Kassandra Harth

Diseased. She had a disease, or a curse, depending upon who you asked, and even then those were usually the nicer words spoken about her. Kassandra was born to a likable enough woman, who just happened to be pregnant outside of wedlock. She never knew her father, and even if she had, it is doubtful he would have stayed. Kassandra was birth, a time expected to be for celebration by her mother and her family, quickly turned to a time of shock, terror, and accusation. Here, swaddled in a cloth, was not the innocent looking child they were looking for, but (what appeared to them to be) a demon child. Upon sighting the tiny horns and tail on the child, her family immediately accused her mother of consorting with demons. Though her mother denied it, they were both disowned by their family and told to leave the village. All looked hopeless for the mother and her young daughter, until a cloaked man met her as they left their village the next day.

The cloaked man turned out to be none other than the woman's brother. As it turns out, he had secretly disagreed with the others in their family's decisions, and offered to take them both in to his home. She quickly accepted and they moved into his home in a nearby town. Her brother was actually a scholar of sorts, having a moderate sized home and a respectable library. As Kassandra grew up, she was kept inside very often. It was not that her mother and uncle did not love her, but they were afraid that if others were to see her, trouble would follow. So, Kassandra grew up in large part indoors, reading from her uncle's library, watching out her window, and occasionally, if she had been very good, getting to walk outside with her mom (heavily covered, of course). She grew up in this way for thirteen years, schooled primarily by her uncle. One day, however, as she walked about in the attic, and looked down from the window, she saw a group of children playing in the street. Mesmerized, she watched as they threw balls, ran races, and all sorts of other games and sports. Quickly, she ran downstairs and asked her mom if she could go out and play with them. Her mother, however, told her not to, that it wasn't safe out there for her. Disappointed, she walked back to her room and went to sleep.

She frequently watched the children play from her window, wanting more and more to go out and join them every day. So, one night, when the kids had stayed out especially late, and her mom and uncle were asleep, she decided to sneak out. She quickly put on the scarf and other clothes her mother had her wear the few times they had gone outside together, took a deep breath, and walked outside. The children immediately stopped their game when they saw a person walk out of the old, supposedly haunted house. Luckily it was winter, so they thought little of the girl's heavy outfit, yet here was a young girl they had never met before, walking out of the house they were never allowed to go into. They were all stunned for a moment, unsure what to think, until a particularly brave boy ran up to the strange girl, and asked her if she wanted to play. She smiled happily and nodded, and they walked back to the group. The children asked her many questions before they returned to their game: what her name was, who else lived in that house, why they lived there, and why no one ever saw them. She answered them all to the best of her understanding, and when the children were satisfied, they returned to their game. Ecstatic, Kassandra quickly learned the rules to their game, involving a ball and bouncing it against a tree or a wall, though she wasn't particularly good at it, she was having too much fun to care.

Now, when Kassandra had answered the children's questions, she had said only what she knew. Unfortunately, she had never truly realized before why her mother would not let her go out alone. As she ran towards the tree, she lost her footing and tripped hard, her scarf and hat went flying off. The children quickly gathered around her to see if she was ok, only for most of them to quickly back away when they saw her. Kassandra rubbed her bruise as she slowly got up, and looked around curiously at the children's strange faces. A few of the children went off running, most of them just stared at her, and one brave child crept behind her, and slowly reached out to poke her horns. After determining that the horns were indeed real, and that Kassandra had no intention of eating them, they decided they must be some sort of birthmark and tried to begin their game again. However, before they could even get the ball in the air again, some of the children who had ran off came back, this time with their parents in tow.

The adults quickly dispersed the children and confronted Kassandra. They glared at her horns as if they were a mortal sin and a deceiver unto themselves. Standing menacingly around her, they interrogated her, asking her why she was here, where she was from, and what evil she had done to their children. Greatly confused and terrified, she tried to answer, but only managed to say that she had come out of her house to play before the adults began to close in on her. Fearing for her life, she quickly ran around the approaching adults and dashed as quickly as she could into her house. She slammed the door shut and locked it, only to hear heavy pounding on it a moment later. Crying from fear, she ran upstairs and embraced her mother, who had just been woken up by the pounding at the door. Kassandra's uncle walked down from his room and saw her clinging to her mother, wearing her traveling clothes. He suddenly realized what that pounding noise was. He told them to quickly gather their things and get ready to leave by the back door. He quickly walked downstairs by the front door, straightened his clothes then, after a moment to let her sister and niece to get ready, he opened the door.

