Bertille Copperwing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guideyoursteps) wrote2012-10-13 03:32 am
guideyoursteps) wrote2012-10-13 03:32 am
App for Exitvoid
player.
NAME/HANDLE: chesca
PERSONAL JOURNAL:cries
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: aim: punching turtles plurk: oglops
OTHER CHARACTERS: nope!
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Bertille Copperwing (The Hero of Kvatch)
AGE: 26
APPEARANCE: The first thing anyone would notice about Bertille isn’t her neck-length, white-blonde hair. It’s not her pale, yellowish skin or her wide, grey-blue eyes. It’s not even that she’s short, especially for a breton*. It’s the way she holds herself, with confidence and pride that is eerily good at disguising the fact that she’s short and a little on the scrawny side. It’s hard to tell just how small she is until you’re close enough to realize she’s talking to your chin. The armour helps with hiding that, too. People tend to seem a lot bigger when they’re located somewhere inside a whole lot of metal.
Her elven ancestry is immediately apparent in her face. Even without the slightly pointed ears, her high cheekbones and sharp, dark eyes would be a dead giveaway.
An Image | Another Image
*I’ve heard conflicting things over whether bretons are shorter or taller, as a race, than what would be expected of the other human races. I’m going with taller, which makes more sense to me. But if it turns out to be shorter consider the wording of this retconned to ‘as most bretons are’ or something.
BRIEF WORLD INFO: The continent of Tamriel is a place where if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. High Rock, the province of the Tamrielic Empire where Bertille was born and raised, is a place where if something can go wrong it will go wrong and everyone will still throw a party afterwards. There are elves, because what self-respecting fantasy setting does not have elves?
High Rock is inhabited by the manmeri, better known as Bretons, humans of elven descent. Surpassed in their mastery of magic only by the high elves, the bretons are a peculiar people, simultaneously eccentric, flamboyant and passionate and intelligent, logical and cunning, known both for their love of art and beauty and for their lack of creativity. Most of the other races of Tamriel attribute their skill with magic and paradoxical nature to their mixed blood, attaching the traits they like to thier own race and the ones they detest to the other. Bretons, being who they are, attribute their paradoxical nature to just being that great and then wander off to write more songs about not wearing clothes.
And Cyrodiil, where Bertille’s life led her, is Rome with more magic and moths.
Tamriel | High Rock | Bretons | Cyrodiil
BRIEF CHARACTER HISTORY: Bertille was born in the city of Daggerfall, the seventh and youngest child of a healer and a magical locksmith. Her family were an old noble family of mages, known for their determination to be more elf than man by carefully marrying its children and by raising them in an appropriately ‘elfy’ manner. She was tested for magic soon after she managed her first words and apprenticed to an associate of her mothers’, an alchemist and necromancer, as soon as she was old enough to run errands and understand ‘try not to poison yourself’. Her master would soon become a second father to her - he was a harsh taskmaster but genuinely did care for and coddle his student, considering her education a greater priority than his own research.
When she was eight or nine, and event called the Warp in the West (or the Miracle of Peace) occurred within High Rock and the neighbouring province of Hammerfell. The short version is that one day there were 44 city states and three days later there were four. Also a lot of people died, were teleported across the country or simply ceased to be and a lot of memories were lost.
Years of study followed. Study of alchemy, study of necromancy and conjuration. Study of the other schools of magic, occasionally, when they seemed worth it. Study of healing in her father’s clinic. Very careful, diligent study of a few of her fellow apprentices as she grew older, because an academic interest in what one’s peers would look and feel like without clothes on was never frowned upon in Daggerfall. In her early 20s, necromancy was banned in the Mage’s Guild. Bertille’s master refused to give up his art, determined that necromancy could be used to inform his medicine and cheat death. Bertille decided that she would continue to study under him and, since working in secret meant that they could no longer easily source cadavers to work with with, found a new calling as a graverobber. Which was difficult in High Rock, where the dead are traditionally cremated. But she managed, stealing the corpses of executed criminals.
Eventually her master was caught. He wasn’t arrested, as necromancy was still strictly legal, but he was removed from the guild and his research, a lifetime’s work, was confiscated and burned. In his grief he prepared for a journey to the province of Cyrodiil, where the Archmage of the guild resided, telling Bertille that she needn’t accompany him as he was going to request to be allowed to rejoin the guild and she had never been removed from it. She followed him anyway, out of concern for the strain that such a long and difficult journey would have upon him in his old age and because she would have followed him to the ends of Nirn with or without his permission, even as they grew closer and closer to the Imperial City and he demanded that she return home more and more empathically.
Sadly he had no plans to request anything, and was instead meeting with other necromancers to attempt to attack the Arcane University. It went poorly, but innocents were still caught in the crossfire. In terror, having seen the destructive power of necromancy for the first time, Bertille immediately surrendered to the closest battlemage. She was jailed in the Imperial City Prison both for being an accessory to murder and conspiracy to attack the Arcane University and for her own protection and remained there for a month until the start of the game.
She was released from her cell by chance and then proceeded to go on adventures in hell and run errands for a priest. After he saved the world she decided that looked like fun and decided to try it for herself. Twice. The wikis cover this all better than I could, so I’ll just go over what she major effects that the questlines had upon her.
Over the main quest, she found an identity for herself within the Blades. She saw dreadful things in a place called Oblivion and for the most part came out of it all much stronger, physically, magically and emotionally. The main effect that the Deadlands had upon her was a new determination that nobody else should be subjected to them. She had always cared deeply for the wellbeing of those around her but the events of the main quest, especially Martin Septim’s sacrifice, led to her becoming very protective of those she thought of as being under her protection. They also led to her believing that the entirety of the Tamrielic Empire counted as ‘under her protection’. Not really the best combination.
During the Mages Guild quests, she faced the two big things that the events that led to her imprisonment had left her afraid of - necromancy and Arch-Mage Traven. The latter turned out to be a pretty cool guy and not at all the horrible person she had imagined. The former was just as nasty as she’d feared. But she defeated the King of Worms and earned the title of Arch-Mage. And then promptly demoted herself because she didn’t particularly want to be an Arch-Mage.
And through the Knights of the Nine quests she discovered faith in the gods, something which Bretons are not particularly known for. Since a close friend of hers was both descended from a god and had taken on the mantle of another god, Umaril’s desire to destroy the gods was kind of a thing that she was not okay with. She gathered together the relics of the crusader and used them to defeat him. Around this time it started to sink in that Cyrodiil just wasn't staying saved, that there was no end in sight and that having taken the weight of the world onto her shoulders she had no way to drop it again. She's not quite sure what to do about this.
