Jasmine

Jasmine was both a spelljamming and planewalking adventurer. She was a member of Finder's Band. She was notable for her wings.

"...The next thing I know, I look like an overgrown pixie. I ask the priestess to take the wings back, but she says they'll serve as a reminder that I'm always flying away from my problems instead of dealing with them. When I learn to face my problems, she says, I'll be blessed with all the luck I need. Then she vanishes."

- Jasmine

Description
Jasmine's appearance was that of a woman in her mid-to-late twenties, with black hair and brown eyes. She was tall and was quite muscular. Sprouting from her back were magical wings that changed appearance depending on the plane she was in. The wings resembled white doves wings on Toril, gargoyle's copper wings in the city of Sigil, pink butterfly's wings if in the phlogiston, silver hummingbird wings in the Astral Plane, Ethereal plane gave her clear dragonfly wings, the plane of Arborea granted Jas eagle's wings with peacock-colored feathers, red alu-fiend wings in the Abyss, plain falcon's wings in the Outlands, Ysgard - large white moth wings, Elysium - long flaming phoenix wings, and a leathery triangular single wing in Gehenna. Whatever her wings' appearance was, it did not affect her speed or maneuverability. Jas's wings radiated strong magic on par with an artifact but they could not be removed nor affected by dispelling or any other magics.

When she fell under the influence of a dark-stalker persona (fueled by her grief and guilt combined with a slight glitch in her wings' magic), her skin was entirely covered in hard black feathers with a green crest on her forehead, her eyes turned green, and her hands and feet become taloned.

Personality
On the outside, Jasmine appeared fun-loving and sarcastic young woman. She preferred to avoid close relationships - the result of many emotional traumas of her past. The lone demeanor often let to the woman to care about her own needs first. She often acted judgmentally and cynically. By 1368 DR, she still carried incredible grief for the loss of her parents and spelljamming crew. She tried to avoid the grief by traveling and running away from her problems. The same year - 1368 DR, Jas lost some of her powers and experiences to an abyssal creature known as fetch. This newfound feeling of weakness caused depression and feeling of inferiority. Jasmine rarely drank and at most slowly sipped ale to avoid the emotions of grieve that inebriations could bring.

Even a decade after acquiring the strange magical wings, Jas still felt uncomfortable and insecure because of them.

In rare cases when she grew attached to certain individuals, agains her own better judgement, she became their steadfast and loyal ally.

Abilities
Jasmine was a trained fighter who knew how to handle daggers, throwing knives, short swords, maces, and arquebus. Even unarmed, she was a deadly opponent. When in combat, she liked to surprise her opponents by performing aerial drops, racking opponents' skulls with her feet.

Her criminal past taught her know value of goods, to disguise, and gamble. Life on a spelljammer gifted her with a directional sense, navigation, and sailor's endurance.

Possessions
Even though Jas briefly helmed a nautiloid, she preferred to travel lightly, only carrying her leather armor, her dagger, and a short sword. She lost most of her worldly possession aboard the nautiloid, but she valued a paperweight of drafting stars in it - a gift of Holly Harrowslough. Later, she received an enchanted +1 luck blade from the goddess of luck - Tymora.

Relationships
Jasmine became close friends with Joel the Rebel Bard, paladin of Lathander Holly Harrowslough, kender Emilo Haversack, and the gods of Toril - Finder Wyvernspur, and Tymora. She tended to distrust most gods and their clergy, but really hated (to the point of berserk rage) the gods Bane and Iyachtu Xvim and their loathsome clergy.

History
Jasmine's parents were spelljamming paladins of Tymora. Jasmine was born during one of their spelljamming adventures on the world of Krynn. Soon after the child's birth, the paladins returned to Toril.

Jasmine's parents worked to destroy a slavery ring and earned ire of the criminal underbelly of the City of Splendors. After her parents where slain somewhere during her early teens by assassins, she was taken in by a friend of her mother's for a while - a tavern keeper named Luna. But she fled her native Waterdeep because of guilt and grief over her parents' deaths and took to traveling with a less-then-savory trouble-making adventurer named Chaos Carter. He treated Jas well and paid her well, but after working with his for a wile, Jasmine started realizing Carter was not a good person. He continued manipulating Jas' emotions and loneliness, successfully convincing her she could never make it on her own.

One day, Jasmine found herself in a center of an unlikely but lucky series of events involving a thief, a fiend, a stolen baby faerie dragon, and a few Tymoran priests. She was ordered to lay in hiding, keeping an eye on a couple of clerics of Tymora. Suddenly she witnessed a thief in a rush tossing a sack into the trash bin where Jas was hiding. One moment later, the first thief was arguing with another rogue who joined him and demanded to share the loot from the temple of Tymora. While the thieves argued, Jas snatched the bag of loot with a platinum coin, a white feather cape. In the cape she found a cracked faerie dragon with a newborn hatchling wriggling about. A scuffle erupted among the thieves and one of them was killed. The surviving thief turned out to be a winged shadow fiend of some description. Jas tried to escape, but he creature teleported and easily caught up with her. The fiend demanded the bag with the dragon, Jasmine refused, knowing that the moment she released the bag she was dead. At that moment the priests Jasmine was keeping watch entered the fray. Two Tormites flung lightnings at the fiend, saving the unwilling hero. The clerics took the shadow fiend as an ill omen and instead of walking into the trap set by Carter they returned to the temple to pray.

