Arson Nicki

Arson Nicki (Drow form) by artist Terry Blas

> "*My name is Arson, I come from the Underdark where I worship a Spider Godesssss." \*audience laughter\* "There's more!"*"
> ― Arson
>
>

**Arson Nicki** is a drag adventurer and member of Booty and the Hofish. Shewas born a drow (dark elf) in the Underdark, before becaming a warlock under the guidance of her mysterious patron and leaving for the surface.

## Herstory

### Pre-Show

Living empoverished in the Underdark, Arson struggled in life until a fateful encounter with an otherworldly being (who took the form of Samantha Jones) who contacted her via Scruff, a bugbear servant who arranged a meeting that changed her life. Granted the powers of a warlock, and a pact of the blade, she left home for the surface world as a drag queen adventurer for attention, to watch things go nuts with chaos, and for nudes.

### Wigstock

At the Wigsnatch Festival, Arson Nicki entered a drag competition and was teamed up with three other drag queen adventurers: Fraya Love, Butylene O'Kipple, and Harlotte O'Scara. They won the competition and simultaneously defeated a troll that threatened the festival. This caught the eye of Copper Top, a employee of the House of Wunderbred who offered them a gig.

### Fall of the House of Wunderbred

At their first gig together, the party found themselves being tested by Lady Edith Wunderbred, who attacked them with manniqueens and sent them through the various challenges of the dungeon below her manor. In the final battle against Lady Edith, Arson was knocked unconscious and near dead until the divine power of Cher revived her and empowered the performers to defeat the shady queen.

Arson sought out the dark cellars under the Tavern of the Hung Man to recover, and remembered her patron Samantha appeared to her while she was near death, imploring her to live, and offering her new powers as her patron continued to connect deeper and deeper with Arson. She awakened these powers as a result of remembering the encounter.

#### LaBouche Gardens

Arson and the party performed at LaBouche Gardens and were lured into a hunt for the treasure of the legendary queen Lady LaBouche, which they found to be massive amounts of merchandise. A spirit of Lady LaBouche offered them the deed to the park, which Arson ended up taking, along with a book, Works of the Sisters, which the spirit entrusted to her so they could record their good works and deeds and try to found a new great house. Arson gave the deed to young park fan Maggie.

They took their bounty to the Nexus of She'Bae where Harlotte sold the treasures at auction, and Arson had another ethereal vision of her patron. Samantha asked about Arson's motives, then offered to take their relationship to the next level and gave her the option of three pacts. Arson chooses pact of the blade, which manifests as a hitachi vibrating neck massager. Her patron leaves, saying "Arson Nicki, Queen of the Underdark. Just thought I'd say it outloud. Has a nice ring to it."

#### The Ice Scepter and Journey to Fire Island

In search of another treasure from the Age of Queens, Arson and the others competed in the Search for the Tops talent show. Rival act Crotch made several attempts to sabotage them, ultimately leading to Arson using her pact weapon to damage the ice floor beneath Crotch's bodyguards. This allowed them to win the competition and the Ice Scepter, which their companion Gnomi determined was the key to a treasure on Fire Island.

They booked passage on the ship the Salty Starfish as entertainers. En route to the island, another passenger stole the scepter amidst an attack by seaspawn. Just as the party were confronting the thief, the ship was attacked and sunk by a Kracken, and Arson was tossed into the turbulent sea.

### Arrival on Fire Island

Arson awoke in an abandoned underground city days after the crash. A voice cried out from near a statue of Lolth that Arson had returned to the underdark at last. She had an encounter with a dryder wearing her face, as well as an illusion of her patron, but bested both before managing to escape to the surface of Fire Island.

There, Arson found herself at the Golden Palace resort and reunited with the rest of her companions where they learned they could stay in exchange for helping defend the resort from sea-spawn attacks. After an early success, the group was summoned to the owner's suite, learning their benefactor here on the island was none other than Belfry. She set them to work as Morale Officers for the resort.

