Ancient Tides: A Tale of Sea and Sky

Name: Illio na Devella/Ashae Lys/Emeric duc Sened

Description: Illio is a half-elf around 130 years old, marked by years of adventure and hardship. They are a little shorter than the average human at 5'8", and have a lithe figure from their elven ancestry. Their hair is long and auburn, which they usually let flow freely. Illio's eyes are a piercing violet, standing out in their lined and tired face. Illio likes to wear simple, old-fashioned traveling clothes, and has no jewelry but a brass pendant inlaid with semi-precious stones, shaped like a double circle (twelve stones outside, one inside) in the palm of a hand.

Having lived a while, Illio has a few alter-egos. The first is Ashae Lys, a woman of some renown among the Aphaean refugees. She braids her hair and likes colorful dresses and music. A bawdy type, she entertains people with her hurdy-gurdy and is never without alcohol, hidden in the many, many folds of her clothes. She is known for preserving the Aphaean recipe for Skull-and-Crossbones, a liquor described as the "distilled essence of alcoholism". From her belt hangs a beaten-up old tankard engraved with the likeness of an orc called Zugard Skulkrusha, whom she claims was an old friend.

Illio's main other alter-ego is Emeric duc Syned, a noble of one of the many isles of the sea. Emeric is a serious and studious character, saying very little, and yet with the keen sense of someone who's always paying attention to what's going on. He wears all-black robes with little ornamentation save a signet ring.

Place of Origin: Karynites, Aphaea - A hidden island on a doomed, forgotten world, Karynites was the hope of Illio's people, last of the humans. Or so they thought, anyway. While they stayed hidden in their refuge, the world around them moved on, recovering from the first cataclysm that wrecked Aphaea and moving into a more modern era. But when the world was under threat once more, they produced a hero - Illio na Devella, touched by the goddess of adventure, who went out into the wide world to understand it and do what was right.

When disaster struck once more, Illio returned to his people, and they joined the evacuees from Aphaea. Their legacy lives on across the Black Ocean and beyond; sometimes one encounters the board game Tur-bu-la, once popular among them, and other times small communities of humans and part-humans with strange beliefs, such as an insistence that physical objects tie the divine essence of the gods to the material plane, and that if someone were to find the physical essence of the Old Gods, they could commune with those long-dead creators.

Bio: Illio na Devella was an adventurer, once. Long ago, born under the protection of the Goddess Rockhopper and marked by Henet, Illio sailed the seas with his companions in a desperate attempt to prevent catastrophe. Along the way, Illio learned of the modern world and had a lot of his ideas questioned and challenged. He had a particularly complicated relationship with Zugard Skulkrusha, an orc of dubious moral character but great strength. Eventually, Illio and his companions joined the Benthic Order, a group serving the goddesses of the sea.

The Order uncovered a conspiracy to harness the divine essence of a dead goddess, who turned out to be the one who had flooded the world (though they did not know it at the time). This essence began corrupting the seas, and despite their best efforts, the Order failed to contain the corruption. The greed of capitalists such as the Deepfathom corporation won out over the good sense of the people, as they dug deeply for power. As things got more desperate, the Benthic Order allied with the Cult of Henet to try and fight, but it wasn't enough. They launched a desperate raid on a Deepfathom facility and destroyed it, but that wasn't enough either. In the raid, Zugard and Illio had their final falling out, over money of all things, and in a fight that left Illio bleeding out on the floor, Zugard died.

With mixed feelings, Illio and the others returned to the Benthic Order's base. A few days later, the corruption attacked. The Order's base was destroyed and its members scattered. In the weeks after, Illio and the rest tried to figure out what to do to stop the corruption, but their efforts were for naught. A huge amount of corrupted divine essence, locked in a vault, came free and it was too much to stop. Under so much pressure, the group fell apart. Illio, in fear for his people, fled back to Karynites to try and save them.

Thankfully, Rockhopper was there for Illio. Through him, she guided the people to the Great Gates. The Karynite humans would live on, even if they had lost their home. But Illio paid a terrible price. With Aphaea becoming ever more corrupted, Illio had to fight to protect his people so that they could escape, and in the height of battle his magic surged for the last time, going wildly out of control. It took all he had to stay conscious as his power burned its way out of his body. As Aphaea faded around him, Illio lost all connection to Rockhopper, and with it his powers.


In the weeks following the evacuation, Illio realized that his actions with the Benthic Order had not gone unnoticed. Unfortunately, that attention was not positive, especially since the Order had failed to save the world. And Illio, stripped of his magic as he was, was vulnerable. After nearly dying several times to the anger of other refugees, Illio decided enough was enough. Using the magical knowledge that he had left, as well as his trusty Roulette wand and a large amount of spell components, Illio fashioned a disguise far from anything that he had ever been before. And thus, was born Ashae Lys.

