Therpora

**Therpora** is a wood elf rogue and assassin from the city of Waterdeep. Born and raised in this City of Splendors, she ended up joining the Harpers due to the group making a good use of her subterfuge-related skillset. In 1490 DR, Therpora was sent as a representative of the Waterdhavian Harpers to Port Nyanzaru to aid the city's harbormaster Zindar. Together with other Harpers in Port Nyanzaru, Therpora helped stop the plot of a Waterdhavian Zhentarim Cell, as well a prevent the Xanathar Guild from exploiting Port Nyanzaru's black market.

Therpora was player character in the short *All Eyes on Chult* adventure.

## Description

Therpora is a female wood elf, standing at about 5 feet and 8 inches (1.7 meters) and weighing about 130 pounds (59 kilograms). She has lightly tanned skin, sandy-blonde hair, and brown eyes. Due to her profession as an assassin as well as her tendency to practice thievery for fun, she is most often seen in rogue's leather and wearing a hood to obscure her appearance. Being a Harper, Therpora also tends to wear a Harper pin to show her status, though she does not wear it at all times- often preferring anonymity.

## Personality

Therpora, though differing greatly to other wood elves due to her childhood in Waterdeep, is as much a free spirit as the rest of her Sylvan kin. Though she worships Sehanine Moonbow and values the Harper Code, her thirst for freedom in the urban structure of Waterdeep led her to a life of subterfuge and petty crime. As a member of those who harp her skills are used against tyrants and those seek to oppress, but her dislike of strict law and order are very apparent even when she is operating under the thumb of Harper-allied cities. Though her more chaotic tendencies do occasionally lead to some backlash with her fellow Harpers, Therpora is both patient and long-lived, as well as a fervent believer in the Harper cause. Even when she is reprimanded for her behavior, she believes in simply waiting until her actions are forgotten and she is back in the organization's favor.

## History

Born and raised in the City of Splendors, Therpora was destined for a live of petty crime and subterfuge by her freedom-loving Elven spirit. She learned from a young age how to keep out of sight, pick pockets, and defend herself if need be. She put these skills to use frequently in her first century and the decades that followed- creating a rather cozy existence for herself in the city- all the while managing to avoid the fate of other freelancing rogues. These skills eventually drew the attention of the Harper organization, and over time she became a regular contact and associate for agents in the city- though she was not instantly granted a place in the organization due to her background. After working with those who harp on many occasions, she was finally given a chance to be more than contact- and after being 'mentored' on Harper values, she was accepted into the ranks of Watchers.

In the decades that followed she was not called upon often, so Therpora continued to live as she did before- only now having the benefits of Harper membership and a new code to live by. This lack of frequent operations did mean she was not given many opportunities to advance, but being a patient rogue, Therpora did not mind the arrangement at all. Even though she wasn't being called upon often, her ability to continue acting alone while still being protected served as a positive of her membership.

### All Eyes on Chult

In 1490 DR, the Harpers within Waterdeep took note of two suspicious ships, the *Flying Adder* and the *Wicked Gaze* leaving for Port Nyanzaru. To counter what they saw as a potential smuggling operation, they chose to alert their allies and members in Port Nyanzaru, as well as send Therpora to Chult to be of aid. Being unfamiliar with Chult, Therpora initially found this mission freeing- though she would later come to despise the city's restrictions in the days to come. At Port Nyanzaru, Therpora met with the grung brothers Gro'ok and Mua'glib, as well as the yuan-ti cleric Zikorin. Together, the newly-made party of four met with the harbormaster Zindar, who tasked them with boarding the vessels and searching for evidence of criminal intent, as well as their cargo manifests. He had been blocked by his superiors from searching the ships with his own authorities, and thus had hoped to receive the discrete aid of the Harpers. Due to very strict laws about killing in Port Nyanzaru being illegal in nearly every circumstance (even in self-defense), Zindar urged the group to avoid slaying anyone they encountered.

In the following investigation, Therpora earned some ire from her party members when she flaunted these laws of Port Nyanzaru. While the grung brothers had been able to board the *Flying Adder* and return with evidence of criminal activity, Therpora had slain multiple members of the *Wicked Gaze'*s crew when she and Zikorin boarded the vessel. Being experienced with hiding evidence of crimes, Therpora managed to hide both bodies- though this did not make her comrades dislike her actions any less.