PERSONALITY: There are certain traits one expects from a Breton, especially one of noble birth. A strong sense of curiosity and desire to learn. A healthy fondness for court intrigue and gossip. Unrivalled capability for altruism born of their social structure, where doing good deeds without expecting reward is, perversely, the quickest way to work one’s way up to nobility. Bertille possesses all of these qualities, and many more that are associated with her people. There is a saying in Tamriel that is often accepted as fact - if you’ve seen one breton, you’ve seen all of them - and Bertille isn’t about to disprove it. Not that she minds. She’s very proud of her heritage - she’s very proud of everything - and always more than happy to roll off breton stereotypes and admit to all of them, even the less than flattering ones.
And there are a lot of less than flattering ones.
In the past, she has been afraid to act or paralyzed by indecision. It’s possible that she might resume this behaviour in the future but it would take a truly, truly awful situation. As a rule she is generally calm, sometimes it’s genuine and sometimes it’s very, very forced, and always, always constructive and working on something. She’s not really content without a problem to solve and if she is left to her own devices, she’s likely to sabotage herself and create one just to be able to fix it.
Her priorities are generally in the right order - protecting others comes first, then protecting herself with winning the day being something that is nice but not preferable to survival - but sometimes the curiosity and pettiness that the Bretons are known for get the better of her and learning something new, looking good or complaining about things will come before her own wellbeing. To her credit, they never come before the wellbeing of anyone else.
She’s a complainer and highly critical sometimes. For the most part her complaints are good-natured - she knows just how annoying she’s being and is poking fun at herself - but that doesn’t necessarily make her any less irritating. She’s also something of a worrier and a pessimist despite rarely seeming genuinely unhappy - in fact, she often seems cheery and it’s very rarely forced. It’s not that negative a thing for her - her worrying leads her to try to anticipate problems and come up with solutions to them before they’re needed.
Good natured and irreverent in equal doses, she’s quick to make jokes. Often at her own expense (she’s particularly fond of jokes that end with ‘because I’m a breton and we are horrible people’), but sometimes at the expense of others. Her sense of humour tends toward mockery. She also enjoys gallows humour, but her time in Cyrodiil has helped her realize that not everyone else enjoys it. She won’t make really nasty jokes unless she thinks whoever she’s talking to would be okay with it. Humour is something of a shield to her, if she can laugh at something then she can fight it, and as a result no joke is too cruel, tasteless or inappropriate. It also means there’s at least one easy way to read her - when she’s breaking out the really black humour, chances are she’s scared or distressed by the current situation and if she’s making a lot of petty, nasty comments about someone then they’ve probably done something she feels she needs to defend herself against.
She’s had to fight for the identity she has now, and she will continue to fight for it if she feels it’s threatened. Losing her identity as a blade is one of her greatest fears - it means more to her than she really has the means to express. ‘Being a blade’, to her, means ‘protecting people’. If she isn’t doing that, she quickly becomes afraid that she’s being useless. She’s more emotionally dependant upon being the hero she’s been hailed as than she’d like to admit.
But she doesn’t have trouble admitting things, as a rule. She’s honest to the point of bluntness, which only makes her harsh criticism of everything more biting. She’s polite most of the time but she doesn’t pull punches when talking to people. Delicacy is something that she can manage, but she associates it strongly with vulnerability and walking on eggshells when talking to people because they have the power to hurt her. She feels safer just saying what she feels. This doesn’t mean she can’t or doesn’t lie, though, she lies as naturally as breathing and generally has the good memory not to get caught up in it later. She’s not above a little blackmail, either, or playing the helpless victim to prey on people’s sympathies. She won’t do those now as much as she used to - she recognizes that they’re not really appropriate behaviour for a knight - but if they’re the best way to resolve a situation bloodlessly then she won’t hesitate to manipulate people or regret doing so.
Regret is something she has a funny relationship with. She’s been raised in a society where shame is as much a weapon as any blade and where the typical defense against it is to simply be shameless - residents of High Rock are known for being incredibly judgemental and yet also incredibly audacious. She doesn’t see why she, or anyone else, should regret anything they’ve done. As far as she’s concerned everyone should accept where their actions have led them and try to be a good person. This said, she isn’t always immune to shame, guilt or regret, she just feels like she should be. She gets frustrated and snappy if she does feel ashamed, as she does when faced with anything that she doesn’t really understand. Things that don’t make sense to her make her irritable, whether they’re shame, incredibly bad luck or the sometimes bizarre results of people having free will and not always doing the most sensible thing.
Her temper burns very slowly, as a rule. She expresses irritation and distaste readily, usually by being incredibly critical of or making nasty jokes about whatever has annoyed her, and as a rule this helps her avoid losing control of her temper - her anger rarely comes out in flashes unless a situation is very, very emotional. When she does lose her temper she’s more pathetic than scary, despite her considerable power she’s much more likely to sulk or throw a tantrum than to harm anyone.
ABILITIES: Oh gosh she’s the protag of an elder scrolls game. This could take a while.
Racial and Birthsign Abilities - Bretons are intelligent, logical and naturally very resistant to magic, only feeling its effects half as much as other races. They also boast significantly larger magicka pools, allowing her to use more magic without exhausting herself. The final boon her race gives her is the Dragonskin power, an ability that can be used once a day that replaces her squishy human skin with thick dragon scales, allowing her to resist all kinds of damage for the minute or so that it lasts.
Born under the sign of the thief, she is naturally agile, dexterous and lucky. Unfortunately those born under the sign of the thief are said to live short but very interesting lives, because their luck always eventually runs out in spectacular ways.
Magic - She’s a brilliant mage, having considerable skill in every school of magic. Alteraton (Shield spells (though she never learned how to use the elemental shields), making things lighter and heavier, magical lockpicking, water breathing and walking), Restoration (The heals) and Destruction (The not-heals. She specializes in frost damage, but is also fond of weapon and armour destruction spells and the drain fatigue spell to end battles without badly hurting an opponent) are her best schools - she’s also brilliant at Conjuration but it would take an awful lot to get her to use it for anything other than summoning a bound (weightless) bow and arrows and even that she won’t do if there’s any indication it could go wrong. She’s less skilled with (and highly critical of) the Mysticism and Illusion schools, only having access to a few of the effects (detect life, dispel and telekinesis of the Mysticism school. Light, invisibility, night-eye and silence from the Illusion school.)