After hosting a successful show, "Field Hockey: A Frock Opera" to improve guest and employee spirits amidst the attacks, Arson and the others were tasked with traveling to the town of Watersport to retrieve an original copy of the Fire Island treaty between the HOGs and the Glamazons. Not trusting Belfry but agreeing, the party set out, planning to take the treaty and not return to the Golden Palace.

In Watersport, Arson used a giant spider to infiltrate Town Hall, where she and the others engaged Barb, a devil trying to experiment with Butylene's mutagenic formula to create an army for his bosses. In the ensuing battle, Arson was grappled by Barb an injected with one of the experimental mutagens, which transformed her into a drider, half drow-half spider. With her newfound abilities, she extracted the treaty from the safe and escaped through tunnels under the Watersport library.

While resting in a hideout of their new ally, Cher Noble, Arson had a vision of a locked door out of the underdark with a message and the initials DCM.

The queens visited a shrine with a map of the island on it on their way out of Watersport, where they found a coin also labeled DCM. They decided to travel to the other side of the island, where the Glamazon nation lived, in order to look for the legendary drag treasure they originally came to the island for. Upon crossing the pan-frost bridge, they were arrested for violation of the treaty.

### Trial and Kracken-Priest

Imprisoned by the Glamazons, Arson and the others were tried and found guilty of major crimes. The queens were sentenced to death and hurled into the sea. With the help of Fraya's powers over water, they survived, but were captured by Sea-spawn and taken to their underwater lair.

There they encountered other prisoners, most of them from the Golden Palace. Working together, they found their way to the altar of the Kracken Priest who was in control of the sea spawn legions, and another prisoner, their old friend Gnomi, who had been partially turned into a sea-spawn. They battled the Priest and Butylene landed the killing blow, piercing the priest's heart with her spear. They escaped to the surface.

After encountering and befriending some ghosts at another casino on the island, and meeting and helping an inventor, the party returned to the Golden Palace, where they learned the Sea Spawn were attacking at random. They pushed back the seaspawn horde, only to have the Kracken itself announce its ultimatum: Bring it the treasure in the Ziggurat at the center of Fire Island within two weeks, or the island would be destroyed.

#### Mutual Defense and Glamalala

The party organized a memorial and celebratory ritual at the Palace, before receiving their next assignment from Belfry: Help secure an alliance between the Golden Palace and the Glamazon Nation to defeat the Kracken. The next day Arson joined the HOG contingent set out to meet the Glamazons. The party used the Hole of Glory to arrange a meeting, and attended the summit. In the middle of discussions, the summit was attacked by Infernals, as part of Barb's ploy to oust his boss as leader in the operation to fight the Kracken for the Archdevil. Afterwards, the summit continued and a mutual defense agreement was made.

The agreement included an invitation to the party to go where no one had (legally) gone in decades: the city of Glamalala, where they encountered Irene Dubois, who was assigned to go through three days of special training alongside the party as part of the mutual defense agreement.

During the training, Arson attended a Glamazon Festival, where she learned more about a legend surrounding an ancient group of Drow who lived below the island. Some of them allied with the Glamazons, and helped defend the island, only to be cursed by their goddess, Lolth, into driders. Driven mad by the transformation, they were locked away. Following the training, Arson was given a copy of an old drow song as a graduation gift.

### Gathering Allies

    Regrouping at the Golden Palace, Arson suggested the group follow up first on this drow story to try and recruit driders to their cause. As the group descended into the underdark city, Arson began to see how persecuted the surface allied drow had become, especially as they began to explore drag themselves. She also began to once more hear a voice in her head, which she shared with her friends until the voice stopped her. Her friends figured out the voice belonged to Lolth. Once the group encountered the cursed driders, Arson recreated their song with help from DJ Cyperpreppy. Performing allowed the driders to break their curse, becoming drow once more. They asked the party to name their long nameless drag house. The group chose House of Drow. Leaving the underdark, Arson stopped hearing the voice.

That night, Arson visited the drow in their new suite in the Golden Palace, having agreed to aide the surface once again. Loxosceles the Recluse, an elderly mystic, inquired about Arson's own transformation that wasn't lifted with the others. After hearing about the mutagen, Loxosceles was uncertain that was fully the cause, as only Lolth or one of her sisters had the power to create a drider. Arson explained she didn't mind being this way, as it had many advantages.

