Luana Rilynth “Lilac”

What do you get when money, sex, magic, drugs, and illegal deals combine? Abselut fucking euphoria. Nothing is better than selling modified ancient artefacts for thousands of gold while getting higher than the gods as a beautiful woman gives you all she can offer and more.

The only drawback is the state you end up in the next day. As you are left with a burning head ache, pain from old and new injuries, and the feeling of just being empty.

But you get back to it, shaking off whatever is irking you and work towards the next deal, high, woman, artifact. Or the very rare times it happens, when you get to sit down with an artifact that you can modify and tailor for your own personal use.

Working and dealing with the people in these markets is always interesting if not the safest thing you can do. There are so many interesting people, and there is a surprising amount of people that deal in illegal trades than you would not expect. It is fascinating to watch how pleasure and vice make people so easily corruptible. If there is something to curupt that is.

Growing up in a drow settlement under the southern part of the red range Luana was an outcast, a halfbreed. Socially she was barely above the average male and slave. Even though her family took good care of her as a halfbreed, which is not saying much, she struggled to make friends as no one wanted to be associated with her. She did make a friend eventually. A wizard studying at Zin’Thrae Arcanum, and really the reason she was able to make friends with him was that Khaless was a male and somewhat crazy. He let her study some of his material which at this point of her life was the best thing ever.

As she got older her two older sisters graduated from the [cleric school] and having done quite well probably saved the family some grief from Luana’s existence. She did at several points ask her mother who her father was and why she would make her a halfbreed. What was so special about this man that she decided to go against common sense and reason. But her mother never said anything, only giving her a sad look, and when Luana pestered she would just end up in trouble. She even asks her sisters who are quite a bit older than her but they wouldn’t say anything either, just bully her for being a halfbreed. In addition no one talked about who her half-sister’s father was. In general the family did not talk about men at all.

When Luana was a young teen she for the first time was able to interact with someone other than drow. A small group of deep dewars had come to the settlement to trade, and this time they had been allowed. She walked around the carts looking at what they had with them, most of it was not that interesting, but one thing that did catch her eyes was a strange looking crossbow. The middle-aged deep dwarf behind the cart noticed and started to explain that he had made a self loading crossbow that could shoot five bolts before needing to load it. She spent as much time as she could talking with the strange dwarf, asking every question she could think of, and the dwarf answered. Strangely enough the dwarf never commented on her being a halfbreed, he did not even seem bothered by it. After a few days they left the settlement but a new passion had started growing in Luana.

Luana would start going over anything that used mechanical physics, and even more so things that incorporated magic in its mechanisms. Every time she learned more about how things worked she was reminded of the strange dwarves with their strange things and how they did not seem bothered by her. After the first bit of trade there came more deep dwarves and even some deep gnomes, it wasn’t a regular occurrence but happened enough to keep Luana’s interest and her passion for both artificing and the outside world growing. When she was about 15 there was a trader that came to the settlement with strange magical items, what they were or did was unknown and the dwarf was not very forthright about it either. But the gossip was that what he was selling was ancient, much older than even the first building in our settlement. He sold some to the wealthiest of the families and then went to leave with the rest of his items, just before he was left Luana asked him what they really were, all he toddler her was that they held old power, and when she was not happy with the answer he told her that she could by the information, or the items, as gold transcends all and money is power.

After the artifacts that came to her settlements the few other traders no longer interested her, she wanted to know what those artifacts could do, and what they really were. Though this hunger for information had nowhere to go, she had access to nothing that could help her. So she would just dream and speculate for the next two years.

Just before Luana was going to turn 17 a strange wind went through the cave and settlement, which as you can expect was quite abnormal in the underworld. But the wind passed and seemingly nothing changed until the first people started to rot a week later. They would start to stink then after a few days they would scream as their flesh and skin would start to decay, the ones that showed signs of this infection whatever it was, were quickly isolated. Most would die within a month or so, some lasted longer but not many.

After most of the people affected had died Luana started to notice that she could still smell the rot no matter where she was, in the beginning she did not think it came from her as she had been fine and no new cases had been seen for about two weeks. After some time though she could not deny it she had caught whatever this thing was and it was going to rot her body while she was alive. The thing that she could not figure out tho was why it was acting so slow no one else had been walking around with it more than a few days before the rot properly set in, and if everyone was infected at about the same time it she would have had it for 3-4 weeks before noticing anything.

Although her family had come out of the disaster unharmed, most of the settlement did not, over half had died or were going to die in short order. Luana had also seen that there was no help to find her, only isolation and death if she stayed. She gathered what she could, raided and looted the abandoned houses for food and basic equipment and prepared to head out in the direction she thought would lead to the dwarves. Maybe they could help her.

She did tell her mother before she left and told her she had gotten the rot. And for the first time Luana saw the pain in her mother, she could not see the nuances of it and she did not ask about it before she left but she did see the pain and worry a mother has for her kids.

Traveling through the underdark in the general direction she thought the dewars were was her plan but not a good one or at least not a sane one. The underdark is not a kind place and the fact she survived could be called a miracle, the fact that she found a dwarven settlement a blessing, and just in time. She had run out of food a few days ago and barely had any water left.

When she got to the gates the guards were obviously suspicious, but the fact she was not a full drow but a halfbreed, the fact that she was in tatters and clearly exhausted and close to starving, and lastly the fact that she was willing to pay. She had not only stolen food from the abandoned houses but she had taken all the coins she could find.

In the dwarven city she was able to buy a room and some food at a tavern, after two days when she had gotten her energy back she decided to explore the town, trying to figure out what to do. She found a strange looking smithy after some time and decided to go in. And sitting behind a desk polishing a strange crossbow was the same middle aged dwarf she had seen and pestered years ago.

After some talk and convincing she was able to become his apprentice as she had some knowledge of the arcane and some of artificing if just the bare minimum. She did not tell him about the rot that she had now covered with a glove and way too much perfume. When she was traveling she contemplated many times to just leave the coins she had stolen as they were quite heavy, but she remembered the words of the strange dwarf with the artifacts, money is power, so she kept a hold on them and now she was so happy she did. She did not live lavishly as she knew the money had to last but she did live better than she had before.

As time passed her left arm started to hurt more and more, and she had bout nearly every potion and service promising to get rid of disease, poisons, curses and heal any injury. Nothing worked, eventually though she came across an apothecary that sold numbing pills, saying that they would help her sleep and get rid of small discomforts. It did not get rid of the rot or stop it, but it lessened the pain so she could learn as much as she could form the artificing dwarf.

About 3 years passed in the dwarven city, She would spend as much time as she could learning from the artificer, and when the rot started to take her fingers she started to make small replacements for herself as best she could. But when the rot had gotten half way up her forearm she could not hide it from her master anymore. When he found out she explained everything to him how it happened and what she had been doing, for some reason it was easy to talk with him. He helped her make some prosthetics for her and started doing some research on the rot himself. He did not get anywhere with it but he suggested that she might find a cure or solution in Regnum arelia. A nation in the overworld.

It took time for Luana to be convinced but eventually she decided that she had to try even if it was in such a horrible place as the overworld. Saying goodbye to one of the only people who had treated her as an “equal” was hard, even slightly harder than saying goodbye to her mother but that might have been because the city did not look down on her as much as her home settlement did. She looked up to the artificing deep dwarf despite him being a man. Being given a map, provisions and a good amount of extra pain meds she started her journey to the dreaded overworld and the nation of Regnum Arelia.

It was a long journey and again there were multiple instances where Luana should have died but nearly escaped dire consequences. When she got out of the underdark she was bombarded with way too much light to be reasonable, and an uncomfortable all surrounding heat. The overworld was pretty shit. But after some time when the sunset became beautiful, the sky glittered like a ceiling of gems and the plants had so much color and life.

Finding out where she was and then following the map she made it to the capital of Regnum Arelia. And again she learned how money held power and stopped questions. Finding an in and settling in she started to plan where to search first.

It took some time but she found some pills that slowed the already slow rot, no cure, no guarantee that it would stop, but it would by time. She also got her hand on some pain killers to sure up for when she was eventually going to run out of the ones she got from the deep dwarf apothecary. When she did run out of her original stash, she switched over to her new meds, and altho they worked for their intended purpose. There was an itch it did not scratch. After two days Luana was starting to get a bad fiver, after another day she started to get muscle spasms periodically. It was getting bad, and she needed relief. Searching the less savory parts of the city she started buying a plethora of substances as well as buying some from apothecaries. Returning back to her room in the tavern, she systematically went through the substances she had gotten her hands on to see which one stopped her withdrawals. After getting a third of the way through she found one that worked. She heeded out after more, but she wasn’t sure what to do with the rest, but after some time she decided that maybe there was another substance that was cheaper that would hold her withdrawals away, so she tested them all. Some worked somewhat, others just gave her a wonderful or crazy time. It was all kinda fun.

