Iluan Dy'Nien

Iluan Dy’Nien A Fey’ri bred by a Red Wizard, who has escaped and is presently on the run from her former Master and his allies.

Personality
Sapphire is a young elf that is torn between the chaos of her demonic heritage, and the serenity of her elfin blood. She dislikes the demonic taint that has caused her to be rejected by those whom she would consider her people, and longs to be wholly elfin and accepted by the scattered communities of elves around Faerun. She does not yet understand that this can never be the case, and that most elves consider her an abomination – yet she has begun to suspect that the reactions to her heritage, as experienced amongst the handful that have seen it, are more widely spread that she feared. Thus, she is secretive about her past (those bits that she does remember), and her blood, having already been bitten.

She is a curious creature, willing to witness new things and experience all that she may, now that she is free of her Lord and able to do as she pleases. She values personal freedom very highly and has no love for those that exert their power over others in a manner than impedes their free will. An independent soul, Sapphire maintains that personal freedom to live and be whom one will be is paramount in life. Though this is off set by a conflicting philosophy, that the strong survive by being strong and the witty thrive by being quick of wit and that those who are neither rarely get ahead in life. She is, as yet, youthfully naïve in her set of ethical codes that are malformed and would not last long against someone determined to prove to her that her way of life is inherently wrong.

She leans heavily toward hedonistic and indulgent pursuits. Leading as lavish a life as her purse will permit, she spent sixty years being unable to so much as wash her hair and so, these days, she obsesses about personal cleanliness and the finery of her garb.

Sapphire is not fond of children. Though she spares them from her (often) malicious pursuits, she does not spare them from scornful disdain that is, in truth, born of a deeply seated resentment. She did not have a childhood and while she recognises that it is wise to let children be children, she cannot help but to find herself being angered by their games. Especially when they are noisy games that put children in her path and, generally, in her way.

Perhaps it is the demonic blood, perhaps the elfin, but she is one that views life as a series of risks and nothing captures the adrenalin rush of her night-time antics on top of roofs quite so well as a good bet. She loves gambling and funds this pocket-draining obsession with her ill-gotten gains. Equally, she enjoys far more dangerous games and, should they turn sour, she does not hesitate to cut her loses (and her foe’s throat) and run for the nearest shadow.

Her sense of humour is light and broad, though she rarely laughs; she is rarely seen without a smirk. She is quick to feign friendship but wary of becoming friends, her trust is not lightly given – indeed, it has yet to be given – though she is, at heart, a loyal woman who would make a steadfast friend if her trust could be won. Beneath her aloof smirk, she is a calculating woman who is constantly looking for an edge in life, whether that be in a means to get ahead, or simply get out, she is rarely not thinking or engaged with her present. So much so that she has not, truly, thought about the future she is only just beginning to accept that she may have and be able to dictate for herself.

Appearance
Sapphire rarely reveals her true appearance, preferring to cloak herself in a constant shroud of illusion than give herself away to those that she meets. She is, however, a vain woman that is prone to admiring her beauty and so her illusions are not nearly so deceptive as they could be. When needed, she can be whom she wishes to be however, and she does not hesitate to change herself such that she can slip away from any and all that may have a description of her latest guise. Such changes, however, are rarely kept for more than a handful of minutes.

Standing at five feet and six inches, she is of unremarkable height for an elf. Slender in build and long limbed, she exudes a sense of grace and dexterity in her every movement. Even her ears are long – far longer than they aught to be. From the idle twitch of a long, delicate finger to a casual stroll across a crowded marketplace, she never seems ungainly but rather, epitomises the unearthly grace that elves are renowned for.

Her hair is a shade darker than midnight, she keeps it short – falling just shy of reaching her shoulders – and is one for long, scented baths and perfumes that she cannot legally afford. Thus, her hair (which is immensely important to her) is always immaculate and soft. Her eyes are large, almond in shape and silvery-grey. She rarely looks overly long at one source, her gaze constantly roving as she looks around crowds and keeps an eye on avenues of escape and potential threats. There is a sense of wariness around her that bristles within the ready ease of her body – it is rare to see her, let alone catch her, looking entirely relaxed or comfortable with her surroundings.

