Cyren Dawnia

Cyren Dawnia is a Half-Elf that arrived in Guildtown by sea, partway through Season 5: Absolution.

## Description

Cyren always wears a heavy coat, regardless of temperature. She has very long, blonde hair that often blows in her face, concealing her strikingly blue eyes. She is soft-spoken, and her speech pattern involves a significant number of pauses, but she is prone to sudden, uncharacteristic outbursts when surprised. While outwardly timid, she is stalwart, sometimes to the point of outright stubbornness, in defending herself and those she cares about if she perceives there to be a threat to their safety.

## Combat Style

Cyren's go-to spell, of which there has been many a meme made out of, is Moonbeam, particularly at third level. Other damaging spells she makes use of often include Tidal Wave, Ice Knife, Thunderwave, and Frostbite. As for support, she commonly utilizes Misty Step and Healing Word, with the occasional Gust of Wind and Create or Destroy Water. It took some time for her to be comfortable with melee attacking, but when she does, she attacks with her Moontouched Scimitar, and her Skyblinder Staff, affectionately christened 'Lady Lightbringer'. She makes use of Mirror Image and Shillelagh to aid her at close range.

As she’s spent more time in Guildtown, Cyren’s repertoire has grown past the water, ice, and lightning spells she is accustomed to from her years at sea, mixing in more earth and nature-based options from the Druid spells list. However, she does tend to fall back on those she is more comfortable with.

During "The Gruminator: Judgement Day", Cyren, afflicted by Blindness and the influence of a currently undetermined voice in her head, casted various fire-based spells, such as Produce Flame, Wall of Fire, and Flaming Arrows. She had yet to use these spells before this quest, and as such needed time to be able to harness them, but now uses them as needed in combat.

Despite being a Druid, Cyren has never utilized Wild Shape.

## Background

Cyren arrived in Guildtown aboard her ship, The Wanderer, after three years aimlessly sailing the seas. The ship doubled as her home, located first on a coast just outside of town, and later at the shipping docks, once they were built. Cyren spent significantly more time in Guildtown after the construction of the docks, and later unofficially moved into Star's house, staying in Arix and Luna's room.

Cyren suffers from severe memory loss, only remembering her name and the name of her hometown on top of the three years on the water and the one-plus spent in Guildtown. As a result, she assumes she is 22 years old, as four years earlier, at 18, would logically be when she would be able to set sail on her own. She suspects her memory loss is connected to the mystery of the Leviathan, which many members of Guildtown are currently focused on solving. She has heard a voice in her dreams that she thinks is the Leviathan or someone related to them, and is working with Star, Arix, and Luna to figure this out.

Cyren had one of her memories returned to her as a result of being attacked by a spirit during "We All Die Suner Or Later." This memory consisted of her letting go of someone's hand, only for it to be consumed by flame, followed by her walking into the center of a fountain of some sort. She is unsure of the significance of this memory but sees her actions within as selfish, compounded by the fact that she called off the party from attacking the spirit in order to receive the memory, leading to one of the members nearly being knocked out.

## Relationships

**Arix:** Cyren's boyfriend. They started dating after Cyren gave Arix the owlbear feathers he needed to complete his Goggles of the Night, and Arix brought her flowers in return. She is currently staying with him at Star's house, as she seems to hear the voice significantly less often while with him.

**Star:** As previously stated, Cyren is currently staying with Star, who is also helping her try to figure out the cause of her nightmares. Cyren views Star as somewhat of an older sister, and feels indebted to her for all she's done to help her.

**Teddie:** Cyren has joined Teddie on numerous quests, and sees her as a mentor, often going to her to talk about anything on her mind.

**Carlos:** Cyren was initially very intimidated by the lil bnuuy wabbit, due to his aggressive actions on her first ever quest. Despite this, Cyren was directly responsible for saving Carlos' life on more than one occasion, and has gotten over her fear as she's gotten to know him and Teddie better.

**Alastor:** Cyren relied on Alastor for the majority of "The Rat Incident", and they became friends as a result. She attributes her increased confidence in close range combat to him.

**Brungle:** Cyren was joined on most of her lower level quests by Brungle. While not the closest, she trusts him in combat greatly, but not as much outside of it.

**Celugh:** Another adventurer who often joined Cyren and Brungle on their lower level quests, who has since left town. They left Cyren a letter of appreciation before doing so, and Cyren looks back on their short time together fondly.

**Tadao:** Cyren doesn't express outwardly negative feelings about many people, but when she does, it's usually towards Tadao. In addition to generally not trusting him, he left her alone in a forest outside of town in a misguided attempt to make friends, and her opinion of him as dropped significantly as a result. She challenged him to a fight in order to determine whether or not she would continue to work with him to solve the mystery of the Leviathan, and despite winning, she chose to continue to do so, as Tadao's efforts gained him some of her respect back.

