🙏 Sister Irielle of the Ash Candle
“Their voices still flicker. You just have to breathe in the smoke.”
Race/Class: Human Cleric (Warden of St. Ras)
Level: 5
Alignment: Lawful
HP: 22 | AC: 5 (blessed leathers and candle-etched wards)
Attack: Mace +2 (1d6), or Sacred Flame (1d6 radiant; 1/day)
Saving Throws: As Cleric 5
Spells Prepared:
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Daily: Cure Light Wounds (x2), Detect Evil, Speak with Dead, Silence 15' Radius, Hold Person
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Ritual Only: Augury, Remove Curse (only performed while in trance)
🕯️ Appearance
Sister Irielle is a thin, pale woman in her mid-30s, with long black hair braided with scorched wick-threads and bone prayer beads. Her eyes are always tired but calm, as though she's watching a candle burn down to its last inch. She wears a simple Warden’s mantle over soot-dusted robes. Her left hand is wrapped in white linen—a burn that never fully heals, sustained during a vigil held too long.
🗣️ Roleplaying Irielle
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Soft-Spoken, Sleepy-Toned – speaks gently, as if not to disturb unseen spirits.
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Touches Candles When Nervous – often fingers or relights nearby candles when deep in thought.
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Sleep-Talker – murmurs snatches of ghost-speech during naps or trance states. Some are warnings, others nonsense—or prophecy.
🪔 Ash Candle Ritual
Irielle is called "of the Ash Candle" because of her strange communion: when she enters deep prayer or falls into troubled sleep near a flame, she sometimes speaks aloud with the voices of the dead. These are not full conversations, but fractured memories and whispers—echoes that cling to places like Stonehell.
“Delmar… No, he’s in the stone now. It was the fourth key, not the third. Don’t trust the one with the bell.”
🧠Abilities & Features
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Dream Communion: When Irielle casts Speak with Dead, she may do so while asleep, and it does not consume a spell slot. However, she cannot direct the conversation—it is shaped by the spirit’s will.
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Candlewake Trance: Can perform a 10-minute vigil with a blessed candle to sense nearby undead or cursed items (as Detect Evil), but doing so fatigues her (no spellcasting for 1 hour).
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Respected Among the Wardens: Senior Wardens trust her, even when they don’t understand her methods. Knight-Captain Brandt treats her words with caution—but always listens.
🕳️ Adventure Hooks
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Prophetic Whisper: Irielle dreams of one of the PCs—buried in stone, clutching something glowing. She urges them to carry a candle into the depths. The meaning is unclear.
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Cursed Voice: A new spirit speaks through her, demanding vengeance. It knows the secret name of a PC’s ancestor—or a hidden betrayal among the Bastion's defenders.
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Relic Recovery: She has a vision of a candle relic lost in a forgotten chapel deep within Stonehell. Recovering it may enhance her power—or silence the dead permanently.
🕯️ Quote for the Table
“Stonehell breathes, you know. Not with lungs. With memory. Every time you light a flame down there… it remembers a little more.”