Riot Hallowheart

Official image of Riot, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

Riot Hallowheart is a Player Character from Arc 9 played by James.

## Description

Riot is a royal purple Tiefling, and a Trickery Domain Cleric for Shar, deity of the night and thieves. They are covered in white and black tattoos mostly depicting snake imagery, because they think snakes are neat.

He presents more femme, and is well-dressed, usually in a style like he could walk onto the set of an Ocean's Eleven movie at any time.

Riot's magic item are the Gloves of "Get back here".

## Backstory

Riot comes from a rich family, and also marries rich, a "wife guy" husband named Valerian. Despite his rich background, Riot has been doing petty crime all his life.

Around 146 AE, Riot decides to take a sort of gap year from being rich, and joins the Arc 9 crime family. For no particular reason other than that she feels that that is the right thing to do, she keeps her rich background as well as her husband a secret, but is not very good at it. While they live in the duplex together with the crime family, Valerian gets their own apartment in Qto, but comes visit Riot sometimes by climbing through the window because they miss them. When the crime family is in a fight, Riot regularly spends nearly the whole battle healing people instead of fighting herself, which annoys her a bit.

One day, as Valerian is visiting, Juniper comes in, who is Riot's best friend in the crime family and regularly comes to her for comfort. Thus, Juniper is the only one who knows about Valerian. Generally, Riot barely opens up about his life to anyone in the duplex, and keeps a lot of secrets.

## Character Arc

While they pack their bag, Valerian visits them, climbing in through the window. The two of them tease each other a bit, before they say goodbye, which feels weird for Riot, since it has been long that they were more than a block away from each other.

While in Lacewing's house, she finds a ring that allows her to cast *Sending* once a day. The Spider asks for a drop of blood, but before Riot gives it to him, they make very sure that it is just a drop, and consider it through thoroughly. Generally, she does her best not to fall into any trap of words, yet still manages to be friendly and open-minded towards Lacewing, becoming a new favourite visitor for them. Because of this, Lacewing tells them about the lantern he has.

Outside the house, Riot uses the ring to ask her mother-in-law, Crystal Hallowheart, for information about the Feywild and the lantern, since Crystal has access to a big library.

Juniper and her show little understanding towards Julian's concern and emotional outburst over the deals all of them made. They slightly belittle him for his behaviour, and not very secretively roll their eyes behind his back. But while Juniper tries to sugarcoat the deal she accidentally made, Riot assumes to be aware of the risk she willingly took to assure their safety by gaining the ring, and is very certain that there are worse things than making deals with Fey, although they do not elaborate, even when asked.

Later, Riot realises how much Juniper is hurt by the things she sees in the Mirror of Homesickness, so she offers to take it away, and keeps it safe, so that Juniper doesn't have to look at it.

In the tree house, she is pressured into sharing a secret first, and admits that this job is the last one she will go on with the crime family. Especially Julian reacts shocked, but generally, this revelation is met with a sudden resentment from the group against her, which surprises her. They are not happy to know so little about Riot's life, even after a year of living with them, and them now leaving on such little notice. Later, when a sixth secret is necessary, they urge her to share another one, and she gives in, after defending herself and saying that she won't just vanish from their lives, and it's not really her choice to leave, either. Then, they tell them that they grew up on the streets, and feel like there is only one person who ever truly loved them, and that they are leaving to go back to them. Shortly afterwards, she tells Art that he is a good boss, and that if she had more of a choice, she isn't sure she would leave.

Later, after Julian tried to run away to prove himself, Riot and Julian have a conversation during their shared watch, in which they both try to apologise for their behaviour and get to know each other better. Riot learns some more about his thoughts regarding Juniper, and in turn shares that they have trust issues, and that for them Juniper is the only other person besides Valerian that comes close to making them actually feel loved. After this shared moment, Riot tries to put in a good word for Julian with Juniper, so that she sees him more as a capable person with agency than just a child.

In the battle with Render, he breaks Riot's nose. Valerian later calls their new look "badass".

After the battle, each partymember is offered to be granted a wish by Lee, and Riot secretly tells him that she is about to become a vampire in the Material Plane. Because of this, they ask him to make sure that they keep what makes them them, their empathy and moral compass, so that they won't turn into the kind of cold people their parents-in-law are. Lee, despite feeling like he is cursing her, grants her the wish.

They land back on the Material Plane without Juniper, who blinked out of existence for a moment during the teleportation back. Riot is scared about their friend until they are able to confirm her safety through a *Sending* spell. Back in the duplex, he is expected already not just by Art's family and Juniper, but also Valerian, who came every day to check for him. Riot decides to introduce Valerian to the crime family. A few days later, the two of them leave the duplex together for the last time to go to the Hallowheart estate in Vexinova. As they leave, Riot leaves something behind for everyone: Art gets their money from all the jobs they went on, Serenity gets the address to the Hallowheart estate with an open invitation to visit them, and Juniper gets the *Sending* ring together with a little note with a heart and a "call any time".

## Trivia

* Riot has a tattoo over their heart that says "now and always" in Elvish. Valerian has a matching tattoo (the same place and phrase) but in Infernal.
* The nickname "Spike" that he got from Render refers to his horns.