Arabella

History
Arabella' was born in the Old World almost thirty years ago – about twenty-nine years and seven months to be exact – to a rich and privileged family. From a young age she showed interest in the arts, particularly music but also dance and others. Arabella was the youngest of five siblings – and the youngest of four daughters – so her parents let her pursue her interest as it became clear it was developing into a passion. They hired the best tutors in the city to teach her and focus her musical pursuits. They hoped their youngest daughter might begin a successful career as a singer, musician or dancer but Arabella never settled on one pursuit, instead she seemed to embrace them all with frustrating versatility. Disappointed they tried to 'correct' their daughter's behaviour and force her to choose one thing to specialize in. What happened instead was two years of self-imposed exile – a tough choice to live with for a girl only sixteen years old with an old, half-burned violin. Her return home came hot on the heels of a discovery about the violin she carried. The violin was black and half-burned but remained eerily in tune which indicated some underlying magic to it, but for all that it was one of many mysteries that lay in the deep and wide vaults of her family. The discovery came quickly as she turned to playing it and dancing as she did for money in any establishment that would hire her or in the street if nowhere was interested. When played correctly the player could summon red fire from it, control was achieved through the melody of the music they played. At first she was delighted by her discovery and practised often so she could include it in her shows. For a while it went as she hoped, she became a hit with her magic violin with its eerily perfect music and fire emanating from its blackened frame as she danced on her many stages. As you would expect – and indeed as she hoped – news of her travelled far but it wasn't only the curious that came but the greedy too. It wasn't long until Arabella found herself fleeing for her life after almost every show until her hunters didn't even need her to perform her shows to find her.

Terrified for her life she fled home to her parents and told them everything that had happened since she had discovered the violins secret power. After learning that she found news about her magical violin spread and soon people were chasing her for it. Intrigued and disturbed by the events that brought their daughter back to them they made a careful decision to bring her back under the protection of her family and deter her pursuers. Their decision was to create the a new position for her in their household that came with the title Keeper of Draig's Fire for her to use. Arabella was afraid this meant an end to her wanderings because despite the terror at the end she had loved it all. Her parents had been thinking about what happened for two years by then and sorely regretted that they had driven their youngest daughter away, so she would continue as she had done before but with her family firmly behind her again. Over the next decade Arabella travelled the world. She sought out new cultures and their music to add to her growing repertoire of musical talents. The more she travelled out into the world and intermingled herself with the endless parade of cultures in the world the more she discovered strays bits of stories involving an instrument much like her own. Over time – of which she had much – she gathered together the bits and the pieces until an incomplete picture formed. She learned enough to know her instruments name and the name of the collection it belonged to but the rest was strangely and completely missing much to her annoyance. By then though she had discovered the second secret that her violin held. As she gained a greater mastery over the instrument, learning just the right way to twist the melody to produce yet more effects from her violin she discovered subtle changes were happening to her.

At first she was wary of the changes but she soon began to revel in them as she first had the violins fire. She was more cautious about revealing them but it wasn't long until just as before she incorporated them into her shows. It wasn't long after she finished her first show after revealing her new abilities that she drew curious and greedy people to her again. Older and – arguably – wiser than she was years ago she faced these head on. To do so she drew on the seemingly endless array of powers the violin steadily bestowed on her. Eventually she was forced to push her skills with the violin and mastery of the melody to their limit and when she did something inside the music snapped. In a night of fire over a year ago the true source of the violin's power became apparent, in that same night Arabella became one that source that had slowly been tangling itself with her soul. Arabella ceased to be human that night and she became a dragon.

Her eagerness to push the transformation was likely the reason she pushed the violin further than she had before and further than she strictly needed. Her need for the power of the violin was real though and what would happen to her as far from her mind as it was possible to be – the previous changes had seemed random to her. At her transformation she had no time or chance to be wary, she was forced to either embrace her new form and abilities or die. At the end of the night she was alive and a city of the far east was dead but she was comfortable with her form if not her deeds. At first she wanted to go home and explain everything to her parents again but she didn't believe anyone would trust her or her story. Broken-hearted and believing she'd never see her home again she fled to the one place in the world she had never been before.

Now in the New World she found herself gravitating to the Crossroad Isles where she settled on a small island in the north. She lived there for most of the past year, building a terrible reputation as she acted under the assumption nobody would trust or believe a dragon. Eventually though, as her understanding of her new form and its abilities grew she learned how to take a human form again. Delighted by her discovery but quite content in the Crossroad Isle she never thought about going home and instead plunged into these islands of the New World as she had the older world she had been born in. In human form she has little reputation but she is slowly changing that as she travels and puts on her show of dancing, fire and music once again. It was after one of these shows she met her current companion – a woman named Rayle – who ranted about prophetic visions and the end of the world. Intrigued – and believing herself in a unique position to do something if Rayle wasn't simply mad – Arabella started travelling with Rayle and eventually let her in on the secret of her true nature after she was assured her reaction wouldn't be dire. Since then they have travelled together and now arrive at their latest destination.

Advantages

 * Intelligent I (Common)
 * Entertainer I (Uncommon)
 * Well Travelled I (Uncommon)
 * Flight III [Dragon Form Only] (Uncommon)
 * Size I [Dragon Form Only] (Uncommon)
 * Strength I (Common)
 * Toughness I (Common)
 * Alternate Form (Special)

Stats

 * +2 Melee Combat (+10 Dragon Form Melee Combat)
 * +5 Entertaining People