Sonder

## General

Sonder is a longtime agent of Watchguard Management and Solutions, and a liaison coordinating Feywild-Prime relations from within the Vernal Court (and the Feywild at large). For years, she has acted as an accomplished mediator and diplomat within King Oberon's domain; under her direction, the number of Feywild-Prime intrusions has diminished greatly, and those intrusions which have occurred have not borne lasting impacts on the modern public. In a scrape, however, Sonder has also proved herself an accomplished guard, investigator, and ally.

## Description

As an eladrin, Sonder bears many physical similarities to her elven brethren - if exaggerated. Her features are sharp and chiseled, her ears are long and thin. But as an eladrin, and especially an eladrin of mixed-court heritage, there are features which set Sonder apart: her hair is a deep blue cascade (which seems to curl and clump into leaf-like clusters), her skin is gilded, and her eyes seem to glow an icy white. She sports a suit of leather armor over her charcoal-grey dress suit, complete with vambraces and thick gloves.

At the very least, that is her true form. But Sonder is a master of illusions, enchantments, subterfuge and disguise. And so she is known to don any number of new identities or appearances as easily as one might change their clothes. It has served her well in her duties as a spy.

Still, Sonder is hardly ever seen without her occulant abacus - fashioned to function as a harp and her arcane focus - and her longbow.

## Biography

### From the Feywild

Born in 185 H.F. under mixed-court heritage, the beginning of Sonder's life brimmed with untold danger. Her parents (Aestival Page, Steeply Bound; Hibernal Smith, Vigilantly Clattering) hailed from different fey courts, and so their partnership was a matter of dire treason - their daughter, Exhibit A. The pair sought to flee the Feywild with their child, but escape would not be easy. And with cadres of headhunters on their trail, Sonder's parents became desperate. Their desperation led them to Yien-Ra: an infernal arcanist and smuggler. Yien-Ra used his multitude means and immense network to sequester Sonder and her family away to the Prime Material Plane - with the understanding that this family would owe Yien-Ra dearly in the future.

But arriving in the Prime Material would not be the surefire sanctuary Sonder's parents believed it could be. The family's intrusion into the realm was noted and investigated by Watchguard Management & Solutions, who hoped to discover how these individuals had made it into the Prime Material so easily and safely. What Watchguard sought was Yien-Ra. And, in his own way, Yien-Ra returned the feeling. This smuggler had dedicated his life to wheeling and dealing across the various planes - and so Watchguard proved itself a constant obstacle to Yien-Ra's business. He wanted to investigate and disrupt Watchguard's operations, as they sought to do the same to his. And the lynchpin lay with the eladrin family he'd just snuck into the Prime Material.

The eladrin, for their own parts, fell into a conflict with Watchguard. They were an anomaly in the realm, and so Watchguard intended to return the eladrin to the Feywild - or else to offer asylum within Watchguard's walls, in exchange for knowledge on Yien-Ra. When faced with certain death or otherwise confinement, Sonder's family chose the latter (with reluctance). And so this was the environment in which Sonder would spend much of her first few decades: secreted away from the world within the comfortable, if strange, confines of this organization.

Yien-Ra was a difficult fiend to find for the unwelcome, but in 261 H.F. Watchguard landed themselves a lead. They sent a team of agents into the Feywild to collect or kill Yien-Ra; this team was accompanied by Sonder's parents, as navigating the Feywild and finding its exits would be nigh-impossible without them. And though this party would ultimately find Yien-Ra, he would be ready for them: the full force of his guard, composed of multitude individuals indebted to him, stood ready to defend their master. Sonder's parents were magically compelled into serving Yien-Ra in this encounter, due to the debt they owed him, and in so doing found themselves engaged in a dire fight to the death with Watchguard's agents. The Watchguard team was ultimately unsuccessful in fighting through this guard force to kill Yien-Ra - but Sonder's parents were nonetheless lost in the encounter, and Watchguard was left with the unenviable position of somehow extracting its agents from the Feywild with their guides now gone and Yien-Ra on the run. Sonder would shortly after be informed of the loss of her family.

### A New Cause

With the lives of a squad of Watchguard agents at stake, it would fall to Sonder to guide them home. And guide them she would: Sonder entered the Feywild and used her parents' tales and her own natural sensitivities to the plane to help navigate the Watchguard team through this realm - not out of the Feywild, but instead in pursuit of Yien-Ra. Watchguard would complete its mission and vengeance would be dealt, if Sonder had any say in the matter. With her guidance, the Watchguard crew found Yien-Ra once more, and their encounter began anew. But this time, Watchguard was ready for Yien-Ra; this time, the team would overcome him in due order. And after Sonder ensured Yien-Ra was dead and his body unrecoverable, she then guided the team from the realm.

This mission had borne a new (if bitter) lease on life for Sonder to explore, and with no roots left anywhere but at Watchguard, she elected to join the organization in an official capacity. And for decades, she served dutifully as an occulant within the organization's security branch; dispatching anomalies and damage control became the norm for her. She fell into a kind of comfortable routine for a time.

Still, a part of her was deeply affected by the scope of harm caused by Yien-Ra's smuggling operations. Sonder would ultimately put these worries to good use: in 290 H.F. she would appeal to her superiors at Watchguard, to be allowed back into the Feywild and help strengthen borders between the realms. Under her direction, nothing like Yien-Ra would be allowed to happen again.

Sonder would be granted this new assignment. She entered the Feywild under humble miens, and began to plot how best to ingratiate herself to the realm's highest powers. For her own safety, she knew it would be wisest to avoid the Aestival and Hibernal Courts her family had converged from: it might prove easier for them to identify her and her heritage, and then she would be as good as dead (no matter her "loyalty" to the crown). So Sonder set off to begin her work in the Vernal Court.

### The Vernal Court

Over the course of decades, Sonder climbed up the ranks of the Vernal Court - punctuated with the occasional heroic feat (be it rescuing a fey noble or stopping a treasonous plot) to better ingratiate herself to this political theater. And in 334 H.F., the Vernal Court's high advisors would extend a direct offer to Sonder: she had made her service to Watchguard and the Feywild known, and King Oberron was in need of a liaison between the planes. Should she swear fealty to the Vernal Court in an official capacity, certain privileges and powers might become available to her.

For Sonder, this was a perfect opportunity. She could serve Watchguard by earning the Vernal Court's loyalty and acting through it to make the Feywild-Prime borders more secure. But better still, she could offer asylum for those who, like her family, sought to flee the realm: she could establish a network of Watchguard-Feywild sanctioned safehouses between the two planes. It was a better alternative than these individuals seeking out more dangerous wildcards like Yien-Ra.

After consulting with Watchguard, it was an easy choice for Sonder. She accepted the Vernal Court's offer, and for over a century afterward she acted as an agent for both Watchguard and the Feywild's interests.