Polara Fireheart

The Sacred Order is a place for zealous purists and idealists. Among the most passionate of these is a young woman called Serena Flamehair, a noted purger of the Undead, Demonspawn, and K’Lethi Cultists. Some aged war-bishops of the Order claim that if just ten percent more of their number had her raging inferno of devotion, Teleria could be rid of evil and Darkness for good. They have no idea that Serena is a Lightbringer, and that her true name of Polara Fireheart is known to precious few in Teleria. Unlike every other Lightbringer, Polara never left the Sacred Order during the Red Crusade, convinced that despite the organization’s hideous acts, it could be turned around. Other Lightbringers such as Sir Nicholas, Lady Noelle, and Joan the llluminant all tried to persuade Polara to leave, but she refused. She disguised herself as a mortal, taking on a different name and form, which she has changed many times over the centuries to ensure she doesn’t arouse suspicion – a Human who never ages would draw many questions. An elderly scholar; a hunter of necromancers; a humble hospice nurse — she has been them all. Between each version of herself she has pretended to depart the Order, or even faked her own death. Now Polara poses as Serena, a hot-headed, holy warrior, dedicated to ‘bearing the flame of Lumaya’s light and wielding it to cast out her enemies’. The hues of her long, plaited hair and the carnelian stones she wears around her neck matches that of the flames she unleashes upon Siroth’s minions wherever she finds them. On her waist she bears the Codex lncendior, a tome replete with pyromantic spells and curses, and flames from the Fire Eterna, which has roared in the Eternal Citadel since the building’s construction. She contains them within an enchanted vessel of filigreed brass capable of sustaining the holy flames within it without fuel, air, or heat. Polara’s blade resembles a volcano forever on the edge of eruption, lines of white heat trailing the side and edge, rumbling ominously with lethal, barely contained energy. With it she has smote vampires that have wiped out entire villages and destroyed shambling hordes of Undead who have burst from what was supposed to be their final resting places en masse. This version of Polara is idolized for her courage and tenacity to such an extent some are heralding her a ‘saint in the making’. Her few detractors argue she has never hunted ‘scum’ such as Orcs or Skinwalkers. She spits back that such creatures are ‘unworthy of her attention’. It is an assertion that so far has not aroused suspicion. Both those who celebrate ‘Serena’ as well as doubt her are oblivious to her true identity, and her true form. In reality she resembles more a knight of ice, an angel of snow and freezing, a peerless mistress of cryomancy whose mere touch could freeze a fiery Demon of Anathraad or the Durham River solid. Just being in her presence is enough for an enemy to feel the fluidity of their movement freeze. The air around her chills joints, making sword movements ponderous or impossible, and stills tongues, rendering it impossible for a mage or sorcerer to speak their curses and charms. Even in the middle of the desert she can throw a high, thick wall of ice between her and her allies in an instant, and should any be on the cusp of death slow the process of dying to naught. Polara keeps another secret from the Sacred Order. She maintains a distant vigil over the portal to the Halls of Eternity — where Lumaya resides — which can be found deep, hidden, and forgotten, within the Eternal Citadel. She knows that it is failing, a result of the Lightbringers who left Teleria after the Red Crusade began unwinding its magic from their side. Polara retains contacts among the Lightbringers in Teleria, as well as several of the Arbiter’s Vault Keepers and Chroniclers. None know what to do. They cannot contact the Arbiter — none know where she is, and she acts according to her own whims. And so Polara is in the position of desperately seeking out the Arbiter while maintaining the pretenses of her position, an onerous task even for one of her abilities. As if concealing her identity from the Sacred Order and trying to safeguard Teleria’s only knownportal to the Halls of Eternity were not taxing enough, Polara has a third goal. One perhaps more idealistic than any other. She wishes to see the Waters of Life, the source from which all living beings besides the gods themselves emerged, and the source of the Arbiter’s power, unthawed. The Arbiter herself was forced to freeze them over to stop Siroth from capturing them, centuries before the Second Great War. The Shadow God was successfully thwarted, but ever after the Arbiter’s power slowly waned. To Polara, the loss of the Waters was a tragedy. It was a symbol of the hope of Teleria, a place from which all things came, a shared, ultimate source. Would Siroth attack again if the ice was broken and the Waters freed? Yes. But they could be adequately defended, Polara is convinced. With the Arbiter restored, Darkness could surely be driven from Teleria entirely. Demonspawn would flee in terror back to Anathraad. People around the world would rally against the forces of evil. The Sacred Order would realize the errors of its ways… It is something Polara has spoken with Pyxniel, famed Elven cryomancer, extensively. She does not know that her confidant has spoken with the Arbiter about this in one of their irregular conversations. The Arbiter just shook her head and despaired at Polara’s ‘naivety‘. It was a fatal flaw that could threaten all of Teleria.