Aster Margotsdottir

Aster is a tall, slight human woman with pale skin and long, curly, brown hair that she usually keeps in tidy braids. She has a plain but welcoming face with a splatter of freckles across her nose. Her eyes are hazel or green depending on the light.
  She wears cheerful brown, red, and yellow garments that identify her as a practitioner of the Cult of the Mother to the people of her homeland, as well as a golden disk pinned at her throat bearing the symbol of a single shaft of wheat, again marking her affiliation with the Mother, as well as her status in her order as an apprentice. In inclement weather, she wears a cloak and a floppy, brown, pointed hat with a wide brim.

Aster was born in the spring to a Priestess of The Cult of the Mother in a small village in the central valley of the republic. She saw her mother as the pinnacle of restrained wisdom. She was endlessly practical and suffers no nonsense. However, she was patient and understanding.
  She knows her father, who is a traveling bard she has met several times before while on the road, but he’s not an important figure in her life. He’s a pretty gifted lute player, and he travels sometimes alone and sometimes with different troupes. Aster likes him well enough. He taught her a few dirty songs when she was a kid. She has a small thumb piano he gave her. She can play it okay.
  Aster grew up traveling with her mother and helping her with her priestly duties, and when she was old enough, she became her apprentice. She spent her childhood learning the ways of divine magic, traveling from village to village in the valley, helping its citizens under the patronage of their local lord, and later the Republic. She blessed crops, delivered babies, sanctified festivals, helped those who needed aid, and comforted those who needed comfort.
  Her mother died of an illness when she was 19.
  After her mother's death, she was not yet ordained as a full priestess. Leaving the cult in the hands of the last working priestess, Aster traveled to the main branch of the church in the capital to see if she could gain her official priesthood. Unfortunately, the priestess of the Order of the Noble Saints of Aelin that she spoke to had never heard of her small order. Due to some unfortunate bureaucratic coincidences, she was sent to become part of the new Democratic Freedom People's Survey Corps as a representative of the church.
  She is now on her way to Fort Wyate, trying to trust the gods that she's on the right path, fighting the feelings of disappointment and betrayal that her plans were turned on their heads so quickly. Have the gods abandoned her? Will she ever be able to go home and carry on her mother’s legacy? She is doing her best to look on the bright side and make the best of her situation.

Aster has a very black and white sense of morality. What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong, and she usually knows it when she sees it. She has a strong aversion to lying, cheating, stealing, and all forms of dishonesty. She also believes in doing one's duty and helping others whenever possible.
  The Mother emphasizes treating all people and animals with respect, and doing right by one's community. She teaches that when people work together and do what's right, they will be rewarded. All things will come in their time, such are the cycles of life.

People Aster knows from her past:
  Helena Carosdottir: the last practicing priestess of The Cult of the Mother, recently ordained as priestess by Elaine
  Mara Lanorasdottir and Elaine Pennasdottir: recently retired priestesses
  Margot Lenorasdottir: Aster's mother and mentor priestess, recently deceased
  Devona Marasdottir: Aster's older cousin, born with the gift of the mother and trained briefly as a priestess by her mother Mara, left the order in disgrace
  Danna Quickfinger: Aster's father, traveling minstrel, singer and lute player, clever and fun
  Ethan Nameless: the son of the recently usurped lord, about my age, grew up knowing he wasn't going to get what his father had so was loosely taught lord skills but not a lot of effort was being put in from either end. Last I heard he was learning to cook.