Sapphire is the living embodiment of academic genius with no grounding in the real world. Unlike most elves she is extremely organized and focused, concentrating upon her craft to the exclusion of all else. She has a very Sherlock Holmes-ian vibe. She can be an absolute genius at archaic languages, arcane symbols, poisons and potions, and (of course) the history and theory of arcane magic. Outside of those realms, however she has almost no knowledge whatsoever and actively resists attempts to educate her as “taking up valuable space in her consciousness”. She tends to speak in a combination of bewildering and archaic technical terms and zen koans which have the initial appearance of wisdom but often dissolve into absolute bunkum when examined closely.
Star is a Wizard, through and through. Her entire being is centered upon understanding and manipulating arcane energy. She has very little understanding of (or interest in) the long term consequences in the real world of her magical endeavors. This can make her very easy to manipulate and take advantage of outside her narrow areas of expertise.
Grim came to know Sapphire as the magical enforcer for a Thieve’s Guild in a large city. The provided her with plenty of resources and stole whatever arcane tomes she requested, and she rarely questioned where these things were coming from or what they would do with the magic she provided for them. Grim took a contract to eliminate the Guild’s arcane capabilities, as it had become a threat beyond that tolerated in merchant circles. Upon investigation, he determined Sapphire’s commitment to the cause to be the “weak link” in the chain. And rather than attempting to eliminate her he simply provided evidence as to what had happened to some of the libraries and monastaries from which her tomes had been procured. Sapphire herself did the rest – eliminating the majority of the Guild’s power structure in one night. She may be disconnected from material world, but she does *not* tolerate wanton destruction of knowledge and scholars.
Sapphire has since worked exclusively with Grim, as she trusts him (perhaps unreasonably so) to keep her aware of the larger picture. So long as he includes regular forays into forgotten ruins and side-trips to cities with extensive arcane libraries she is content to do as he asks tactically.
Like the rest of Grim’s Gang, she originated in a Wizardry 8 party.
In games Sapphire is almost exclusively some variant of Wizard. Given her extreme “Intelligence over Wisdom” bent its rare that any other class fits her quite so well..
The challenge in rendering her into a portrait was her unusual look. She is simultaneously elven and african, but with an odd mix of oriental styled features as well. And there’s a strong tendency in the AI towards Drow when you say “dark-skinned elf”, and that is not her look at all. My go to when stuck on such things is the “Average Women of the World” facial study – like this https://fstoppers.com/portraits/average-faces-women-around-world-2944. Combing through that and experimenting with looks led to settling on “Cameroonian” as an ethnic tag, and that finally settled her appearance. I tried Kenyan, Chinese, and dark-skinned Mongolian before finally settling on the Cameroonian look above. Her current queries tend to be variations upon:
“dark brown skin, early 50s, cameroonian elf woman, sharply pointed ears, wizard, straight dark black hair, silver facial tattoos, eyebrow rings, dark eyes, in simple purple robes with a hood, looking focused”
Click on image to see full size.
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