Lydra Vruae

The life of Lydra for many years had been one of privilege and indulgence. Even before her people's home had been ripped through space and time the young noble had successfully put herself into advantageous position after position. She had just been put in charge of overseeing the rather bland slave working of a mine when the Void Lords pulled the entire jungle city that she had called home, all its people, and a fair bit of the land from one plane to their own. This, understandably, was a bit of a shock to the drow. Despite this however Lydra was still set to enjoy days of sitting around and occasionally whipping an uppity slave.Then, ‘she’ arrived. There had been just the faintest of rumor about a anti-drow faction setting up in the world, most if not all the city had written it off as a joke. As time passed that rumor turned into a curiosity when the Empire of Sin formed and gathered power across the lake. Finally, curiosity turned to horror when the Sin of Greed appeared in the middle of their city without warning. Lydra had been lucky that day, having to oversee a group several miles away for a few days and thus avoiding what had been intended as a genocide. She hadn’t even been aware anything had occurred until finally returning home to find the entire city turned into a charnel house. The only ‘survivors’ of this disaster were the groups returning soon after, but compared to the hundreds of thousands that had arrived the drow now numbered a scant few dozen.

It turned out that the marshall of this city, Salakiir, had survived and quickly assumed authority through a combination of rank, and beheading the few that tried to challenge him. Within hours they had been organized, sent into the now ruined city, and retrieved as many supplies as they could carry before heading down to Hammer. The trip would take them weeks, and Lydra felt a need to make these weeks, productive. She had seen the backlash Salakiir, a male, had gotten trying to take a position of high power, and made it a point to openly show support for him. A few supportive words here, reassurances that she just wanted another lazy job there, and Lydra had the man well and truly fooled. The goal of her plan came the day they finally laid eyes on the great city of Hammer, the group stopping one last time to rest before heading there. Lydra made sure Salakiir shared a few drinks with her and continued to drop not so subtle hints as to wanting to make this last time out in the wilds ‘special’. They were hardly beneath the cover of a tent before the two of them were stripped and pressed against each other’s bodies. But whereas Salakiir had removed quite literally everything, Lyrda still had her boots on. More specifically, she still had a boot dagger that she proceeded to slid up into Salakiir’s skull in the middle of a kiss.

Finally, the weary travelers had arrived to try and make a new life in Hammer, protected under its laws and great military power. And who claimed to have led these souls on this grand trek? Why, none other than Lydra Vruae, and her alone. She couldn’t say what exactly prompted her to take control then and there, especially when arriving in the slums put their group right back at the bottom of society, but Lydra had found a strange sort of motivation that didn’t show signs of slowing down. As soon as they had a roof over their heads Lydra began to stake out her surroundings, soon making deals with the poisoner’s guild in exchange for some of the more interesting secrets regarding drow poisons. While she didn’t have the opportunity to pull the same trick that had seen her take over Salakiir’s position there were a few ‘mysterious’ deaths amongst the shadier groups in Hammer that not only saw Lydra rise in position, but gain a fair bit of wealth along with it.

Life had once more settled into somewhat of a lazy norm for Lydra again. Lessers would carry out all her day to day activities, spies bring her everything she needed to know, and just the occasional weeding out of overly ambitious fools to ensure her position was secure. With her wealth and connections the drow was living on par with a lesser noble. But of course, this was not meant to last. For soon the xeno’s threat Hammer had kept in check finally overwhelmed the technological armies. When word reached back to the city it was all Lydra could do to keep her people together during the resulting panic, and a miracle in itself she managed to have any structure escape the city to the island fallback point.

There Lydra, once more, worked her way back up into a reasonable position of power. Ever the opportunist, ever the sly hand, she did everything in her capacity to assert authority over a sizeable faction of like minded individuals. When structure was finally somewhat restored and lines drawn on the small space left Lydra was considered one of the nine kings, and seemingly content with her position at last.