After some time she realised that she was going to run out of coins in not too long and she needed a decent amount to keep buying the drugs. Even though Luana had knowledge about artificing no one wanted to hire her as he did not have the qualifications and permissions needed to work with artefacts or anything that would make her enough coin.

Luana then decided to see if she could get what she needed from the underground. Talking with some of the dealers she found her way to a forger that was willing to give her the “qualifications” needed to get a good job but it was too pricey. So she went looking for less legal work but highly profitable work.

In the beginning she did not really find much and soon she started to get into debt having to borrow money to avoid withdrawal symptoms. This is when she ended up getting in debt to a smuggling gang. After some time when they came to collect the money they were owed with interest and Luana could not pay they gave her an offer, she could not refuse. She would work for them and do jobs for them until her debt was paid. To begin with a lot of it ended up just helping sneaking things through underdark caverns as she was a half drow, and therefore “knew” the caverns.

But it did not take long before she ended up showing her proficiency with multiple sets of tools and her knowledge of artificing when smuggling different types of cargo. It took some time but after getting to work more directly with artificing and eventually some artefacts she was able to pay of her debt to the smugglers guild, as well as urn some trust and furor within it after taking the hit for one busted smuggling operation getting imprisoned for a year, and killing a few people that were either moles or snitches, in the gang.

Due to this trust she was allowed to go and do what she wanted but realising she still had a good bit of debt to other people and the main reason they did not collect was her affiliation with the smugglers, she decided to stick with them. Not being a full member but ending up as a “consultant” of sorts for them. She did start paying off some of her other debts but not fast enough, and since she was technically not with the smugglers any more some of the people she owed attacked her in her small shop she had set up.

With her new “invention” the endrich cannon she was able to fight them off and killed three, but she realised that with the debts she still had and the amount of people she owed money to she needed some protection more than affiliation, at least til her debts were paid. So she made an agreement with the smugglers, she would mostly keep the “consulting” deal she had with them before but they would have priority if they came with work, and she would wear their symbol to affiliation with them. So she would get protection from them as if she was a member while still being mostly free. She would be respected by the smugglers, protected from other gangs, and be able to work with artificing and artefacts, while she slowly paid off her huge debts, criminals add on a lot of interest.

This is what she has been doing for the last 7 or so years, making deals working with the smugglers dealing with people trying to escape through the underdark and snitch on the smugglers. Luana now being a part time enforcer and artifact consultant.

And while “working” these past 7 years she has partied, made deals, taken drugs, partied some more, and done researched and worked with artefacts and artificing, and when she wants to actually deal with her looming problem do research on curses and decides to try and find out what the rot is, how to get rid of it, and why it did not kill her in a month like it did the rest.

Black Tide smugglers

The Black Tide smugglers were formed about 25 years ago by Captain Veynar (The leviathan) and his crew of fishermen. After the war against the demons and the destruction they brought a lot of the soldiers and gathered fighters that survived had to return to their homes and cities. Veynar and some of the soldiers close to him returned to the capital of Regnum Arelia. Most of them decided to try and make a living and rebuild as fishers as most were sailors to begin with, but this was not easy. Demons were still a problem even if the biggest of them were defeated. On top of that none of them were left with anything after the war. This made them have to loan the ships they used or the money to buy ships, and they made nowhere near what they needed to pay off these loans. So when a rich man approached Veynar asking if he would be willing to haul some cargo to another port under the books, for a seizable sum, he said yes.

The Black tide smugglers are about 1000 members strong but most are just trusted lookouts/ informants.

Npcs

Within the Insula Magna District Lyrean Linen While Lyrean Linen looks like any other cloth-dyeing establishment, with sheets of fabric and colored liquids arrayed in the shop, it is a front for a black market. Asking for cloth dyed “whitestone green” gives customers access to the store’s other wares, including dangerous narcotics and other forbidden concoctions sold on the black market. The shop is run by Bas and Nephreus Lyrean, originally alchemists, now using their knowledge to brew potions deemed too dangerous for public consumption by the Golden Hands.