She has the technical knowledge of magic to back up all of her skills as a result of both learning this stuff since early childhood and natural talent. She’s also a very skilled alchemist, but it’s a skillset that requires ingredients that she doesn’t really have free access to.
Being Sneaky - She relies heavily upon magic for her attempts at stealth, for the most part, making frequent use of the invisibility and open lock spells. But she’s okay at hiding and sneaking around the old-fashioned way, too.
She can use a bow in theory, using a bound one to deliver poisons, but lacks the arm strength to use one as a primary weapon.
Divine Crusader Stuff - The divine crusader relics grant Bertille a number of abilities (she also has the Woodland Grace effect, mentioned at the top of the page. She doesn’t have the Holy Aura, as she’s missing the shield), all related to either healing, protecting others or avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.
All of these are dependent upon the crusader relics, meaning that if she does something to displease the gods then she loses these abilities. It’s also canon that displeasing the gods as a Crusader results in Bad, Bad Things Happening on top of that. Basically she has to be on her best behavior, all the time.
Other Stuff - She knows court etiquette like the back of her hand. She’s confident and it’s very difficult to make her uncomfortable. She’s good with a needle and thread and at putting things together - most of her tasks as a necromancer’s apprentice were related to ‘drive metal spikes into this skeleton’s bones to strengthen them and put it back together, using leather straps to keep it from falling apart’ or ‘sew this flesh atronach’s skin up nicely’. Apparently skill at sewing up golems made of flesh translates well to darning. She can ride well enough. And she’s very well read, especially in classic breton literature (read: epic stories in which everyone gets naked).
POSSESSIONS:
Things she is actually wearing-
The Relics of the Crusader, minus sword, shield and mace.
Sir Amiel’s Ring
Spelldrinker Amulet
Because her life involves a lot of carrying whatever she needs on her back, she also has the following in her inventory (...I’m just going to assume she has a bag, even though it’s never shown ingame. Because VIDEO GAME CHARACTER INVENTORIES)-
A spare set of clothes, sturdy and suitable for travelling.
Food that could last for a journey of about two days, if the traveller was careful. Mostly sweet - fruit and cake.
A small selection of various parts of plants - not many, she doesn’t really make a habit of carrying around a lot of ingredients.
A pestle and mortar, well-used.
A knife that’s clearly seen more use as a tool than as a weapon. It could probably use sharpening.
A small sewing kit.
Various ‘keep clean and neat and tidy’ supplies - soap, a cloth, hairbrush and hair ties
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
[The woman examining the compass is pretty enough. The snotty, judgemental type who clearly thinks she’s better than everyone around her - you can see it on her face, she just has that look about her - but still pretty enough. There’s redness in her cheeks, nose and ears (and are her ears pointed?), she’s not unaffected by the chill outside on the deck, and her hair has been dishevelled slightly by the sea winds, a few strands clinging to the sides of her face with the moisture in the air.
If the situation has left her irritated, distressed, afraid... none of it is showing on her face. She looks tired, maybe. A little confused. Her face lights up with glee and understanding briefly as she moves the metal of her gloved fingertips across the compass and she continues to examine it, gleeful expression fading first to cheerful curiosity and then to a calm, pleasant smile.
Just because she’s suddenly woken up on a boat when she’s quite sure she had been on her way to the very, very landlocked Chorrol is no reason to be rude, after all.]
Good- [And she briefly looks up at the sky.] -evening, I think. Good evening. Either I’m speaking to someone through this thing or I’m speaking to a compass and looking awfully silly. But it’s always worth trying, I suppose. I am Sir Bertille Copperwing, of the Order of the Knights of the Nine. [Also the Order of the Dragon. Also the Order of the Thorn...] I’m glad to meet you. Assuming, of course, that I’m not really just speaking to a compass and looking silly.
[And now to business. She clicks her tongue a few times in thought and then nods to herself, continuing.]
I’m afraid I don’t recall boarding this ship. If someone could tell me where and when it will next dock, I’d appreciate it. Actually, I’d appreciate it if someone could tell me what day it is, as well. I think I must have been asleep for some time, to find myself here. [A pause, in which she clicks her tongue again a few times before apparently deciding that’s all that needs to be said.] Thank you for your time.
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
Kellen would wake soon, and she had still not made up her mind. She could run, easily enough. Nobody who could blame her for it could catch her. Kellen would be dead soon enough, without knowing anything of this. Areldur certainly couldn’t blame her for it, he was just as guilty of cowardice and simply humble enough not to ask for a power he would fear too much to use. Even Stendarr himself couldn’t blame her - he was the one who’d placed such an awful curse on an innocent man.
The chest by Kellen’s bed seemed sturdy enough, so she sat down with a sigh, staring at her hands. They were still clasped, like she was praying even now, though she’d wandered from the altar to the hall almost an hour ago. She kept returning them to that position unconsciously, as if she were afraid to touch anything. And perhaps she was. To take on someone’s burdens, every misfortune the gods had thrown at them, every pain they felt - there had been days before when she’d thought she would give anything to be able to do that. And now, now that Stendarr had given her that gift, it terrified her. She wanted to return it. To remain incapable of doing anything and so not to blame. Because now every pained breath that the redguard took, every wheezing fit that interrupted his too-deep sleep, every moment of suffering was something she could have prevented. It would be so, so simple. And it would kill her, eventually. Just like it would kill him in a few days.
His chest fell and didn’t rise again. She waited a few seconds, because this was not as alarming as it ought to be. His breathing was always irregular. It was only after a few seconds passed that she started to worry, opening her hands and solemnly staring between them and the cursed man. Even now, even now it might be too late, she couldn’t do it. She was too afraid. He was going to die. He was going to die while she stood over him watching him suffer and holding the power to heal him. His chest finally rose again, desperately, and he started to half-consciously gulp down air, so exhausted by the curse that not even that had woken him. Bertille sighed with relief, sinking back down onto the chest and burying her head in her hands. His death wasn’t on her conscience. Not yet.
...what kind of god of mercy would do this to an innocent man?
“Some god of mercy...” Bertille caught herself mumbling. And it was that thought that helped her make up her mind. If Stendarr couldn’t muster even the slightest bit of mercy, then someone else had to. And she didn’t quite see why ‘someone else’ always had to be her, but that was the way her life went. She stood again, hesitantly, and slowly, carefully, pressed her fingertips against the back of Kellen’s hand.
