Nyxa Shadeborn

To the commoners around the Queen's Orphanage, Oksana was just a mother of lost children. She lived her life looking after the remaining innocents of the great wars, providing them with the motherly touch that had been taken from them.

Few would suspect that beyond the old ragged robes that she wore, were scars from battles long fought. For Oksana wasn't always an orphan mother, nor was she always Oksana. To the world, her warm smile and welcoming arms were home, and she was celebrated in the community as a charitable, loving woman to her children. To those still alive to tell her stories, she was Nyxa, the Shade Assassin.

Old scripts from lost books once spoke of the shades, mages with the ability to mold and travel through the shadows. These mages were rare in the world, often being killed as children due to their tendency to turn to theft and other vicious crimes.

Among the most famous of the Shades was Nyxa, an assassin mage with powers so strong that she could physically create shadows at will, and even use them to bind her victims in place for the final thrust of her dagger, the Heartseeker.

She was commonly sent into battle ahead of armies in order to scout for danger, or sometimes, to kill high profile targets to neutralize their forces all together. Her legend was spread far and wide through the kingdoms, terrifying every enemy soldier who walked the streets at night.

However, for as powerful as she was, the stories say that during the last great war, the kingdoms of the south caused her to meet her final moments. Nyxa's name may have faded over the last decade, but there are still some who believe that she's alive, as her body was never recovered.

During her final battle, Nyxa was toe to toe with another legendary shade, Myang of the Queendom of Norn. Their blades clashed through the burning streets for hours, the two nearly equals in skill, separated only by their language barriers.

The stories say that Myang struck the final blow, but it was Nyxa's Heartseeker that sank into the other shade's chest. Hours of combat decided by a split second moment. As Myang fell to the ground, her bloodied arms stretched out towards a small hut nearby, a baby's cries for its mother sounded from within..

Myang was just trying to protect her daughter.

Nyxa fetched the child from the hut and brought her to her mother. And as Myang died, her body sank down into the darkness, taking the child with her until the cries melted into the night. Then there was nothing, just the crackling snaps of the burning huts around her.

Nyxa fled Nivet, haunted by the drifting sobs of the child. She was no longer a legend, she felt like a monster. Nyxa took on the name Oksana to forget the past, and opened an orphanage for children who had lost their parents in battle. For the last eleven years Oksana raised them as her own.

Yet the grand arena brings many old Oathen out of the woodwork, or for some, the shadows. Upon hearing that the gods would grant the victor one wish, Oksana shed her aged robes and put on the old darkened leather slayer vest that fed on the nightmares of her enemies. She was once again the shade assassin.

This arena would be her's at all costs. For if she was the last champion to sit upon the throne, she would return all of the lost parents to her children, and undo part of the scar that she left on this world.