Kara Skarn

The ever so cheerful mother of Balliz, who has a tense contract with a dragon demon. She has got a lovely daughter she gave birth to, is prone to occasionally being a bitch, and has traveled with Githyanki before. She considers Syble a daughter as well. Unfortunately, she may have accidentally sold her and her daughter’s soul to her Demon friend.

 Backstory 

Kara Skarn was born an illegitimate to a pair of homesteaders in the northwest of Balliz. She was enamored with tales of heroic chivalry, and as she grew older a desire to discover and ride a dragon grew in her heart. When she had her daughter Katarin (also illegitimate) she tried to settle down into motherhood, but by chance Kara discovered an ancient tome claiming to let her summon a dragon. Kara prepared herself, but when the fateful day came, disaster struck. Kara, by accident, bound a Fiend to her, and became a Warlock.

Kara returned to her house, weakened and withered. She recovered her strength, but her patron extracted a terrible price upon her: blood, and if not answered, her life. With her patron whispering in her head, Kara was unable to care for her daughter. Not wanting to subject her family to the pain of her slow decay and possible death, Kara abandoned them, and became a traveler. Katarin was barely five when Kara left.

In her wanderings, Kara saw much, but not all of Balliz. In time, her travels found her meeting with the strange and lonely druid Syble, whom Kara invited as a partner to wander the land. Their wanderings were not secret though, and one day Kara and Syble awoke to find themselves kidnapped and imprisoned by the Cult of the Red King. They were accompanied by an Assassin named Jiu, and the Genasi noble Faror. The four adventurers, determined to achieve their freedom and understand their predicament, escaped the clutches of the cult and struck out.

In their search, they discovered the enigmatic Tiefling thief Elethia, who wanted to find her elder brother (a cultist). From there they traveled to the port city of Inmuth, where they discovered the horrific purpose of the cult: the draining of arcane and elemental power from the Genasi. They also discovered Faror's girlfriend, Ocea, and rescued her from the cult's grasp.

Free now, Kara wandered Inmuth, attempted to steal a magic wand, and was promptly caught and imprisoned. In prison she met an equally imprisoned Githyanki warrior, who freed Kara and took her through the Astral plane to catch up with her friends. Kara met her first Drow, and the lot carried on, until a house exploded and they met with an old friend of Jiu's, an insane assassin named Astra. That attempt on their life behind them the group then met with the teacher of Faror, an impossibly badass warrior warlock whose name I also can't recall. The warrior suggested to Kara that she could satisfy the conditions of her bargain by dying and then being revived.

Later, the six wandering adventurers collected their things and traveled to the flying city state of Aeris to meet with Faror's people. Kara pitched a pet Ankheg over the flying boat they were in, and soon the bunch met with Faror's mother, a powerful druid. Kara proceeded to insult the druid, Faror's sisters, Faror's dad, and absolve Faror of his assholery. Faror then challenged Kara to an honor duel, and Kara lost.

The people of Aeris warned, the six now traveled to the kingdom of the Fire Genasi. There Kara learned that the Fire Genasi rode wyverns, and was told off for thinking they were dragons by her patron. Later that night, Kara's patron told her that if Kara modified the nature of their pact to consign both her own soul and the souls of her family to hell, she would show Kara a vision of what Katarin was up to. Kara, not aware that this pact would also include the souls of anyone she considered family, only blood relatives, agreed, and learned Katarin was enlisted with a Fiend hunting society. Kara was proud and somewhat put off by this fact.

The six met with the Fire Genasi king, who told Faror off. They then traveled to a nearby town where two members of the cult were living, and Kara found one by playing an instrument. They saved a little girl from an insane brute and then fought a wizard to a standstill. Said wizard killed himself, leaving his arcane focus to Syble. The six then traveled across a desert where Faror demonstrated his penchant for riding wild Bulletes. Kara just rode a horse.

Once across the desert the six descended into a vault for the cult, and discovered their files inside of the vault. Kara learned about what her family was up to, and what Katarin was doing. She and Faror also burned the vault's contents to ash.

Once out, the six decided to head north to...find Jiu's parents? This part has always eluded me. The six stopped by Syble's old village and discovered that Syble's house was not empty. Within was an artist, and the artist's lover. The young orphaned Syble's old house was inhabited by... Faror's sister and girlfriend!

Kara peaced out and went to the village, where she met with a wandering magical merchant. She purchased a magical staff and convinced the merchant to use a powerful magical spell to open a mystic tome she had taken from the cult's information vault, hoping to figure out who her patron was. It turned out that the tome was not about Kara's patron.

Next in the village, reports of a violent and gigantic bear came down to the village, and the six went to investigate. After some hunting, they engaged the humongous bear, and then everyone accept Syble realized that the bear was Syble's dad. They stopped fighting him, and the bear explained her was cursed. Conveniently there was a magical relic in some nearby dwarven ruins that might be able to reverse his mode locked transformation, so the six ventured there. Within they discovered that the magical relic was a powerful staff, and it was inhabited by a druidic spirit. Kara incorrectly believed the spirit to be Syble's mother, and after wrestling with a Frost Salamander and being thrown off a cliff, she convinced an unhinged Faror not to kill the druidic spirit. She helped the druid find peace, and everyone soon returned to the cabin where the bear was.