Alias

Alias is one of the two main heroes (the other being Dragonbait) of the Finder's Stone trilogy of Dungeons & Dragons novels by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak.
She is an artificial human warrior created by the evil sorceress Cassana and the bard and alchemist Finder Wyvernspur and was meant to be the first of an army of super soldiers under Cassana's control before she escaped with the saurial paladin Dragonbait.
== Appearance ==
A 5,10 feet tall woman with red hair, striking green eyes and a proudly displayed tattoo on a muscular sword arm, Alias cuts an impressive figure. She dresses for the occasion (if any), otherwise she is almost never seen without her armor. 
== Personality ==
Alias is strong willed and independent. She was strong enough to resist the pull of the magical strings of her creators, so she strong enough to face anything life can throw at her. 
Due to the unique circumstances of her creation, and the involvement of the cult of the monstrous god Moander, Alias tends to distrust clerics and gods in general. She regards her close companion Dragonbait as a prudish stick in the mud but she still loves the paladin like a brother.
As she has matured, Alias has become more independent from Dragonbait, just as a child becomes more independent from its parents. While they still care for each other as brother and sister Dragonbait doesn't need to play the role of guardian to her. 
As a result of being born with the body of an adult, Alias' emotional development is stunted. That is why, especially during emotionally charged moments, she tends to overreact, as children tend to do. She can be subject to great rage, deep sadness and ecstatic happiness. 
Alias is also a good singer, knowing all the ballads and tales Finder implanted in her during her creation. While the memories Cassana and Finder programmed into her are fake (she never had a real childhood, for example), Alias still cherishes them, and deeply cares about Finder like a father. 
Though she earns her keep as a sellsword, Alias fights for the right causes, not just for those that pay well. She hates slavery and oppression (with good reason, considering her history), and would act to help anyone she discovered to be in a condition of unwilling servitude. Her heroic moral values are due, in part, to Dragonbait the paladin's influence. In a larger and more abstract sense, Alias is still searching for herself. She was created as a full grown woman to be a weapon for the forces of evil, and her emotional age hasn't caught up to her physical stage. She has made strides after several adventures, but any clue about her mysterious past and her sisters/clones will be met with enthusiasm by the young woman.
== History ==
Alias' story begins with Finder Wyverspur, also known as the Nameless Bard. He was a Harper who sought a way for his songs to carry on after his death without being lost or corrupted. To achieve this end, Finder set about creating a vessel for his songs and reproduce them on command. His first attempt, the magical artifact that came to be known as the Finder's Stone, was considered a failure by Finder. While the stone was capable of holding his songs, it had no will of its own, no desire to perform, and no means of judging it's effects on a audience. Finder decided to put aside the stone and create a living, sentient vessel. 
Finder's first effort of a living vessel was the being known as Flattery, who looks like a younger Finder. However, Finder found this experiment to be a failure too, due to his high expectations from Flattery. When Flattery failed to perform the songs up to his creator's standards, Finder became enraged and started abusing Flattery. A sequence of events followed in which a vengeful Flattery killed the two apprentices of Finder before escaping.
For his part in this tragedy, Finder was brought to trial by the Harpers. He was found guilty for letting his vanity lead to the death of others, and for his punishment, the Harpers took away all the sources of his vanity. They sealed his laboratory and declared that his name would be erased from their records, his songs were never to be repeated, and he was exiled to another dimension. The Harpers weren't completely effective at erasing Finder's name, however. Eventually, a powerful mage named Cassana found Finder's place of exile, the Citadel of White Exile. Cassana rescued Finder (now called Nameless) after making him promise to help her and her allies in the creation of a prototype for an army of artificial human warriors. Cassana was thoroughly evil, as were the others she gathered. Her allies included Zrie Prakis, a lich under Cassana's control, the Fire Knives, a group of assassins who wanted to kill King Azoun of Cormyr, and Phalse, a demon disguised in the form of a halfling.
The soul of a individual pure of heart was needed to give the prototype the spark of sentient life. That individual was found in the saurial paladin called Dragonbait. The saurial was to be sacrificed at the proper moment, allowing his soul to enter the prototype that Finder modeled after a younger Cassana and has sarcastically named Alias. Both Alias and Dragonbait were tattooed with the sigil of each member of the group, Alias on her forearm and Dragonbait on his chest. 
Finder noticed the tattoos on Alias after he implanted false memories and his songs in her. By means still unknown, Alias came to life before Dragonbait was sacrificed. 
When Finder discovered that Alias came to life (though still unconscious), he freed both the female warrior and Dragonbait. When the conspirators learned of this, they imprisoned Finder in Cassana's dungeon. Cassana's lair came under attack by cultists of Moander, who wanted to take Alias due to a prophecy that a woman of unnatural birth was needed to free their god from its imprisonment. During the fight between the two villainous factions, Dragonbait took Alias, who was not yet fully conscious, and fled to Suzail, the capital of Cormyr.
=== Azure Bonds ===
In the inn where Dragonbait had left her, Alias truly awoke for the first time. Since Finder had not given her memories about her tattoos, she believed they were a recent addition. She also had no memory of her creation and her journey to Suzail with Dragonbait. Associating her tattoos with her amnesia, she sought magical aid. During this time, she met the halfling thief Olive Ruskettle and the southern wizard Akabar Bel Akash, and Dragonbait returned. Alias had no memory of the saurial and was at first intimidated by his appearance, but she felt a kinship with him and allowed him to accompany her.
The conspirators who created Alias were still able to exert some influence on her, however. The Fire Knives wanted revenge on King Azoun for banishing them from Cormyr. They installed in her the command to kill Azoun in her, and it is triggered when she hears the King's voice. It might have worked if the dorky young nobleman Giogioni Wyvernspur, Finder's nephew, had not done an imitation of the king at a party Alias was attending. She assaulted Giogi with murderous intent, but Alias subdued and Giogi was left unharmed.
Cassana tied her influence over Alias to a magic wand that would force her to obey the sorceress' commands within 100 feet. Zrie Prakis motives are unknown, he may have coveted her form as she reminds him of Cassana when she was young before she betrayed Prakis and turned him into an undead creature.
Cassana and Phalse also continued with their project of creating an army. After learning the process Finder used to create Alias, they proceeded to develop twelve clones of Alias.
After the Fire Knives plot failed, Alias set out to discover the meaning of her tattoos and her strange behavior. Her friends, accompanying her, convinced the female red dragon Mist to help them destroy the avatar of Moander and eliminate its cultists. The evil conspirators set out to recapture their errant creation, but had little success. Each battle won by Alias and her companions gave the warrior woman more confidence in herself and in her humanity. Overcoming her foes and her creator's programming proved that she was her own person and she was no one's slave.
After the battle with the avatar of Moander, the heroes were captured by Cassana. A second attempt to sacrifice Dragonbait and brainwash Alias was set up at the sorceress' manor in Westgate. The ritual was disrupted by Finder, whom Olive had freed from Cassana's dungeon. Both Cassana and Prakis were killed in the ensuing battle, along with their Fire Knives henchmen. Phalse escaped via a portal to the Citadel of White Exile. Alias, Dragonbait, Akabar, Olive and Finder followed the demon. They found Phalse along with the twelve Alias clones, and Phalse revealed his true form of a Beholder with stalks that ended in mouths. After a tough fight, Alias destroyed Phalse, thus vanquishing the last villain that claimed to control her. With Phalse's death, the twelve clones were teleported into random locations on Faerun. 
Alias chose to remain a wandering sellsword with Dragonbait as her companion. And her adventures were far from over. 
