Penny Lovejoy

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

Penny Lovejoy is the oldest child and heir to Gem Lovejoy and Jack Altrades-Lovejoy. She is a player character for Arc 8 and played by Reed on level 4.

## Description

Penny is a very tall High Elf woman with blonde hair that is usually done up in tall buns or braids. She generally looks very well put together and dresses in fine clothes.

As of Arc 8, Penny is a Wizard from the School of Abjuration.

Penny can be quite uptight and strict in her behaviour, to the point where her siblings, including her closest brother Richard and his friends, the Boys, are sometimes scared of her judgement. It is rare to see her shaken or off-guard. While she seems uncaring, she actually cares a lot about what other people think of her.

Her Patreon submitted magic item for Arc 8 is the Fan of You Won't Believe What I Just Heard. Apart from this fan, she carries a total of 14 additional magic items with her, including a Cloak of Billowing, a Blast Scepter that allows her to cast Thunderwave, a Wand of Wonder, and a Wand of Smiles.

## Backstory

As the firstborn, Penny always got the most attention from her mother out of the sixteen siblings. Still, there regularly were times where she did not see her mother every day, even though they both lived in Lovejoy Mansion, because her mother was always very busy, trying to further increase the power of the Lovejoy Family.

## Character Arc

### **Arc 2**

By the time of Arc 2, Gem Lovejoy already trusts Penny with big parts of her business. It is Penny's job to organise the Lovejoy Family Decennial Family Celebration of Love and Joy of 131 AE, a job that she is good at, but that still stresses her out immensely.

Robyn Lovejoy has to try to convince her sister to let her come to the celebration and bring a plus one, despite the fact that the deadline for notice has passed a week before. For this, Robyn lies to her and tells her that she wants to bring her girlfriend. While Robyn and Penny never had a very close relationship, Penny is very interested in this girlfriend, and tries to make amends and let her and them come, even when Robyn tells her that it is Sasha Rose. For that, Penny is willing to keep the information about Robyn's girlfriend's identity to herself. Later, when Robyn's cover is blown and she flees from the family, Penny expresses the honest wish that Robyn might come back and everything can be normal again, even two years later.

### Arc 3

At least by the time of Arc 3, Penny is involved in the Lovejoy business deep enough to know about the portal to the Plane of Fire, a secret that is well-kept from most of the world, including at least some of her siblings. She does not, however, know about her mother's plans to expand it.

The party uncovers Gem Lovejoy's secret plans to expand the portal to the Plane of Fire, a plan she unknowingly made with devils. When Aldrum confronts Penny with the crimes of her mother and demands that she will be brought to justice for it, Penny at first tries her best to defend her mother, before agreeing to his terms after he threatens her.

Both during Arc 2, and during Arc 3, he tries to keep conflict as far away as possible. For that, she is willing to keep information to herself that would upset others, and she is constantly worried how members of her family will look like to others. Conflict she cannot avoid makes her nervous, and she tries to calm herself down by assuring her that it will get better, even if those assurrances are not very likely to actually come true. Generally, she wishes for a functioning family, something she often has to miss in her life.

In Arc 3, Penny's bodyguard is no longer Risshi, but Yondo, a Half Earth Genasi / Half Elf man, who is also her secret paramour.

### Between Arc 3 and Arc 8

After the arrest of her mother, Penny starts out as a figurehead for the Lovejoy Family, with Gem still running things from behind bars. They manage to do this through very small Sending Stones, one of which Gem smuggled into prison, the second one of which is worn by Penny in her ear. Approximately the first month they spend with Gem using her 25 words a day to deliver Penny a key for a shorthand, and after that, she is able to send complex and detailled messages and instructions. As the world continues to move on without Gem, though, and she is not expected to come out of prison alive again, Penny becomes the actual head of the Lovejoy Family, while Gem just keeps her updated on prison gossip.

Because of this contact, Penny and Gem actually grow closer while Gem is in prison. At first, Penny is frustrated, not because she actually believes her mom did anything wrong, but because she was not involved in the planning, and it takes some time to heal from that. After it does, though, Penny just wants her mother to get out of prison, and is willing to do anything to make that happen.

Under her lead, the Lovejoy family does very well, and Penny becomes equally respected and feared, nearly everyone has some kind of opinion about her.

### Arc 8

During Arc 8, Penny presents herself a lot more confident than she did in Arc 2 and Arc 3. She holds her head up high and walks through the rooms of the Ember Keep as if they belonged to her. She commands servants around, and gives backhanded compliments to everyone talking to her, including people that are nearly as powerful as herself.

During a private conversation with the First Princess Sybilla Eirik, she pressures Sybilla into signing a contract so that Penny will be her ally in the vote. With the help of the spell Illusory Script, Penny makes the contract seem to say that her mother will be released from prison as soon as Sybilla becomes monarch, when really, it grants Glaceria independence under Lovejoy control. Sybilla tries to find out what kind of magic Penny used on the contract, but she stops her from doing so, and manages to force Sybilla to sign it without having been able to magically investigate the contract or its effects. It does not seem to worry her too much that this action breaks the last bit of trust Sybilla had to her.

