Lamia Strausberg

Lamia is a variant tiefling and a founding member of White Dawn along with Kamahl and Kran. He poses as a traveling bard with his lute, but his efficiency in deathly encounters says otherwise.

## Description

Lamia stands at 5'10" with auburn hair and bright green eyes. That along with the curled dark ram-like horns and a long tail would seem to stand out in a crowd. But Lamia mainly uses this to his advantage as he can easily pass off as a performer. "It's so overt, it's covert." Over the years, he has mastered hiding in plain sight to the chagrin of many of his enemies.

His signature non-combat magic item is an in-offending whistle necklace. He mostly performs a code which can be heard by anyone he chooses on the material plane that he knows by face. He otherwise wears a dress shirt with a long fur-lined black vest and chaps because he was tired of getting his nice pants dirty.

## History

The troubled past of Lamia often catches up to him in the form of his previous mentor Cypher or the soldier Noc. He was brought up in sheltered affluence with his father dealing in black market trades unaware to his mother who served as a rugged guild master before retiring into a martial teaching role. The Strausberg family was not well liked by the townsfolk due to their status and lineage of abyssal beings. Thus there were mercenaries hired to guard the house and Lamia was not permitted to leave the estate without supervision.

Lamia was trained in martial weapons by his a strict mother and was able to impress the illusive head of Memento Mori, Cypher, when a scout sent to the estate was injured by a teenage Lamia. Lamia is then abducted by this group and is told that his family would not pay ransom showing his father shoving the threat into a drawer and packing his belongings. Cypher took little time manipulating the betrayal that Lamia felt and then sent him back home under conditions to obtain an item. The situation turns dire as his father untrained goes to attack him and Lamia ends up killing his father. Devastated, and with nowhere to turn Memento Mori accepts him as a new member and with a numbed heart he is able to carry out many deadly tasks that he is assigned. Years later as a trusted member Lamia has a change of heart after listening to a wandering street bard perform and he slips into the shadows away from the group.

While making a bit of coin as a traveling musician, he is recruited by a Kran Malkazir to discover new frontiers along with his body guard, Kamahl. All is well as their merry band accrued more members adventuring the plane of Mortimer until a Lamia is confronted by the deadly mercenary Noc in the Chorus Islands. Upon every encounter Noc questioned Lamia's values and why he abandoned his soldier ways before their final confrontation where Lamia answered that he never felt like he had the right to administer death like Memento Mori does and that they are different in that respect. White Dawn continues making a name for themselves as an accomplished adventuring group much to Lamia's displeasure leading to the plane-wide broadcast acknowledging the return of the sun to the town of Torchlight. Shortly after, Lamia who had tried to keep a low profile is confronted by Cypher's forces and is grounded with the support of White Dawn as he is not swayed to return to them.

At the precipice of Runas' betrayal Lamia is temporarily killed in the Eternus Receplitcal as the rest of the group is grappled with Illya's forces. Upon the group's return to their reality, Lamia wakes aghast and untrusting as they continue to save their reality. After saving the world a final time Lamia confronts his mother for the first time since his father's death and after finding resolution in willingly getting beaten half to death and then embraced by his mother Lamia settles in Torchlight to create The Black Ram tavern to encourage performance and the arts to flourish in Torchlight.