Background: Charlatan
Scheme: Forging documents
Personality Trait: Flattery is my preferred trick for getting what I want. I learned at a young age that I am not the strongest and that many will hate me for my birth. But the right words, the right phrases, and they left me alone.
Ideal: Friendship. Material goods come and go. The bonds of friendship last forever. If someone is willing to stand by you in the worst of times, return the favor. All the gold in the world can’t match the value of a good friend.
Bond: I swindled and ruined someone who didn’t deserve it. I seek to atone for my misdeeds but might never forgive myself. I had been assured by someone who was a friend I was doing the right thing. I should have listened to that voice of doubt…
Flaw: I can’t resist a pretty face. What, you think humans are the only ones who appreciate beauty? *chuckle* You have much to learn.
Zilyana was born to two members of a drow thieving crew working in Baldur’s Gate. She generally had a happy childhood, learning how to play parts of scams and thefts even at a young age. The precociousness of youth served as an apt distraction while more mature guildmates would steal someone’s coin purse or jewelry with deft hands. But the guild always warned her to keep an eye out for a baldheaded human man who spoke funny and kept a pet hamster; she always thought this odd, and to this day still does not know what about that man scared them. The guild also espoused a belief of only stealing as long as life is not made worse for someone; only robbing the rich of what they don’t need and which isn’t of sentimental value to them.
Unfortunately, it was not to last. Eventually the guards of Baldur’s Gate grew tired of the guild and led a raid on it, arresting most of the members. Zilyana’s family managed to escape the raid, and chose to take to the road rather than remain and risk arrest. Their path soon took them to Neverwinter, where Lord Neverember’s forces were focused on retaking the city. The two adults soon found work as guard, finding their specialized skillset useful for hunting down certain threats. Zilyana herself focused on more larcenous pursuits, without her parents’ knowledge. But then Valindra attacked the city, and Zilyana’s parents were lost in the battle. Faced with suddenly being on her own, Zilyana found herself working with a group of thieves, sometimes even aiding the Nashers in their rebellion as she tried to survive.
In time, she found herself targeting a man who one of the Nashers said was a vile criminal out to ruin the city. Under their guidance, she pulled a scam on the man where she convinced him to invest heavily in a Nasher-run scheme that was set to fail; he lost everything. It was then that she found out he was a priest, and that the man she had ruined had been considering helping the city, including her. It was then that it hit her that her thieving, while helping keep her alive, was making things worse for others. Once she revealed why she had ruined him, he forgave her. But she never forgave herself.
After that, Zilyana started looking for adventuring parties, turning her thieving skills towards fighting problems rather than continuing to cause them. She maintained contact with the man she had ruined, and from time to time he would ask her to head somewhere and check out a problem he heard of.
Now he’s approached her about a new place she needs to go and a new task…
=Personality and Appearance=
Zilyana is something of a “gentleman thief” in personality. She can be flirty or joking with those she deals with, and overall tries to be friendly. She has the natural charisma of a drow, but at the same time has honed it with a good nature that can draw people to her. She believes very much in doing hat is necessary to bring about good, as long as innocents are not harmed in the process. She has come to recently question the good of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, and tries to atone for doing so in the past by adventuring and fighting to make the world a better place.
She stands five feet six inches tall, with a lithe body that is surprisingly closer to a human than an elf in; there is a possibility of a human ancestor, as she remembers joking references to a ‘grandpa pinkskin’ her parents sometimes made. She still has the natural elven grace many would expect of her, and she dyes the last inch of her shoulder-length white hair red in memory of all the pain she’s caused in her past without realizing it. She typically prefers clothing that is either tight to her or designed to let her move freely, often preferring loose dresses during downtime and tight leather armor for adventures (she finds tight armor doesn’t snag as often in tight crawlspaces). She always has her thieves’ tools nearby, just in case she needs to use them for something. Clothing is usually black, red, or white in general color preference, though sometimes she favors blue, purple, and gold.