=== Song of the Saurials ===
The two found themselves in Shadowdale a year later. Elminster had convinced the Harpers to reconsider their sentence against Finder, whom they were holding in the tower of Ashaba. When the Harpers refused Alias' request to visit Finder, she spent her time singing at the Old Skull Inn. Akabar and his wife Zhara the cleric found Alias and Dragonbait at the inn. Akabar told the heroes he had been having nightmares about the return of Moander. Akabar, traumatized by the previous encounter with the rotting god, had sworn to destroy Moander's new avatar, then go to the Abyss and kill the evil God's true form. Alias would later learn that Zhara is actually one of her twelve clones. Her dislike of clerics and childish jealousy over Zhara's relationship with Akabar combined to cause the relationship between the two women to start roughly. 
The Harpers tribunal that was rehearing Finder's case sent for Alias. As she and Akabar went to the tower, a saurial wizard called Grypht teleported in the middle of the courtroom. Thinking the saurial was some kind of devil, the Harpers attacked him. Grypht fled to where Finder was being held, with a female Harper bard named Kyre chasing after him. Grypht reached Finder's room and found him with Olive Ruskettle. The trio was then attacked by Kyre, who turned out to be a possessed agent of Moander. She grabbed the Finder's Stone from its owner and magically imprisoned Grypht, but Finder managed to teleport himself and Olive away to Finder's keep, just as Alias and Akabar arrived at the tower.
Kyre falsely informed Alias and the others that Grypht had kidnapped Finder. Lacking evidence to the contrary, the heroes believed her. Shaken by a spell Kyre silently casted on him, Akabar fell ill. Kyre volunteered to take care of him while Alias and the harpers continued their search, and then she tried to brainwash Akabar into becoming a servant of Moander. Akabar resisted Kyre's spell and managed to free Grypht from the Finder's Stone, and the two of them killed Kyre, whose body was filled with Moander's vines. They recovered the Stone and then Grypht used it to teleport them away.
Dragonbait and Zhara joined Alias at the tower. After scrying their location, Alias, Dragonbait and the Harper ranger Brock Orcsbane set off to track Akabar and Grypht. Zhara pursued them, determined to find her husband. Akabar learned that Grypht is a saurial like Dragonbait, though a different sub-species. He also learned that Moander has brought many enslaved saurials to Faerun. Only Grypht and his three apprentices managed to escape. Grypht had been trying to contact Dragonbait (or Champion, as his people call him) when the saurial wizard appeared in the Harpers courtroom. 
Akabar and Grypht are attacked by treants controlled by Moander. The two wizards manage to defeat the treants, and Grypht used a dimensional spell to whisk himself and Akabar to safety. Alias and her companions saw the flashes light from the spells casted by the wizards during the fight with the treants and investigated the scene. Brock discovered that Zhara was following them, and it was during a ensuing fight between the two that Alias realized Zhara's identity as one of her clone sisters. Grypht and Akabar would later rejoin the group of heroes. Upon experimenting with the Finder's Stone, Alias was able to cast a tongues spell, allowing her to communicate verbally with Dragonbait. She then used the Stone to teleport the group to Finder's keep, where Finder and Olive were fighting a Moander-possessed Beholder. The group then teleported to the Lost Vale, the home of the saurials and the site of Moander's new body.
After trying to free his former lover, Coral, from Moander's control, Dragonbait gets captured. While putting their rescue plan in action, Alias and Akabar are imprisoned. Akabar was to be sacrificed to allow Moander to enter the Realms again. Dragonbait broke free and rescued Alias, but it was too late for Akabar, who had been pulled into Moander's domain in the Abyss. Finder went after Akabar into the Abyss and tried to bargain for the wizard's life, but Akabar refused to give in to Moander. Akabar's spirit ascended to its home in the upper planes, and Finder finally kills Moander. Finder is still around the plains, having absorbed part of Moander's power to become a demigod.
Alias and Dragonbait decided to remain in the Lost Vale with the newly free Saurials for awhile.
