Chant'folne Sforza

### Relatives

Madame Dech'esprelle de Sforza (Biological mother, Deceased), Com'curelle Sforza (Sister, Deceased), Perci'recit Sforza (Biological father, Deceased)

### Current Occupation

Madame Dictator of the Sym’fadè Confederacy

## Physical Characteristics

### Appearance

Masked, shrouded dark elven woman with cold, green, glowing eyes

## Common Knowledge

Chant’folne Sforza is a former Binturian, responsible for the defeat of the Monster of Eriptor and Delcho Sinfella, and current Madame Dictator of the Sym’fadè Confederacy. Denizens of the Sym’fadè Confederacy, and to some degree Koda, would have previously heard of Chant’folne Sforza, the “singer of insanity” who when faced with an arranged marriage cut off his limbs and sang a song to her betrothed that shattered his sanity, rendering him a vegetable. Denizens of Koda probably also know of the Sorceress, a folk hero who spreads the tales of their greatness before Zondros.

## Further Description

Chant’folne Sforza is a dark elf psion, and current Madame Dictator of the Sym’fadè Confederacy. She is a master of phantasmal magic, political intrigue, and psychological manipulation, as well as a powerful warlock. She is also a chosen agent of Amageala, the goddess of deceit, and wielder of the powerful spell “The Song of Broken Minds”. During her time as a Binturian, she acquired fame for being among those to slay the monstrosity of Eriptor, and later Delcho.

## Early Life

### Birth and Upbringing

Chant’folne was the first born female child of her generation of the Sforza Clan, the most politically powerful family in the Sym’fadè Confederacy. As the eldest girl, she was trained from birth to be a politician and groomed specifically for the Seat of Power. As the Sforzas most commonly held the Seat, there was a good chance that she would one day claim the prestigious position.

She has two younger siblings: a sister who is about 100 years younger than Chant’folne, and a much younger brother of about 40 years. Because dark elves must earn their first names, the three were referred to as Sforza the Eldest (Chant’folne), Sforza the Middling (her sister), and Sforza the Youngest (her brother).

### Arranged Marriage

Sforza the Eldest was to negotiate an arranged marriage between Sforza the Middling and a man from the Ostinato Clan, a clan known for their large number of priestesses and casters. This marriage would provide the Sforzas with a connection to the Sisterhood of priestesses and would help them gain more political power.

Unfortunately, Sforza the Eldest got what her family claimed was food poisoning two days before the negotiations were to take place, and lay in bed near death for a week afterward, delirious with fever. To this day, she believes herself to have been deliberately poisoned.

When she was well enough, Sforza the Eldest was informed that her sister had performed the negotiations in her stead, and done so admirably. However, it was no longer Sforza the Middling being married, but Sforza the Eldest. In doing this, the Middling earned her name before the Eldest. Sforza the Middling was now called Com’curelle, which means the Trader of Hearts (in a fit of pettiness, Sforza the Eldest exclaimed that it should have been “Traitor of Hearts”). But a name was not all she gained. Com’curelle also won the clan’s favor and became the new favorite for the Seat.

Sforza the Eldest, now stripped of the power she used to have, was thrown into marriage preparations, and found them very much not to her liking. Being from the secular city of Tamber, she found her betrothed’s fervent religious practices off-putting. He seemed to have no ambition other than to worship the goddesses to the best of his abilities. This did not sit well with Sforza the Eldest, who wanted desperately to regain what she had lost.

### Striking a Bargain

Despite now having the Sforza Clan’s faith, Com’curelle was rightfully worried that her elder sister could steal it back. She was, after all, much more trained for politics. At the Eldest’s betrothal party, Com’curelle presented her sister with a glowing pendant that depicted the sky. It was accompanied with a statement that Sforza the Eldest may someday get to see that sky, a veiled threat to have her exiled from the Underdark.

Sforza the Eldest now felt personally attacked. She was angry and decided that political power just wasn’t going to cut it. So she went to the Ostinatos and claimed to want to fully embrace the clan she would be joining shortly. She threw herself more fully into religion, and, while she did worship every goddess, she favored Vague, the goddess of focus and sorcery, for the two most important things in her life were now her wits and the magic she had begun to learn. She found bardic magic to be to her favorite as manipulation had always been her area of expertise anyway. She was learning quickly, but not quickly enough. The wedding was fast approaching, and she needed to escape her betrothal.

