Ree NPCs

• Acting Mayor Lila, she was the "First Clerk", the Mayor's assistant who tended to nearly everything in his place other than giving public speeches & presenting recognition awards. She is short & thin as a willow branch with straw colored hair that tumbles down her back to her knees. She constantly wields a clipboard and carries a satchel of various documents and forms. She wears a bulky pair of reading spectacles that was a gift to her from her late brother who had been a respected Nir scholar. It is rather apparent that Lila has a crush on Aidan.
  Since the Mayor had been murdered Lila has been in charge as the "Acting Mayor". Whether or not this will become her new permanent job is unknown, things have been to busy and crazy to tend to that at this time.
• Sidney, Captain of the Guards, born from witch parents, Sidney is bright, excitable and dramatic. She was an ideal guardswoman and now is an ideal captain. Her polished armor and fine tailored clothing is always perfectly in order as is her long flowing honey blond hair. She carries a tall spear with the Ree banner upon it that seems to always be rippling dramatically in the wind (even when there is no wind....or indoors with no open windows). The Mayor hates her. Or did until he was murdered. Acting Mayor Lila has always liked her for her overflowing confidence and ability to inspire cooperation in those she leads...and her really, really pretty hair.
• The Mayor's Daughter, her identity is a secret. The original "Mayor's Daughter" was the daughter of the mayor from three generations ago & the founder of the thieves guild of Ree. The title had stuck and been a constant source of annoyance to every Mayor since and amusement amongst the guild, though there are some who whisper that the Mayor's Daughter is in fact the originator & that she is undead or a sorceress who extends her life or that she steals & inhabits new bodies every so many years. If there is any truth in the tales, it remains unproven one way or another. Little is known of the current Mayor's Daughter. Those who have seen her each describe her differently, but all say that she has long curly locks of raven hair and a presence much larger than her actual height. She is always accompanied by her two chief officers, called the "Right Hand" and the "Left Hand". Marak knows the true identity of the Daughter, having delivered her as a babe & known the girl her whole life. He is one of the few people she will meet with in person, usually in her bakery - often requesting his presence by having her eyes and ears plant grocery lists for specific breads in his pockets.
• Wizard Thane, representative from the Atheneum sent to meet with the Mayor regarding a problem affecting the town. Thane is egotistical and believes that anything he says should be deferred to as the greatest of wisdom. While Thane is indeed a brilliant individual, he is unpleasant & most people avoid him when possible. As one of the few survivors of the black elves attack on the Atheneum, Thane was raised to the position of Wizard.
• Engineer Lias, a short thin old man who's body mass seems to be primarily comprised of ears, neck & hair that always seems to have just survived some sort of electrical shock atop his head. There is no creature in Ree that is more experienced in attempting to repair & disassembling Nir technology and artifacts than Lias. He is deaf in one ear & has a nasty limp resulting from a fight with a kobold raider when he was young. His methods tend to be a bit irrational to most observers as he kicks or bangs on things with tools more often than actually using the tool as was intended, but it cannot be denied that he has more success than others.
• Frederik, an orphan whose parents had died during a hex-wolf attack. Frederik's home was claimed by the Mayor & sold to become the new town brothel. Frederik was cast to the streets, where Aidan found him. Taking pity on the orphaned boy, Aidan took him in as his assistant at the forge. The boy lives in a small apartment in the attic above the shop. Or did until the elven poison knights burned the shop to its foundation. Homeless again.
• Shaza Orey of Tissa, a dark skinned woman who wears a red coat & matching long brimmed hat. She always carries an old, but expensively made leather book embossed with a "TS" on the cover. She is from the far away land of Tissa, on the eastern shore, north of the Olora Mountains. She is a bounty hunter who has come to Ree to identify and locate a man from Hana.
• Adonio the Excellent, a Hana man newly arrived in Ree. He claims to be a famed explorer who has wandered all of the lands of Ilren and the North. He has come to Ree in order to travel and tame the savage South.
