Espen Lune

### Connections

Yrsa (friend), Arden (friend), Nikita (friend), Kessali (childhood friend & rival)

## Appearances

### Appears in

Saos'Minthas

Espen Lune is a Half-elf NPC featured in the Saos'Minthas campaign. Before the start of the campaign, they were a prostitute at the high end brothel known as The House of the Black Swan. They are a former lover of Lyr's.

## Appearance

Standing at 6 feet tall, Espen is long and lanky and has a captivating appearance. They have green eyes, black hair, and pale skin. They also have an interest in self care and tend keep themself well-manicured. By watching their mother, they developed a sense of elegance in the way they carry themself. This has allowed them to procure many customers over the years, a weaponized beauty.

   Years before the start of the campaign, Espen used to keep their hair rather long. Since then, they have cropped their hair so that it's longer in the front and shaved in the back. This is because they were tired of dealing with rough customers pulling their hair.

## Personality

A hopeful soul, Espen has always seen the best in people and believed in their ability to do good; a kind and open-hearted disposition. The act of loving is a liberating experience for them.

Espen is an adaptable and chameleon-like sort of person. They are able to blend into new situations very easily. In a way, they’re very suited for the work they do. Interestingly enough, there is the possibility that they can be a very powerful manipulator, but they don’t use this skill. In a more detailed sense, they have a skill of looking at someone and sort of being able to figure out the kind of person they are and could definitely use that to their advantage. Obviously this is a big help in their line of work; they don’t really need to ask what a client is there for or what they need to hear. From years of observing, they are very people-smart and emotionally wise.

While Espen doesn’t actively try to fight against the system that’s forced them to do sex work and present themself as neutral towards the job, they once had a desire to leave Saos'Minthas entirely and start a new life somewhere else. However, life’s beaten them down a bit, and they understand that they’re probably stuck where they are and see moving away as a bit of a pipe dream.

## Backstory

Espen was born in Saos'Minthas to their mother, Anais. Anais was a pretty well-known prostitute in the area, working at a brothel called the Plucked Rose. Espen stayed in and around the brothel in their youth as their mother continued to work. Their early memories were spent collectively growing up under the watchful eye of all the other prostitutes in the Plucked Rose, including its owner, Elaris.

When Espen was 7, Anais became very sick and died rather suddenly. While Elaris tried to get Espen to stay, they ran away in their grief. They grew up in a group of street urchins from then on, fending for themself. It was here that they met Kessali, who has stayed in their orbit since. Overall, Espen’s upbringing was very rough. They were hungry most of the time and stole to survive. They also learned Saos'Minthas like the back of their hand, all sorts of shortcuts and places to hide.

At age 14, Espen began to return to the areas surrounding the Plucked Rose, having avoided them for obvious reasons. Elaris easily recognized them due to them being essentially a spitting image of Anais, and offered them a place to stay (and a cleaning job). Espen agreed. This went on until they were of age and decided to start actually making money and, well, following in their mother’s footsteps so to speak. Kessali stayed in contact with Espen over this time and was also eventually hired on as a prostitute once she got older. The two of them quickly developed a rivalry and rose through the ranks to be the best of the best.

When Espen was 21, Elaris nabbed Espen and Kessali a job at the Black Swan. She believed in Espen’s abilities & talents and wanted something better for them, something where they could get higher profile clients and maybe earn enough to get out of this sort of life. Reluctantly, Espen agreed to move and Kessali went with them. There, they continued their rivalry and also quickly became two of the most requested workers with very elite clients.

The Black Swan was a new experience for Espen. Clients demanded more of them, and while they did make more money, much of it went to room and board which left them in arguably a worse situation than they were in at the Plucked Rose. They did have to deal with some nasty clients, some that treated them pretty aggressively. They are very bitter about these experiences. One was so profoundly bad that they had to kill a man in self defense. However, the situation was not entirely negative, as Espen became very close with the other half elves working at the brothel.

Espen was also constantly at odds with the owner of the Black Swan, Yserius. He was notoriously pretty rough to deal with, not to mention that he was beginning to force the workers at the Black Swan to peddle drugs. The drug trade at the Black Swan was pretty vast. Workers either sold drugs in their private rooms or were able to take them to clients in different places across the city. Yserius was making a massive profit from it, a profit that the workers did not often see.

When Espen was 23, a certain water genasi came into the brothel. They were instantly intrigued by him. The two of them spoke, he paid, and they actually ended up having a really nice time -- Espen was smitten almost instantly. Luckily, he kept coming back. As time went on, Lyr and Espen became very close, eventually their relationship becoming such that Lyr wasn’t paying to visit Espen anymore. He often snuck in after hours and left before Yserius could notice that anyone had been there at all. Lyr became pretty intimately aware of the drug situation and got to know Espen’s pals in the brothel rather well. They opened up to him about a lot of this and Lyr even helped once or twice with the movement of drugs. The two of them were together for about 8 months.

Shit kind of hit the fan all at once. Nikita, one of Espen’s close friends in the brothel, was found to be pregnant (and everyone was hiding it), meaning she was kicked out. Espen sort of freaked, they went to Lyr for comfort through all of that, where Espen basically asked Lyr to marry them. Then Lyr freaked out (to say the least). Things got even worse a few weeks later when Yserius found out about Lyr not paying, which spelled danger for Espen. There was a threat of violence against them and Lyr knew it, so he had a minor breakdown and basically ratted out the entire drug operation to the authorities. There was a nasty night raid by the guard, Espen and all of their coworkers were roughed up quite a lot, and then they ended up in prison.

## Relationships

### Lyr

Espen’s former lover, in truth, their real first love. They see him as someone who understood them when nobody else did. Despite what happened between them, Espen still does have residual feelings for Lyr. They’re hurt, yes, and bitter, but overall there’s still part of them that misses him dearly.

Espen and Lyr had a profound connection, the both of them immediately drawn to each other. They spent many nights talking, so Espen is likely one of the only people who really knows the ins and outs of Lyr’s backstory and psyche. For the first time, they were able to envision lives outside of their own circumstances and found solace in each other. While Lyr began as a client of Espen’s, their relationship quickly progressed into something much deeper very quickly. They trusted each other immensely (and that sentiment is still the same for Lyr, but not so much Espen).

Espen loves Lyr a lot and believed in his ability to be good and to live his life for himself, so ultimately they were very hurt by Lyr’s decision to alert the cops and Lyr twisted the proverbial knife into the wound a bit more by choosing not to testify in the trial. They likely don't see the full scope of why he did what he did, and wish that he had come back for them or done something differently.

### Yrsa

Yrsa played the role of Espen's confidant in the brothel. From the beginning of Espen and Lyr's relationship, she did not approve, but helped Espen out of love for them. She often took the blows of Yserius in the place of Espen or the other workers.

### Arden

Another dear friend of Espen's from the Black Swan, she shared Espen's hopefulness and they bonded over their time growing up on the streets.

### Kessali

Kessali has been a healthy rival to Espen since they were teenagers. They’ve known each other since they were kids -- they ran in the same sort of street groups, then got into prostitution at the same time and worked in another brothel together before they were able to move up to the Black Swan. She sees herself as a cut above the other "street rats," as in, she’s had a job in this fancy brothel, she’s better than the regular folks. This is a point of contention between her and Espen, especially considering they both grew up on the streets. Their relationship is complicated. They care for each other, but also are at odds constantly.

### Elaris

As a mother figure to Espen, she genuinely wanted the best for them.