Nyla'thria

*"My Queen, I promise a tribute to sit judgement before you. A corrupt soul to join your halls of the dead and live in Ever-Winter."*

Nyla'thria is an Elven Sorcerer approximately 38 years old (marking her as the youngest of the group since Elves do not reach their maturity until age 120). She wears a crude, wooden mask and carries a Merciful bow, refusing to take the lives of intelligent creatures when it can be avoided.

## History

Nyla'thria was originally known as Minae Nyla'thriammoll. From an early age she showed great potential in the realms of magic, and so it was no surprise to anyone when the priests proclaimed she was to train as a sorcerer, eventually to be a priestess in the service of the Black Queen. She studied dutifully under her mentor, Yoral, and progressed swiftly in the magical arts.

One day, when she was only 16, her mentor was guiding her through a simple spell to detect magical auras. On this particular day, however, her Raw Magic was resisting her influence and acting much more chaotic than normal. She lost control and would have been killed in the backlash of power, but Yoral saved her, dying himself instead.

Horrified by what she had done, she fled her people that very day. The priests would have recognized the accident for what it was, but she did not wait for their judgement. Instead, she banished herself from her friends and family, fleeing Dun’y’lyth Forest. Before leaving the forest entirely, she scavenged wood from a tree struck by lightening and carved herself a crude, simple mask which she has worn ever since. The mask is charred black with a pattern of gold paint mimicing a vission that was given to her by the Black Queen at the moment the lightening struck the tree. She also discarded her first name altogether and shortened the last to simply Nyla'thria, another part of her penance of anonymity.

Young, alone, and unable to speak Common, she wandered for a time. She subsisted mostly on what she could hunt with her modest archery skills and kept to herself for some years. Despite her desire for solitude, however, Nyla'thria soon found that Men were unavoidable. She picked up Common easily enough, mostly through the art of sitting in tavern corners and listening to the conversations around her in the few towns she passed through. And the more she learned to understand, the more she heard of the evils of men, particularly bandits who prayed on hapless travelers between towns.

Her first foray into the life of a bounty hunter was quite on accident. She was walking through the streets of a smaller village at dusk when a man came running up the road, his face a mask of blood. He stumbled to the center of town, telling anyone who would listen that his fellow travelers had been attacked on the road and promising what little gold he had to anyone who would go back with him to defend his family. The gold interested her little enough, but in truth she was headed the way the man had come anyway and would rather have avoided witnessing dead children on her travels. So, she went with him and subdued the bandits, her enchanted bow allowing her to fell them without killing them and drag them back to town for further judgment.

From there, a reputation seemed to spring up around her overnight. She had several clients seek her out especially, because of her tendency to avoid killing her marks; for she had taken a vow the night her mentor was killed that she would not kill again unless her opponent was unmistakably evil or otherwise truly deserving of death. Throughout this time she avoided using magic, relying instead on her bow for the jobs she agreed to. She had continued her training as best she could from books and remembered lessons, if only because she recognized the need to tame the power inside of her as much as possible, but she avoided actually using her magic to cast any spells least they go wrong again.

Then she met Merun The Butcher. She was sent to find a murderer of children who had terrorized a town for years. His identity had only recently been revealed by the townspeople in connection to the murders and he had fled into the surrounding woods the night before she came to town. The nature of the job made her agree instantly. Nyla'thria has never been a tracker, however, and when she did come across her target it was quite by accident. She knew a few spells that could have subdued him, however, as always, she chose to rely on her bow instead. Most of her shots missed, and by the time her quiver was empty she hadn't done nearly enough damage to incapacitate the man. Knowing he would be killed if he was caught (for even Nyla'thria's final shots had been without her bow's Merciful enchantment and meant to do real damage), he used the last of his strength to return to the town and set fire to the houses, more than a few of which had sleeping families inside.

In the end the town was destroyed and innocent lives were lost. Nyla'thria fled in shame once more, but this time her guilt was from failing to use her gifts rather than failing to control them. From that point on, she realized that magic was an integral part of herself that should not be ignored and embraced it once more, though always with a nagging sense of foreboding.

Soon after, she came to Alta and joined the Red Hounds and, ultimately, became one of the Stanchions.

## Personality

Being the youngest, Nyla'thria is also the most innocent of the group, though it would be wrong to call her naive. She is quiet and often lets the others do the talking and make decisions for the group. She still prefers to use incapacitating spells on most enemies, but she has learned quite a few more potent spells for use against monsters and evil forces. When her spells do backfire, she most commonly conjures an exploding pigeon. Once, she also turned herself into a squirrel, prompting Jerrik to give her the nickname "Squirrell'athria." Her other titles within the group include "Dragon Slapper" (after a shared dream in which she was the last Stanchion standing against a dragon and used a Bigby's Hand spell to punch it in the face before her demise) and "Behir's Bane" (earned by killing a Behir with a single use of the Weird spell which summoned the Behir's greates fear--an image of the dragon whose lands it had stolen--and caused the giant creature to die of fright on the spot).

Nyla'thria's closest relationship is with Wendel, whom she has come to regard as a father/mentor figure. She has also been known to have long, philosophical talks with Hestor and is slowly developing what might someday be a friendship with Vikka.