Viktoria Darkfoot

Viktora Darkfoot, known as Vik to her friends, is a Gnome Necromancer and long-time friend of Wilhelm Holzknecht.

Appearance
Small, even for a gnome, Vik stands just under 3 feet and weighs about 40 pounds. She has a soft, round face with vibrant violet eyes. Her once-long black hair is now stark white and frames her pale skin; it still has a natural streak of violet that matches her eyes.

Vik usually wears an ornate, dark purple nobleman’s vest with gold embroidery over a white shirt, which black pants and boots. Her hands and wrists are wrapped in leather and cloth, both protecting them and hiding the scars she has earned over years experimenting in workshops. She wears three earrings at the top of her right ear and two on her left, as well as a stud in her right nostril. She wears a leather baldric with a shoulder pad on her right shoulder. Across the chest, the baldric holds vials of poisons and spell components. At her left hip, the baldric holds her spellbook and notebook. On her back, the baldric holds a number of throwing darts and knives, some of which are tipped with poison tips. When out and about, she often covers all of this with a patchy cloak and walks with a gnarled wooden staff.

Personality
Vik is witty and brilliant. She often speaks quickly and without regard for the feelings of others, as if she can’t get the thoughts out of their head fast enough. She is playful when in a good mood, but vengeful and malicious when wronged. She often seems fidgety or jittery.

Biography
Viktoria can actually remember her first creation: she was only a year old and unnaturally bright for any creature of that age, and had snuck into the laboratory of her mother Ellaturen (a noted alchemist in Nidavell). Guided by instinct and luck (and the unseen hand of Xymor), Vik raised an undead construct in the form of a spider. She kept the spider as a pet for some time (she named it Trixie), until it was innocently killed by her father (who did not know the truth of its creation). She quickly outpaced her schooling and began an apprenticeship with her mother at age 10. Within a year she had surpassed her mother's alchemical skills and began secretly looking for more interesting pursuits. Using her alchemy learnings, she gained quite a bit of funds from some less-than-appropriate means (i.e., selling poisons and potions) and built a secret lab in Nidavell.

It was some time before her mother discovered the truth. By that point, at the age of 16, she had become the top scholar in her chosen fields of biology and thanatology. Only when her mother saw her at a meeting of Nidavell's Council of Tinkers (her mother was also a member as the top alchemist) did she realize the truth.

Unfortunately, Vik's tenure on the council would be short. Along the way to the top, Vik had begun experimenting with reanimation and necromancy - the only field of study the Council had ever outlawed. When she refused to stop, she was expelled from the council and banished from the city-state.

Vik set out for Seaport. Her plan was to set up shop selling poisons again until she could afford to continue her research. Unfortunately, she was set upon by bandits on her way to the port town. They took her hostage and sold her to Krassek Kantrip's Karnival of Kuriousities. Being a gnome, Vik was immediately thrown into the show with the intent of being ridiculed and laughed at. When she resisted, she was beaten by Krassek's muscle/security; very quickly she fell in line.

In between her acts, Vik became curious of the main attraction: an old, Dragonborn wizard with no legs and only one arm that still managed to cast illusion spells for the audience. When he noticed her interest, Alimum offered to teach Vik these arcane ways and -- like everything else -- she took to it like a fish to water. Without even blinking, Vik expanded her studies beyond the basic texts that Alimum gave her and began exploring necromancy.

Around this time, Wilhelm Holzknecht and Thava Beltrent came across the Karnival as it was stopped on the shores of the great lake Rukato. Fascinated by his size, Vik struck up a conversation and divulged the details of her and her colleagues' "employment." Outraged, Wil stormed off suddenly into the night. The next morning he returned before most of the Karnival had risen from the night's rest. He killed Krassek's guards in their sleep and found Vik to let her know that she and her fellow performers were free. She immediately made for Krassek's tent and, using her new skills, conjured a ghostly, skeletal hand and ended the half-orc's life. After, she scrambled up Wil's armor, set herself down on his shoulder, and simply said, "Where to, big guy?"

After some travels with Wil and Thava, Vik would accompany the former to his new post in Vaesghaar. There she would study with many of the Death Domain Clerics of Asfrid, and assist Wil in secretly protecting Thava's daughter Iljia.