Ghleanna Stormlake

Ghleanna Stormlake was a half-elven sorceress apprentice of Elminster Aumar and one of the Veiled Ones, the adventurers who stood against the Cult of the Dragon in 1369 DR.

Description
Ghleanna was a thin and delicate young woman, tall, with wheat-golden hair. Her eyes were golden-flecked blue. Her slightly pointed years betrayed her mixed heritage and the blueish tint to her ears and chin exposed her moon elf descent.

She preferred to wear wizard's robes when studying or working in a laboratory. When traveling or adventuring, she could often be seen dressed in brown leggings, knee-high leather boots, a loose tunic, and a hooded cloak of dark-green color.

Personality
Because of her childhood trauma and deeply ingrained inferiority complex, Ghleanna often took a neutral stance in arguments, trying to appease all sides and acting as a mediator. For the same reason, she had an introverted personality. However, she was unafraid of speaking up when she had an opinion she felt was worth sharing with others.

Abilities
As a sorcerer, Ghleanna was trained in use of simple weapons like daggers, with staves being her favorite. She possessed deep knowledge of the arcane, elven history, spellcrafting, and was a skilled diplomat.

Ghleanna had access to numerous spells, such as detect magic, disrupt undead, ghost sound, burning hands, mage armor, sleep, flaming sphere, invisibility, knock, dispel magic, haste, feeblemind, globe of invulnerability, among many others. She considered magic missile and blindness to her favorite spells.

Her talent with the arcane allowed Ghleanna to quickly develop and alter spells for further use. She did so with the invisibility spell, taught to her by Jarial, creating greater invisibility spell variation.

Possessions
Ghleanna wore a hooded dark-green +3 cloak of resistance. Her magic staff had properties of a rod of absorption and protected her from fire-based spells and effects. Additionally, her staff allowed her to cast fire spells that it absorbed within 24 hours.

During her adventuring time in Myth Drannor, Ghleanna was armed with a staff. She also carried several potion of healing brewed using blueglow moss. In the ruins she acquired a pair of enchanted snakeskin boots that improved her defenses against poisons.

Relationships
Ghleanna's mother, Jesenalae Stormlake, lost her own parents when she was a young maid. Shortly after that, she went to live with Adualacathus Stormlake, Ghleanna's uncle, Jesenalae's brother, who was a stern and compassionless man. Adualacathus and his wife raised Ghleanna in a cruel and unloving home. Even though she grew up alongside several cousins, she never had a relationship with them as they inherited Adualacathus' attitude towards half-elves.

Ghleanna had a half-brother on her father's side - Athan, who rescued her from the cruel elven family. Over the course of years, she apprenticed under two wizards, one remained unnamed, and the other was the famous Elminster. Ghleanna was close with Athan, who was often seen in Shadowdale in Elminster's company.

Ghleanna felt kinship towards Kestrel, a fellow Veiled One and often the party's voice of reason. She and Kestrel both were orphans and often felt like they needed to stand up fro each other. She was warm towards Durwyn, thinking him to be a gentle giant. Corran D'Arcey was a paragon of goodness in Ghleanna's eyes second only yo her half-brother.

History
Ghleanna Stormlake was born out of a brief romantic rendezvous between a human adventurer and an elf noblewoman. Once Jesenalae reached adolescence, she fled from home and her strict and unloving brother. Soon after, she ran across the man who was to become the father of her child. Jesenalae found Garth wounded in a hunting accident and helped the man to get to a secluded hunting cabin where she nursed him to health. During that time, Garth took advantage of the young and naive elven lass, seducing her and then returning to his wife and children. Devastated and with a child, Jesenalae returned to her brother's home, where the emotional abuse resumed. Jesenalae intended to flee once the child was born, knowing how much a half-breed spawn would infuriate her harmless brother. However, that was not to be. Jesenalae Stormlake died in childbirth.

When Ghleanna was born, Adualacathus Stormlake was planning on smothering the newborn to death, furious with the human-blooded offspring of his sister. Adualacathus's quiet wife saved the baby's life. She begged her husband to spare the child. The cruel noble agreed to let the "half-breed spawn" live if his wife was never to intercede for Ghleanna ever again.

Ghleanna Stormlake grew up lonely, unloved and shunned in Adualacathus's home. At an early age, she showed the gift for the Art but was disallowed to ever use it by her family. The young woman's will, just like her arcane energies, were locked, bubbling on the inside for years until one day, Ghleanna's human half-brother - Athan, tracked her down. Garth died not too long before that and confessed to his surviving family about Ghleanna's mother and how he left a pregnant woman behind. The young sorceress's brother turned out a good and honorable sort and spent time tracking his sister, hoping to fix his father's wrongdoing. Discovering the young woman and her talents, he offered her a meeting with a wizard friend of his, the offer Ghleanna took gladly. She left her family and never returned.

The half-brother's friend eventually mentioned Ghleanna to Elminster of Shadowdale who quickly took the young woman in under his wing, recognizing her blossoming arcane talents. Apprenticing under the Old Wizard, Ghleanna Stormlake learned to control her powers and channel them into the Art. With her magical talents being of sorcerous nature, Elminster could only teach her to handle the weave letting the woman develop her gifts without the aid of spellbooks and scrolls.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor