The Lilin

The Lilin can take many forms.

The Lilin prefers to take a female persona as it spreads chaos. It stores all the souls of its victims within itself, able to pull one out at will to 'wear'. It is also able to wear the soul of its summoner after their death. It is a master of deception, illusion, and takes great pleasure in sex and killing - often in conjunction.

This demon is the foremother of the Dusk Elf race and the cause for vampirism. It is associated with seduction, rape, blood, and ink.

## The Demon in the Void

The origin of the Lilin is unknown, like most demons. It has formed and grown over time to create an identity for itself and is known to predate the founding of Everglow / Bastion City.

## Forays into the Mortal World

#### -184 AE

The Lilin was summoned by the Dusk Elves. (Read more about the Dusk Elves)

#### 970 AE

In 970, Amayl Heartstone-Rodin, captive of the pirate group The Malabre Marauders, had a child. It died in childbirth, but a battle ensued outside the birthing chamber – the Marauders had been found, their hideout penetrated, by the joint forces of Harold Umbridge and Elmer Twicefreed. They were there to rescue Amayl, but the midwife threw the dead baby in the water in a panic, fearing she would be killed with a dead child in her hands. At the same time, Harold Umbridge was knocked down in battle and also entered the Sorrows. But he wore a relic about his neck, a relic he had found deep in Westgate’s citydepths and unbeknownst to him, was a totem of the Lilin.

This dead child’s body, Amayl’s blood, and Harold’s totem allowed a brief opening of the Void, which the Lilin was waiting for. She entered the mortal realm and found Harold’s mind where she spoke with him. She told him for unleashing her on the world, she would grant him one wish. And he chose a selfish wish, a foolish wish – that his and Amayl’s lives would be forever bound. The Lilin granted it, and told him he must do one more thing for her to ensure this wish came true – raise the child. And Harold woke from the Sorrows, clutching the body of the dead babe – yet now it lived and breathed and stared at him with the coldest, blackest orbs. And he knew it was the Lilin.

Harold Umbridge asked Amayl to marry him as he escorted her home, the Lilin safely hidden away. Amayl refused the proposal and Harold was enraged and confused. Once Amayl was home and Harold had returned to Westgate, he took the baby into his chambers and interrogated it. But it would not answer, for it was a baby, even if a demon inhabited it – the Lilin did not wish to speak. Harold feared the demon had left him with just a living baby and fled its form somehow, so he raised the child in secrecy. He married, he had a son, but all throughout, he raised this child. She never spoke a word. He simply named her Daughter.

One day, on the child’s fifteenth birthday in 985, he returned to the secret room he kept her in to find it open and two bodies on the floor. A nosey servant had found the latch and entered, only to be murdered by the Daughter – who in fact, had been the Lilin all along. With this new soul, the Lilin took the form of the servant and abandoned that of the Daughter. Harold stopped this imposter and demanded she explain why Amayl was not in his life as had been promised. The Lilin told him their lives were indeed bound together, but he had delayed fate by marrying his wife Margeret Kilburn. And he was all out of wishes. She assaulted him and knocked him out. When he woke, she was gone.

The Daughter slowly regained consciousness. Harold, unsure of what exactly she was now, bound her. But the Daughter spoke for the first time, admitting she knew what had happened throughout her life – at least after the toddler years. Harold had been kind to her, raised her. Given her books to look at, even if she never spoke or acknowledged him beyond a blank stare. She said it was the Lilin’s doing, that for 15 years she had been prisoner inside her own body. But she had deep, dark knowledge no other human had. She knew potions, magic, witchcraft, and dark powers. So Harold Umbridge allowed her to leave the secret room and begin working for him.

In 998, Harold’s son Arthur was accused of rape by a servant girl – Gwynneth, of the Fairbairn Cottage, a place for displaced girls in Westgate. News spread so quickly that Harold knew before long his son would face a court of law – instead, he went to the Daughter and asked she concoct a poison to make it look like an illness killed Arthur. The Daughter made the poison, and Harold’s henchman Zlatkov Kost delivered it to him, resulting in Arthur Umbridge’s death.

After Arthur’s death, the Daughter wished to leave Westgate. To help negotiate her release, she researched the Lilin and provided Harold with another way to summon the demon. But first, *the Lilin would have to die and return to the Void*. Harold agreed the Daughter had lived life underground long enough and she could go free – but she would owe him one last, big favor should he ever call on her services. For the price of raising her. She agreed, then left.