Sforza the Eldest did not want to kill her fiancé, deciding that murder was too easily traced back to the perpetrator, so she prayed to the goddess Vague and asked for another way out. Vague appeared to her and gave her music that would drive anyone she sung it to insane called the Song of Broken Minds. However, it came with two caveats. The first was that the Song needed an immense amount of power, so much that Sforza the Eldest would only be able to sing it successfully with Vague’s assistance. The second was that Sforza the Eldest would have to cut all ties with the other two goddesses and focus solely on Vague. She would only be able to pray to, display the symbols of, and ask for assistance from Vague. No other goddess would be able to appear to, hinder, or help Sforza the Eldest for the rest of her very long life (except for, of course, the Masked Lady, who is not bound by such constraints).

Despite the magnitude of the conditions that came with accepting the goddess’s help, Sforza the Eldest did anyway, shed all the red and yellow she wore, marked herself with a base clef on each cheek, and went to sing her fiancé the new song she had just learned.

#### Vague’s “Assistance”

Chant'folne asked for a way to get out of marriage without killing her fiance, and Vague offered her the Song of Broken Minds to make him no longer fit to function. Vague did not appear to Chant'folne at first because she herself was trying to think of a way to help. She already knew she would make Chant'folne her servant as a price, but she didn't have anything to really offer her to get out of the marriage. However, Vague eventually remembered the goddess of deceit and the Song of Broken Minds, which had for the most part disappeared from the mortal plane except for the occasional one-time use with Amageala's blessing and a great price to pay in return for that blessing.

Vague approached Amageala and asked for the song, and at first Amageala refused unless Chant'folne became her servant instead, but the god of madness insisted on Amageala helping and thus she gave Vague the capacity to help Chant'folne use the song once and only once. Due to Vague being less powerful than Amageala, the song only made Chant'folne's fiance shut down instead of go mad in the head like it was supposed to.

### Exile and Naming

The resulting insanity released her from the marriage contract, but it also released her from the Underdark – forcibly. She was exiled by suggestion of Com’curelle, who, despite the lack of physical evidence, suspected that her sister had something to do with the sudden onset of insanity that plagued her almost-husband. She made good on her threat and had her older sister exiled from the Underdark. Although she lost her home, Sforza the Eldest gained her name: Chant’folne, which means the Singer of Insanity.

In order to find strength and allies, she travelled to Binturia, hoping that the band of crazy warriors she joined could help her lead a coup against Com’curelle.

## Time with the Binturian Party

### Short-Lived Music Career (10,015 A.B.)

During a drunken bender spurred on by one of Solar and Lune’s famous parties, Chant’folne briefly returned to the Confederacy and somehow wrote, sang, and published an overnight sensation hit song. Though she has no memory of this taking place, some Underdark tavern bards might still be heard playing “*Darkness, Darkness, also Spiders*” from time to time.

### Becoming a Warlock (10,017 A.B.)

During the Fel Invasion, the Binturian Nayeli <Lastname> absorbed a great deal of Fel corruption and was forcibly transformed into a warlock. Seeking to rid herself of its vile influence over her, Nayeli sought a potential host for the Fel magic roiling within her.

Later, during another incursion on many fronts by the Fel, Chant’folne willingly took the power of the Fel during a ritual to deactivate a fel portal. Vague, interpreting her acceptance of Vierfrynn’s last gift as acknowledging her as a goddess and therefore violating their contract, struck her down for her betrayal of their agreement. Chant’folne survived through the power of Nirvana, and her contract with Vague was ended.

Chant’folne, both as a favor to her friend and to attain its power for herself, agreed to take the Fel magic from within Nayeli. Through a ritual of cleansing and redistribution, Nayeli was purified and Chant’folne became the magic’s host instead. The magic was potent enough that Chant’folne’s eyes now permanently glow the same green as the flames of the Fel, in addition to the normal powers that being a warlock brings.

### Felling the Monstrosity (10,017 A.B.)

Chant’folne was involved in the final assault against Aavaa, the beast known as “The Monstrosity” that had ravaged the Eriptan countryside for months, and gained continent-wide acclaim for doing so.

### Political Machinations in Koda (10,017 A.B.)

Following the Binturians’ successful rigging of the Zondros general election, the rise of the Paladins of the People, and the Rainmaker’s failed attempt at a coup, Chant’folne adopted the persona of “the Sorceress'' in Koda. Under this guise, she travelled the city as a bard, telling stories to children of their people’s homeland and reminding those old enough to remember the time before Zondros of what they once were, and what they could be again without Zondros’ influence. When she could help the people in any way, no matter how small, she did; giving food, mending clothes and objects, and teaching children the songs of their people. Though her help never extended to the drow of Koda, she went as far as she could to implant the idea of freedom from Zondros.