Naturally, her skin tone is a shade paler than that of a sun elf, which she can pass easily for. Though she prefers to shift her golden tones to a silvery hue, leaving her to most commonly appear a pale silvered ivory. She maintains, as she was taught, that hiding in plain sight is the best way to hide and so settles for looking somewhat like a pale moon elf.

So far as her common attire goes, Sapphire enjoys fashionable clothing. If she is not wandering a city and looking the part of a merchant’s daughter or heiress, she can be seen wandering it in attire that is more suited to one who comes by her wealth in the fashion that she truly does.. Often sporting corsets over a blouse and wearing trousers that set her apart from a well-to-do woman of proper birth, she dresses in muted tones that will let her blend in with her surroundings and always carries at least one dagger hidden on her person.

Without her illusions, very little changes by way of her immediate appearance. Her skin is a pale gold in colour, her eyes are mercurial silver and she is one inch shorter. The horns that rise from her hair-line and curl down to tuck behind her long, tapered ears are slender and black. She has a long, thin tail that tapers into a flanged tip – it is somewhat prehensile though lacks the strength to be of any true use to her. Lastly are her wings. These remain, at all times, as hidden as her horns and even when hidden, lay beneath a wrapping of bandages that ensure should her illusions fail her, her wings will stay, at least for a few moments, safely and discreetly (if somewhat painfully) hidden along her back.

History
Sapphire was born sixty years ago to an elf that had been captured and sold into slavery, in Thay. She does not know her mother’s name, let alone her father’s for the moment that she was born she was taken from the elf and given over to a tiefling nursemaid, who was also a slave to her Thayan Master. Her breeding was purposeful and coldly planned by her Master – A Red Wizard of Thay who had recently undergone the transformation into a lich and was eager to begin moving his plans and schemes into a new realm – one that was not defined by his mortality.

His name was Chako and from the moment Sapphire was born, he relished in her existence. To him, she represented his triumph over elves – a victory that he had obsessed over for decades after being defeated and humiliated by a Sun-Elf in a magical duel. The duel was the reason he sought a Sun Elf slave and, once he tired of her cleaning up after him, used her to create a Fey’ri before gifting her to an underling. It was a touch more personal, on his part, for the slave was the sister of the wizard who had humiliated him during the duel.

Sapphire has never seen her true mother, raised to serve her Master as his servant and, in time, an assassin to play her part in his various intrigues. Yet she was always a wily and wilful creature and often tried the Master’s patience. Nonetheless, he persevered and had her trained in matters of stealth and discreet killing. She was raised, despite being one of his favourites, as the least of his slaves. Trained to be without remorse, or ethical objection to the tasks that would eventually be given to her, Sapphire’s few objections to those things that she was exposed to were silenced by her beatings, or the removal of her rights to food and similar punishments. She was, in every sense of the word, an animal that was to be trained without regard to her rights. Despite these harsh environs Sapphire’s tenacity ensured that she thrived through her early years.

There was a commotion in the household when she turned forty, her mother, who had been sold to an underling, had escaped. Chako was quick to tighten the defences around his home though no attack came and, within a few years, he assumed the elf to be dead and completed his preparations to begin climbing the Thayan social ladder. Once secure in himself, the Undead Master, deeming that his assassin was ready, set her out to remove an underling who he knew plotted against him and who had, years prior, been so slack in his duty as to allow a certain Sun Elf to escape his control.