The effect was immediate. Her limbs felt like lead. Her mind felt like it was fighting through quicksand just to connect thoughts. Her lungs burned. It was all she could do to sit down at the foot of the bed rather than collapse onto the floor. But she could see Kellen start to stir, to sit up effortlessly. So she did what seemed appropriate, smiling and - with great effort - giving a small wave.
“Good morning. How do you feel?”
NAME/HANDLE: chesca
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
criesARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: aim: punching turtles plurk: oglops
OTHER CHARACTERS: nope!
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Bertille Copperwing (The Hero of Kvatch)
AGE: 26
APPEARANCE: The first thing anyone would notice about Bertille isn’t her neck-length, white-blonde hair. It’s not her pale, yellowish skin or her wide, grey-blue eyes. It’s not even that she’s short, especially for a breton*. It’s the way she holds herself, with confidence and pride that is eerily good at disguising the fact that she’s short and a little on the scrawny side. It’s hard to tell just how small she is until you’re close enough to realize she’s talking to your chin. The armour helps with hiding that, too. People tend to seem a lot bigger when they’re located somewhere inside a whole lot of metal.
Her elven ancestry is immediately apparent in her face. Even without the slightly pointed ears, her high cheekbones and sharp, dark eyes would be a dead giveaway.
An Image | Another Image
*I’ve heard conflicting things over whether bretons are shorter or taller, as a race, than what would be expected of the other human races. I’m going with taller, which makes more sense to me. But if it turns out to be shorter consider the wording of this retconned to ‘as most bretons are’ or something.
BRIEF WORLD INFO: The continent of Tamriel is a place where if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. High Rock, the province of the Tamrielic Empire where Bertille was born and raised, is a place where if something can go wrong it will go wrong and everyone will still throw a party afterwards. There are elves, because what self-respecting fantasy setting does not have elves?
High Rock is inhabited by the manmeri, better known as Bretons, humans of elven descent. Surpassed in their mastery of magic only by the high elves, the bretons are a peculiar people, simultaneously eccentric, flamboyant and passionate and intelligent, logical and cunning, known both for their love of art and beauty and for their lack of creativity. Most of the other races of Tamriel attribute their skill with magic and paradoxical nature to their mixed blood, attaching the traits they like to thier own race and the ones they detest to the other. Bretons, being who they are, attribute their paradoxical nature to just being that great and then wander off to write more songs about not wearing clothes.
And Cyrodiil, where Bertille’s life led her, is Rome with more magic and moths.
Tamriel | High Rock | Bretons | Cyrodiil
BRIEF CHARACTER HISTORY: Bertille was born in the city of Daggerfall, the seventh and youngest child of a healer and a magical locksmith. Her family were an old noble family of mages, known for their determination to be more elf than man by carefully marrying its children and by raising them in an appropriately ‘elfy’ manner. She was tested for magic soon after she managed her first words and apprenticed to an associate of her mothers’, an alchemist and necromancer, as soon as she was old enough to run errands and understand ‘try not to poison yourself’. Her master would soon become a second father to her - he was a harsh taskmaster but genuinely did care for and coddle his student, considering her education a greater priority than his own research.
When she was eight or nine, and event called the Warp in the West (or the Miracle of Peace) occurred within High Rock and the neighbouring province of Hammerfell. The short version is that one day there were 44 city states and three days later there were four. Also a lot of people died, were teleported across the country or simply ceased to be and a lot of memories were lost.
Years of study followed. Study of alchemy, study of necromancy and conjuration. Study of the other schools of magic, occasionally, when they seemed worth it. Study of healing in her father’s clinic. Very careful, diligent study of a few of her fellow apprentices as she grew older, because an academic interest in what one’s peers would look and feel like without clothes on was never frowned upon in Daggerfall. In her early 20s, necromancy was banned in the Mage’s Guild. Bertille’s master refused to give up his art, determined that necromancy could be used to inform his medicine and cheat death. Bertille decided that she would continue to study under him and, since working in secret meant that they could no longer easily source cadavers to work with with, found a new calling as a graverobber. Which was difficult in High Rock, where the dead are traditionally cremated. But she managed, stealing the corpses of executed criminals.
Eventually her master was caught. He wasn’t arrested, as necromancy was still strictly legal, but he was removed from the guild and his research, a lifetime’s work, was confiscated and burned. In his grief he prepared for a journey to the province of Cyrodiil, where the Archmage of the guild resided, telling Bertille that she needn’t accompany him as he was going to request to be allowed to rejoin the guild and she had never been removed from it. She followed him anyway, out of concern for the strain that such a long and difficult journey would have upon him in his old age and because she would have followed him to the ends of Nirn with or without his permission, even as they grew closer and closer to the Imperial City and he demanded that she return home more and more empathically.
Sadly he had no plans to request anything, and was instead meeting with other necromancers to attempt to attack the Arcane University. It went poorly, but innocents were still caught in the crossfire. In terror, having seen the destructive power of necromancy for the first time, Bertille immediately surrendered to the closest battlemage. She was jailed in the Imperial City Prison both for being an accessory to murder and conspiracy to attack the Arcane University and for her own protection and remained there for a month until the start of the game.
She was released from her cell by chance and then proceeded to go on adventures in hell and run errands for a priest. After he saved the world she decided that looked like fun and decided to try it for herself. Twice. The wikis cover this all better than I could, so I’ll just go over what she major effects that the questlines had upon her.
Over the main quest, she found an identity for herself within the Blades. She saw dreadful things in a place called Oblivion and for the most part came out of it all much stronger, physically, magically and emotionally. The main effect that the Deadlands had upon her was a new determination that nobody else should be subjected to them. She had always cared deeply for the wellbeing of those around her but the events of the main quest, especially Martin Septim’s sacrifice, led to her becoming very protective of those she thought of as being under her protection. They also led to her believing that the entirety of the Tamrielic Empire counted as ‘under her protection’. Not really the best combination.
During the Mages Guild quests, she faced the two big things that the events that led to her imprisonment had left her afraid of - necromancy and Arch-Mage Traven. The latter turned out to be a pretty cool guy and not at all the horrible person she had imagined. The former was just as nasty as she’d feared. But she defeated the King of Worms and earned the title of Arch-Mage. And then promptly demoted herself because she didn’t particularly want to be an Arch-Mage.