Captain Veynar (The Leviathan)

Leader of the Black tide smugglers

Race: Dwarf

Hight: 170cm

Luana first meet Captain Veunar, after killing a person that was going to snitch and reveal one of their more used smuggling ruts. He thanked her for dealing with the problem and invited her to join the gang as a proper member. Luana did say no to being a member but was willing to keep working with the gang. Later she would become a “partial” member.

Luana and the Captain are friendly with each other and have much respect.

Captain Veynar is known as a brute who kills whoever whenever he feels like it, but in reality he is a cunning man who kills when needed and not for fun. He is a people person in the sense of knowing who he can get leverage over, be it owing “Him” the gang money, black mail, and when needed threats.

Most of the members in the Black tide are former fishermen and shiprights, but not all, and the highest ranked and most loyal members of the gang are the captain’s former fishing crew.

Elira Thorne

Race: Human
Occupation: Wizard / Magical Researcher
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Height: 166 cm
Age: 26

Elira Thorne is a mage with a habit of collecting trouble disguised as research. She studies strange, one-off pieces of magic, the sort of things other wizards dismiss as flukes or curses. She has a knack for finding beauty in the bizarre, and for turning her apartment into a hazard zone of humming stones, half-charged crystals, and self-writing notebooks.

She’s technically attached to the Secta Scienta, though most of the time she is doing her own research or researching what others deem uninteresting or just useless. But it is her niche knowledge that keeps her respect for her fellow students and professors.

She and Luana meet at The Bibliotheca Aurastia. Elira spotted that Luana was reading about unique interactions between artefacts and enchantments and decided to go talk to her. Elira quickly got intrigued after talking with Luana and picking her brain about what she was doing, and Luana was surprisingly entertained with Elira and her approach to the topic as well as her enthusiasm. After meeting a few more times Elira invited Luana over to her place to keep researching enchantments. They do to their interests and quirks, become quick friends, and have been for 6 years now. And she is currently the only one Luana has told about her rot, and both have been researching it here and there.

Personality:
Energetic and impulsive. Talks fast, moves faster, rarely thinks before acting.
Driven by discovery. Finds beauty in broken spells and impossible problems.
Easily distracted, easily fascinated. Can switch topics mid-sentence without noticing.
Pragmatic under pressure. When something actually explodes, she gets calm, that’s the fun part.

Valen D’Aramis

The Gentleman Collector

Race: Vampire (formerly Human)
Occupation: Private lender, broker, and patron of rare arcane goods
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Height: 182 cm
Age: Appears 32 (true age uncertain)

Valen D’Aramis is a man who has made patience into an art form. A vampire of quiet means and quieter power, he operates on the edges of Regnum Arelia’s wealthiest circles, a financier to those who can’t afford to be seen borrowing from banks or gangs.

His reputation is built on two things: absolute discretion and absolute collection. Valen never forgets a debt. Whether it’s in gold, blood, or something far more abstract, he always collects, eventually.

He dresses the part of an aristocrat long past his prime: immaculate coat, gloves, polished boots, and a gold-inlaid cane he rarely needs but always carries.

Lira Denholt

Race: Human
Occupation: City Guard
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Height: 178 cm
Age: 31

Lira Denholt works for the Golden Hand, specializing in smuggling and contraband cases in the lower districts, the kind of work most guards avoid because it’s messy, thankless, and often dangerous. She’s not high-ranking, but she’s competent and respected for her persistence.

Where others rush to break doors, Lira waits. She listens, studies patterns, and lets people reveal themselves. She’s known for her quiet, even temperament and her knack for uncovering hidden routes and connections.

Years of chasing smugglers through the same alleys have hardened her, but not soured her. She still believes in the law, or at least, in what the law should be, even if the people enforcing it fall short.

Years ago, Lira Denholt met Luana during an investigation into illegal artifact dealings in the lower wards. Luana was charming, intelligent, and surprisingly cooperative. For months, Lira believed their growing closeness was genuine, late conversations, shared secrets, quiet moments outside of duty.

Then came the evidence. Shipments, forged ledgers, and witnesses all pointing toward Luana’s involvement in the very operations Lira was tasked to dismantle. Realizing how deeply she’d been played, Lira led the arrest herself. Luana served a year in prison before her release, but Lira never saw that as justice, just unfinished business.