At first, Ashae was just a disguise for Illio, but as it became clear that it was working, Illio inhabited his old persona less and less. Partially inspired by Illio's old companions, and partially by the guilt of failure, Ashae became known as a wild partier. Acquiring the recipes for such wonderful drinks as "Skull and Crossbones", "Shark Tranquilizer", "Mindbender", "Gut Punch", "Dragon's Breath", "Aboleth's Gaze", "Leviathan", and "Liverfucker", Ashae drank her way across the Astral Seas. She brawled, seduced, sang, and told stories of increasingly dubious veracity, and soon her reputation was far bigger than Illio's ever was. The years passed, and Ashae grew comfortable in herself. Aphaea was naught but a distant memory.

But Ashae's simple life was not to last. As she grew older and traveled across the Astral Seas, she made many friends, but also many enemies. She had learned a little about fighting in her endless bar crawls, and she had made money off of the alcohol recipes, and some people started taking notice. Drunks and rowdy bar patrons, she could handle. Even the occasional rival. The life she made for herself was too good to be true, and some powerful people managed to connect her back to the cataclysm on Aphaea. She became hounded by spies and agents, trying to discover the secrets of the corruption and gods' blood. Asahe had to close her traveling tavern-ship. The heat got too much, even for her, and she ran away again. But this time, she couldn't run away from herself.

The seas were quiet for a while.

Months later, a nobleman named Emeric started showing up to repositories of arcane knowledge, hunting for treasure. He was a quiet, reserved, and studious person, clearly of elven heritage but of uncertain origin. He claimed to be fifth in line to succeed some forgotten duchy somewhere, when people asked. But mostly he didn't speak of himself. The only thing that was clear is that he was looking for something. He joined expeditions for several magic artifacts, and despite his reserved nature, acquired a reputation as a collector and treasure-hunter.

Around the same time, several Karynite and Aphaean exile communities were visited by a figure from their distant past. A half-elf named Illio would visit them and offer help, either in the form of magic or gold, and then leave. Accounts of Illio's appearance varied - some claimed they were an elven princess, others swore that they were a swashbuckling gentleman. Most said simply that they were visited by an elf of indeterminate gender, wearing strange clothes that were often decades out of fashion, yet still looked good, and offered help, asking for little in return but information.

Of course, Emeric and Illio were one and the same. Illio had learned from the many years they lived as Ashae, and their identity and sense of self had become more fluid than it once was. Illio had realized something; it's impossible to hide forever. Only the powerful can truly ensure their safety. And so, they searched, learning magic once more, coming less easily now that it was not innate in their blood, but studying carefully nonetheless. Illio could defend themself, having kept up physical conditioning from their years of tavern brawls, and was determined to amass power and knowledge quietly.

They felt guilty, still, about their failure all those years ago, and so they turned to the question of the nature of the Gods. On Karynites, Illio was taught that the gods had two natures, divine and material, and that when the link between the two was severed the gods could affect the mortal world no longer. They knew that wasn't quite true, seeing as the goddesses of the sea had no need for a single physical link, and they had surreptitiously visited Eschatos and observed the domains of the new gods. But the Old Gods, the ones who created the seas...  They were dead, but left behind bodies. And that was interesting. Could it be that their divine essence was severed, but their material forms remained? Was there any truth to the Karynite myth? They were determined to find out.


Ambition: Seeking more powerful and ancient artifacts, Illio learned of the legend of the Giant Thalambath. Said to be one of the first creations of the Old Gods, and the last being to see them alive, Thalambath was more a figure of myth than reality. But then they heard of a crystal known as Thalambath's Heart - a huge, heart-shaped device of pure magic that was rumored to contain boundless knowledge and magical power. Illio wondered whether the Heart, if it was linked to the old legend, could contain some of the memory of the ancient Giant. And so, they set off in search of Thalambath's Heart.

After that? Illio isn't sure. But perhaps with such power, they too could ascend among the gods? They'll figure it out when they get there.

Contacts:

Illio:

Yanimir na Devella: Illio's elven father - perhaps still alive?
Delmar Danger Leviathan: A dwarf, and one of Illio's old adventuring companions.
Sehesh Akhenatta: An undead spellcaster whose path briefly intersected with theirs
The Janitor: Not seen in a long time
Callysta Maelstrom: An old member of the Benthic Order
Ælfþryð: Same as above
Aleamiqa: A deathless Leviathan who used to be the patron of the Order

Ashae:

Burdock Rose: On again, off again lover/rival who at first had a competing bar before the two shacked up together in wacky circumstances. They are a chaotic being, a very fitting match for Ashae. Disappeared after their bar blew up.

Dukas: A big buff half-orc and Ashae's former bouncer

Kim Dahlia: A merchant who supplied Ashae with what she needed to brew her knockout liquors, and also had a big cut of the distribution money.

Monika the Red: Another onetime lover of Ashae and a famous duelist, has since retired and started a sword school as she's getting too old to be getting in petty fights.

Firkin Ippleswitch: Ashae's gnomish lawyer, very tired of her shit.

Emeric:

Borward of Kitte: A student of elven philosophy and a fellow scholar to Emeric, perhaps the only person who's actually close to him.

Tamitha Rugen: A treasure-hunter who's run into Emeric in the past and often seems to be looking for the same artifacts, much to their mutual dismay.

Wali Nuer: An information broker who works with Emeric at times.