And through the Knights of the Nine quests she discovered faith in the gods, something which Bretons are not particularly known for. Since a close friend of hers was both descended from a god and had taken on the mantle of another god, Umaril’s desire to destroy the gods was kind of a thing that she was not okay with. She gathered together the relics of the crusader and used them to defeat him. Around this time it started to sink in that Cyrodiil just wasn't staying saved, that there was no end in sight and that having taken the weight of the world onto her shoulders she had no way to drop it again. She's not quite sure what to do about this.
PERSONALITY: There are certain traits one expects from a Breton, especially one of noble birth. A strong sense of curiosity and desire to learn. A healthy fondness for court intrigue and gossip. Unrivalled capability for altruism born of their social structure, where doing good deeds without expecting reward is, perversely, the quickest way to work one’s way up to nobility. Bertille possesses all of these qualities, and many more that are associated with her people. There is a saying in Tamriel that is often accepted as fact - if you’ve seen one breton, you’ve seen all of them - and Bertille isn’t about to disprove it. Not that she minds. She’s very proud of her heritage - she’s very proud of everything - and always more than happy to roll off breton stereotypes and admit to all of them, even the less than flattering ones.
And there are a lot of less than flattering ones.
In the past, she has been afraid to act or paralyzed by indecision. It’s possible that she might resume this behaviour in the future but it would take a truly, truly awful situation. As a rule she is generally calm, sometimes it’s genuine and sometimes it’s very, very forced, and always, always constructive and working on something. She’s not really content without a problem to solve and if she is left to her own devices, she’s likely to sabotage herself and create one just to be able to fix it.
Her priorities are generally in the right order - protecting others comes first, then protecting herself with winning the day being something that is nice but not preferable to survival - but sometimes the curiosity and pettiness that the Bretons are known for get the better of her and learning something new, looking good or complaining about things will come before her own wellbeing. To her credit, they never come before the wellbeing of anyone else.
She’s a complainer and highly critical sometimes. For the most part her complaints are good-natured - she knows just how annoying she’s being and is poking fun at herself - but that doesn’t necessarily make her any less irritating. She’s also something of a worrier and a pessimist despite rarely seeming genuinely unhappy - in fact, she often seems cheery and it’s very rarely forced. It’s not that negative a thing for her - her worrying leads her to try to anticipate problems and come up with solutions to them before they’re needed.
Good natured and irreverent in equal doses, she’s quick to make jokes. Often at her own expense (she’s particularly fond of jokes that end with ‘because I’m a breton and we are horrible people’), but sometimes at the expense of others. Her sense of humour tends toward mockery. She also enjoys gallows humour, but her time in Cyrodiil has helped her realize that not everyone else enjoys it. She won’t make really nasty jokes unless she thinks whoever she’s talking to would be okay with it. Humour is something of a shield to her, if she can laugh at something then she can fight it, and as a result no joke is too cruel, tasteless or inappropriate. It also means there’s at least one easy way to read her - when she’s breaking out the really black humour, chances are she’s scared or distressed by the current situation and if she’s making a lot of petty, nasty comments about someone then they’ve probably done something she feels she needs to defend herself against.
She’s had to fight for the identity she has now, and she will continue to fight for it if she feels it’s threatened. Losing her identity as a blade is one of her greatest fears - it means more to her than she really has the means to express. ‘Being a blade’, to her, means ‘protecting people’. If she isn’t doing that, she quickly becomes afraid that she’s being useless. She’s more emotionally dependant upon being the hero she’s been hailed as than she’d like to admit.
But she doesn’t have trouble admitting things, as a rule. She’s honest to the point of bluntness, which only makes her harsh criticism of everything more biting. She’s polite most of the time but she doesn’t pull punches when talking to people. Delicacy is something that she can manage, but she associates it strongly with vulnerability and walking on eggshells when talking to people because they have the power to hurt her. She feels safer just saying what she feels. This doesn’t mean she can’t or doesn’t lie, though, she lies as naturally as breathing and generally has the good memory not to get caught up in it later. She’s not above a little blackmail, either, or playing the helpless victim to prey on people’s sympathies. She won’t do those now as much as she used to - she recognizes that they’re not really appropriate behaviour for a knight - but if they’re the best way to resolve a situation bloodlessly then she won’t hesitate to manipulate people or regret doing so.
Regret is something she has a funny relationship with. She’s been raised in a society where shame is as much a weapon as any blade and where the typical defense against it is to simply be shameless - residents of High Rock are known for being incredibly judgemental and yet also incredibly audacious. She doesn’t see why she, or anyone else, should regret anything they’ve done. As far as she’s concerned everyone should accept where their actions have led them and try to be a good person. This said, she isn’t always immune to shame, guilt or regret, she just feels like she should be. She gets frustrated and snappy if she does feel ashamed, as she does when faced with anything that she doesn’t really understand. Things that don’t make sense to her make her irritable, whether they’re shame, incredibly bad luck or the sometimes bizarre results of people having free will and not always doing the most sensible thing.
Her temper burns very slowly, as a rule. She expresses irritation and distaste readily, usually by being incredibly critical of or making nasty jokes about whatever has annoyed her, and as a rule this helps her avoid losing control of her temper - her anger rarely comes out in flashes unless a situation is very, very emotional. When she does lose her temper she’s more pathetic than scary, despite her considerable power she’s much more likely to sulk or throw a tantrum than to harm anyone.
ABILITIES: Oh gosh she’s the protag of an elder scrolls game. This could take a while.
Racial and Birthsign Abilities - Bretons are intelligent, logical and naturally very resistant to magic, only feeling its effects half as much as other races. They also boast significantly larger magicka pools, allowing her to use more magic without exhausting herself. The final boon her race gives her is the Dragonskin power, an ability that can be used once a day that replaces her squishy human skin with thick dragon scales, allowing her to resist all kinds of damage for the minute or so that it lasts.
Born under the sign of the thief, she is naturally agile, dexterous and lucky. Unfortunately those born under the sign of the thief are said to live short but very interesting lives, because their luck always eventually runs out in spectacular ways.