Sapphire’s performance was exemplary. The Underling, despite being powerful in his own right, was caught off guard and dispatched without issue and Chako, having watched the performance, silently commended his young assassin whom he began to entrust with broader tasks. Within a handful of years, he had come to rely on the Fey’ri, though he did not realise that his sending her out of the home had led her to become exposed to the world beyond his tightly controlled household. While the rest of Thay was little better than her home, Sapphire did find herself, from time to time in the slave-markets, watching the fresh arrivals and listening to the manner in which they spoke and the concepts they spoke of.

This fledging exposure to concepts of freedom was enough to begin cracking the shell of discipline and obedience that bound her mind. Sapphire hid the thoughts that began to well up within her. Born of both her chaotic ancestry and elven soul, she proved, over the years, precisely why her kind are so rarely bred – even by the Red Wizards. Elves are difficult enough to control, combined with her infernal lineage she was, in the long run, to prove impossible to control and just as hard to predict.

When she was fifty-eight, and had left a chain of Chako’s rivals dead and in her wake, the slave was charged with breaking into a rival wizard’s home and assassinating a non-Thayan wizard who was living there for a time. Sapphire, for once, had been set a task that was beyond her means as both master and assassin had underestimated the foreigner.

She was caught by the wizard, who had given his name as ‘Vir’ and his apprentice. Though her life was spared and rather, she was put to better use. The Archmage who had caught her recognised the dissent that lingered in her soul and played to its tune for he felt that he recognised something in her manner. He kept her presence in his chambers a secret even from his host and over the course of a week he broke through the years of flimsy control that shrouded her. In the course of this reconditioning, Sapphire came to understand that there was another way to live and that freedom was a gift that even the Red Wizards themselves lacked.

When she returned to her Master, it was with a single purpose in mind. She knew him, better than anyone alive, she knew the Wizard who had bred her for a life of murder and she used a lifetime’s knowledge when she turned on her former Master. The fight that broke out between them was short and savage. Ending with him dead and his phylactery destroyed, while Sapphire fled a home that was being reduced to rubble by the ripples of his dying magic – magic that also unravelled her mind.

Once a powerful assassin, Sapphire remembered little of the life she led before fleeing that home. Caught by Vir before the guards could chase her down, the unwitting tool was teleported to safety, far beyond Thay’s borders and immediate reach though, once the magic faded and Vir, prepared to offer her a place in his distant home, he found himself dealing with a half-broken mind that was still caught in the throes of a curse that he could not fathom, let alone break.

Sapphire fled the one person in her life who had offered to help her and has done little since that day but run. Knowing that she flees something terrible, she does not know quite why she is pursued, nor who it is that chases her and has run, just as often from Vir as she has fled from Choka’s former allies that seek either revenge, or to draw her back into their control and continue using her to do what it is that she does best.

For the last year she has been on the run, saved thus far by the secrecy that Choka kept wrapped around his most prized possession – none that chase his former assassin know enough about her to scry her out – and by her talents at slipping away into the night, Sapphire survives by stealing and moves from town to town and city to city when the local guilds begin to cotton on to her presence. She has accompanied a handful of adventurers into the wilds, and has done enough on those Wilderness fronts to consider and call herself a veteran adventurer in her own right.

Now, a year since she broke Choka’s phylactery and weathered the worse of his curse, she is slowly beginning to remember what he blasted from her mind and in that she begins to find herself less willing to run and more inclined, and able, to stand the ground that she wishes to and fight. Still, the more that she remembers, the less certain she becomes that she wishes to know more of her younger years.

The Unfortunates:
In which Sapphire, having travelled to the Borderlands in search of distance from her supposed pursuers, becomes embroiled in a conflict between Border-Lords. She starts out fighting for the town she had been trying to get into when raiders struck though quickly realised that the raiders would kill her, and her companion. After negotiating with the invader's Lord, she swapped sides, flew up to the top of the town gates and drove the bastien's defenders away before tipping their hastily prepared oil and burning pitch onto the top of the militia's phalanx.

After a bout of street fighting, a moment to rest and recover (and do a little looting) she and Llewellyn tried to escape the town, rather than chance the invader's army holding up their end of the deal. Sapphire was caught near the gates by the wizard Vir, though he managed to teleport her to safety, a miscalculation on his part landed him in a ditch, thousands of miles away from the Borderlands. Sapphire fled into the night, escaping Vir and his mysterious apprentice, yet again!

=Character Sheet=

Name: Sapphire

Race and Age: Fey’ri, 60.

Class and levels: Rogue (3)/Fighter (1)

Height and Weight: 5’6”, 120lbs

Eyes and Hair: pale grey, black.

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Deity: Tymora

Allegiance: None

Challenge Level:6

Abilities and modifiers:

• Str: 13 (+1)

• Dex: 21 (+5)

• Con: 14 (+2)

• Int: 16 (+3)

• Wis: 12 (+1)

• Chr: 18 (+4)

HD: 28 (3d6/1d10)

Initiative: +5

Speed: 40ft. (fly, 40ft, poor manoeuvrability)

Reach:5ft/5ft

Saving Throws:

• Fortitude: +5

• Reflex: +8

• Will: +2

Base Attack Bonus:

• +3

• Melee Attack: (Dagger) +4

• Ranged Attack: (Light Crossbow +8)

Special Attack: Sneak Attack 2d6

Special Abilities: Racial: Darkvision (60ft) Lowlight vision – colour. Immunity to sleep and sleep effects. +2 to will saves vs. enchantment spells and effects. Alter Self (sp): Can use Alter Self at will to assume any humanoid shape, and maintain that shape indefinetly. +2 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Search and Spot checks. Elven Blood. Outsider (native) +10 Fire Resistance Charm Person 1/day Detect Thoughts 1/day Suggestion 1/day Clairaudience/Clairvoyance 1/day +2 Level Adjustment

Rogue: 2d6 Sneak Attack Trapfinding Evasion Trapsense +1

Skills:

Balance (Dex), 7 (5+2)

Bluff (Cha), 11 (5+2rl)

Climb (Str), 7 (6)

Craft: Alchemy (int), 5 (2)

Diplomacy (chr), 6 (+2)

Disable Device (Int), 7 (4)

Disguise (chr), 6 (+2)

Escape Artist (Dex), 8 (3)

Hide (Dex), 12 (5+2rl)

Intimidate (chr), 6 (+2)

Jump (Str), 13 (6+2) +5 from boots

Listen (Wis), 8 (5+2rl)

Move Silently (Dex), 10 (5)

Open Lock (Dex), 9 (4)

Perform:Dance (Cha), 8 (4)

Search (Int), 9 (4+2rl)

Sleight of Hand (Dex), 12 (5+2)

Spot (Wis), 7 (4+2rl)

Tumble (Dex), 12 (5+2)

Feats: Weapon Finesse

Dreadful Wrath

Dodge

Inventory: Blackened leather armour, Crossbow, bolt case Barbed Dagger +1 Boots of Striding and Springing. Magical Tattoo: Choka, fearing that one day she might try to run, gave her a gift in the form of a tattoo. While it would have been a simple matter to simply brand her, he did not, truly see the point as she could have it healed (should she actually escape him). Thus, he had her tattooed and embedded within the intricate design, the power of a shield spell. Supposing then that she would face a dilemma should she run, she could give up his brand, but lose her best means of self-protection.

She has yet to seek a means to be rid of it. Supposing, to herself, that it is discrete in its placement along her left shoulder-blade and grants her a great boon. However, it is a design that would be recognised instantly by anyone familiar with the Red Wizards, as a mark that labels her a slave. To anyone with more specialised knowledge, the tattoo also contains the name of her master (a fact that she is unaware of). It is crafted such that it may be seen even through her ‘alter self’.

Treasure:

A small lockbox full of stolen jewellery, taken from a looted fence’s shop in the Borderlands.

A masterwork, bejewelled rapier. Taken from the fence that she killed.