• Matilde and Saul of the House of Ravens, Gir mercenaries newly arrived in Ree. Malda of Arik has burn scars on her face & Skull of the Point appears to have some trace of recent orc ancestry. The two are generally obnoxious and usually drunk. After proving to be terrible guests of the caravan, they have been banned passage with them in the future, making Ree their new home for now.
  The two have now discarded their guises and revealed their true identities as members of the House of Ravens of Gir and have sworn their swords and lives to protecting Aidan.
• Dunkirk, Minstrel of the World, the man who discovered the massacre at the Stormcrow farm eleven years ago and saved Aidan Stormcrow's life. Dunkirk is a semi-regular with Escher's caravan, attending the Winter Festival in Ree every other year or so. Aidan has mixed feelings about the man. He's grateful for his life, of course, but he also knows that Dunkirk is the reason everyone in Ree is so well versed in his life's tragedy. Dunkirk drops in on Aidan every time he visits Ree, treating Aidan like a favorite nephew while Aidan sees him as a reminder of things best left forgotten.
• Ungi, a skilled bowyer and fletcher who supplies the Guard. While his primary business is in crossbows for the town, his true passion is for making longbows. He has two apprentices, his daughter Una (who is a very talented markswoman as well) and Talbert. He lost his two sons to hex wolves some years back. Ungi believes in the tales that tie hex wolves to the witches and thus dislikes them, blaming them for the deaths of his sons. Ungi is a godsman.
• Anders, a retired blacksmith who specialized in crafting weapons. He has a wife named Penny, one god-son, six children and four grandchildren. A skilled swordsman who had left Ree when he was young to explore and have adventures. He returned half a decade later with a ruby where one of his eyes had been, a wagon of treasure, a baby named Seileben (aka Ben, who later became the now late Wizard) and two unusual companions, a centaur bear totem druid named Enkul, a sprite fire sorceress called Ember and his now-wife Penny, a sylph swordmaiden from the southeast coast. Save for Penny, his companions left Ree not long after to continue their journey. "Ruby Eye Anders" was Aidan's mentor.

• Zazaz, the last of the waterworks Maintainers - a genetically engineered sub-race of the kobolds that had lived in the depths below Nir. Zazaz's "soul-task" is the take care of and operate the waterworks gate and corresponding controls. He is the last of his tribe, the others having died from age or killed and eaten by their cannibalistic cousins. Zazaz has taken to hiding in an old genetics lab with Kruun the Old, a rat that had been crossed with a blue dragon in hopes of creating living batteries for machinery. The Maintainers must attend to their soul-tasks, regardless of the danger it puts them in, the need and emotional reward received from attending to their task was programmed into their dna by the Nir. If they do not fulfill their purpose, then they are overcome by depression, loss of appetite and will eventually die. It's why the Maintainers and others of their kind were so easily wiped out by their savage cousins, their tasks forced them out of hiding and into public places where they were found and killed. Zazaz has been clever and very lucky thus far, though he had finally been caught, having established a relationship with Clan Strong - he would inform them of the kobolds patrol routes & tactics and they would pay him with beer and bread. He was captured by one of the Hunger priests and his gang and was being interrogated when the Ree companions came to his "rescue".
• Ashtir Dumaa, a vain and pompous half-janni bard who was once a guardian of Al-Lorin (janni & human-genie halfbreeds enslaved by magical collars to genie masters). When the city fell, the collars were temporarily deactivated and he fled north beyond the mountains. He lived a rather wretched live, making a meager living as a vagabond, adventurer & entertainer. He eventually met a goblin-snake mercenary priest of Shall, named Krinnis and found that they worked very well together, eventually becoming friends. They established themselves as a successful bounty hunter duo. Ashtir and Krinnis were recently hired by the terrifying Andaro Halfwraith of Sedas to track down an escaped kaishan slave and retrieve some important schematics she had stolen. An elven knight, Danilis, who was apparently responsible for the slave's theft & escape, was sent with them. Due to a terrible misunderstanding while in Nir, Krinnis was slain and both Ashtir and Danilis were captured by the Ree companions.
