Submitted by Soulless Zombie on Thu, 11/14/2002 - 20:26
Posted in
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Name: Melaina
Birth Location: Paeania, a village roughly two weeks’ travel from Athens.
Cultural: Attica
General Regard: Well Regarded
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Description
Melaina is 24 years old. She's very willowy, standing 5’10” and weighing just 120 lbs (interestingly, Gwyneth actually weighs even less than that, though she’s still 5’10”!). She has long, straight blonde hair and brown eyes.
Melaina is played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Background
Melaina was born of a quiet, respectable family in a quiet, respectable village called Paeania. At the age of 15 she was inducted into an order that worshipped Athena. The temple was some distance from her home, but Melaina lived there happily for six years, performing her duties as a virgin priestess of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom.
One day a band of raiders attacked the temple, believing there to be some precious artefact hidden within. When unable to find it, the band instead raped and brutally assaulted the eight priestesses then in the temple. Most died from the attack, but Melaina and one other survived.
Melaina made her way back to her home village, where she was greeted with sympathy until it was discovered she was pregnant. She was reviled and kept under close watch from then on, and when the child was born Melaina barely managed to glimpse her daughter before she was whisked away. Nobody would tell Melaina where her baby had been taken, and none wanted her to name the child. In her heart, however, Melaina named her daughter Euthalia.
When she had recovered from the birth, Melaina escaped her confinement and began to make her way to Athens in the hope of making a new life for herself there. Not far into her journey, however, she was visited one night by the vision of her Goddess, Athena. The virgin Goddess charged her with a duty to protect women from a fate such as she had suffered. Athena bestowed an elegant bow on her and a quiver of arrows. She warned Melaina never to lose the quiver.
Wondering at the advice, Melaina tested her bow. At first she used the quiver, but soon decided that unskilled as she was she shouldn’t be hitting the bullseye every time. She was unwilling to trust entirely to the magic quiver, however, so she laid the arrows on a stump and drew from there. Her shots missed wildly, but she spent several weeks hiding out in the wilderness, living off the land and practising with her new weapon, gaining proficiency.
The day she was able to catch her own dinner without resorting to using an arrow drawn from the quiver, Melaina was satisfied that she was ready. She ventured onto the roads and began the life chosen for her by her deity.
She was 22 years old at that time, and has spent the last two years freeing enslaved women, helping to protect villages from ravaging warlords and teaching the ways of the Goddess Athena to those who wish to learn.
Items & Powers
Items
Melaina has the bow and quiver given to her by Athena. The bow is magical only in that it is unbreakable. The quiver endows accuracy on any arrow drawn from it.
Melaina has few other items of note. She escaped her village with little more than the clothes on her back. She survives by hunting for her food or by donations of food and clothing from women she rescues. She was, however, able to keep a simple ring that she had worn while a priestess of Athena. It has no intrinsic value, but she attaches a great deal of sentimental importance to it.
Powers
No intrinsic powers.