Cassandra

Cassandra was raised from birth in a secretive order of assassins, and was the subject of an experiment where she was never taught language, instead groomed to “read” body language well enough to anticipate her opponent’s actions. However upon the culmination of her training, her heightened empathy allowed her to truly see her first kill through the victim’s eyes - and it horrified her. As chance would have it, the day she turned her back on the assassins’ school (and burned it to the ground) was the day a party from the Horizon Adventurers Guild came to her world on a mission to take down the very same organization. Seeing her obvious skill in fighting, they took her in, and she found a new home in Horizon.   While the Guild learned some rough outlines of her background from what records could be scavenged from the assassins’ school, integrating Cass into the Guild proved difficult. Not only did the communication barrier cause obvious problems (she seemed to understand barely a dozen words), they were also flabbergasted by her refusal to kill. Having seen death in an unimaginably intimate way, she had vowed not to take it again. This rendered her rather unfit for the Guild’s missions, and she abandoned the organization under little objection. While Cassandra couldn’t fully understand Horizon without language, she had picked up on the fact that there was another powerful group within the city - one which the Guild treated with a combination of respect and disdain that she felt an affinity towards. If there was to be a home and purpose for her here, she felt it must be found with the ones they call “Meridian”. One rainy night, a 17-year-old girl dressed in black, with little to her name, knelt before the doorstep of the still-under-construction Meridian Barracks, awaiting a chance to prove herself worthy to take up a ring.   She would wait as long as it took, but later that night Guinn allowed her inside. That was about a year ago now.  

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Fun Facts

• She really like animals. If it isn’t obviously hostile, she probably wants to pet it.
• Still carries a small bronze charm in the shape of pentacle with an etching of a rat’s head in its center. This is the only possession she keeps form her old life, and she keeps it carefully hidden away. It is there purely to reminder of that which she must never return to.
• Has a tendency to rush headlong into fights, to the point of recklessness and danger to herself. She is aware of this tactical failing. She still hasn’t really reigned it in, but she _is_ aware of it...

Personality Traits

The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t do it.

Ideal

Redemption. There’s a spark of good in everyone. (Good)

Bond

I’m guilty of a terrible crime. I hope I can redeem myself for it.

Flaw

If there’s a plan, I’ll forget it. If I don’t forget it, I’ll ignore it.

Fears

• Cassandra’s greatest fear is becoming that which she was groomed to be: a ruthless killing machine. She does not shirk from violence, and intellectually understands the need for enemies to be taken out for the greater good, but she cannot allow herself to be directly responsible for taking the life of a Person (PC-compatible race/species).
• This also extends to other forms of her “past catching up,” as this might drag her back into a life she does not want. The symbol that appeared on the barracks door on the night of her 18th birthday was a shock in this regard.
• She is also profoundly grateful and happy to have found the “family” of the Meridians, after rejecting her origins, and then being more-or-less rejected by the Adventuring Guild. As such, she is also very afraid of losing this new family.