Avarice H.

(gone)

Avarice H. was a cambion (half devil, half dark elf) adventurer in the FBK aspiring to become a detective/bounty hunter. She was a student at Niqamui Community College and had two pet tiny dragons: a Pseudodragon hatchling named Penny and a baby stained glass dragon named Malum. She had the favour of two dragons, Saint Lucia and Remedios of the Golden Scales. She was also the sheriff of Daingean.

... but this was all when she was alive and well on the Material Plane. She could also be found in Hell working for her mom.

## Identity

Avarice likes to be called "Ava." She rarely says her last name (just the first initial) but legally goes by Avarice Hoard in the Material Plane and Avarice Halevy in Hell.

* Pronoun: she/her
* Voice traits: Southern Belle
* Mannerisms / habits to help DMs portray them consistently: Hates churches and holy/radiant damage and anything that has to do with them. Her alignment is Neutral Evil as she is a Fiend, but she's played more as Neutral as she tries to stay away from evil acts. Evil people rarely get ahead - she wants to be the exception.
* Pop culture influences (who are they like): Wednesday Addams and Mazikeen from the show *Lucifer.* If you listen to the song "Lotta true crime" by Penelope Scott, you'll get a good sense of her personality.

## Personality

* Traits:
	+ There is nothing I like more than a good mystery.
	+ I would rather make a new ally than a new enemy.
	+ I don't go into churches.
* Ideal:
	+ Knowledge is power. I will stop at nothing to get to the truth of a matter or solve a case.
* Bond:
	+ My greatest sense of accomplishment comes from deciding who should be punished. Punishment itself is just busy work - I'll leave that to jailers and the devils in Hell.
	+ Both of those places are boring to me, so I don't want to end up in one.
* Flaw:
	+ I am incapable of feeling any remorse, empathy, or genuine care for others. Mortals’ lives and feelings are meaningless and foreign to me. I have learned to read people and often hide my psychopathic traits, faking most of my personality so I can fit in.

## Appearance

Avarice is petite yet striking. Her features are a mix between those of her Erinyes mother and dark elf father - she looks like a dark elf with golden devil's horns and a pair of crimson-accented, black feathered wings. She cannot fly, though, as they are missing most of their feathers. When she uses her innate Devil powers, her eyes glow an infernal red and golden markings show up on her face.

* Age: 101
* D&D race and class: Cambion Rogue/Warlock (Hexblade)
* Height: 5'2
* Weight: ~95lbs
* Hair color: black with white streaks
* Skin color: rosy purple
* Eye color: red
* Example clothing outfit worn: Goth cowgirl aesthetic. She only wears her sheriff's badge in Daingean, though it is always with her as proof of some legal authority.
* FBK tattoo location: back of her right hand, done in black ink.

## Social Connections

### Family members

* Svarnna Halevy - mother. An Erinyes related to Bonaventura Halevy. After she learned that Avarice's father, Blithe Hoard, cheated on her with his former business partner Zamfira, she left him with their child. She didn't kill him, though, because she doesn't want to see him in Hell where she works all the time. Avarice used to work for Svarnna in Hell, and their relationship is more like that of a boss/employee
* Blithe Hoard - father. He did not want to raise a Fiend (as a baby, Avarice had the bad habit of setting things on fire - that gets expensive!), so he made her Someone Else's Problem. He made a "charitable donation" to an orphanage in Kihf Fasti and left her there 100 years ago. As a child, she used to resent him because he made her life difficult, but she doesn't care now. She has a roof over her head and a purpose - that's enough for her. Svarnna ordered her to make sure he doesn't end up in Hell, so she does a welfare check on him every now and then (but doesn't tell him the real reason for her visits). Ava and Blithe have coffee chats together. Ava keeps Blithe from dying so her mom Svarnna doesn't see him in hell. Ava is Blithe's favorite child.
* She's never met her famous half-siblings Stella and Sterling Argentine, and she doesn't care to.