#### 1007 AE

The Lilin roamed the Isles between the years of 985 and 1007. Along the way, it consumed many souls and delighted in its sexual escapades and serial murders. However, while in the form of a handsome man, the Lilin bedded a young woman - Rasheba Heartstone and revealed itself in the act of sex, beginning to consume Rasheba's soul. However, against all odds, Rasheba managed to kill The Lilin while they were in the throes of what was now no longer consensual relations. And the Lilin was thrown back into the Void... but Rasheba was left with her own curse.

#### 1014 AE - 1016 AE

In 1014AE, Harold attempted again to summon The Lilin, and he succeeded.

Following the wish of Harold Umbridge, the Lilin masqueraded as a drow bodyguard to gain access to the Ludlow Estate in Caybourne. It proceeded to seduce Jennifer Ludlow †, who it then killed and took the form of to kill Amarika Ludlow †. Then it went on to kidnap Eason Ludlow and say some lewd parting words to Serenity Piers, still in the form of Jennifer.

After delivering the young lordling to the Daughter of the Sorrows in Aruluent Quay, it had apparently nothing to do and delighted in its freedom for a short time.

> *“Nobody needed to die, my love. Amarika, Jennifer… this… none of it had to happen. You and your fucking Marauders, wiping it in my face that the pirate took from me what was mine. My woman. My dignity.”*
> Harold Umbridge to Amayl Heartstone-Rodin, concerning the Lilin's actions.
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Upon the death of its summoner, Harold Umbridge, the Lilin materialized from his body to speak with his killers - James Umbridge and Rasheba Heartstone, the latter being the very same woman that killed the Lilin the most recent time it was in the world. It informed Rasheba that she was pregnant with Harold's child as a result of the rape he had committed against her.

> *"But coming to blows would be a waste of the beautiful creation within you, my dear. The woman that killed me and the man that summoned me... With the sacrifice of my summoner, I am complete. You would not survive a tussle - nor one in the sheets, however fun that was. But our blood will meet again. The summoning sacrifice, the one of the tainted blood, yet walks this world. My foolish summoner seems to have given you a hint as to where you must go next."*
> The Lilin, speaking to Rasheba and James
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The Lilin was returned to the Void upon its closing by Elmer Twicefreed when he drew too much on his ancestral bloodline and accidentally summoned it. However, in summoning The Lilin - his very own goddess he had killed once before - he was able to draw on her power to fuel his own and complete the sealing ritual.

It would not be heard from again in the Mortal realm until 1086 AE, 70 years later.

## Curses and Summoning the Lilin

### Summoning

> *“A newborn’s blood must be spilled with her mother’s as she is drowned in the Sorrows. This allows the window between the realms to split open, but there must be a man or woman’s willing soul to guide the demon through. She rides on the infant’s wavering lifeforce, and forces the question as the man or woman’s own reflection in the water: ‘I will allow this child to live should you release me from the Sorrows of the Void.’*
>
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> *Upon acceptance, she takes the child’s life as her own. She fills that creature’s body with her essence, crams its soul deep within it so only she lives in the husk. But with this release of her from the Sorrows, a new pact is sealed: upon the summoner’s death, the Lilin is truly released. Mortal flesh no longer binds her, and she no longer needs a husk.”*
>
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> - The Daughter of the Sorrows, Magnolia Malabre, to Rasheba Heartstone in 1015 AE
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Throughout Aradia's Isles there are multiple accounts on how the Lilin has been summoned through history.

#### What Nearly Was

(Around 4500 BE) Long before the first summoning, The Lilin very nearly was summoned as a result of her descendant Cloven practicing hemomancy and drinking of blood to survive. However, the correct conditions weren't met and instead, vampirism came into the world through this event.

#### The First Summoning

The first summoning of The Lilin took place in -184 AE.

The Lilin was communicating with her Dusk Elf followers by means of the Thvrokavos (Ravensyell). This machine held crystals infused with the blood of virgin Dusk Elves, needed no power source, and created a mental image of both the Lilin, and the caller, which projected onto the surface of a bowl of water drawn from the Sorrows. The verbal component of the machine was sent and received through the water. The method of summoning was communicated to the Lilin's high cleric via this Thvrokavos.

The high cleric found a Dusk Elf woman and her freshly newborn babe, sacrificing them both by his blade to the Sorrows. The Lilin appeared in the reflection of the bloodied water, then possessed the fresh corpse of the woman and launched from the Sorrows in a flurry of bloodlust. She killed her own summoner and burst from his body in her Void form. She was killed later that same day by Elmer Twicefreed.

