied her hunting skills to bringing down the man in a stealthy and quick manner. That employer kept her in his rotation of regular bounty hunters for people who had a tendency to not want to pay after he made them weapons. She enjoyed the work a lot and took on other jobs around the city as well.

Eventually Reedy who find herself constantly in employment and making decent enough money, taking jobs for both good people just needing someone brought to justice, but also people who had less than perfect records that paid well. She turned a blind eye at a lot of underhand dealings as long as she was paid, but wouldn’t take jobs from slave traders.

While on a job that took her out into the woods outside the city, Reedy found herself beaten by her own prey, left in the middle of the wood half-alive and with a broken arm. She was lost and needed a miracle.

“I called out to Corellon, ‘I know we haven’t talked in a long time and I’m not even sure you hear Tiefling prayers, being a god of elves and all, but—my father is an elf. Please, I’m begging you Corellon, send me help. I can’t make it back alone. Please help me.’ And that’s when I saw him for the first time. A black drake, like my father described as the guard dogs of the Core estate, was standing over me. Small, but still frightening. I thought maybe my mother had heard me and sent it as a punishment for denying her all those years ago, but no, it understood me and obeyed. I sensed I could speak to it in it’sown tongue, despite never having taken a day of learning Draconic in my life. I asked it to help me up, and it came, took me by the arm and pulled me up to sit. It walked me out of the forest and back towards the city, threatening anyone who thought they could attack me because of my injury. I called him ‘Daq’, the infernal word for dog and he listened. He stayed by my side. Corellon had heard my prayer and sent me a friend.”

Daq and Reedy on the hunt

Languages

Reedy is fluent in Common, Infernal, and Draconic.

Daq understands Draconic.

Powers and Abilities

Reedy is an archer, and therefore has a bonus to attack rolls with ranged weapons.

She can summon Daq, her drake companion using an action.

Daq is able to attack with a bite and also as a reaction, add a small breath attack to Reedy’s arrows when they hit.

The Tragedy of Ferdinand and Glaysa

“This is the tale my father told me of how I came to be. I know that there is two sides to all stories, but as my mother has chosen not to indulge me in her actual involvement, I only know what I have been told.

My father was the third of his brothers in the house of Core. There was never any significance to his position. He was meant to be an actor or a bard or some great artist of some kind and took up his paints and instruments and costumes and set out to be the next great Core through talent alone since he knew that no inheritance truly awaited him, after my two uncles would take what came to them first.

While working in productions in the city, a great beauty of a woman, an actress and daughter of a great man from across the sea in Isonhound, named Philippa, started to take father’s eye. She was strong of voice and enchanted everyone who looked at her. She knew all her lines only days after she joined a show and could learn every song by ear immediately after hearing it. Father took notice of her and began to pursue her and they had a charming and sweet romance between them. She was more than happy to be the apple of Ferdinand’s eye and he was awestruck with everything she did. She was just absolutely perfect for him and he didn’t know how he got so lucky to be in love with a noblewoman such as herself.

Philippa was beloved not only by father, but also by his parents and his brothers, even the eldest, who was already married, were absolutely envious. It started to cause a rift between them.

Father did not wait long to ask for permission to marry Philippa and despite the time it took for his letters to go across to Isonhound and receive permission from her father, the answer was an affirmative “Yes” and so the wedding preparations began.

The wedding was gorgeous and the party afterward was a delight. Father says that the evening consummating the marriage was unlike anything he’d experienced in his life, but I begged him to stop there before providing any terrifying details.

It was the morning after the wedding that things took a very unexpected turn. There was a tradition in the Core family, that at the breakfast after the evening of the wedding, when it had been consummated, that a gift was bestowed to the newest member of the Core family, a priceless ruby necklace that had been passed from generation to generation. It ought to have been given to my father’s eldest brother’s wife when they were married, but my grandmother had felt slighted by their choice to be married at the bride’s family estate, so she did not give it to them. Instead, she put the necklace on Philippa that morning at breakfast and that’s when all hell broke loose.

As soon as the necklace was clasped and the ruby hit Philippa’s chest, her skin started to change from pale to deep red like wine, her hair went from satin blonde to ebony black, and horns grew from the front of her forehead. They had released the Archdevil Glaysa back into her body, after her fiendish essence had been locked away inside that sacred ruby decades before.

Glaysa had known where the ruby was and who held it in their possession, but had been trapped in the body of a child after her essence was taken away by the Core family. She waited for 20 long years to be old enough to take back what was rightfully hers and used the Core’s love of acting and theater against them to play them for fools. She had purposefully set out to seduce the youngest son, Ferdinand, and knew that if they married, she would receive that necklace. She had to be the perfect innocent love, the perfect future daughter in law, and so she was.

After taking back her power and destroying the ruby that they’d used to hold her, Glaysa called her Devils and Tieflings and had them destroy and steal from the Core estate until they were driven out by the guards and drakes that protected the home. She left, but only after thanking Ferdinand in front of his entire family, giving them all someone to blame.

Nine months passed and then the most unexpected of his consequences came. Left on the door step, almost as a cruel joke, and a constant reminder of his failure and greatest mistake, Glaysa left the child that resulted from their wedding night.”