Jasmine was wary of returning to her sure to be furious employer and instead she walked into the temple of Tymora to return the stolen goods. The clerics of Tymora were elated with the return of the faerie dragon hatchling. They claimed that the Lady Luck was guiding Jas' hands and threw her a feast for returning the baby dragon the temple was sworn to protect. During the feast, she was taken aside by a priestess who challenged her to a game of empress, and if she won she could choose her reward and if she lost her reward would be chosen for her. Jas won. As a prize she was offered a wish. Jasmine wanted her parents to be live, but that was not going to happen. She wanted to leave Carter, to be free as a passing bird. The priestess (actually Tymora in disguise) smiled sadly and granted the wish giving Jasmine her magical wings and, as a result, a firm distrust of all the gods.

In a way, her wish was granted. With the huge wings she no longer was useful in Carter's criminal activities and he dismissed the woman without any care of her well-being.

After said incident, by chance, Jasmine came across and befriended a spelljamming sorceress named Meredith. The spellcaster happened to be Jas's parents' old friend and she took the young winged woman off-world on her magic ship. Jas spend a decade onboard of Meredith's spelljammer until she came into possession of a nautiloid - her very own spell jamming ship.

Following a narrow escape from illithids, she and her new crew in their nautiloid had to set down on Toril for repairs where they where captured by Walinda of Bane. The Banite tortured Jas's crew and friends to death in front of her and Jasmine was given to the cultists of Iyachtu Xvim to pay for Walinda's access to Bane's sky temple. There Jasmine met Holly Harrowslough and Joel of Finder and together they escaped from the temple.

After journeying to The Lost Vale, Jasmine undertook a suicide bombing run on Bane's remnant and only survived due to Finder Wyvernspur's intervention. Jasmine was captured by the cultists of Iyachtu Xvim and was given an ultimatum - die or be transformed into a savage tracker of Xvim, a dark stalker. Jas chose life and in her new savage feathered and clawed form was sent after her friends. She was told that with her first kill, the transformation into a dark stalker would be complete.

Jasmine resisted transformation but still was overwhelmed with save fury and bloodlust. She gave in to the dark stalker when she saw the woman who tortured and murdered her friends - Walinda of Bane. Holly Harrowslough intervened, saving the Banite but was gravely injured by Jas. This only added to guilt and trauma that plagued Jas' life - she was convinced she was responsible for her friend's death and though that the dark stalked had won.

Eventually, Jas rejoined her friends and learned the truth of Holly's survival. Together they stopped a mad banelich who was attempting to resurrect Bane in his body. Though she never transformed completely, she still was convinced she was losing herself to the stalker's rage.

Along with Joel and Holly, Jasmine spent several weeks in the city of Sigil where she felt more at home more than she did on Toril. By chance, Jas and Joel befriended a kender from the world of Krynn, Emilo Haversack. Together with Emilo, Joel convinced Jasmine to travel with them to Fermata, Finder Wyvernspur's realm in hopes to cure her dark stalker. Finder gladly agreed to transform his friend to her old shape. Even though he polymorphed Jas out of her talons, face feathers, and owl eyes, she still felt the gnawing stalker in her soul. Finder offered to take the Band to Brightwater - Tymora's realm, as she was a significantly more powerful deity and could break Xvim's influence. After working through reluctancy and fear, Jasmine agreed to ask for Tymora's help.

Despite their history, Tymora lovingly embraced Jas and was happy to see the child of her beloved paladins once again. While in Brightwater, Lady Luck asked penitent question of Jasmine, about her past and tragedies. Coming to a realization, Tymora stepped away along with Finder to discuss Jas's case. Meanwhile, Jasmine and Joel imbibed the bacchae wine, something Joel found strange knowing how the winged woman avoided alcohol. Under the wild Arborean influence and alcohol, Jasmine's facade cracked and she broke down in tears, revealing her feelings and internal suffering. Her survivors guild after witnessing deaths of her friends was in the open. Joel and Emilo comforted the winged woman. Soon after, Tymora attempted her healing magics to banish the dark stalker but was interrupted by someone syphoning the goddess's power.

It wasn't until Emilo Haversack, who had overheard the truth whilst eavesdropping on Tymora and Finder, told her that the dalkstalker was a combination of her imagination, the disjunction of her wings' magic, and her bottled-up grief and guilt that Jasmine was able to overcome it.

She was last heard of leaving with Tymora to talk things over in Brightwater, though it was safe to assume she might still visit Joel and Holly and the saurials.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Finder's Bane &bull; Tymora's Luck
 * Comics:
 * Jasmine &bull; Rivals &bull; Trial &bull; Liches in Love &bull; TSR Worlds Annual 1 &bull; Spelljammer