Magic - She’s a brilliant mage, having considerable skill in every school of magic. Alteraton (Shield spells (though she never learned how to use the elemental shields), making things lighter and heavier, magical lockpicking, water breathing and walking), Restoration (The heals) and Destruction (The not-heals. She specializes in frost damage, but is also fond of weapon and armour destruction spells and the drain fatigue spell to end battles without badly hurting an opponent) are her best schools - she’s also brilliant at Conjuration but it would take an awful lot to get her to use it for anything other than summoning a bound (weightless) bow and arrows and even that she won’t do if there’s any indication it could go wrong. She’s less skilled with (and highly critical of) the Mysticism and Illusion schools, only having access to a few of the effects (detect life, dispel and telekinesis of the Mysticism school. Light, invisibility, night-eye and silence from the Illusion school.)
She has the technical knowledge of magic to back up all of her skills as a result of both learning this stuff since early childhood and natural talent. She’s also a very skilled alchemist, but it’s a skillset that requires ingredients that she doesn’t really have free access to.
Being Sneaky - She relies heavily upon magic for her attempts at stealth, for the most part, making frequent use of the invisibility and open lock spells. But she’s okay at hiding and sneaking around the old-fashioned way, too.
She can use a bow in theory, using a bound one to deliver poisons, but lacks the arm strength to use one as a primary weapon.
Divine Crusader Stuff - The divine crusader relics grant Bertille a number of abilities (she also has the Woodland Grace effect, mentioned at the top of the page. She doesn’t have the Holy Aura, as she’s missing the shield), all related to either healing, protecting others or avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.
All of these are dependent upon the crusader relics, meaning that if she does something to displease the gods then she loses these abilities. It’s also canon that displeasing the gods as a Crusader results in Bad, Bad Things Happening on top of that. Basically she has to be on her best behavior, all the time.
Other Stuff - She knows court etiquette like the back of her hand. She’s confident and it’s very difficult to make her uncomfortable. She’s good with a needle and thread and at putting things together - most of her tasks as a necromancer’s apprentice were related to ‘drive metal spikes into this skeleton’s bones to strengthen them and put it back together, using leather straps to keep it from falling apart’ or ‘sew this flesh atronach’s skin up nicely’. Apparently skill at sewing up golems made of flesh translates well to darning. She can ride well enough. And she’s very well read, especially in classic breton literature (read: epic stories in which everyone gets naked).
POSSESSIONS:
Things she is actually wearing-
The Relics of the Crusader, minus sword, shield and mace.
Sir Amiel’s Ring
Spelldrinker Amulet
Because her life involves a lot of carrying whatever she needs on her back, she also has the following in her inventory (...I’m just going to assume she has a bag, even though it’s never shown ingame. Because VIDEO GAME CHARACTER INVENTORIES)-
A spare set of clothes, sturdy and suitable for travelling.
Food that could last for a journey of about two days, if the traveller was careful. Mostly sweet - fruit and cake.
A small selection of various parts of plants - not many, she doesn’t really make a habit of carrying around a lot of ingredients.
A pestle and mortar, well-used.
A knife that’s clearly seen more use as a tool than as a weapon. It could probably use sharpening.
A small sewing kit.
Various ‘keep clean and neat and tidy’ supplies - soap, a cloth, hairbrush and hair ties
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
[The woman examining the compass is pretty enough. The snotty, judgemental type who clearly thinks she’s better than everyone around her - you can see it on her face, she just has that look about her - but still pretty enough. There’s redness in her cheeks, nose and ears (and are her ears pointed?), she’s not unaffected by the chill outside on the deck, and her hair has been dishevelled slightly by the sea winds, a few strands clinging to the sides of her face with the moisture in the air.
If the situation has left her irritated, distressed, afraid... none of it is showing on her face. She looks tired, maybe. A little confused. Her face lights up with glee and understanding briefly as she moves the metal of her gloved fingertips across the compass and she continues to examine it, gleeful expression fading first to cheerful curiosity and then to a calm, pleasant smile.
Just because she’s suddenly woken up on a boat when she’s quite sure she had been on her way to the very, very landlocked Chorrol is no reason to be rude, after all.]
Good- [And she briefly looks up at the sky.] -evening, I think. Good evening. Either I’m speaking to someone through this thing or I’m speaking to a compass and looking awfully silly. But it’s always worth trying, I suppose. I am Sir Bertille Copperwing, of the Order of the Knights of the Nine. [Also the Order of the Dragon. Also the Order of the Thorn...] I’m glad to meet you. Assuming, of course, that I’m not really just speaking to a compass and looking silly.
[And now to business. She clicks her tongue a few times in thought and then nods to herself, continuing.]
I’m afraid I don’t recall boarding this ship. If someone could tell me where and when it will next dock, I’d appreciate it. Actually, I’d appreciate it if someone could tell me what day it is, as well. I think I must have been asleep for some time, to find myself here. [A pause, in which she clicks her tongue again a few times before apparently deciding that’s all that needs to be said.] Thank you for your time.
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
Kellen would wake soon, and she had still not made up her mind. She could run, easily enough. Nobody who could blame her for it could catch her. Kellen would be dead soon enough, without knowing anything of this. Areldur certainly couldn’t blame her for it, he was just as guilty of cowardice and simply humble enough not to ask for a power he would fear too much to use. Even Stendarr himself couldn’t blame her - he was the one who’d placed such an awful curse on an innocent man.
The chest by Kellen’s bed seemed sturdy enough, so she sat down with a sigh, staring at her hands. They were still clasped, like she was praying even now, though she’d wandered from the altar to the hall almost an hour ago. She kept returning them to that position unconsciously, as if she were afraid to touch anything. And perhaps she was. To take on someone’s burdens, every misfortune the gods had thrown at them, every pain they felt - there had been days before when she’d thought she would give anything to be able to do that. And now, now that Stendarr had given her that gift, it terrified her. She wanted to return it. To remain incapable of doing anything and so not to blame. Because now every pained breath that the redguard took, every wheezing fit that interrupted his too-deep sleep, every moment of suffering was something she could have prevented. It would be so, so simple. And it would kill her, eventually. Just like it would kill him in a few days.
His chest fell and didn’t rise again. She waited a few seconds, because this was not as alarming as it ought to be. His breathing was always irregular. It was only after a few seconds passed that she started to worry, opening her hands and solemnly staring between them and the cursed man. Even now, even now it might be too late, she couldn’t do it. She was too afraid. He was going to die. He was going to die while she stood over him watching him suffer and holding the power to heal him. His chest finally rose again, desperately, and he started to half-consciously gulp down air, so exhausted by the curse that not even that had woken him. Bertille sighed with relief, sinking back down onto the chest and burying her head in her hands. His death wasn’t on her conscience. Not yet.
