Sylvestra of High Alvar

Sylvi's current Token.

## Description

Sylvestra of High Alvar is a Yuan-Ti bard player character in the Destiny's Shadow campaign. She often goes by "Sylvi". Like most Yuan-Ti, Sylvi has no last name. Abandoned as an infant, Sylvi was raised in an elven convent on the eastern side of the continent. While in training to be a priestess and historian, she was inspired by a traveling bard to embark on a journey around the continent to collect and document the world's stories. Bored with only collecting and telling the stories of others, Sylvi decided to join an adventuring party in the hopes of creating powerful stories of her own.

## **Background**

### Adventures

#### Rivera

In Rivera, Sylvi meets the tiefling paladin Keen Eye and the Charr ranger Koth Shadowfang in a local tavern. Together, the three see a warforged fall from the sky and rescue him from drowning. The warforged, absent memories, is named "Toe Knee Assface McGee" by an annoyed Sylvi. The four are enlisted by Commander Kaiman Servis, the local Centuri, to investigate mysterious disappearances happening in the town.

Their investigation leads the group outside of town where they encounter and defeat an undead band of adventurers. The group, led by Koth Shadowfang, enter an underground lair and church where they fight a cultist who is trying to summon the god, Dagda de Dannan. Defeating the cultist but failing to stop the ritual, the god is summoned and grants a boon to several of the party members. Sylvi's bloodline ability is activated.

Back in town, the group catches wind of a wedding happening in the nearby capital of Orion. Sensing that Commander Kaiman might have a connection to the groom, Prince Dimitri of Aquila, the group decides to try and crash the wedding. On the way to Orion, Toe Knee borrows a book of children's stories from Sylvi and adopts a thick Warkeep accent inspired by the book's anti-establishment themes. The group is nearly captured by a group of soldiers hunting magic-users when a wild wyvern appears. Toe Knee manages to calm the wyvern and form an alliance with it, scaring off the few remaining soldiers.

#### Orion

At the gates of Orion, Sylvi steals a wedding invitation from a bard acquaintance and gets the group into the capital. While there, the team searches for clues about the mysterious cult and to find an item known as "The Claw," an item of historical significance to Koth. In the castle library, the group meets and befriends a sobbing Prince Dimitri. In the week leading up to the wedding, the group fights in the colosseum on a number of occasions. Prince Dimitri's betrothed, Princess Agrippina, observes one of these fights and seeks the group out in their tavern. Suspicious of her own servants, she hires the four adventurers to be personal bodyguards. Sylvestra wagers with Keen Eye that she can win the Princesses’ affections before the wedding and the team takes the job. After The Princess is attacked in the streets by masked guards, Sylvestra places herself in front of the attackers and nearly dies. In the aftermath, Sylvestra and the rest of the group spend the night before the wedding at the palace guarding against possible assassins.

Shortly before the wedding, Sylvi wins a bet, and also discovers the Princess has some elven heritage. Some shady characters are in attendance at Princess Agrippina and Prince Dimitri’s wedding. At the reception, the Princess is once again attacked. The Princess is saved amid the chaos, but a much more nefarious plot is revealed: Prince Dimitri and his adopted father, the Pro Consul Gaius Septimus, have conspired with a number of high-ranking officials to arrange for Agrippina’s untimely death and Dimitri’s ascension to total control over the Meritocracy.

After several high-ranking military members are revealed to be complicit in the attempted coup and are permitted to leave the premises in a stalemate. In preparation for a possible battle to come, the group gathers some new friends: the Kingsguard member Captain Hanson Verdunis,  soldier Joey Kuffolk, and a mysterious but powerful fire-wielding woman named Draqulin. As the group settles into the castle for the night, a portal opens up in the princess’ chambers and sucks them into a mysterious land.

## **Character resources**

### **Notable items**

Scry Phone

Flask of Infinite Wine

"Sticky Drops"

"Bone Flute" (a magical flute made of bone, gifted by Gentleman Jack)

## **Quotes**

"We're calling him 'Toe Knee Assface McGee', because it's the worst kind of mean: it's rude, but lazy, like we didn't even care enough to put some thought into it."

## **Trivia**

* Sylvestra has only one name, which is the tradition of the Yuan-Ti, but was raised by elves in a faraway convent. Her parents and family are known to her, but she has little emotional attachment to any blood relatives or her Yuan-Ti heritage
* Sylvi is immune to poison damage and can only feel drunk when consuming magical alcohol. This is a continued point of frustration for her since she has a minor drinking problem