Name: Aria Lixiss
Titles: Herald of Az-Set
Aliases: Gafoulyn Opalhood, Durindegar Flatback, Brumrag Axeshield, Hangnar, Taglir, Akses Aybar, Yener Ozil. currently going by Gadria IronHeart.
Age: 19
Race/Ethnicty:Halfling(Dwarf/Drow)
Continent of Origin:Penultish
Gender: F
Class/Subclass: Pact Mage

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 15
Charisma: 16

Height: 4'8''
Weight: 110 lbs
Appearance/Attire Description: Aria has grey skin, pointed ears, bleach white hair done up in a ponytail and blood red eyes. She wears plain practical clothes suited to the climate she is currently in. Most of the time none of this is visible however, as she is cloaked in a disguise of Glamor to avoid the consequences of Az-Set’s side Quests and the discrimination her mixed Race brings. These disguises are generally gnome, dwarf or non-Drow halfling and are decorated lavishly in brightly coloured outfits and decked out in excessive amounts of jewelry. This contrast with her actual outfits is a deliberate mockery of her taste by Az-Set, though Aria manages to make shue her clothes don't look expensive to prevent mugging attempts that would break the illusion.
Strengths:

• Scraper with supernatural backup
• Sleuthing
• Disguises

Weaknesses:

• Humorless
• Mandatory Fun
• Web of lies
• Trust Issues

Inquisitive * Determined * Deceitful * Reckless

Sexuality: Still working that out
Relationship Status: single
Personality: Aria is a rather focused and no nonsense kind of person, which puts her at odds with her unchosen patron who finds great amusement from giving her bizarre and silly tasks in return for boons and favors. She performs these task with the up-most of seriousness, no matter how pointless or ridiculous they appear. That said, she won’t do everything asked of her, something her contract fortunately allows, as she has something of a moral compass, wobbly as it may be. She generally dislikes actively malicious acts against the undeserving, either by her or others, but is relatively easy to convince that her actions are justifiable: white lies are harmless, the rich can afford the loss, nobody would miss it, they had it coming etc.

She is curious and studious, having a tendency to poke her nose into places and books in which it does not belong in hope of finding out interesting or useful information. It’s a habit she picked up while looking for her father, and encouraged by Az-Set for the shenanigans it results in, her inquisitiveness having gleaned her several clues or leads about his whereabouts. She also has a habit of recording anything she finds interesting or useful in various notebooks.

When it comes to confrontations Aria would prefer to try and bullshit her way out of a situation, spinning lies and spells till she can get clear and change her appearance. If she does get in a fight she is as vicious as anyone with a major height disadvantage has to be to survive. No trick is to dirty, and she will gladly headbutt groins, cut hamstrings, fool people with Glamor, shank them, use blink to get the high ground, call for backup etc. While fighting isn’t her first choice, it's certainly one she enjoys for the accomplishment she feels for overcoming things or people bigger and meaner than her.

While she mostly uses her gifts for her own benefit she is not above helping others with them, sometimes playing peacemaker to diffuse situations, calming raging beasts, solving mysteries and so on. She generally does not benefit from these kindnesses, her many faces and constant pace of her quest leave little time for forming friendships or calling in favors. She does it anyway as a kind of penance for the nonsensical calamity Az_set has her spread along her path.

Habits:

• Devinly mandated kleptomania
• Asking to many questions
• Writing stuff down
• Lying
• Sarcasm

Hobbies: Reading, Glamor crafting, wandering into places she shouldn't be just to have a look, summoning random fay to play games with/against, solving riddles and mysteries.
Fears:

• Broken Glamor
• Loneliness
• Thalassophobia

Likes:

• Solving puzzles
• Sugar
• Learning stuff
• Traveling to interesting places and meeting interesting people
• Architecture
• Justifiable violence

Dislikes:

• Looking like a total fool
• Racism
• Slavery
• Being outsmarted
• Unjustified Malice or Hatred
• Spicy food
• Boats