After both ships had been boarded, the party was able to deduce that the crew of the *Flying Adder* consisted of Zhentarim members, while the crew of the *Wicked Gaze* consisted of members of the Xanathar Guild. While the brothers were waiting for Zikorin and Therpora to return with evidence of smuggling on the Wicked Gaze, they were confronted by dock guards that sought to have them arrested for trespassing and sedition- though they lacked any evidence of either charges. Mua'glib and Gro'ok sought to simply flee the guards to avoid an unnecessary death, but Therpora elected to fight the guards that had attempted to arrest her fellow Harpers. After she slew the guard captain, an intellect devourer emerged from his head- implicating the Xanathar Guild in the arrest attempt (as the party had found dead intellect devourers and proof of released intellect devourers on the *Wicked Gaze*). The grung brothers stopped attempting to flee at that point, and together they slew the intellect devourer- though only after the devourer had drained the intelligence of one of dock guards. Together with the corpse of the devourer, the dead captain, and the two living guards, the trio returned to the harbormaster to present evidence of the Zhentarim and Xanathar Guild's crimes. During the fight, Zikorin had attempted to board the *Flying Adder* alone- and the trio of remaining harpers never saw her again.

The next day, Therpora and the rest of the remaining harpers were informed of both the *Flying Adder* and *Wicked Gaze* leaving the harbor before they could be impounded, confirming Zindar's suspicions that Zikorin was not returning. To make up for the missing harper, Zindar used his connections to get Janar, a grung priestess of Nangnang, to aid Therpora and her companions for missions to come. The party was then assigned to interrupt a meeting between the captain of the *Flying Adder*, Florina DuRaal, as she met with a fence named Dour Orlando. After splitting up, the party eventually found the Gray Trader, Orlando's place of business and the meeting spot where DuRaal planned to meet the fence.

The party arrived at the Gray Trader before Dour Orlando's meeting with DuRaal, and although Therpora did attempt to use her experience as a thief to befriend the fence, Orlando was not receptive to the assassin's attempts at camaraderie. After that attempt at conversation, the party began to stake out the business separately. While the grung brothers chose to board DuRaal's wagon during the Captain's meeting with Orlando, Therpora and Janar were left to deal with bringing the merchant Dour Orlando to justice instead. Due to charms placed upon Orlando by Janar, the unlikely duo managed to avoid combat and convince the smuggler to journey with Janar back to the harbormaster's office through trickery.

After the Brothers Croak returned to the harbormaster's office with an unconscious Florina DuRaal, bother the Zhentarim rogue and Orlando were put through questioning- implicating the Xanathar Guild smuggler Red-Eye in a plot to exploit Port Nyanzaru and control the Merchant Princes.

In her final mission for the harbormaster, Therpora was summoned to the harbormaster's office by a *sending* spell. There she was debriefed on Red-Eye's break-in at Jobal's villa, as well as the prince being held captive. As the sorcerer was being kept under watch, he'd needed to use a *simulacrum* to meet with the party- being unwilling to besiege the villa himself if it meant Jobal's death. Together with the other members of her party, Therpora climbed over the outer wall of the villa through a tree, and made her way into the building itself through a window looking out at the Merchant Prince's garden. Once inside, Therpora and Janar were sent to scout out the villa's rooms for Red-Eye. While scouting out the rooms, Therpora found a large number of the *Wicked Gaze'*s goblin crew members making a mess of the villa and fawning over Batiri masks Jobal had kept on display. The duo later had a confrontation with steam mephits in Jobal's bathroom, which had been summoned in the Prince's defense but were unable to leave the room. After almost being overwhelmed the two fell back to their initial entrance into the villa. Once there, leadership of the group seemingly shifted to the grung Mua'glib.

Under Mua'glib's lead, the party ascended to the second floor of Jobal's villa and stumbled upon the room where the Merchant Prince was being kept captive. The resulting confrontation did bring the death of Red-Eye (at Therpora's hands) and his closest associates, but it also brought the death of Jobal to an intellect devourer Red-Eye released upon the Merchant Prince.

Though the party had ultimately failed in protecting Jobal, their efforts in capturing DuRaal and killing Red-Eye did not go unrewarded. Mua'glib and Gro'ok had elected to inform Zindar of the 'unnecessary deaths' Therpora had caused, so the half-dragon had done his best to reward the two for their good conduct. This came at the cost of discretely condemning the actions of Therpora, of course. After giving her the choice of taking DuRaal back to the Harpers of Waterdeep as a prisoner, Therpora was informed that she had been formally exiled from Port Nyanzaru. She was not prosecuted and would return to her home successful, but she could never return. On top of this, Zindar's communications informed the Harpers of Therpora's conduct- preventing her from advancing in rank as her fellow party members had.

Therpora left the city with DuRaal as a prisoner, thankful for having left the city she saw as corrupt and unnecessarily strict. Though she was chastised upon her return, her performance and success meant that she was not truly punished. Though annoyed with this minor punishment, Therpora remained patient, believing (correctly) that she could simply regain favor at some later point due to her long life. In the year following her return to Waterdeep, Therpora even became a regular contact of Florina DuRaal, who became a Harper Asset and independent crime lord after being formally expelled from the Zhentarim.