Maureen Solara

Maureen Solara began her career as a student in the mage school of Aragard Reach, where she studied under, and was fairly infatuated with, Magus Xaris. She was not particularly interested in adventuring (she had to be ordered to join Garrett von Marck’s party) nor, initially, was she very good at it. Between her childhood in a comfortably bourgeois family and her years as a student at the mage school, she was used to a certain degree of luxury, and packed dress robes and a pillow for the field. She was easily intimidated; when the tough guardsman Rodrigo, assigned to supervise a party of novices and desperate to bully them into sensible behavior, started threatening them with various dire fates, she squeaked, “You’re going to rape and kill me, aren’t you?” It turned out that Aragard Reach had not prepared her very well to be an adventuring mage: though she had learned Xaris’ secret souped-up Burning Hands spell, she had never been taught a basic light spell (and indeed went most of her career without managing to find a place to learn one). Most of the party saw this as obvious evidence of incompetence, while Garrett, an annoying rationalist as a youth, persisted in believing that there was no such thing as magic and those spells she did manage to accomplish were coincidence or illusion. Fortunately, Maureen, a redhead with a temper to match, was able to toughen up quickly under fire and adjust to the demands of adventuring. She eventually fell in love with and married Rodrigo. Their most arduous experiences, including years spent fighting demons in the outer planes, cemented their bond and made Maureen into a hardened warrior who would use deadly magic without hesitation. Though not naturally gifted in shadow magic as Xaris had been, she was able to learn enough use of shadow-touched offensive spells to be a dangerous combatant. Perhaps the greatest grief of her life was to be present at the final death of Xaris, who sacrificed what remained of his life force to save students of Aragard Reach. A close second was the death of her former companion and friend, the saintly Father Orrin, who, near death from old age, used the last of his waning strength to restore to her the arm she had lost in combat with demons. Maureen particularly detested the Shali Sunik people who lived south of the Frozen Kingdoms. She and her compatriots were transported to their lands accidentally and against their will, and upon emerging there Maureen was immediately taken prisoner by the natives, who had an obsessive fear and hatred of magic and intended to kill her simply for wearing a mage amulet. The party managed to arrange for the natives to kill Rodrigo instead — temporarily, since he was at the time carrying a magic sword that would revive him from death, though at a great price. Maureen was not inclined to be forgiving of the abuse that her beloved suffered, but since the local kind of magic prevented her from using her own, she was unable to dish out the sort of revenge she might have preferred. It was not in Maureen’s character to accept the inevitability of evil, bend her head to any man, or back down from any fight without shame. While she did enjoy happiness with Rodrigo, she was often bitter and angry, with the deeds they accomplished outweighed in her mind by the times when they failed and the villains whom they were unable to defeat. In particular, though she swore vengeance against the female dark mage Cataline in response to her apparent murder of the ancient mage Lenthaticus, she never achieved her goal of spilling Cataline’s blood.