### Friends / People they know:

* Professor Edemir So - mentor and Warlock patron. She does not take any classes with him, as he teaches Agriculture. However, he still offers her advice and acts like a guidance counsellor to her, helping her stay away from evil. He gave her a Pseudodragon hatchling as an assignment: to be able to protect and bond with a weak, helpless living thing so it may become useful to her in the future (as a Warlock familiar).
* Garrik Parker Wade - a Kihf Fasti serial killer known as the Wayfare Butcher that Avarice caught and put behind bars. It was the first mystery she solved! She fell victim to him when she was 16, but he made the mistake of killing an immortal Cambion and paid for it later when she came back from Hell.
* Penny (short for Penumbra) - Ava’s pet Pseudodragon. Penny is just a hatchling - she usually hangs out on Ava's shoulders or inside her coat, and she cannot attack (besides biting Ava's fingers) or do much except eat, sleep, and act cute. Penny has black scales, golden eyes, and purple wings and horns.
* Mal (short for Malum) - a baby Stained Glass Dragon that became her companion after Taste Like Stained Glass Chicken. See wiki page for stats.
* Saint Lucia - a stained glass dragon that gave her a small stained glass pyramid and Malum as prizes for doing the Stained Glass Gauntlet.
* Flex Arcana - they have a deal to kill her quickly (and not using holy magic!) when she requests it, in exchange for him keeping whatever loot she had on her. The deal is off if he kills her without her explicitly asking - he'd go straight to her domain of Hell.
* Sigrid Andersen - became Ava's enemy after Sigrid called her weak in Bloodletting It Go. "Catch these hands in Daingean, how bout that?"

### Other Info

* Social class: law enforcement official.
* Occupation: studies Private Investigation at the Niqamui Community College. She gets financial assistance and works with FBK for extra money, experience, and making allies.
* Where do they sleep at night? Has a subsidized dorm room in Niqamui Community College, but usually lives in the Sheriff's Office/dungeon in Daingean. She has a fake residence there at 123 Swamp Ave.

## Background / Personal history

Avarice H. is native to Hell but grew up on the Material Plane, in an orphanage and on the streets of Kihf Fasti. When she was 16, she was murdered by a serial killer. However, she is immortal and cannot truly die unless the final blow is dealt by holy/radiant magic, so she respawned in Hell. After a while she found repeatedly punishing people boring and busy work. She would rather find out who needed to be punished, and that work was already done for her in Hell.

She noticed a pattern of young women' souls entering Hell and began to solve the mystery of who killed her. Over the course of 85 years, she regained enough strength to return to the Material Plane and did just that, piecing together the women's stories and catching the Wayfare Butcher before his next strike. She didn't take revenge and kill him, as she was much too weak for that, but she turned him in to authorities and he is currently in the Kihf Fasti prison.

Due to how quickly she solved all of the cases linked to the Wayfare Butcher - most of which had gone cold - she got a scholarship for Niqamui Community College and enrolled in the Crime & Investigation program. She never told anyone why or how she solved this case. The concept of immortality seems to scare people away, and being murdered was traumatic for her - more so than she’d like to admit.

## List of adventures

* New Sheriff In Town: Ava became the sheriff of Daingean.
* Taste Like Stained Glass Chicken: Ava was initially afraid of stained glass, thinking it was divine. But a friendly little pocket sized stained glass dragon and her Firebreathing Kittens friends helped her learn it wasn't divine, and she gained a bit more courage.
* Stop Dragon My Heart Around: Ava went inside a sea dragon, nearly losing her own pseudodragon Penny to a cult sacrifice. She and Olathe sent the cultists' souls to Hell but she saved Flex Arcana's life by cauterizing a moral wound. After all, he said he'll help her sell some artifacts they found.
* Sworn To Be Wild: She grew closer to her dragons Penny and Malum.
* Meat Puppet Saves Universe: She and a couple other FBK members playtested a universe. As her reward, she got a custom-made realm from the Designer, which she placed inside the shack at 123 Swamp Ave for anyone who wants to question her legitimacy, curious passerby, or esteemed "guests" of hers.
* A Shot in the Dark: After delving into an ancient dwarven ruin with Flex and Olathe (the trio are called the Southern Style Squad), she was shot and killed by Flex in order to rid her of a curse. She left her dragons with Olathe for safekeeping until she comes back from Hell.
* Snackspionage! : Due to her impressive detective work, she became Remedios' exarch and gained the ability to manipulate the feathers on her wings at will, like Hawks from MHA.
* Bloodletting It Go: She spent the day with Reine Ylvaby at a vampire-run bloody amusement park. She also met with Blithe Hoard and learned that he knows she is saving his life from the shadows, demonstrated the ability to turn into a vulture, and made an enemy of Sigrid Andersen.
* Minimum Rager: She met her half-sister Stellfaeira (formerly Stella Argentine), refused to become another Xadrin's exarch, and made a deal with her to improve Poppy's Puzzle Mania and make sure adventurers know what they're signing up for.
* Trash Can Do: Ava sent her pseudodraon Penny on an FBK job, occasionally possessing her, while she and Malum acted as Blithe Hoard's shadow bodyguards.
* Love Scattered: Helped Reine's cousin rescue a princess. However, she killed Malum to save herself and began to unravel.

