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Velkynara Sorneth
Velkynara Sorneth
"Only the competent ones." · Arcane Duelist and Ward-Breaker
Basic Information
Full Name
Velkynara Sorneth
Nickname
The Violet Ruin
Race (Grade)
Drow (D)
Class
Magus
Height
5'6"
Birthday
Stormhowl 6, 1218
Age
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Birthsign
Bloodline Ability
Unknown
This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.
Physical Description
Velkynara Sorneth, who has already found three weaknesses in whatever you're standing behind
Appearance
Velkynara is a slender, straight-backed drow with deep violet-grey skin, sharp, composed features, and luminous violet eyes that settle on a person and stay there. Her long silver-white hair is worn loose down her back with a single heavy braid over one shoulder, held back by a fine circlet of blackened silver filigree set with small amethysts; matching amethyst drops hang from her ears. Her armor is the first thing most people notice and the last thing they forget: close-fitting dark leather and layered black cloth, overlaid across the shoulders, collar, and chest with intricate blackened-silver filigree in which dozens of amethysts are set. She carries a slim longsword at her hip. She does not look like she is in a hurry, and she never is.
Unique Characteristics
The amethysts in Velkynara's armor are not decoration. Each is a mana sink, a crystal capable of absorbing a small amount of hostile magical energy. They do not make her immune to magic. They let her catch fragments of the spells thrown at her and redirect that energy through her blade, which is why fighting her with magic creates an uncomfortable possibility: you cast lightning at her, part of it disappears into her armor, and her sword begins to glow violet. Now your lightning belongs to her. She is reserved to the point of severity, the habit of a woman raised in a culture where revealing too much about yourself could genuinely get you killed. She does not laugh loudly, make grand declarations, or tell strangers what she is thinking.
Personality & Temperament
Positive Traits
- Composed, precise, and impossible to rush
- Keeps her word, and remembers who kept theirs
- Will not raise a hand against those who surrendered
- Dry, cutting humor, once she decides to trust you
- Reads any ward, lock, or barrier like a book
Challenging Traits
- Reveals almost nothing about herself to anyone
- Severe enough that strangers assume she's hostile
- Openly contemptuous of sloppy spellwork
- Treats every magical barrier as a personal insult
- Ambitious, and not especially shy about it
Do all drow dress like this? [She looks down at her armor.] No. [A pause.] Some have taste.
[Told she cannot counter all of them.] Correct. [She vanishes, and reappears beside him.] Only the competent ones.
Who built this? [No one knows. She touches one glowing rune, and there is silence.] Not someone very good.
Likes
- A ward built by someone who truly knew their craft
- Being underestimated by a spellcaster, briefly
- Quiet rooms, locked doors, and her own company
- Amethyst, silver, and well-made armor
- Payment in full, in advance, and on time
Dislikes
- Being called the Violet Ruin
- House politics of any kind, in any city
- Orders to harm those who have already surrendered
- Strangers asking what she's thinking
- The noon sun, which she tolerates but never enjoys
Background & History
House Sorneth
Velkynara was born in 1218 in Velkyn'Dareth, the great drow city of the Underdark, into House Sorneth, one of its lesser noble houses: a family important enough to have enemies, but not important enough to survive mistakes. She learned that distinction very young. House Sorneth built its reputation on magical defense, including wards, protective runes, enchanted gates, and spell-resistant architecture. Its entire fortune rested on keeping people out.
How Do You Get In?
Velkynara became interested in the opposite question. She started by studying the weaknesses in her own family's wards, then in other families' wards, then in temples, vaults, and fortresses. In time she became one of the most talented ward-breakers in Velkyn'Dareth. She was not a thief, not really. If someone wanted a vault opened quietly, they hired a rogue. If someone wanted a magically sealed fortress opened while the people inside were actively trying to stop them, they hired Velkynara.