• Wilderness Survival: her time growing up in the wilds and her subsequent travels have involved plenty of surviving on whatever is available.
• Investigation: her main goal in life is tracking down her adventurer father, as a result she often knows who to talk to and what to ask them.
• Impersonation: A vital part of walking into places where you do not belong is mimicking the people that are supposed to be there.
• Sneaking: Glamor and small stature combined make her excellent sneaking about undetected when she can’t just walk in somewhere.
• Bareback riding: charmed wild animals don’t come with saddles after all and horses are expensive.
• Sword and Board: as a result of not having that many direct combat spells Aria uses the training she got in the wilds as a young girl, wielding blades mundane and magical alongside a simple wooden shield.
• Reading and Writing: her brief time as a preistes in training, the odd minor boon and her aptitude for learning mean she has picked up a number of foreign languages throughout her travels.
• Artistry: Aria has had some skill in both drawing sketches and creating interesting Glamor based art pieces. She uses this as source of coin, amusement and to help with her disguise artistry (records of former/future appearances and for props).

• Glamor a form of descriptive magic used for disguises and slight of hand. While its effects are similar to Illusion magic, the effects are tricks of the mind rather than of the light, fooling people into believing they see what you want them to see. Glamor can be applied to herself, used to create brief temporary illusions and can be bound permanently to other objects if given enough time (time being exponentially proportional to the size of the object). Her first boon, given in return for her oath.
• Dominate Beast: The caster can attempt to charm an animal, be it wild or domesticated. Animals that consider the caster pray or are already loyal to another intelligent being are harder to charm. Boon given after agreeing to first use it to convince 100 cows to stand in a specified pattern for 3 hours 42 minutes and 19 seconds.
• Sand Strike: A number of arms made of sand extend from behind the casters back and then proceed to pummel a close range target in front of the caster with a barrage of punches. Boon given in return for stealing the dragon knuckle bones of a fortune teller and replacing them with those of a local goblin warlord that had been shrouded in Glamor.
• Blink: While the spell is active the caster can blink up to 10 m to a location within line of sight by temporally transporting themselves to the astral plane, in which time is slowed while they select their destination. There is a 5 second delay between each blink and each blink causes double the exertion it would take to simply run to a location. Boon given for breaking into a palace and rearranging all the furniture.
• Summon fay allies: The caster may summon fey spirits or beasts from the domain of Az-Set, which then appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range. Boon given for putting on an elaborate glamor filled street performance while speaking only in rhyme.
  Use the following options as a guideline for the power level of what appears while ensuring thematic consistency:
  One creature of challenge rating 2 or lower
  Two creatures of challenge rating 1 or lower
  Four creatures of challenge rating 1/2 or lower
  Eight creatures of challenge rating 1/4 or lower
• Zone of Truth: the caster create a magical zone that guards against deception in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range. Until the spell ends, any creature that enters/is in the spell's area can't speak a deliberate lie while in the radius. An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth. The task this Boon was a reward for is the one that resulted in her current debt.

Possessions Generally On Person:

• Coin: money, real and fake, stored in an inner pocket on her clothes
• Odds and ends: Various things that Az-Set claims will be used later
• notebook: part diary, part investigative journal
• candy: for snacks
• props: such as glasses, a fake beard, a hat etc. to give Glamor something to rest on.
• sketchbook: a separate book where she keeps drawings of people she has/will be in order to keep track of her various disguises and also to use as reference material when copying real people.

Weapons:

• kilij a type of one-handed, single edged and moderately curved saber used by the Otmon dwarfs.
• Short bow: used mainly for hunting
• Knives: as many as necessary
• machett: For clearing foliage

Armor:

• wooden shield: Light, arrow resistant and vaguely useful against one handed weapons, this shield and others like it have saved Aria’s life a number of times.
• Padded cloth: the aim here being to not be hit in the first place

Pack Contents:

• Rations: incase game or foraging opportunities are not available
• Rope: useful for getting to high up places like trees so she can sleep in them.
• Maps: so she knows the way.
• backup Notebook: incase she loses the first one.
• more junk: ”why do I even need this?” ”you’ll see” ”you always say that”
• camping equipment: hammock, vaguely waterproof tarp, flint and steel etc.