Now, Lira considers her a personal stain on her record, and a threat that’s still out there. She doesn’t hate Luana for escaping justice, she hates her for making her doubt herself. And that’s something Lira won’t forgive.

Leaf Falconforest

Race: Fairy
Occupation: Storehouse Accountant
Alignment: Neutral
Height: 23 cm
Age: 24

Leaf Falconforest is immensely curious, always interested in hearing about what’s going on and who is involved. She has a tendency to point out things others would ignore or not even notice, not really having a filter. She is also meticulous when it comes to paper work. Everything needs to be right, every sail accounted for every deal noted down. Even if it is something illegal she would have it noted down like any other transaction just in a hidden ledger. She would make sure everything was accounted for, if she needed to doctor the legal ledger so that nothing seemed out of place she would, and as long as she knew what was what and it followed her system it was fine.

Leaf worked for a noble known in the undercity as someone who would sell nearly anything for the right price, most of the time information but sometimes valuable certifications or even artefacts. It was during one of the deals where he was selling an artifact that things went wrong for Leaf. She was there to make sure every coin was accounted for and that everything that was agreed upon was followed. But something went wrong in the handover and the artifact discharged sending people flying and parts of the roof collapsing. No one died and most made it out with only some injuries but Leaf was not as lucky. In the blast parts of her wings were torn and tattered and when some of the roof fell her arm was crushed. After the incident she was fired by the noble as she could no longer do the work quickly, as well as now being “broken”. Leaf luckily had some savings to get by on but those would not last forever, and with the stair of her wings and missing an arm she was not sure what to do. After a bit of time scraping by she heard rumors about a woman named Luana who worked with artifacts and apparently had an arm made from one. Leaf decided to track down this woman. She did not know how she would pay for her services but she would figure that out. She found the woman half passed out and clearly high. But when she told Luana what she wanted her eyes flew open and a giddy smile crossed her face. Leaf told Luana that she did not have the money to buy her services. Luana just waived the concern away saying something about it being too interesting to work on to not just do it. After some talking Leaf and Luana came to the agreement that Leaf would owe her a service in exchange for the material and service Luana would give in fixing Leaf up. A few months later, Leaf got a letter. “Debt due. Meet me at the guildhall.”

Mazara

Race: Half-Orc
Occupation: Hideout enforcer
Alignment: Neutral
Height: 182 cm
Age: 31

Mazara is calm, disciplined, and deliberately restrained. She is precise and dependable, doing exactly what she commits to without excess or drama. Rather than escalating conflict, she focuses on prevention and stabilization, using awareness of people and space to keep situations from spiraling. Pragmatic in her use of force and morally neutral but principled, she enforces boundaries quietly and without theatrics. Overall, she is a low-ego, steady presence whose reliability and composure make problems settle simply because she is there.

Mazara was hired as additional muscle to keep the sail of an artifact from becoming violent and going as planned. The one that hired her was a woman named Luana, apparently an expert on artefacts and the seller in this situation. There were two others with her, clearly people associated with the Black Tide, but from how they interacted it was clear to Mazara that Luana knew them but did not trust them fully.
“So how is this going to go ma’am?” Mazara asked.
Luana spoke as if a bit distant, thinking about other things.
“Basicly those two are her in case things go wrong, and you are here to prevent things from going wrong. As well as to make sure things go in my favor no matter what happens.”
“The buyer is a low level noble form Edhellon so expect a large ego, but if he tries something funny like grabbing the artefact stop him”
“Should not be a problem,” Mazara said.
“No additional questions about where to stand, how to act, what to do if things go wrong?” Luana asked, now with more focus in her tone.
“No need ma’am, I know what im doing and have done it before”
The sail went off without any major problem and the one time things almost went astray Mazara was able to keep everyone calm and to take a moment. This was the first of many times Luana hired Mazara and over their time working together they started to respect and trust each other at least professionally.

Family names

Mother - Drisinna Rilynth

1 sister - Zilvra Rilynth
2 sister - Ilvara Rilynth
3 sister - Luana Rilynth

Durgar Names

Inventor and teacher - Skorri Brommik

Apothecary owner - Veldra Bittervein

City names

Durgar settlement - Khundrukar
Drow city - Zhaerivra

Under dark friend - Khaless Zhaunil

Zhaerivra “magic academy” - Zin’Thrae Arcanum