Alexia Ciannor
Mercenária e Necromante — Compilado de Todo Material
“She’s no mercenary — she’s a menace! Ask any citizen of Corvis about the Longest Night when the risen came from the sewers at her call. You can’t trust her, and you can’t control her.”
-Commander Julian Helstrom, leader of the Corvis Watch
Few individuals have been at the crux of so many infamous events in so brief a time as Alexia Ciannor. Perhaps she was born under the baleful light of Laris, the cursed moon, for her life has been filled with tragedy and terror. The power of sorcery has long pulsed in the women of her bloodline. Alexia’s mother, Lexaria, was decapitated as a witch in the Corvis Witch Trials of 593 AR when Alexia was only seven years old. The girl was raised by her kindly uncle, a Morrowan priest named Pandor Dumas, who hoped to spare Alexia these horrors. He could not predict the power which would blossom in the girl nor her thirst to reconnect with her dead mother.
This unhealthy obsession led her to unearth the Witchfire, the very instrument of execution for her mother’s coven and a prison for their souls. This powerful unholy relic is a necromantic fulcrum causing the dead to rise spontaneously, and it contains an unquenchable thirst for the blood of mages. Formerly wielded by the head of Vinter Raelthorne’s Inquisition, this sword has brought both misery and salvation to the City of Ghosts. In Alexia’s hands, the sword has raised armies of the risen, first to ravage the city and later to save it by defeating the Skorne invasion during the Battle of Corvis. Alexia has walked a strange path between light and darkness. By helping to save Corvis she fulfilled an enigmatic Morrowan prophecy, yet she has left destruction and sorrow in her passage.
Alexia’s heart is also conflicted; she has fought to retain her humanity and reconcile the lessons of her uncle with the whispered council of the spirits haunting her. She is not entirely sane. Her mind is wracked by peculiar obsessions and supernatural influences. In one misguided attempt to resurrect her mother, she used a giant Cyrissist mechanism to free the souls of the coven from the Witchfire, but she became an unwilling receptacle for those spirits. Through sheer force of will she has retained control of herself, but she is haunted by voices only she can hear. Sometimes she can be seen debating the empty air, screaming for them to be silent. While her sanity is in question, perhaps the counsel of her mother’s spirit has prevented her from succumbing entirely to evil. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether her will is her own, or if she is a pawn to the sword which dominates her destiny.
She was free of the blade for a short time after the liberation of Corvis when this relic was taken by the Church of Morrow. At first interred below the Grand Cathedral, it was determined to be too dangerous. High Prelate Dumas sent the blade south to the Sancteum hoping the primarch could end its malignant influence. Alexia heard its siren call, could not resist temptation, and attacked the caravan on the King’s Highway and stole the sword from its guardians. She is now hunted by the Church of Morrow and the Order of Illumination, but she has managed to evade them.
Alexia has turned to the mercenary life, drawn to the chaos and bloodshed of the war between Khador and Cygnar. She conceals her identity but has offered her services to both sides, finding war a crucible for the power she is still learning to master. She is careful to avoid battle-chaplains of the Church but intends them no violence, for they remind her of her beloved uncle. Despite the laws against necromancy, many beleaguered captains and kovniks are eager for any assistance and are willing to turn a blind eye to her tainted power. These battle-weary veterans feel it only proper to turn death against itself. Alexia is reputedly eager to confront Cryx in the Thornwood and other wild places along the front lines. She sifts through the remains of thralls, skarlocks, and bonejacks in an attempt to understand their fabrication and broaden her mastery of death magic.
Risens
Her ultimate desire is the power of life over death, so she can exorcise her mother’s spirit from her mind and restore her to life. Alexia is also fascinated by the rites and rituals of the Menites and is as eager to face them in battle as Cryxian necromancers. Recently she has heard the legends of the High Reclaimer, now called the Testament, and thinks he may know the secrets she lacks. She will not ask him politely, rather she hopes to witness him crushed and then force him to break his vow of silence at the tip of the Witchfire. Certainly it is a deranged and impossibly ambitious goal, but Alexia has never been prudent nor cautious.
With the Church of Morrow bent against her, Alexia keeps on the move and never stays with one company long. The dead rise and throng to the Witchfire when she fights on the battlefield. Even hardened commanders of Cygnar and Khador eventually shrink from these unholy reinforcements and turn her away. Still, across the many battles and skirmishes of the war front there is no shortage of those willing to try her mettle. Staying just one step ahead of the Order of Illumination, she has vowed that no one will pry the Witchfire from her hands.
She retains some spark of morality, however twisted, and refuses to offer service to those she deems beyond redemption, such as the minions of Lord Toruk. The Cryxians are eager to destroy her and reclaim the Witchfire which was once buried and forgotten under the ruins of Castle Moorcraig before it was stolen by Inquisitor Dexer Sirac. She is also shunned and loathed by the Menites, for her sorcery is an abomination of their god’s will. With no home, no kingdom, and no place of refuge, Alexia is doomed to a life of constant battle and bloodshed. She is a fugitive safe only at the heart of tumult in the front lines of war.
Alexia can call upon two distinct types of the unliving in battle to provide timely diversions and possibly turn the tide of a desperate engagement. As it is the more hard-pressed commanders who agree to use Alexia in the first place, they will turn a blind eye to these loathsome allies, at least so long as they are sent against the enemy. Alexia has long demonstrated a unique and disturbing aptitude for necromancy embodied by her carefully constructed thrall guardians. These glyphed constructs are stronger and more capable at warfare than most of their mindless kin and are able to follow complex orders and act on their own initiative.
By contrast, the risen are a spontaneous manifestation of the enormous dark power of the Witchfire, which animates the slain and forces them into temporary service. These less sophisticated unliving soldiers make up for their lack of hardiness with sheer numbers. They do not linger after battle. Instead they fall to the earth as unmoving corpses once the Witchfire is done with them. The sight of these former comrades and enemies rising up from the blood-drenched battlefield can unnerve even hardened soldiers who frequently have a difficult time continuing to fight alongside Alexia after witnessing this abomination.
Fonte: No Quarter 2