In one of the Sorceress’s dealings, she is found out and discovered by a Special Circumstances Agent in an abandoned Drow storage room with another Dark Elf cook, exchanging prohibited recipes and customs. After a brief struggle with the agent which eventually leads to the entire section of that slum burning down, three Zondronian guards dead, the Special Circumstance Agent injured and 30 more casualties of both civilian and military alike, she escapes into the night with the assistance of what is now known as her Black Cat, Cadmus. Cadmus saved The Sorceress at a critical moment, freeing her from the burning debris and directing her to a safe area where she could later recuperate and lick her wounds. Cadmus would accompany Chant’folne for the rest of her time in Koda, up to and including her ascension to the Seat of Power.

### Draconic Incursion (10,018 A.B.)

Chant’folne was involved in the final assault against Delcho, the celestial dragon who sought to bring Temporis under the “benevolent” rule of dragonkind, and gained continent-wide and even inter-planar recognition for doing so.

### Vengeance, Seat of Power, and the Song of Broken Minds (10,019 A.B.)

In the intervening years since Chant’folne’s exile, her mother Dech’esprelle de Sforza had ascended to the Seat of Power. In traditional Confederacy fashion, members of House Sforza and related cadet branches began to “disappear”. Removing dissenters and less skilled people from the new Madame Dictator’s House was not unheard of, and as such it was permitted. Soon the scope of the “disappearances” expanded; blurring the lines between disloyal and questioning and weak and loud. When they expanded into cadet branches outside House Sforza’s jurisdiction, some of the great families of the Confederacy formally charged Dech’esprelle de Sforza with the murders. Their plea was shot down directly from the Seat of Power itself, and it became clear that neither the Seat nor the National Council would help them.

That same group of Houses approach Chant’folne for assistance, and back her claim to House Sforza. Beginning with kill Com’curelle in Phridgia, she and her Binturian ally Thome Gabrielson moved on to confront Perci’recit, a deadly assassin and Madame Sforza’s husband.

After a very one-sided fight, Vague herself appeared to Chant’folne before the final blow against her was struck. The two shared a long conversation in the span of moments about their breached pact, and Vague came to realize she misunderstood Chant’folne’s actions and was in the wrong for smiting her. Revitalizing her spirit, healing her wounds, commending her, and promising to keep an eye on her, Vague departed by enchanting her sword -- Tinitris, the former blade of the fateweaver of Madness Belladonna. Now imbued with the power of her goddess, Chant’folne and Thome wipe the floor with Perci’recit and begin to make preparations for their next move.

Weeks later, Chant’folne is contacted by Madame Am’alucelle Ostinato, the current High Priestess, who informs her that Madam Dech’esprelle killed the previous Madame Dictator (a member of House Mazurka). Since the coup happened so recently, there are still loyalists in the Palace of the Seat, making this the perfect opportunity for Chant’folne to take out her mother and take the Seat herself. Just after divulging this, Assassins of Madame Sforza serve them poisoned tea, and are promptly dispatched.

Madame Am’alucelle reveals the location of the Seat of Power, and gives precise instructions to enter it. After teleporting nearby in disguise, Chant’folne, Thome, and Niccolaux infiltrate the Palace and fend off some guards while recruiting loyal ones. As they approached the Throne Room and became swamped in palace guards, Cadmus (who had been following their group for the entire venture) split its head open to reveal large, long, serrated tentacles that consumed nearly every guard accosting them before returning to the resealed head.

Lacking the time to question what just happened, and the proper means to question the “cat”, they pressed onward to the Throne Room. Thome and Niccolaux were forced back by guards into another room, leaving Chant’folne alone with Madame Sforza. After a short fight, Chant’folne emerged victorious and was visited once more by Vague.

This time, however, “Vague” was Amageala in a quickly-revealed disguise. She explains how her deal with Vague was truly carried out, how she came to use the Song of Broken Minds, and how Cadmus is a servant of hers. Amageala went on to say that she saw promise in Chant’folne, and truly granted her the Song of Broken Minds. All things now laid bare, Amageala disappeared and Chant’folne finally, at long last, ascended to the Seat of Power.

In the following weeks, Madame Ostinato campaigned for Chant’folne’s return as a citizen to the Confederacy, cementing her position as the new Madame Dictator.

## Current Life

Chant’folne is now Madame Dictator of the Sym’fadè Confederacy, rarely ever leaving the Seat of Power.

## Further Information

* Aavaa, the Monstrosity
* Amageala
* The Binturian Party
* Dark Elf
* Draconic Incursion
* Eriptor
* Fel Magic
* Koda
* Madness
* Sym’fadè Confederacy
* Vague
* Zondros