## Epilogue

This epilogue has some spoilers for Love Scattered, the penultimate episode of Season 2023, as it happens right after the events of that episode.

Avarice H. had sent Chico, Reine, and the rest away - back to the Firebreathing Kittens guildhall - telling them that she'll be fine. She was lying. Her wings were torn and nearly burnt off, most of their feathers gone, and her hands - her hands were skeletal, the flesh melted off them like Malum's melted, cooling stained glass corpse off in the distance. He'd died after she'd taken his heart to free herself. These wounds would never heal on their own. Even though it hurt, Ava took out her sending stone to call Flex. She'd invoke their deal and he would send her to Hell, where she could regenerate herself and come back whole. But... no. She hesitated, staring at the sending stone. Every time she went back to Hell, she had to stay there longer. It was harder each time for her to come back to the Material Plane. And she was exhausted.

She dropped the sending stone, and it clattered off the island rocks. What did she come back for? She had gained so much power, made so many deals. She'd become a figure of authority and practically ruled a town. People looked up to her as a beautiful, powerful woman and feared her as a dangerous, ruthless devil with fierce pets. She'd stopped plucking the feathers off her wings and learned how to fly again. It felt good, but there was always something missing. Freedom. She had so much to do. Her life was so demanding, and each deal she made was a chain. And all these chains made her stronger, but they pulled her in every direction. Her parents only saw her as a tool, and that's how she saw everyone else. Her friends in the FBK cared about her, maybe, but all they were to her was a means to an end - a way to make money and deals. She had all this power, and she had been beaten by a lantern - a cage. In the end, she'd always be a slave. What was the point?

She looked closer at her hands, and realized the flesh was not melting - she was unravelling. It was spreading to her wrists and forearms now. Tiny, spectral chains slowly unhooking themselves. Hundreds of them. She saw one broken, flapping in the wind in Malum's direction. A golden strand connected to Penny, who was in the centre of where Malum had been, nuzzled up to his still-glowing heart. Ava looked to the portals that were all around her, connected to her realm. A realm she had been given, that she had earned. She had not conned, lied, intimidated, or forced a deal for it. It was really, truly hers.

"I'm sorry, Penny." The pseudodragon looked at her, grief and confusion in those sweet golden eyes. "I'm sorry I took Malum from you, and I'm sorry that I have to go now too. You can't come with me. I can't bring anything or anyone with me. I'll miss you, little one."

Penny flew toward Ava in protest, but it was too late. Ava took out her athame, a dull knife she used for rituals, and severed the bond she had with Penny. The little dragon stopped and hovered mid-flight.

"Go, Penny. Be free. Goodbye."

Ava stepped through a portal into the sky of her realm. Here, she was no longer the spawn of a devil and a criminal. No more purple skin, burnt off wings, dyed black hair, and dark circles under her eyes. Here, her eyes were the sunrise, her skin the sky, her hair the clouds, and her wings the night, stretching across horizons. With a quick flourish of her hands, now whole, she closed all the portals connecting this realm to the Material Plane, as if they were never there. The familiar tug she felt of her deals pulling her back to the Material Plane - back to slavery - was gone. Avarice H. was finally free.