Magical Items:

• Item: the Dawn blade: a Khopesh that is enchanted to be especially effective against creatures that are sustained by magic. She also uses it as a channel for her various spells.

Potions:

• lesser healing potions x2: always useful
• mixed bag x5: unlabeled potions that definitely fell of the back of a cart

Aria’s mother was a dark elf archaeologists and adventurers who lived in the Wilds on the outskirts of the Huhueteotl Desert. There she combed the deserts for treasure and ancient knowledge till one day, after plundering a particularly dangerous temple she returned bearing an ancient Khopesh in her hands and a child in her womb. When Aria was born there was controversy, for she bore little resemblance to the man who was supposedly her father, a Drow who had died in the temples depths. It was whispered that the Lixiss child might have been replaced by a changeling as retaliation for her disturbing of ancient places they thought were best left alone. There where many legends surrounding the area, particular the mountains that bordered the desert, of ancient powerful beings that treated mortals like playthings. One such tale was that the fay creatures would steal babies and replace them with their own young, the drow would be kept as and amusement of the fay cort, while their evil spawn brought chaos and miss fortune to its new community.

While she was growing up Aria’s childhood was rather normal for a Drow in the wilds. She played, learned to fight, forage, etc. and even began early training as a priestess of Carmista. Other than a few lingering looks of disapproval of concern her mother managed to beat back the rumors surrounding her child through sheer willpower until Aria hit puberty and it became clear that the short girl was already as tall as she would ever be. At that the rumor mill accelerated and then finally broke off its axle and went rolling off into the sunset. Things that had once been only whispered where now openly discussed, Aria was ostracized and in some cases openly threatened and the stress of trying to defend her caused her mother to become sick.

In the end Aria did the only thing she thought would make it all stop, she stole the magic Khopesh her mother had brought back with her and headed off into the mountains to where the realm of the fay was said to lay. Deeper and deeper into the mountain range she went, higher and higher she climbed, her small stature and the artifact blade letting her survive otherworldly dangers that would have claimed the life of any other young girl. Finally, she came to a plateau overlooking the desert, and there she found a dercepid temple. Yet when she walked towards it a haze came across the landscape, and the closer she got to the temple the better condition it seemed to be, until she was at its door it looked brand new. When she turned and looked back to the desert it was no longer a wasteland full of ruins, but a verdant land full of spectacular structures. Knowing she must be in the right place, she entered the temple.

Within she found a royal court filled with a strange assortment of animal headed humanoids, all stunningly beautiful despite their animal visages. Other, stranger, creatures where among their ranks or filtered through the air, yet as they turned to face her she only had eyes for their lord, a beautifully androgynous jackal headed man who’s fur, or was it skin, was the colour of a moonless midnight sky. He was flanked by strange beasts, Hyenas with rainbow feathered wings and scorpion tails. When he spoke it sounded like music and laughter.

”Welcome to my domain mortal. What foolish reason bring you here carrying tools of the dead”
”I..I have come for the return of my mother’s child. I return what she stoll so you will return the daughter you took from her.”
”I am no thief little girl, how dare you come here and acuse one such as I. The sheer audacity of it... Heh”
”You stole her away and replaced her with me.”
”You wear my patience thin mortal. I have no girl, and you have never replaced one.”
”But. I am one of yours. A changeling.”
”Heh. You were not mine. But you through your oath, you now are”
”what? I made no oath”
”You said you were mine did you not? And now it is so. None can tell lies or break oaths in my realm.”
”I. But. That’s not fair.”
”Hmm. No, I suppose not. Let it not be said I am nothing but a fair lord. I shall give you an opportunity to prove yourself worthy and learn what you truly came here seeking. Bring that blade back to the place it was taken from and I shall tell you the truth of your stunted nature.”
”... I do this task for knowledge, yet the unfair nature of my oath remains. A Fair lord would not let that stand. Does that mean you lied when you called yourself one?”
”Heh. Smart girl. You catch on quickly. Very well, I shall bestow upon you a boon in return for your oath”

