Llelyth Frearn

General information
Race
Drow
Class
Sorcerer [10th lvl]
Alignment
True neutral
Gender
Female (she/her)
Age
79
Height
170cm
Orientation
Bisexual
Campaign
The Revenants (DnD 5e homebrew) NPC

Originally the daughter of the High Priestess of Lolth, top of the food chain in her underground city belonging to the House of the Spiderweb. She was sheltered most of her life and groomed to be the High Priestess of Lolth in the footsteps of her mother, but never really wanted to become one. During her final pilgrimage, she was betrayed by her younger sister and competition to the position, who sent her to a senseless death as sacrifice to the goddess.

Llelyth was found by Iri’thiel and her party before the sacrifice could be finalized and was liberated by them to leave the underground. After some time of tagging along with the party that formed shortly afterwards, she admitted she enjoyed this very different and weird world, and didn’t want to go back underground anytime soon, even though there were parts of it she missed. She’s learning to live by the new rules and that it was ok to care and laugh. And sleep. Sleep is nice. 

She had a few failed attempts to choose a different godly patron, but after a literal death by a magical explosion, was told by Death goddess herself that she wasn’t fit to be a cleric. Her understanding of magic was always intuitive and while she was able to pretend to be a priestess, her magic came from her and not any connection to any deity.

Since then she’s reformed herself to be a sorcerer, independent of any higher being’s or tradition’s control. She not only grew more confident in her magic and abilities, becoming a source of knowledge to the party, but also as a person in general. She’s no longer hiding under magical disguises in front of strangers and bravely jumps in to protect her friends.

[Ancient times]
The story takes place on a continent once ruled by four main races: elves, dwarves, nagas, and [xxx]. The world struggled in a war with dragons, who brought all the other races as their armies to the continent (including humans and beastfolk). The conflict forced the four ruling peoples to either fight or live underground, leaving whole systems of tunnels and cities below the surface, as well as defend fortresses and magic towers all around the land.

At the peak of the conflict, a group of archmages performed a ritual spell that destabilized magic across the continent. In one blast, all the dragons were turned to stone, the elves’ near-immortality was taken away, and the nagas and [xxx] ceased to exist. Since then, no one has seen an intelligent dragon in at least a thousand years. Having no way to escape the continent and no dragonfolk to rule them, the numerous other races started to call the war-ruined land their new home, while the elves became divided into subterranean drows and surface kingdoms.

Elves and humans eventually began rediscovering magic and “standardized” the division into specific schools. Although each culture had their own depictions and names for the Gods, the pantheon was somewhat classified. A number of countries and kingdoms were formed throughout the continent, ranging from racially diversified regions, to those solely human, or elven, or else.

[Present day]
Around a thousand years later, the drow are divided into 14 Houses (like House of the Spiderweb or House of the Open Tomb). Over time, each of the ancient cities they built with the dwarves during the war developed its own culture and flavor, but there were still similarities between them (like the image of the Spider Queen as their patron). Drow societies are in most cases matriarchal, sometimes more sometimes less so. In the absence of sunlight they grew to be far more carnivorous with heightened senses, cold, darkened skin, transparent hair and sharp teeth than other elven subraces. Their cultures usually revolve around duty, sacrifice and destiny with strict caste systems and social structures.

Because of time and the dwarves leaving the underground centuries ago, many of the cities were lost to cataclysms, more still fell in wars either between rival drow houses, or the surface kingdoms and an occasional demon invasion from the Nine Hells. Some drow survivors from those cities were accepted by tribes of elves who lived on the surface, creating a lot of elven subraces. There’s still a number of drow cities surviving and even thriving, some completely isolated, some in active conflict with the surface, but their numbers are dwindling and it is clear to their leaders that, if nothing changes, they will die out eventually.

[Personality]
Back in the Underdark she was forced to follow the traditions and harsh reality of her House. Though she hasn’t revealed much about her day-to-day life in the past, she was treated as royalty and behaved as a noble expected to rule her people with an iron fist. In fact she was actually too good and compassionate for her own good, which only began to really show in the surface world where she was allowed to be kind. Still a little shy and easily embarrassed, but brave and independent, she cares a lot for her newfound friends and wants to protect everyone from harm. Very curious, though pretty quiet and observing most of the time.
She’s grown very possessive and jealous over her friends, which caused some issues when she started having feelings for Iri’thiel. After a couple tensions within the group they finally came clean about their emotions towards each other and she’s been trying to be better about it all. Their relation is still quite young and love is a new emotion for her that still has to be explored before she understands herself in this moment.

With her natural knack for magic she’s always curious of all the anomalies and magic-related findings they come across. She’s excited to learn new things and teach/guide others as well if she can. From everything about the surface there are a few small things she really enjoys, like fruit, pastries and sweet alcohol, as well as the sight of the forest at night (trees look like stalagmites to her and the stars like shining crystals). She really wants to see the sea at some point in her life.

[Appearance notes]
Deep dark blue skin and silvery hair, the traditional fullblood drow look but with dark blue eyes. Pretty tall but otherwise thin in build. Long ears, though not as expressive as Iri’thiel’s. The spiderweb tattoos are meant to be like a silver string woven through the skin, visible at certain angles. She wears earrings at the tips of her ears (that Iri pierced for her), and always wears the moon pendant that helps with Common to Elvish communication. Has a set of silver  jewelry with red stones that helps her upcast her magic: a tiara, a necklace, and a bracelet. Mostly uses wands as weapons aside from her own magic, predominantly necrotic and fire damage.

Main references

Extended gallery