Captain Hildegard Cessario

Early Childhood
Hildegard lived in a small town by the seaside, where her mother was a scribe, and her father a sailor. She befriended a little boy named Nicholas, who became like a brother to her. They went on many imaginary adventures. Nicholas wanted to be a knight, and Hildegard wanted to be a sailor like her father. Life was simple.

Adolescence
Nicholas was a page, and Hildegard was attempting to become a seer so she could predict storms to help her father with his sailing. She found she wasn't great at it.

One summer, tragedy struck. Two tragedies, to be exact. One was that pirates had attacked her father's ship. He managed to escape with his life, but at the cost of his ship and his left leg. The other tragedy was plague. Many people perished that summer. Hildegard and her parents survived and recovered well, but Nicholas did not. She would visit his home every day to help provide medicine and food, but one day walked in to see his stiff, lifeless body. She was wracked with guilt - instead of studying seer magic, she should have studied healing so she could have prevented his death.

So she started to study healing magic and vowed that if she succeeded in her dream to be captain of her own ship, she would name it after him.

Over time, she traveled inland and made it to the region of Rhiassa. Coincidentally, while travelling by the river, she ran into the river pirates that had attacked her father. While she wasn't able to exact a classic revenge, she and some friends did manage to disable their ship and steal enough stolen riches so she could buy her own.

Realms Career
It took a while to find a decent river ship. In the meantime, Hildegard's parents moved inland to Rhiassa and they set up a comfortable home life with her. She spent a lot of time at the tavern where a lovely young person her age worked on and off. She noticed that this person went off on adventures and would come back every so often and regale her with the stories. Every time, she would ask her to join her on her adventures. She also told her about fellow adventurers who would more effectively teach her magic.

Maybe it was the way she quirked her eyebrows, her thousandth promise to protect her, or one day her smile was sweeter than usual, but eventually she said yes. This person was Ellith, who would become her partner in all things.

Her first adventure was at Black and White 1014. She was ill-equipped and later told Ellith that she didn't want to be an adventurer anymore.

Some months later, she befriended several of the nobility of Rhiassa and they gave her good advice and guidance. It was through them that she started to learn how to heal. Finally she started feeling better prepared to try going on more adventures and quests.

After becoming a more proficient healer, she decided it was time to search in earnest for a river ship. She eventually found a small, fast, respectable one. She dubbed it "Sir Nicholas's Resurrection." She hoped that Nicholas would be happy to have ascended to knighthood and been resurrected in some way.

Current Day
Hildegard's official title is Captain Hildegard Cessario, Squire of Rhiassa. Mostly because "Captain Squire" or "Squire Captain" both sound odd. When she's knighted, she'll put the title "Dame" somewhere in front. Assuming she gets knighted eventually. That's one of her current goals - to help the community via her Squirely Project, The Neurodiversity Guild, and become a knight. Partly for the sake of Nicholas.

Her knight is Lord Sir Gwen.

Hildegard currently lives on board her ship with her regular crew: Dame Ellith (still her Partner in Everything) and Squire Asharn. There are other part-time crew members who spend time on her ship and help out. There's also the lions. Miniature ones. During one trip to shore in the grasslands somewhere, she found the four cubs alone. She wanted to wait around for their mother, but they started speaking and told her their mother had been captured by river pirates. Why were there so many river pirates?!? She took them in and cared for them, and they started demonstrating strange abilities. Napoleon, the round gray one, could turn himself into an Implement. Leofy (pronounced like Leafy), the brown and green one, could perform CPR by jumping on someone's chest for a count of 120 while chanting about bad potatoes. Helios, the yellow and orange one, could do the same, but minus the potato chant. Cleopatra, the red and black one, could link magic with Hildegard and enhance her healing.

When she's not on specific adventures, she'll chase after Rhiassan River Pirates and try to bring about justice.

When she's on specific adventures, she likes to drag bodies around while Leofy and Helios do baby lion CPR, and kick bodies into a combat raise. She can be very blunt and not really understand some common humor, but her ultimate goal is to help people and make the Realms a better place.

Also, if she knows or suspects that you haven't had a snack or drink of water in a while, but you tell her you're fine, you'll face her Disappointment (TM), which is arguably worse than any wrath she's shown.