=== Masquerades ===
Alias and Dragonbait are next seen in Westgate on a errand for their friend Grypht. They were to trade a magical staff for a crystal ball by a local wizard named Mintassan. The mage also happens to be a planewalker, an adventurer that spends time exploring and adventuring in the various planes of existence. 
During their stay in Westgate, the heroes are ambushed by members of the Night Masks, the ruthless thieves guild that rules the city from the shadows. After defeating the thugs, Alias and Dragonbait met members of the Dhostar merchant family, the closest thing Westgate has for legitimate rulers. Victor Dhostar, the son of Lord Dhostar, convinces his father to hire the two heroes to weaken the Night Masks' influence on the city and capture their mysterious leader, The Faceless. During the investigations, Alias starts to develop a romantic relationship with Victor.
The heroes tracked the Night Masks' activities to a house owned by Melman, a member of the guild. They confronted Melman, but before they could interrogate him, assassins of the Night Masks sent by The Faceless broke in. They were supposed to kill Melman for cheating members of the guild. Bringing Melman out with them, the heroes fled.
Victor eventually revealed to Alias that he is The Faceless, though only after poisoning her with a spiked ring. He had been able to hide his alignment from Dragonbait thanks to a amulet of misdirection, and he only pretended to love her so he could keep an eye on her, as she is immune to scrying spells. Alias survived the poison, but the spiked ring left a scar on her cheek.
The final confrontation with Victor took place atop a castle, where the portal to a pocket dimension was located. Alias and Dragonbait followed Victor into the pocket dimension to stop him. They found out the place is infested with fiends called Manes, and anyone who coveted the treasure hidden inside it, or displayed negative emotions would be stuck there. Victor's greed prevented him from escaping. Dragonbait left the pocket dimension, but Alias was initially trapped there by her feelings of anger and loss over the love she thought she had shared with Victor. With the aid of Mintassan and Dragonbait, she let go of those feelings and returned to the material plane, while Victor is killed. 
After their adventure in Westgate, Alias and Dragonbait went back to the Lost Vale with their new friend Mintassan.
It is presumed Alias later traveled around Faerun searching for her other sisters/clones. It is unknown if she survived the Spellplague.
== External Links ==
* Alias on the Forgotten Realms wiki https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Alias
Category:D&D Heroes
Category:Book Heroes
Category:Female
Category:Adventurers
Category:Neutral Good
Category:Warriors
Category:Fighters
Category:Bio-Engineered
Category:Twins/Clones
Category:Fantasy Heroes
Category:Selfless
Category:Lethal
Category:Insecure
Category:Wrathful
Category:Monster Slayers
Category:Tragic
Category:Arrogant
Category:The Hero
Category:Successful
Category:Loyal
Category:Honest
Category:Comic Book Heroes
Category:Rescuers
Category:Sophisticated
Category:Damsels
Category:One-Man Army
Category:Sympathetic
Category:Siblings
Category:War Heroes
Category:Freedom Fighters
Category:Pawn of the Villain
Category:Protectors of Innocence
Category:Thrill-Seekers
Category:Determinators
Category:Anti-Nihilists
Category:Virtually Resourceful
Category:Brutes
Category:Related to Villain
Category:Famous
Category:Mysterious
Category:In Love
Category:Inconclusive
Category:Mercenaries
Category:Dimension Travelers
Category:Villain's Lover
Category:Creations
Category:Golems
Category:Video Game Heroes
Category:Saved Souls
Category:Protectors
Category:Vigilantes
Category:Vengeful
Category:Pragmatists
Category:Animal Kindness
Category:Hope Bringers
Category:Charismatic
Category:Passionate Learners
Category:Fortune Hunters
Category:Bond Creators
Category:Honorable
Category:Merciful
Category:Deal Makers
Category:Amazons
Category:Master Orator
Category:Egalitarian
Category:Amnesiac
Category:Wayward Heroes
Category:Envious
Category:Betrayed
Category:Global Protection
Category:Articles under construction