Senna Amberheart Champion Lore
Senna of the Skyiron Dominion was a dreamer and a thinker like none other in the Gray Age. Her expansive intellect distanced her from the average Dwarf and she felt a faint pity and disdain for those around her, who all lacked her grasp of the laws of runescript and science. Her peers were in turn alienated by her incomprehensible theories on matter and its underlying structures, and her tendency to ignore the mundane daily upkeep of her body while she was absorbed in research.
Her work narrowed in scope and advanced quickly after a Dwarven explorer of the upper world returned with a sample of amber from the ancient rainforests of Torcelin lstriv which Senna purchased and analyzed. The sample held a small insect captured within, locked within a state of stasis. She had previously theorized about preserving living things within solid matrices, and saw that nature had already done so — could the process be made reversible? She commissioned the explorer to bring her as much amber as possible.
Senna invented various modes of preservation and restoration of living tissue based on applying runes to amber, such as binding sap to wounds and transmuting the sticky liquid to match the flesh, healing injuries whilst leaving no sign of the damage or its treatment. Though a remarkable development, the Dwarves had other means of magical healing, and Senna sought something unique: locking living flesh in temporal stasis, improving upon the amber that had preserved an insect body from decay but at the cost of the animal’s life. She wished to satisfy her endless intellectual curiosity by transporting herself to the distant future, hoping to emerge in an enlightened world of fantastically advanced magic and technology where the average Dwarf might be as brilliant as herself.
She accumulated enough amber to fuse a chunk large enough to hold her, which she inscribed with paradoxical runes of life and timelessness, which she designed to slowly dissipate over many centuries and then release the occupant. Senna made herself the first test subject, and set the runic timers for two thousand years. Missed by few, and hidden behind wards, traps, and illusions within her laboratory, she remained undisturbed as time rolled on.
Had nothing intervened, Senna would be slumbering there to this day. But someone did: the Arbiter. For all Senna’s genius, she did not have the Arbiter’s access to the Waters of Life and an intimate view of the process of death and transference of souls that took place there. The Arbiter believed she could modify and interrupt that process to store a being, body and soul, in a tiny space, letting her preserve outstanding heroes from the ravages of age and contain terrible threats. Wise and mighty though she was, the Arbiter could not create her theorized soul-vessels, not without time and effort she could not afford to spare while the disastrous consequences of the Sin of Dragons were still unfolding. Rumor had reached her of Senna’s experiments, and she sought the Dwarf out.
The Arbiter dispelled Senna’s illusions and runes and gently released the Dwarf, to Senna’s fury. She praised Senna’s accomplishment and asked for help iterating upon her results. The Dwarf bristled at the interruption and cited her people’s disdain for divine beings. But the Arbiter was not easily dissuaded. She demanded that Senna accompany her to see the urgency of the request. Senna felt the Arbiter’s radiance of glory and gravitas, like bright sunshine warming her skin and watering her eyes. But for all her majesty, the Arbiter seemed fearful. Worried, and curious, Senna relented.
The Arbiter swept them across Teleria’s skies at tremendous speed. Senna saw the hellish Brimstone Gate and the annihilation of the Dragonkin Empire, which had been mighty in her day. She realized that if she had not been prematurely released, she might have awoken to a nightmare in which Teleria had fallen while she was helplessly sealed away. Even a chance to struggle in futility would be better than passivity.
Senna also realized her arcane mastery and theory-crafting were hollow without practical uses. Recalling her amber healing-craft, and seeing the terrible suffering of the Demonspawn invasion, she not only helped the Arbiter with the creation of Shards, but also crafted an amber-tipped staff to magnify her healing techniques, with which she saved numerous lives during the First Great War. When it ended, she asked the Arbiter to place her within a Shard, so she could live to see a bright future – she has seen many futures, in fact, having been released many times over the centuries to heal important figures, and marvel at the progress of the world. And yet Senna has always asked to be returned to the Shard, for she believes Teleria still has much to do to reach her exacting standards.