...what kind of god of mercy would do this to an innocent man?
“Some god of mercy...” Bertille caught herself mumbling. And it was that thought that helped her make up her mind. If Stendarr couldn’t muster even the slightest bit of mercy, then someone else had to. And she didn’t quite see why ‘someone else’ always had to be her, but that was the way her life went. She stood again, hesitantly, and slowly, carefully, pressed her fingertips against the back of Kellen’s hand.
The effect was immediate. Her limbs felt like lead. Her mind felt like it was fighting through quicksand just to connect thoughts. Her lungs burned. It was all she could do to sit down at the foot of the bed rather than collapse onto the floor. But she could see Kellen start to stir, to sit up effortlessly. So she did what seemed appropriate, smiling and - with great effort - giving a small wave.
“Good morning. How do you feel?”
Revisions! PART THE FIRST
KNIGHT VS. ROGUE: The short answer here is that, in terms of what one would expect from either of these as classes, she is neither. Other than knowing how to duck behind things and fire a bow - and her skill with the latter is both limited, as she doesn’t have the physical strength required to draw a bowstring back more than a few times within a short period even when using a lighter and simpler to use magically-conjured Bound Bow, and a result of her family’s determination that she try to be more like the elves her kind are descended from - she has none of the mundane skills any self-respecting rogue would use. Likewise, ‘Knight’ is little more than a title. She became a Knight of the Nine essentially because a crazy street preacher who was later implied to be one of the gods of her world told her to.
As for the long answer, I’ll start with explanation of abilities. She relies upon her magic heavily to carry her weight when attempting to do much of anything that isn’t directly related to using magic. Even her bow is conjured, fashioned from magic because she lacks the strength to fire a ‘proper’ one accurately. Without her magic, her abilities when it comes to both sneaking and knighting are along the lines of ‘know that sneaking around in full, very shiny armour is unlikely to work and hide and sneak around when faced with danger as competently as most other people faced with the same danger’ and ‘stand between people and source of danger, wear armour and use racial dragonskin ability if it’s not already been used. Hope for the best’ respectively. I’ll cover the effects of individual spells in the ‘explaining the magic’ part but for now - all her skills relating to being sneaky and to protecting others are magical in nature, meaning that they share a single point of failure in her ability to cast magic. If her magicka pool runs low, her connection to Aetherius (the source of her canon’s magic) is severed or she finds herself unable to think or speak clearly enough to use magic, she pretty much has nothing. Even her weapon of choice needs to be conjured magically.
As for reconciling the differing worldviews, part of that is a result of being raised in the society she’s been raised in. The Bretons of High Rock are known for both romanticizing the ideal of the ‘knight in shining armour, going around saving all the princesses from dragons’ (and for having a society built around this being the fastest way to power) and for being traitors, spies and tricksters. They see no contradiction because they are an incredibly self-centred, practically-minded people - the means are always justified, because they are getting what they (or their lord) wants. Bertille is not quite at this extreme, much as she enjoys claiming she is, but as an incredibly simplified mindset it’s very common in the city where she was raised.
It’s also worth mentioning, since I didn’t really cover it adequately in the history and personality sections in my attempts to cut them down to size, that she grew significantly over her adventures. She entered Cyrodiil as a proud but coddled and sheltered young woman whose birth to a wealthy family and incredible talent had bought her what was for the most part a very easy, safe and comfortable life - even in her career as a graverobber she’d always known she had her family’s name to fall back on if she was caught, the consequences would be unwelcome but not a great danger. When everything went wrong and she was arrested she suddenly suffered a major drop in both social standing and confidence. She was suddenly a criminal in a country where her family’s name meant nothing, suddenly afraid both of the huge and unfriendly world around her and of the actual destructive power of her own magic - something that until then had only been used to help people or show off to them and impress them. When the main plot of Oblivion kicked off and she ended up forced by coincidence and a troubling, unignorable empathy for the plight of others to fight her way through hell she did her best to put her fear behind her, after all the daedra of oblivion would hurt her whether she feared them or not, and achieved this by focussing single-mindedly upon protecting those around her and following the orders of others. As the plot continued she reforged her old identity, this time tempering it with humility (in the form of merciless self-deprecation rather than the absence of pride), agency and courage.
And that’s a lot of irrelevant tl;dr but necessary to provide context when I say that her stint as a graverobber happened before the start of all that. She got the most mileage out of those skills when her primary form of defense against anything was ‘run the hell away’. Her becoming a knight happened toward the end of it, when running away was no longer an option because the new identity she’d made for herself wouldn’t allow her to let people suffer. A lot happened between her time as a thief and as a knight.
This all said there are still times where the practicality that being a coward and a thief taught her and the whole ‘knight in service to the gods’ thing are entirely opposed, even with the rather unique view on knight-ing that her country left her with. This is something she’ll struggle with ICly - her first instinct will not always be the thing that her duty to the gods binds her to do. The Bretons’ take on laws and morality is somewhere between ‘just try to make people around you happier’ and ‘it’s only illegal if you get caught’ and that’s how she’s still very used to thinking. She hasn’t quite thought through the implications of her use of the crusader relics, and being held to a very rigid set of rules when she’s used to just going with what works and doesn’t hurt people too much if they don’t deserve it is something that will be very problematic for her ICly. Which leads into the Crusader stuff quite nicely!
Revisions! PART THE SECOND
ON BEING A DIVINE CRUSADER: Being the Divine Crusader means being spiritual successor to Pelinal Whitestrake, a knight who fought to free humanity from slavery eons ago in the First Era. The gods chose a successor to deal with an old enemy of his who had since returned and posed a great threat both to them and to their followers.
In a practical sense, being the divine crusader means she gets nice armour (there are two versions of this armour - the light version and the heavy version. She uses the light version which is significantly weaker but which she can actually lift). The armour bolsters healing skills when worn and helps her compensate to some degree for her rather woeful fragility. It also provides abilites-
-The Helm of the Crusader grants the ability Serene Beauty, an ability that can be used to calm people down if they are angry or afraid.
-The Greaves of the Crusader grant the the ability Blessing of the Eight, a Shield spell that can only target others. The blessing absorbs a portion of the damage that the target would normally have taken and lasts for about a minute.