The Surrendered House
Decades ago, House Sorneth ordered her to take part in the destruction of a rival family. By drow standards there was nothing unusual about it, except that the rival house had already surrendered. Velkynara was still ordered to breach their protections so that everyone inside could be killed. She refused. Her family gave the order again. She broke House Sorneth's own defensive wards instead, and then she left. There are still drow who consider this the single greatest insult House Sorneth has ever suffered. Velkynara considers that deeply satisfying.
Houseless
A drow without a house does not usually live long. Velkynara survived by being too useful to kill and too dangerous to hunt. She sold her talents to whoever could afford them, and most often to House Vrinn, whose martial reputation made it the one house in Velkyn'Dareth that House Sorneth would not dare provoke. She collected enemies and coin in roughly equal measure, and for the better part of half a century she answered to no one but her clients.
Up Into the Light
When the undead destroyed Velkyn'Dareth, Velkynara was among the survivors who followed Melcrayte of House Vrinn to the surface. When the elves of Sillumi imprisoned him while the dead ran down the refugees he had led there, she was one of those who helped him take the city, and Sillumi's wards were hers to break. Melcrayte afterward allowed the surviving elves to leave if they wished, a decision most of Sillumi still calls either mercy or pragmatism. Velkynara has never claimed any credit for it. She has also never denied that she asked.
After Verdant Hold
When word reached Sillumi in 1304 that Melcrayte had fallen at the Battle of Verdant Hold, the city passed to a council, and its future to an agreement that would one day have placed a surface-born child on its throne. Velkynara had no intention of spending another eighty years breaking wards for noble families, so she left in search of wealth, power, and better options. She has been abroad ever since, selling her services wherever a barrier needed breaking. It was during one of those contracts, a siege, that she earned the title she dislikes: she defeated three battlemages in less than a minute, and when one of them shouted that she could not counter all of them, she agreed with him, vanished, reappeared at his side, and informed him that she only needed to counter the competent ones. As far as she knows, Melcrayte is still dead.
A Drow Over Haven
Velkynara came to Haven in 1306 intending to settle somewhere quiet, and she had very nearly chosen Silmarithil. Then she learned that the entire kingdom is ruled by a drow: Queen Arties Geodegazer, whose coalition Melcrayte died holding the field for. Quiet Silmarithil abruptly stopped looking like the better option. She went to Goodberry instead. Whether that was ambition, curiosity about the drow that Melcrayte thought worth dying for, or both, she has not said.
Goals & Aspirations
Better Options
Velkynara left Sillumi for wealth, power, and better options, and she has not changed her mind about wanting all three. A young kingdom with a drow on its throne, a portal network, and a growing number of things worth protecting is a kingdom that will eventually need someone who can open anything. She intends to be that someone, at her price.
The Measure of a Queen
Before she commits to anything, Velkynara wants to take the measure of Haven's queen up close. She knows what drow rulers usually are. She knows what Melcrayte was. She would like to know which of the two Arties Geodegazer turns out to be, and she is patient enough to watch for as long as it takes to find out.
Never Again a House
Whatever she builds on the surface, Velkynara will build it as herself. She will take contracts, and perhaps one day she will swear service, but she will never again belong to a noble house, anyone's. She has heard that some of House Sorneth survived the fall of Velkyn'Dareth. She has no intention of finding out where they ended up.
Current Status & Relationships
Residence
Role
Ward-Breaker
Notable Contacts
ATTENTION!
Velkynara Sorneth is a D-grade drow magus who specializes in exactly one thing: taking magic apart. If a ward, barrier, or sealed door stands between you and something, she is the person you send, and she will walk through it first. Her ideal opponent is another spellcaster. She closes the distance with short-range teleportation, fights with a sword in one hand and compact, brutal magic in the other, and dispels or counters whatever she does not simply walk through. The amethysts set in her armor are mana sinks that catch fragments of hostile spells and feed them into her blade; cast lightning at her, and some of it becomes hers. Among arcane circles she is called the Violet Ruin, and she earned it. She is reserved and severe, but not cruel, and she will not harm anyone who has surrendered, no matter who gives the order. She is also ambitious, very expensive, and newly arrived in Goodberry for reasons she has not shared.