The following day, Arson and the others met up with new companion Londyn Bradshaw, who gave them the ability to breath underwater for a day so they could head to a sunken city and attempt to recruit the local merfolk to their cause. To do so, they first had to travel inside the ailing dragon turtle Alighieri to rescue other merfolk who had gone into him, their spiritual leader, to find the source of his sickness. Inside, Arson and the others were subjected to urges to sucumb to their vices. Overcoming these, the party defeated Dampthroat, cause of the infection, and rescued the merfolk it had trapped. Alighieri and the merfolk agrees to ally with the islanders and journeyed with the queens back to the Golden Palace.

### A Ritual and a Portal

At the resort, Arson discovered a ritual had been enacted in the vault. The Kracken Priest's Heart, which the group had put into the Portable Party in the vault to keep it away from those it was influencing, had been activated by Jo Ramshackle, daughter of Belfry. The queens managed to get her away from the altar before too much damage was caused.

Barb the devil offered to use the altar to try and take the whole island to another realm where the Kracken couldn't reach them. The group agreed, and Barb opened a portal to hell. Once the queens realized the problem with this, they had Londyn and Fraya take control of the ritual and steer the portal elsewhere. With limited knowledge of other planes, they went with the only one Arson had experience with: The Etheral Plane.

What will happen to her there remains unrevealed...

## Alternate Continuity

Arson has appeared in several alternate continuities across the multiverse.

Arson once helped locate a lost treasure of the Surf Queens to save their beach from an evil yacht club. Arson also attended Emerald Forest Adventure Con and helped a sentient scroll case defeat cultists.

    At least twice, versions of Arson were taking to the World of Wonder by a Giant Floating Baby to test her for Legendary potential. One of these versions had completed Glamazon training and returned to the mainland of the Realm and was journeying to a wig market when she was taken and forced through a series of challenges involving Sasquatches.

Another version of Arson and Fraya were hired by Gundren Rockseeker to help him prepare for an expedition to the Lost Mines of Phandelver. Her wall-climbing and invisibility spell were critical in her rescue of Gundren and his friend Sildar Hallwinter. She later went down into the Lost Mine with Fraya and Irene, but the success of her mission is not known.

Other versions of Arson have competed in Mr. Boogaloo's Dungeon Dash, freed an enthralled lizard people, and attended the Fall Faerie Festival.

## Character Sheet

Arson is a 5th level Warlock, Pact of the Blade. Her patron, Samantha, is based off of the Hexblade patron from D&D. She is from an urchin background.

**Weapons/Armor**

* Dagger and Sickle
* Short sword
* Pact Weapon (often in form of a vibrating neck massager)
* Glamazon Breastplate
* Tentacle Baton

**Equipment**

* Silk Blindfold
* Spidersilk rope
* Spider Ring
* Shadowcloak
* Glamazon Glider

**Spells**

* Cucci's Hideous Laughter
* Eldritch Blast
* Dancing Lights
* Poison Spray
* Disguise Self
* Hex
* Cloud of Daggers
* Samantha's Curse
* Invisibiity
* Blink

**Skills**

* Samantha's Curse (Hexblade's Curse)
* Agonizing Blast
* Mask of Many Faces
* Comprehend all Languages

### Looks Served

* Fringe on the front and back and over her breasts. Two small pieces of fringe as bottom eyelashes - "Fringe is our Color Story" and "Field Hockey: The Frock Opera"

## Other Characters

In addition to playing themself, Arson helped design and played the character of Theodor in the Ravnica episode. Arson designed, but has not yet played, Non, a changeling rogue, for the Eurythmatics in another bonus episode.

## Behind the Queen

Arson Nicki is a Seatle based drag queen performance artist who mixes the glamorous with the theatrical and political with their performances. They host FRESH, and are a DJ at Vitamin D.

Arson Nicki on Instagram.

Arson Nicki on Twitch. As of late March 2021, Arson streams on Wednesdays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 12:30pm, and Sundays at 3:30pm. All times Pacific timezone.

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