Lanakila the Round-Ears

The guerilla tactics of the Scoia’tael make up for their deficit in numbers by trading the discipline of regimented armies for individualistic, adaptable bands. But on their own, after years and years of fighting, the members of any lone band can start to lose sight of what they fight for and what hope they have of victory. Yet among such small groups, hope can be reignited by the shining of a single, bright spark. Lanakila the Round-Ears is one such spark. One could have scarcely expected, however, that such a strong will could come from the gutters of Tretogor, capital of a nation bent on the suppression of non-humans. Frustrated with the resignation she perceived in her parents to endure the endless abuses jeered at them by common folk, young Lanakila began to run with gangs of elves, dwarves, and other non-humans, and thought nothing of the thievery and other crimes they committed against the humans who persecuted them.

For a time, the takes she brought in helped support her family, who despite discouraging her from taking part in their activities, never asked where the coin came from. Emboldened, Lanakila spurred her friends to more daring acts. These, however, only added to the worsening tensions between races in the city, and attracted the eye of Redanian soldiers. On a night soon after the death of Vizimir II the Just, Redania’s king, rumored to have been killed by an elven assassin, a group of drunks inflamed by a merchant Lanakila’s friends had recently mugged became a small pogrom in Tretogor’s non-human district. Many of her friends were slain, and when the crowds passed her door, a handful rioters forced their way inside and put her family to the sword. Seeing her for a young woman, however, Lanakila was spared, but after her parents lay dead, their murderers took the knife used to slay them and cut her ears short, mutilating them to resemble a human’s. When recovered, of course, she had no gratitude for their show of mercy.

With the exodus of troops from Redania to aid its southern neighbors in the Second Northern War, Lanakila spent the next five years safely in hiding on Tretogor’s outskirts, taking what jobs she could to get by and spending much of it on drink. In time, however, she first heard of the Scoia’tael, members of a resistance serving as equals under the Nilfgaardian banner. Seeing for the first time a promise of her people living free from discrimination, she sobered up enough to steal a few purses of coin to help her on her way to find them. By this time, however, the war had ended with the Peace of Cintra, and what she found were not brave freedom fighters. Stranded far north of the border Emperor var Emreis had promised, disowned by the elven queen of the reservation made for them in Dol Blathanna, and betrayed by Nilfgaard with a treaty that surrendered their commander for execution, the band Lanakila happened upon were a motley collection of demoralized fugitives.

All too familiar with the defeat she saw in them, Lanakila offered them the chance to strike at the heart of a Northern Kingdom, putting her knowledge of Tretogor and its underworld to use. No longer idle, the Scoia’tael elves and dwarves readily followed her example, and when she suggested their second-in-command was responsible for their loss of focus, his death secured her ascent as their leader. By the month’s end, they had raided one of Tretogor’s armories and set it aflame to cover their escape. Bearing a small fortune in supplies with them, the band of Lanakila the Round-Ears fled south to share their wealth with other commandos, ensuring they would be armed and fed to continue the fight against Northern persecutors. Earning fame and infamy alike in the time since, once leading her band to put down a burgeoning riot, Lanakila has embraced the title given to her by her comrades, asking a mage they chanced upon to heal and reshape her ears to appear naturally human. Though she still possesses the sharp beauty of an elf, her disfigurement now allows her to pass as a human and walk among them in disguise more easily.