Decided to try my hand at creating a character who would have originated under / in the dungeon instead of one who had dipped down and was trying to get back up.  And the (sort of) recent question of languages had me thinking about someone who might have an easier time communicating with more esoteric things than with the rest of the party.

Name: ??? (tbd)
Class: Hedge Witch
Race: Earth Sprite (exact details may need tweaking, depending on what's available in this setting).
Specialty: Empathic Fire

Higher Ambition: To see the sun.   If/when she succeeds, after a certain period of euphoria, her new goal will become to [i]talk[/i] to the sun, cheerfully ignoring any objections that it's very far away, that there's no way to get close to it safely, or any heliocentric religions insisting what is obviously a great big ball of fire (silly) is really a god and their faith is the best means to commune with it.

Lower ambitions: Sweets.  (She's going to be pleasantly surprised if/when she discovers how common these are on the surface).

Innate Power: Has a few small fireballs in orbit around her person at pretty much all times.  They respond to and are controlled by  her emotions more than conscious thought.  They grow dim when she's tired (down to mere night lights when sleeping), brighter when she's excited, warm when friendly, sharp and harsh with cold anger, bright and hot with fury, twinkling with laughter and so on and so forth.  Functionally incapable of having a poker face.

Certain factors might cause the count of fireballs to tick up or down, but there's always gonna be a few present.

Mechanically, this gives her an always on light source and flame-ball drones to toss at things and employ for various utility functions.

The fact that it's emotional control means making her lose control due to fear or anger, or subjecting her to mind altering substances is [i]probably[/i] not the best idea.

As her emotions are made manifest in fire, she's also able to "talk" with other flame.  The tactical utility of what a given fire is thinking of feeling is rather debatable (so that conflagration in the fireplace isn't satisfied with the quality of it's fuel.  Does the party care?), but it does open the door towards coaxing such flames into behaving differently (limited fire bending- go that way, please don't burn this, could you change color or form this shape please?).  Communication with (other people's) magical fire isn't terribly useful, as it tends to have been created for a specific task or purpose, and is pretty focused on that.  (The same sort of problem one might have trying to hold a conversation with a smart weapon: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-07-21 ).

Phobia:  Unnatural / magical darkness.  Anything that light fails to illuminate the way it should.  Possibly sufficiently aberrant distortions of light as well.

(Is this interesting enough?  Objects or materials that won't burn is an obvious alternative, but it seemed like it would be way too strong a fear, especially with wards and enchantments reinforcing some materials, and the frequency someone who tosses fire around as a first resort would run into them.  And in a stone environment.  Would turn every failed attack into a double failure with a roll to resist fear.  It's like an archer who fears missing).

Mutation: Magical fireproofing, fire resistance and/or heat resistance to some degree seem pretty much mandatory.  (If this needs to be balanced to be less unambiguously useful: maybe an accompanying loss of sensation?  Possibly strait up offloaded sense of touch to her flames.  Actually, generally getting synthesia from her fire interacting with things might be interesting).

And/or whatever's included in making her non-human (if she's an earth-elemental creature, the fireproofing might come down to material composition).

Supernatural Vulnerability: having all her flames extinguished and left in a state where she's unable to create new ones seems like it would be profoundly unhealthy.  Do not submerge fire your fire witch underwater, transfer to airless voids, douse in fire retardant foam, confine in a magic suppressing field, bury her alive, etc, etc.


Languages: (we don't normally include this at char gen, but it's sort of significant here)

Elemental Earth: 3 (native speaker)
Elemental Fire: 3 (second language, supernatural gift for it)
Quenyl hand-jive: 2 (she doesn't really have enough hands, but she can fake extras using flame drones in a pinch).
Humish: 1 to 2 (picked up what she could secondhand underground, as it's what those surface people where the sun she's fascinated with are supposed to speak).


top of head: Cinnamon Incense (more stuff that burns)
left shoulder: shovel (all metal, if possible.  No wooden handle to burn away)
right shoulder: Greekfire (hey when you can manipulate fire, the option to make a bunch at once is a lot safer)
chest/neck: chalk
left hip: iron spikes
right hip: jug of oil (more fuel, for drawing out patterns to ignite in rituals, offering / negotiating material with flames)
hidden somewhere uncomfortable: tools for lockpicking and field surgery (trivial sterilization)


Background: a cheerful and somewhat naive inhabitant of the earth who was born with an affinity for fire, rather than the element her heritage might make you expect.  From a young age, she's heard secondhand tales of a "sun" on the surface that sounds similar to the balls of flame that she's had clustered around her her whole life.  Out of curiosity she's decided it's high time she saw this thing so like herself in person!


tld;dr- earth fae with a wire crossed into fire, fireball drones, limited fire bending, weird languages