Umie, cleric of Angradd

Umie is far from her ancestral home. Life is short, though, at least for her kind, and she doubts she shall be away forever. When she does, she will bring flames and an ultimatum.
Umie was born in a human village in Minkai. A member of the only local kitsune family, she was always warned away from revealing her nature to others, a matter always couched in terms of playful deception and fun. While it suited her mindset to always have a secret, she somehow always longed to share it.
Hiriko came into town in human guise, a part of a human family in fact, but the discerning Umie had a hunch something about her was unusual. True enough, while being chased by cruel children as an outsider, Umie hid in the shadows and saw Hiriko turn into a fox! Umie, too, became a fox and gave lively chase, and the two left the human pursuers confused and bored, uncertain what might have become of their intended victim. Umie and Hiriko played for hours in vulpine form, finally returning to their respective homes late in the evening.
For years thereafter Umie and Hiriko were inseparable, but Hiriko's adoptive human family had a change of fortunes. Her father fought in a territorial skirmish and returned with the spoils of war, sufficient to purchase for their supernatural daughter a dowry to the village's greatest family. Umie's family cautioned them not to carry out any deceptions, but the warnings fell on deaf ears; Hiriko would play her part her whole life, they said, and would live a fuller life, bringing the family prosperity with her beauty and grace.
Umie wept the night of the wedding, certain her childhood friend and sole confidant was lost to her. While Hiriko was distant for a time, though, she also missed their close association, and soon was inviting the comparatively gauche and awkward Umie to more refined affairs, such as were available to an agrarian landholder in a small Minkai village. They practiced the arts expected of them, weaving and spinning together, a conspiratorial grin between them when others asked what a good girl like Hiriko could see in a poor laboring girl like Umie.
A few years passed and all was not well. Hiriko bore no child, and her husband, third son of his family, was dying of a fever. Delirious, he accused her of poisoning and other misdeeds, and sent her away. His family doubted his word, but were unconcerned about her fate, and her own family, wanting to salvage what they could from the situation, turned their backs upon her. Bitter villagers, jealous of an outsider's good fortune, thought the situation just, not to mention hysterical. They also fully anticipated Umie, now a mere 15, to doom herself taking in a dear friend.
Umie had a tough decision to make. Fall with her friend and confidant, or abandon her to save herself. Trapped between untenable options, she discovered she had hesitated too long, for as she looked for Hiriko to help her in her time of need, she found the other kitsune had fled.
From high to low, Umie suddenly discovered a terrible hatred for this insular town. It was a terrible place which did not nurture goodness, wisdom or wit. She had already begun to pack her meager belongings, despite her family's misgivings, when the first murder happened.
The wealthy landowner, fresh from burying his third son, was found dead in his room. (Umie's family, like most, lived all in the same room; it hadn't occurred to her the patriarch might have his own until this time.) Then Hiriko's human father, found dead face first in his (emptied) chamber pot. Then the village's somewhat psychopathic bully ringleader fell dead in the fields.
Umie began to see a pattern. She knew she must leave. Her friend had returned with vengeance on her mind. She fled into the woods, telling her family to come with her, or at least book it elsewhere, but as they took their time to consider their options, her parents were beset by troubles. A shadowy figure was seen climbing out of their home, and they ascertained the rice had been poisoned. "Less to pack," Umie's father said, and they joined their child in the woods.
As they traveled to another town, he explained to Umie the nogitsune, a kitsune corrupted by oni. Oni, evil outsiders with a strict hierarchy, joy in corrupting kitsune in particular, and her friend had probably succumbed to seductive promises of vengeance and immunity to her persecutors.
Umie felt a bit responsible, and will always carry that regret.
Her family settled into the next village, but she found she had no patience for the distrustful and insular villagers there, unwilling to help a small family of outsiders from a town fallen on the bad side of some vengeful spirit. At 16 she joined a caravan and sought to get as far away as she dared.
The Path of Aganhei is a trade route between Minkai and the Land Of The Linnorm Kings. She had many adventures en route, but a simple lack of common language meant she felt fairly lonely when dealing with those outside the caravan proper. When they had passed through the harsh northern climes, helped by a skillful half-elven guide, Umie discovered she did, at least, share a language or two with dwarves. Many dwarves speak gnomish, and the languages use similar scripts. When the caravan moved on, she decided to stay; it wasn't home, but in a literal sense she could learn to live among the dwarves of the Linnorm Kings.
Dwarves are also slow to trust outsiders, but she was used to that. Her overtures of friendship were mostly flatly refused. However, she was not actively shut out, a fact which gave her hope, and in time a particularly kind elderly dwarven woman she had become caretaker to explained that dwarven friendships ignite slow, usually over the course of a century or more; with short-lived sorts like her, a friendship would become firm late in life and be reflected in a loyalty to her family for generations to come. This caused Umie pause as she began to consider the full weight of her actions up to that point. On the one hand, she had failed her only friend, who may even now be slaughtering innocents under the thrall of some horrid outsider. On the other hand, these dwarves had already brought  out the best in her, maintaining a culture and community not built only on the exclusion and disdain of outsiders, but simply taking a very long, overcautious view of any they encounter. The caravan which traded with them may well have been centuries old, in some manner or another. (She then also had her first real inkling of the Ship Of Theseus.)
Having learned dwarven, she began to attend religious services. A nondwarf attending services to Torag was certainly cause for a little gossip, not all of it kind, but Umie stuck it out, helped out where she could, and at 20 approached the clerics asking for blessings and to learn from them. They put her through a great deal of examination and testing, in time learning she wished to become a skilled and strong crusader against evil outsiders. They asked why, and she told them everything. Her deepest regrets and saddest stories poured out of her, and she cried herself to sleep before a shrine to Fulgritt, soothed by a calm, stony bard of dwarven hymns who had an unusual gift for putting people to ease.
After a long period of consideration, Umie's training was begun. She learned quickly, and found her calling as a warrior cleric in Angradd's name. She became a formidable channeler and a passable melee fighter, and her years of travel made her a tough and imposing figure belied by her apparent flightiness and narrow Tian frame.
She returns to Minkai within ten years. Her people will not be troubled by oni much longer. And she'll have little patience for the small town mentalities which defined her childhood; they'll know her name, and she'll not let them walk all over her again.
Angelfire Apostle Cleric
Medium wisdom, charisma, constitution and intelligence.
Fire domain, at later levels occasionally used with Dazing Spell