For the brief moment as the fay lords power flowed into her she could see him and his people for what they really were, beyond the glamor. Illogical, misshapen beastail things, clinging to their former glory as they slowly decayed, preserved by layers of magic wrapped around them like bandages. Yet they had what she needed. They had answers. Using the same luck, skill and determination, augmented now by her Az-Set’s power, that had brought her up the mountain she descended into the desert below and conquered the temples dangers. At the end she found a treasure room, and the bodies of the adventurers that had fallen battling the final rooms reanimated guards. Some where Drow as expected, one of the preserved bodies was the man her mother had claimed was her father, and she saw now with her own eyes how little he resembled her, even when her height and build where ignored. What she had not expected to find was that among the Drow there were also the bodies of Otmon Dwarves, preserved by the desert. The two supposed groups of enemies had died together, fighting side by side.

”I’m here Az-Set. Where do you want the blade”
”keep it”
”what? you said to return it”
”to bring it to where it came from. And here it is. Doesn’t have to stay here however”
”Then why did you make me go though all that!”
”To prove you were worthy, and to show you the truth as I promised. A truth that lies before you. Your a smart girl. Figure it out.”
”... The Dwarves and Drow worked together. We're not supposed to do that, I’m not surprised my mother never talked about them... I’ve never even seen a dwarf before, they’re so small”
”Heh. bit hypocritical of you.”
”... oh. He’s one of them, isn’t he.”
”Almost there. I suppose I did say I would show you the truth so...”

The spectral version of Az-Set, with which had appeared when she called his name, waved its hand and suddenly the scene of battle played out before them, spectral Drow and Dwarf against mummified monsters. At the center of the battle, near a statue in who’s two previously empty hands two crescent blades could be seen, an Otmon dwarf, his face mostly hidden by beard and hood, battled alongside a younger version of her mother. As the monsters overwhelmed the warriors Dwarf and Drow grabbed the twin blades together and turned the tide of the battle with their magical power.

”Him?”
”Yes. Before they parted ways on good terms the two had something of a fling, and the unexpected consequence was you”
”I’ll have to ask mom about him when I get back”
”I would not advise staying there however. Your mother may be sad to see you gone, but both your lives will be easier if you do not remain there. You may not be a changeling, but in their eyes you are something just as bad. A halfling, child of a forbidden union.”
”... but where do I go after that”

Her eyes were drawn to the now frozen figure of her father. She could not use the Glamor bestowed upon her by Az-Set to pass as a Drow, but as a dwarf she could maybe have a place to belong. When asked Az-Set agreed to assist her, pointing her towards the city her father was most likely to have returned to, if she did two things for him. First, retrieve the twin of her crescent blade that lay in her father’s possession and secondly that she would do the odd task for him as she traveled, in return for additional boons or prudent information. 4 years of tracking the trail of a globe trotting adventure that was already 15 years cold to begin with brought her to Ardents fall. She had ended up in debt with the Talon Company in order to pay fines that resulted from one of Az-Set’s bizarre tasks. While normally she would use Glamor to change identity and skip town, Az-Set is interested in the curious nature of payment excepted, and so she has stayed on in hops that she can negotiate a boon that will solve a particular snag she has run into along her father’s trail.

Character Quote:
”This is stupid””But you agreed to do it, correct?” ”Sigh. Yes.”
Theme Song:
Anything Else:
“I pledge allegiance to Penault and pray her people one day find a common peace”