#### The Second Summoning

The second summoning of the Lilin took place in 970 AE, as accidentally caused by Harold Umbridge and his interaction with the newborn Magnolia Malabre, a stillborn thrown to the Sorrows. The Lilin was able to remain in the mortal plane until 1007 AE when it was killed by Rasheba Heartstone.

#### The Third Summoning

The third successful summoning of the Lilin took place in 1014 AE.

Between the years of 985 AE and 1007 AE, Harold Umbridge had tried many times unsuccessfully to summon her but she was not dead and he did not hold the power to bring her to him. After some time, he finally tried again when he had a better reason to summon her and was successful. But all these times he attempted to summon her, he had killed a newborn and spilled it and its mother's blood in the Sorrows - the woman he used for these rituals was Gwynneth Fairbairn, the mother of James Umbridge.

#### The Fourth Summoning

The fourth summoning of the Lilin took place in 1015 AE.

This did not originate from The Void - when James Umbridge and Rasheba Heartstone killed Harold Umbridge, they had killed the Lilin's last summoner. Neither James nor Rasheba were considered a summoner in this case - only the corpse of Harold. Killing a summoner of the Lilin caused her to gain access to a far more powerful version of herself - colloquially referred to as her Void form - and she escaped off in Minecraft god-mode.

#### The Fifth Summoning

The fifth summoning of the Lilin took place in 1015 AE, two months after the last.

This was a type of summoning that had never been done before. Elmer Twicefreed, while attempting to gather hemomantic magic to himself in the Void, drew so deeply on his bloodline that the Lilin had no choice but to revert to the Void, partially possessing him and fueling his power. This happened due to Elmer's killing of the Lilin back in -184 AE, and because he was one of her distant descendants.

#### The Sixth Summoning

The sixth summoning of the Lilin took place in 1086 AE and tore the Void open once more.

### The Umbridge Curse

Summoning the Lilin places a curse on the summoner and their descendants. Harold is the origin of this curse. The curse does not bind to only those born after the summoning - anyone descended from the summoner is affected. This curse essentially tags anyone with shared blood of the summoner, making them easier for The Lilin to possess or manipulate.

(See also: The Woven Lies of Umbridge) Contrary to modern belief, the curse is not actually tied to the madness that runs through the Umbridge line since prior to the founding of the House.

### Rasheba's Curse

Killing the Lilin in the midst of sexual intercourse resulted in a bizarre curse on Rasheba. It is speculated that if the Lilin did not kill its victims, many more would live with this condition.

Rasheba was unable to have sex with other individuals without exposing them to a demonic infection. The one attempt she made at love-making after her traumatic event with the Lilin, she did not suffer any ill effects but her partner did. This caused her to become celibate. The same infection took place when Rasheba was unconsciously raped by Harold Umbridge in 1015 AE. Had he lived long enough to see it, his genitals would have shriveled away to nothing after blackening and excruciating pain.

However, the demonic infection seemed to awaken when she went into labor with her first and only child, Temperance. But it entered her blood stream and rapidly began depriving her of oxygen as she labored and finally, she slipped away during childbirth, her veins pulsing with black blood. Her baby had to be cut from her belly.

Temperance did not grow up to display any signs of her mother's curse and safely gave birth to her only son Asgarth Heartstone. However, they were both descendants of Harold Umbridge, meaning they were likely recipients of the Umbridge variant of the Lilin's curse.

## Associated Individuals

* Dusk Elf (race)
* House Umbridge (noble house)
* Cloven (the first vampire)
* Elmer Twicefreed (aka Taegath Faydroka) - Having killed the Lilin once, and having a bloodline directly descended from it, he is capable of drawing power from her and even summoning her in the Void. [Soul Possessed...?]
* Shael Voidseer - the Dawn Elf who went searching for her goddess Aradia in the Void, but found the Lilin instead. [Soul Possessed]
* Harold Umbridge - the second being to summon the Lilin into the mortal realm. [Soul Possessed]
* Daughter of the Sorrows - forced to be the vessel of the Lilin for 15 years.
* Arthur Umbridge
* James Umbridge
* Dante Umbridge II
* Casim Umbridge
* Percival Umbridge
* Roderic Umbridge
* Rasheba Heartstone - Killed the Lilin once.
* Temperance Heartstone
* Asgarth Heartstone
* Rhoslyn Ludlow II
* Taliesen Ludlow
* Phryne Ludlow
* Mason Bay
* Lucienne Rodin
* Serenity the Seer
* Juniper Umbridge
* Caoimhe Umbridge