Numbered 7845, Tai-Lee's crystal has a dark, ugly, mottled purple black base, but the base is merely the foundation of a navy-blue crystal that transitions into a wavy mix of violet and blue with glints of dark veins heading towards the apex of the crystal, which is almost like a beacon of light in the darkness.
Standing at 5'4", Tai-Lee has straight, black side-parted hair that falls to just above her shoulders, skin with a dusky Aztec bronze to it, and her eyes carry a sharp green sheen (turning slitted reptilian gold when she doesn't conceal them). A hooded cloak lays draped across her shoulders over her largely black attire, an ensemble formed from protective leather woven into an outfit of deceptive class. In contrast to this, a splash of white is present in a wide skirt with a leaf-like look to it. She carries a number of weapons covertly beneath her skirt, such as a rapier and daggers, and a shortbow is strapped more prominently to the small of her back beside a quiver.
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Personality:
Tai-Lee is... a bit complicated. As a Yuan-ti capable of feeling emotions like any "normal" person, Tai-Lee often finds herself feeling like a fish out of water. Despite this, thanks to her upbringing, she is nonetheless an able socialite and highly skilled manipulator. She just "gets people" in a way most Yuan-ti would simply find inconceivable, able to actually understand them empathically rather than just in a cold calculating way.
Because of this, Tai-Lee is quite capable of "having a heart", and because she resents her old culture and their ways, she is typically willing to explore the benefits of such. However, this does not overshadow that Tai-Lee is fundamentally a ruthless and calculating person. She is an assassin and infiltrator, born and bred, and it is a simple task for her to treat a situation as "us or them (preferably us)" when it comes to a question of survival.
In fact, there are few things Tai-Lee is more concerned about than survival. She is a highly cautious person, growing quickly frustrated with any situation she cannot enter without having all the information she wants and being fully prepared accordingly. One could even call her paranoid, as her "all business" mindset tends to make her quite frustrated with working with other people that are disinclined to share her methodical approach.
Regardless, Tai-Lee has grown more able to tolerate the "indiscretions of the intimately unintellectual" in her time in Luma, and she has instead compensated by trying to carry as much of the weight of preparation as possible to cover for where her often shifting team fumbles. She has no problem with -and even prefers- dirty fighting and stacking the deck against her enemies in every feasible way. Every advantage is exploited ruthlessly, and every disadvantage is mitigated or removed as possible.
In her own right, Tai-Lee is the essential archetype of many a loner Rogue, used to working alone at one time. But now, she gradually grows to form emotional bonds beyond that of her immediate family, allowing herself to entertain genuine levity and altruism, even at expense. These days, she pursues the question of what true "happiness" entails, and in an effort to blend in with society and live a productive life as usual, this has -in spite of the anarchist, insurrectionist teachings of her people- left her able to coexist peacefully in Luma's flourishing new society.
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Background:
Her true name is Anacaona, meaning "Golden Flower" in her people's tongue, but she has taken up the name of Tai-Lee-Jung under her adoptive parents.
Tal'Hasaad (western of Taleria, heavy Egyptian influence) is her original home continent.
(primarily desert with some coastal regions, vast mines and craters, trade in jewelry and wealth.
Society highly based/dominated by a political "game" going on (palace balls, finery and the sort)(*game of thrones intensifies*).
(Kingdom ruled by emperor with most political power)
In her youth, she was often mocked and belittled by her kind for her "unsettling" nearness to being a full human. Without any serpent traits to call her own, save for her eyes, Anacaona grew to observe her own culture from an outsider's perspective.
She found herself further ostracized by her own doing, when she discovered her capacity to feel emotions, particularly pity and guilt. Through these, she came to understand the true horror of the deeds her people celebrated: the sacrifices, cannibalism and mutilation, both of themselves and others.
She couldn't comprehend how something so wrong could go without opposition. But the more she came to understand her people's lack of empathy, the more she came to despise the Dark Gods that had cursed them with it and the temptation of power that accompanied such inhumanity.
She decided that if she wanted to remain free of those Dark Gods' influence, she would have to flee her homeland and people. So, she did.
She stowed away on a merchant ship on its way to the major trading city of Devoyant, an independent free city, located on the western Otium Isle of Taleria and not beholden to any other country.
In time, she was adopted around age 9 by a married human and elf pair, who had decided to adopt instead of birthing a half-elf. The human father respected the elf mother's wishes, and so they took proper precautions and set about looking for a candidate.
They found Anacaona.
As was the training impressed upon her by Yuan-Ti Pureblood society, Anacaona sought to further blend in. Thus, she concealed her serpentine eyes and took up a name in line with her adoptive father's, Tai-Lee-Jung.
As she grew, she slowly came to terms with her ability to briefly feel emotions -and occasionally felt new ones, though they were hard to place for one so inexperienced with them.
However, despite her best attempts, the roots of her strict childhood training and fanatical former society continued to choke the life out her efforts to live a normal life. She was good at killing, and she knew it.
On the surface, she appeared a kind -if somewhat wild- girl, prone to spend days in the woods as often as she might in a dress.
Many around her spoke of how she could become a great hunter or Ranger, how her swift and silent feet brought many a beast low with the single deadly strike they concealed.
But she knew, better than they ever could. She was bred to kill people, living sentient beings of every shape and creed, not mere beasts. At heart, she was a Rogue, one trained to navigate high society as easily as any dark shadow.
Luckily, her lesser talents still paid sufficiently well in society, and her ability to navigate the... less than legal side of the world, just as easily as the legal, was often in demand in the so-called "Adventurer Parties".
She wanted to repay her new family, and the best way to do that was to resist her nature, to at least attempt to find a different way. She had to set aside the anarchist, insurrectionist teachings of her people and carefully consider her actions and how they might effect others, especially her new parents.
This, she knew, was the core of empathy, and if she could master it, a quiet life surrounded by loved ones would be her end.
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