**The Grisp:** Cyren has a good amount of trust and respect for Grisp, even with her not exactly passing the vibe check a lot of the time. She has gone on quests with her numerous times, and has also been granted permission by her to wield The ThronglerTM.

**Vesper:** Despite Tadao’s intuition, or lack thereof, Cyren is *not* actually dating Vesper, but she does enjoy his company and he, outside of Arix, is the one she is most receptive towards working with on the Leviathan mystery.

## Trivia (General)

* Cyren was not targeted by an attack in any of her first five initiative rolls. In her sixth, she was cleanly knocked out from full HP by a Cone of Cold.
* Cyren wears her Ring of Warmth as a choker, due to her transformation into a rat and back into her traditional half-elf form. Initially unable to remove it without the assistance of magic, a latch was added to it after the first time she managed to take it off. She doesn't find it uncomfortable, though.
* Cyren's Gauntlets of Ogre Power increase her Strength by 6.
* Cyren solved a cipher related to the Leviathan, one that the Tides Hunt Group spent days working on, in a matter of hours. Outside of game, her player solved the cipher by identifying the letters' correspondence to the Fibonacci Sequence.
* Between her first use of fire-based spells in "The Gruminator: Judgement Day" and the start of her consistent use of them in "We All Die Suner Or Later", Cyren voluntarily used one just once outside of combat. In her initial meeting regarding the Tides Hunt Group, she burned a piece of paper with confidential information on it, given to her by Tadao as a compromise instead of translating a Primordial phrase for her.
* In the aforementioned fight against Tadao, Cyren OHKO'd him by casting Blight after using a Potion of Maximum Power, for 64 necrotic damage. Her original plan was to restrain him through the use of conjured Giant Spiders and attack him with repeated Tidal Waves, but it went out the window after Tadao nearly OHKO'd her himself (she ended the fight on 4/59 hit points).
* Cyren has a familiar, a small, white curled octopus named Flop (they/it). They are baby and must be protected at all costs.
* Flop has successfully thrown a pipe bomb at an opposing Stealth Unit.
* Cyren has made "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce, canon in Westmarches, as a result of her Guild Day talent show performance.

## Trivia (Seven Spires References)

Cyren is described by her player as being "a walking reference" to American symphonic metal band Seven Spires, heavily influenced by the main character in their series of concept albums, Solveig.

* Cyren's name is a reference to the title of the intro track of Spires' debut album, "The Siren".
	+ In addition, her name is also a reference to Muse's "Knights of Cydonia", as her abbreviated first name and last name would be "Cy Dawnia". This reference was carried over from her player's first character, a Fighter named Cyrus Dawnia, who they didn't get to use for very long.

* The name of Cyren's hometown, 'Evyntide', is a reference to the second song of Spires' debut album, "Encounter", specifically the lyric: "I am the siren of the eventide".
* The name of Cyren's ship, 'The Wanderer', is a reference to the intro track of Spires' third album, "Wanderer's Prayer".
* The name of Cyren's Skyblinder Staff, 'Lady Lightbringer', is a reference to the song, "Lightbringer".
* Cyren's character token is the album art from Spires' second album, "Emerald Seas". Her birthday is the date of release of the album.
* Cyren's radiant damage from Moonbeam has been described as a striking silver, a reference to the song, "Silvery Moon".
* The phrases heard by Cyren in her dreams are all lyrics from various Seven Spires songs. These include:
	+ Depths ("Welcome home")
	+ Burn (Title)
	+ Igne Defendit ("Cave bestia inferius" ["Beware the beast below"])
	+ Drowner of Worlds ("Ego ad finem, omni tenuit cari" ["I am at the end, everything held dear"])
	+ The Cursed Muse ("Marvel how fear will always precede regret")
	+ This God is Dead ("Non est otium, tibi putesce mari aeterno, abhorremus te" ["There is no peace, you will rot at sea forever/You will think of the eternal sea, you are abhorrent"])
	+ Gods Amongst Men ("Insequere me" ["Follow me"])
	+ Dreamchaser ("Dreamchaser, heartbreaker, stargazer, I will take what's mine")
* The Latin phrases above are interpreted as being spoken in Primordial for the purpose of maintaining consistency with official D&D languages.
* The first of Cyren's restored memories is a reference to Solveig's search for the Fountain of Youth, as well as her burning the island she was eventually stranded on in an attempt to transfer the powers she received from the Fountain of Youth to the one she loved.
* Cyren's familiar was originally intended to be named after Solveig, but her player was quickly talked out of it in favour of the name "Flop". Once again, they are baby and must be protected at all costs. This fact absolutely bears repeating.