Name
Lissa Starstorm

Position
Herald & Artificer

Age
17

Appearance
Lissa stands at a height of 5'7"; she has an average-slender build and a fair complexion. Her thick hair is waist length, consisting of dark, loose golden brown curls cascading down her back. Her wide, expressive wide blue eyes have a respectful intelligence behind them; more often seen with a smile playing upon her lips than not.

Personality
Lissa can sometimes be painfully shy when she first meets someone, but quickly loses that shyness once she becomes close to them. Starstorm sometime comes off a bit sarcastic or bitter; she tries to be as cheerful as she can be, but has no patience for unkindness or ignorance; she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Hidden within her is a sensitive yearning for peoples' approval and understanding; in recent years, when things have become difficult for her, this yearning has been hidden more and more by a jaded indifference towards those who have hurt her. She finds it exceedingly difficult to place trust in people, having been betrayed so many times. As a result, she often finds herself feeling depressingly secluded and disjointed from the world, everyone else seemingly so close to one another, and she the only one left out.

Though it is difficult to gain her confidence, once she deems a person her friend, she will do almost anything for them. She enjoys and strives to make people laugh, always having a smile available. Her friends often think of her as wild and crazy because of how playful she will be just to make them laugh. Laughing is one of her favorite things to do; she often will find any excuse to do it. When it comes to protecting the people she cares about, however, she lacks that fun-loving kindness. Fiercely loyal and protective of her friends and family, she sometimes has a hard time drawing a line between defending those she loves and taking it a little too far; despite all this, however, she honestly hates conflict and confrontation.

She also has a total lack of patience for "stupid people" (ignorant, self-absorbed, mean, lying, selfish), and can often come off as very cold to people who get on her nerves.  She is brutally honest, and won't lie about it if she doesn't like you. She doesn't necessarily "hold a grudge", but she never forgets when someone has done something to get on her bad side.

Witty, Clever, Thoughtful, Intelligent, Loving, Good-Humored, Funny, Hard-working, Thoughtful, and a Brave soul, this Herald is ready to tackle anything that life has to throw at her.

Gifts
Firestarting (only capable of lighting a storm of sparks)
Mindspeaking (major, even capable of limited mindspeech with animals)
Indefinite –
Foresight - more likely, she has good intuition (she sometimes has dreams that shadow events in the near future, but more often they never occur or were just figments of her over-active imagination, making it a virtually useless ability)

Life Story
Herald Lissa comes from the far north and west of Valdemar. She has an older brother named Bran and a younger named Brin. Her father was an Artificer engineer and her mother was an active house-wife who taught her children to sew, knit, set wounds, make healing balms with common herbs, tend to the farm, etc. Her father taught her to hunt and track, as well as ride and to a lesser extent, fight. She grew up on a rather remote farm, where she learned to care for and train animals. Her family has always been the most innate, significant part of her life.

The farm is actually part of a village of other farms sprinkled across the landscape. Despite the fact that her home is only a short ride away from another, Lissa’s homestead seems secluded by the forests and hills around it. Her family raises enough livestock and crops to be more than self-sufficient. In addition to the livestock, her family also breeds work horses and dogs. One of her favorite past times was learning to race dog or horse drawn sleds in the harsh winters of the north. 

The homestead is about half a candle mark ride from the nearby town of Illion (better known as Frostpeak). Illion, as well as Lissa’s home, are situated overlooking a rather large run-off river from the nearby northern mountains. The area is hilly and heavily wooded; though there are many paths frequented by hunters throughout the forests, but bandits have always been a problem. Winters are harsh and unforgiving, but the young Herald has always loved the snow. 

Lissa began studying to become an Artificer when she was very young, and finished her certification after moving to Haven. Very clever at utilizing her broad range of knowledge, she is always experimenting with designing and making new devices and knick-knacks; if she hadn’t been Chosen, she probably would have become a vagrant artist/problem-solver for hire (keenly against her parent’s wishes). Though she never told anyone, she frequently fantasized about running away to the far north, seeking adventure.

Her gifts were discovered when she was traveling to a market in Evendim. She had let her horse linger behind the rest of the group while she finished a piece of intricately braided rope jewelry. Moments before the attack she realized her folly, as she became acutely aware that something was wrong; voices began to buzz in her head much louder than they ever had before. In a panic she had kicked her horse into a gallop, but she had been thrown roughly to the ground as the poor beast fell over a trip line. The brutes had swarmed upon her as she shrieked for help; her dagger had been knocked effortlessly from her hands as she found herself surrounded, defenseless. Though she tried to fend them off, she was thrown bodily to the ground; even to this day she isn’t sure exactly what happened next. One moment a man was menacingly striding forward… The next moment he was in flames, shrieks of agony echoing through the forest. 

It had been an act of self-defense, but Lissa was horrified at what she had done. While the bandits fled in horror, she had curled on the ground and retched in repulsion. Something inside her closed off that day; never again has she been able to summon her Firestarting for more than merely a storm of sparks. When her family later witnessed this, they dubbed her, “A storm of stars; Starstorm.” The name stuck. 

Lissa was Chosen a very short time after that. Her parents had argued relentlessly since her gifts were discovered, unsure of what to do with her. Should they send her away to the newly found Mage School in Haven? Ignore it? What if they proved dangerous? The young girl had been sitting dolefully by the river, wondering what her future held, when the cheerful sound of jingling bells filled her ears. Skyseeker Chose her and whisked her away to Haven after joyfully tearful good-byes.

Recent History
Lissa was very ahead of her school mates in academic classes; in Gift and weapons work, however, she was more than a little lacking. Even while taking her rigorous Herald courses, Lissa frequented her free time with continued Artificer classes, incidentally earning her Blues before her Whites.
The young Herald was injured on duty in the lower city. Rushed to the House of Healing, she met Rob Sandstream. The two immediately struck it off; with his powerful empathy and the natural chemistry they possessed, it was immediately labeled as a Lifebond. Their bond was only increased when he sacrificed much of his own life-force to save her life after she was nearly assassinated on duty in the woods near Haven (posts 675-679, 685, 711, 713-715, 716). What heartache there lay in the future, when two years later the young Healer abruptly tore himself from her life (post 1194).The road to recovery from her heartbreak has been a difficult one. She took it hard, and for months found it difficult if not impossible to carry on with life. She hadn’t believed in life without her love; but time, it seems, accommodates no one. Life went on, and so did she. Though the experience was a horrible blow to her ability to trust in people, she has slowly learned to move on.
Lissa's newest addition is a spunky white arctic-spitz (samoyed) dog. His name is Banner.

Goals in Life
Starstorm has high goals for herself in life. She wants to help as many people as she can, and at the same time she wants to help improve her families life (not that they aren't doing well already!) and help her parents out. She is determined to keep her family as a major part of her life in addition to her duty as a Herald.

More than anything, she wants to be important to people. She wants to be loved, wanted, and important, and find something to fill that aching emptiness she sometimes feels. She hopes to marry someday and have a family.