-The Gauntlets of the Crusader grant the ability Merciful Touch, a healing spell that can only target others. Being an ability granted by the divines rather than her own magic, it takes less of a toll on her magicka than her own healing spells. But presumably (this doesn’t happen in-game) if the gods disapproved of the person being healed, it would fail.
-And the Boots of the Crusader grant the blessing of Woodland Grace, which differs from all of the other abilities in that it’s not spell-like and is only ever turned ‘off’ when the boots are removed. This blessing calms animals, preventing them from attacking her, but doesn’t work to protect anyone around her from them. It’s also kind of fussy about what it will work on - for example apparently bears count as animals, but not rats.
These abilities are all linked to the Crusader Relics. If she isn’t wearing them then she doesn’t have the ability. The relics aren’t actually unique to her, technically anyone could take them and use them as long as they followed the rules that the user is expected to follow. But they’d probably have to be passed over willingly in order to still work - stealing them would kind of disqualify one from using them, after all. There are two more abilities that Bertille has, related to this quest, that are not connected to the Relics, but both are situational and connected to situations that will never happen in Exitvoid - one is another healing ability with a single plot-related use, another is the ability to request to be struck down by the divines.
The other thing that being Divine Crusader means, in a practical sense, is having to follow a very strict set of rules. As an agent of the gods, the Divine Crusader is held to their very, very high standards behaviour-wise. These are not necessarily standards that humans are really supposed to be able to meet, involving being the lawful good-est of the lawful good. Consistent failure to meet these standards results in punishment, starting small enough but moving on first to inability to use the Crusader Relics and then to nastier things. Massive failure to meet these standards - the canon example used is a knight striking someone down in anger - results in very, very horrible consequences. If it’s okay then if this comes up in-game I’ll talk to the mods about it the same way I would about a death penalty.
In Oblivion, penance can be made for failure to meet these standards by making a pilgrimage. Since this is impossible in Exitvoid and the alternative is either not doing anything interesting with this stuff or resigning to losing it permanently I’m going to request that making an offering of some sort to each of the nine divines achieves the same thing. Doing this would presumably involve offering items found during docking events or earned from the engineer and so wouldn’t be a quick, easy or painless process.
And in an emotional/character development sense, becoming the Divine Crusader marks a point of no return in Bertille’s life. She could always have gone home to go continue being a safe, spoiled noble at any other point. She’d have been a horrible person and abandoned friends in doing so but it was always possible. Nobody could hold her to fighting to protect others. As of becoming the Divine Crusader, people can. And those people are gods, who hold authority even over noble families. Her being willing to turn her back on the possibility of running is a stride forward for her in terms of character development. Through becoming the crusader she also found faith, something she had toyed with previously during her adventures (her friend mantled a god, after all. It’s hard to doubt after seeing that) but which had never really stuck before. She still doesn’t necessarily believe that the gods are good (and this isn’t actually something that bothers her - it’s no different from living in Daggerfall and knowing that the King is corrupt as far as she’s concerned) because they have allowed some pretty messed up things to happen. But she believes they are there and she believes that she serves them and that by doing so she can make peoples’ lives a little more okay. And that’s enough for her.
It also served to help her learn about herself. Specifically, it’s taught her that she is a very, very poor leader. The Divine Crusader is, apparently by tradition, also Knight Commander of the Knights of the Nine. Unfortunately this tradition is apparently more important than the idea of getting someone competent to do the job. Bertille has discovered that she is terrified of the idea of being responsible for people’s lives, that she can’t trust people to take care of themselves without her constant supervision and that her response to this is to not trust any of her fellow knights with any task ever and completely fail at delegating.
She’s yet to seriously face the implications of the strict set of rules she now has to live her life by, coming to Exitvoid immediately after the end of the plot and before the novelty of all of this has worn off. As a result what all of that means to her will probably be defined in-game.
Revisions! PART THE THIRD
We will need these explanations to determine which abilities and spells we’ll be able to allow in ExitVoid due to game mechanics and will expect you to stick to the abilities and limitations you list out in your explanation."
SPELLS AND GAME MECHANICS:
Because of the way that Oblivion’s magic system works (spells are made up of a magic effect, a target and a potency in some combination and there are a lot of them) I’m just going to go through magic effects rather than named spells, to avoid a whole lot of overlap - if I go with named spells there’ll be a lot of spells with the same effect but different strengths. I’m going to assume, if it’s okay and to avoid overlap, that all uses of the same magic effect are the same basic spell regardless of target/magnitude. Obviously a more powerful effect means more magicka drain - using a healing spell to close a papercut and to close a big gaping hole left by monster teeth wouldn’t take the same amount of, and nor would lighting a candle and big, offensive fire spells.
Also a quick description of the different targets, before anything else.
On Self - Casting spells on oneself uses the least magicka out of any target but has its obvious limitations.
On Touch - Uses slightly more magicka but allows the user to target others. Physical contact with the target is an important component.
On Target - Uses a great deal of magicka but allows the user to target anything they can see.
And now spell effects!
Restoration
All major uses of magic from this school would either be plotted out beforehand - I know people may well want their characters to stay injured or unwell for plot/character development/wtc reasons.
Restore Health - Is your standard ‘make the ouchies go away’ healing spell.
Cure Poison - Removes poisons from the body.
Cure Disease - Cures diseases.
Destruction
Frost Damage - Ice-based damage, and Bertille’s primary weapon.
Fire Damage - Fire-based damage.
Shock Damage - ...I bet you can’t guess. (Lightning-Based damage)
Drain Fatigue - Suddenly exhaustion. Bertille’s version of a non-lethal weapon.
Alteration
Shield - Increases defense.
Open - Unlocks things. Even in Oblivion this fails a lot for plot-related reasons, so obviously it won’t unlock things that have to stay locked for OOC reasons.
Feather - Makes things lighter! This is one of Bertille’s favourite magical effects, because she is kind of awful at carrying things.
Burden - Makes things heavier!
Illusion
Light - Produces light!
Night Eye - An alternative to light. It’s more costly and not as effective, but the light can’t be detected by anyone but the user.
Silence - Stops the target from using magic or talking until it wears off or is dispelled.
Mysticism
Detect Life - Allows the target to sense the presence of living beings in a small radius. Useful for cheating at hide and seek.
Conjouration
Bound Bow - Suddenly a weightless magical bow and arrows! They’re easier to use than a normal bow for a scrawny mage, because she uses magic for a lot of the work. But they require constant magicka drain to continue existing and may vanish at an inconvenient time if she gets distracted.