Her romantic relationship with Yondo, her bodyguard, is still existent, but also still a secret, so much so that they even have separate beds. Yondo approaches the conversation of making their relationship public in a quiet moment. This is a conversation they had before, but Penny again leaves him on a "maybe", after he approaches the conversation claiming that she would be more powerful in a public relationship, and possibly with children to inherit her power.

Penny makes sure to end up in a favourable position no matter the outcome of the vote. During some private meetings, Penny tries to get Nephila on her side by telling them that they have a common goal, and that they should just name their price, but doesn't really succeed at that. As Isadora is announced to be the new successor, she immediately tries to talk to her and get a feeling for Isadora's behaviour and ideas, but is quickly brushed off, which leaves Penny, who is not used to being refused anything, speechless. When Sir Up Ton stages a scene that makes it look like Crigley Jigglesphere tried to attack Queen Lilliana, Penny uses her magic fan to spread the rumour that Crigley planned to assassinate the entire Major Council, thus ruining his name forever.

The night before the successor vote, Helga uses *Stone Shape* to close off Penny's hut, trapping her inside and forcing her to climb out through the window the next morning. Because of this, Penny loses valuable time to talk to people, and is no longer able to talk to Sybilla, who after a ritual in which she lost her arm is eligible to be the successor once more. Instead, she talks to Sir Up Ton, who shares his concerns about Sybilla no longer being the person they know her as, and tells her that he would try to become monarch if the vote goes against Sybilla. In that case, he offers her a new position as his second in command, overseeing the council, and she convinces him to sign a contract. Again, the contract secretly contains a promise that Glaceria will become independent once Sir Up Ton becomes monarch, but the hidden message also includes the offer he made her. When Nephila later approaches Penny to present her their proposed constitution, telling her about the new positions of power it offers, she tells her that Sir Up has better offers in his plans.

Before the vote, she asks Gem about her marriage to Jack, about advice regarding love and responsibility, and Gem tells her that she loves him, and while she might have had a more loving relationship, he is what she needed.

With the justification that her family has seen what can happen when people desperately want something, hinting at the accusation that Sybilla is too powerhungry to be a good monarch, Penny votes against her. Despite this, the vote goes in Sybilla's favour. On the way to the balcony, where they are to announce the result to the people of Tyle, Penny reassures herself that Sir Up has a plan. As they are standing there, he starts his coup while making it look like Nephila cast a spell on him, when in reality he teleports away to get to Sybilla. Penny runs towards Sybilla as well, followed by Yondo, but as she arrives, Helga, Isadora, and Annie Wintersummer have already saved Sybilla and trapped Sir Up through a *Power Word Stun*. Penny can't do anything to help him, so instead she acts as if she hadn't known anything. As Isadora hits Sir Up Ton unconcious, Penny turns away. On her way, she told the guards to seize Nephila, and they pushed her off the balcony instead, but Nephila survives.

During the coronation ceremony, Sybilla keeps the promise she thinks she contractually owes Penny and decrees that Gem Lovejoy is to be freed. Together with Isadora and Yondo, Penny goes to the prison in Tyle to deliver the message and get her mother home, and for the first time in centuries, Penny and Gem hug. As they leave the prison, a rain of crossbow bolts goes down on them, and five bolts hit Gem in the chest, killing her. Penny sees a green glimmer of the light catching in the emerald eye of Beryl Hatebad and vows revenge as she cradles her mother's body, unable to save her.

Nearly at the same time as Gem Lovejoy, the new Queen Sybilla is also killed in the aftermath of her coronation. Despite this, the contract Penny put up is still valid, and thus, Glaceria becomes an independent nation.

## Penny's Magic Items

Penny had 15 magic items on her and Yondo's persons during Arc 8, we got to know some of them during episode 0 and after the finale the full list of the items were revealed. Items marked with a "\*" behind their name were submitted via Patreon.

In alphabetical order:

* Blast Scepter
* Bottle of Boundless Coffee
* Cloak of Billowing
* Emerald Pen
* Enduring Spellbook
* Fan of "You Would Never Believe What I Just Heard"\*
* Orb of Direction
* Periapt of Health
* Potion of Poison
* Potion of Poison Resistance
* Ring of Mind Shielding
* Rod of Security
* Sending Stone
* Wand of Smiles
* Wand of Wonder

## Trivia

* Penny's working space includes a big oak table
* Her bodyguard in 131 AE is named Risshi, in 133 AE, her bodyguard's name is Yondo
	+ Yondo is described as Penny's "bodyguard / maybe paramour"
	+ During Arc 8, Yondo is still her bodyguard, and still her secret paramour.
* As of Arc 8, it was made canon by Reed that Penny is trans.
* Penny is Bi (confirmed by Reed on Discord)

## Fan Additions

* Playlist created by Patreon member Libsreese: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61xzLUR1uiFQe45nHXpTpe?si=oSZSxK-3Qf2P8-Kf5OUYAQ
* Moodboard (https://pin.it/4ViykjI) and Playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5H0tdmVBh5YjWj38Bj6T3W?si=7593d452b0124ddd) made by Reed
* Post finale playlist made by Reed: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3v7q4KFTtNMRRYzqrjLXOH?si=9d4c6d363dda4ad6