News travels quickly in a town like this, and also has the tendency to get exaggerated. Word had already spread around the town about a demon among the children. Neighbor told neighbor, and before long the whole town was filled with shouts of terror and demands for justice. So, when Kassandra's uncle opened their door, he was met with a boot to the chest. Hysteria is an odd thing, it grows all its own, and you never quite know what will satisfy it, or cause it to grow. Now, with the first blow landed, it grew to a new level. People demanded that the evil be taken away from their fair town. So, they brought oil and torches to the old scholars house, they had always known he was evil, had always seen it in his eyes. They used his own Black Tomes to kindle the fire, drenching them in oil and setting them ablaze. There was a great cheer as the black smoke began to fly out of the windows of the evil house. To this day, people claim they could see demons and devils moving and screaming within that smoke, and that they heard that wicked scholar try to cast a hex upon them, before they bound him and threw him in with his own evil books.

Kassandra and her mother had fled their home the moment they heard the blow upon her uncle. The house was near the edge of town, so they ran into the woods, as fast and as far as they could. They ran until they could run no more, until Kassandra fell upon the ground and could barely move. They rested there as best as they could, the ground was soft and the trees provided cover, but neither Kassandra or her mother could find much sleep, their minds filled with visions of torch wielding townspeople, bloodthirsty wolves, and all manner of other horrors. They awoke the next day, horribly tired and sore. They slowly began to walk again, her mother guiding by where she believed a town might be. They eventually came upon a rather large town near the end of the second day. Incredibly tired and hungry, they stumbled into an inn, Kassandra pulling her hat tightly over her head, and bought a room and board with the money her mother had grabbed when they had ran.

She lived in that town for a number of years, her mother had grabbed enough money when they left their old home to be able to support them for a while, but she took a job at the tavern, while Kassandra took a very quiet job at the town library. She was hired to help organize the books and keep track of what and wasn't there. The library became Kassandra's world, while it was much larger than her uncle's library, there were also more people in it (though mainly just travelers and the few scholars that lived in the town, most of the common townsfolk had little use for the books). She would sit in the library for hours, just reading different books, history, mythology, theology, whatever she could find. It was during this time she also became very introverted. She had come to realize why they were attacked at their old home, and began to feel responsible for all that had happened. There were many low times during this period, times she wished she hadn't been born, then her mom would be happy with her family, and her uncle would still be alive. She avoided people as much as possible, always kept her head covered, and tried to avoid being seen in the dark. She was always afraid that her and her mother would be chased out of town again, so she was sure to be careful.

After a while, she began to focus her reading more, she read as much as she could about tieflings: famous tieflings, infamous tieflings, tiefling lore, anything she could find that would give her more information about her "Curse". More than anything, she wanted to find a way to "cure" herself, to be rid of the taint within her. This continued for years, she helped the librarian (a kindly soul, but she still never revealed her secret to him) keep track of his books, read up on tieflings and other lore within the realm (And some outside the realm as well), and tried her best to look as unimportant to others as possible.

As time went on, her mother began to get sick. Though nervous, the new older Kassandra helped her mother go to a local doctor. The doctor looked at Kassandra oddly, but then diverted his attention to her mother. Unfortunately, despite the doctor's assistance, Kassandra's mother died a few days afterwards. Kassandra cried that day, more so than she had ever before. Fate can have the cruelest of humor at times, and it happened that that very day Kassandra and her mother's rent was due. The collector came towards the door, only to hear a young woman crying. He decided that there must be a woman in distress within the room that needed help at once, so he quickly took out his key, unlocked the door, and rushed in, only to find a woman with horns and fangs leaning over a corpse. With a terrified tone, he cried out for help, falling backwards from the doorway. Kassandra wiped the tears away, quickly grabbed her cap and some coins, and rushed past the fallen man. As she ran she heard the mans cries: Demon, Witch, Murderer.

Kassandra left the town, wearing her old scarf and full outfit. These clothes, and the few coins she grabbed, are all she has anymore. No one to go to, no where to stay, she thinks back to all the places she has heard of, and remembers one in particular. Surna, a city of misfits, heroes, and the unwanted. If there is anyplace in this world that would take her, it is Surna, she thinks. And so, Kassandra begins her newest journey, her cap tightly over her head, and her scarf around her neck.