  Ashtir has been accompanying and assisting the party.
• Skitik, one of the Nirish kobold Stewards, Stitik tends to the High Hall of Toba Starskipper. Years ago she managed to seal off the entrances into her hall by causing a cave in at the main entrance, burying the outer door. There are two small entrances, not well known, and too small for the Drudge and the smaller kobolds are terrified of the Stewards' powers, so they do not dare enter her domain. The entrance to the great library of Nir is located down a corridor from the High Hall, but is guarded by a daemon that had been set there by one of the Drudge Sorcerers. Stitik possesses the power to commune with the Alfred crystal archives as well as the shadow of Toba echoing throughout the crystals of Nir and his companions she had guarded until those worthy to claim them appeared.
• Eina, a small kaishan child that had been enslaved by Sedas after they had massacred all the adults of her race. She had been presented as a slave to Danilis, a gift from Prince Cir. The girl was mistreated and tortured, but conspired with two older kaishan children. The mean Prince and the half monster elf he consorted with had big plans, terribly pans, that involved a machine. It was very important to them. So the children schemed and stole the plans for this awful machine. During their escape, one of the other children was captured and the other killed. Eina grabbed the plans from him and fled. She eventually found her way into the swamps of Kuth where she was found by a tribe of lizardfolk. They brought her before their reigning hag, a towering creature with black hair and long iron teeth and nails, surrounded by a pack of large wolves. The hag ponderously gave the child a parfait and marked her brow granting her safe passage in Kuth. The strange primordial born creature bid her to hurry to the gates of Nir, that she would find allies within. A massive and terrifying troll gathered her up in it's arms and carried her all the way to the gates. The troll put her down, and curiously regarded her for a short time as she finished up her third parfait, then it vanished back into the swamp. Eina, a terrified but brave little girl, entered Nir.
• Toba, not as dead as believed. He had left a shadow of his mind within the crystal archives and through his powerful mental abilities and knowledge of the psionic crystal network he was able to safeguard his mind long after his death, and the dark fate of his people. Toba had taken an interest in his descendant Barron and his companions and had hijacked the transportation AI Alfred 21 hologram, claiming to be an "unshackled ai" so that he could directly interact with the Ree adventurers. Toba's story varies depending on which tapestry, mural or storybook one reads in Nir. His "ghost" isn't entirely clear on the true story himself, as he only possesses a fraction of Toba's memories. The truth of the tale was lost when Toba was cast into the Primordial Hunger. Unless perhaps his daughter, who had been exiled to a place called Sanctuary with other Nir who disagreed with how the Nir were treating other races as slaves documented their story.
• Blazing Righteousness, a rather boisterous, demeaning and sarcastic sentient axe that had belonged to Toba long ago. The axe is now wielded by "a humble musclebound blacksmith of near-moderate intelligence that he has hopes to forge into a true hero with a lot of work". Since discovering that Aidan is no mere blacksmith, but an Emperor (!!!), Blaze (as Toba called him) the weapon seems to have somehow managed to look smug. How an axe looks smug is unknown, but...it does.
• Renne, the consciousness of a slothful apprentice that had trapped her mind within a crystal ball. She had been a wizard apprentice in some sort of college of magic called the Talhurst Academy of Arcane, Psionic and Culinary Sciences. She admits that she had little interest in her studies, preferring sleep instead (an elf sleeping??), but her parents were pressuring her into schooling and paying her tuition. She didn't really pay close attention to her lessons from Professor Toba, which resulted in her accidentally transferring her actual mind into a magical item rather than just making a copy. The process had been...expertly done and was thus irreversible. Her parents claimed her mindless body after the terrible tragedy. Toba kept the crystal ball she had transferred her mind into. He felt it would ultimately be no kindness to give it to her parents and that they would be better off moving on with their lives than hanging onto an intangible shard of their little girl. Then the War came.
• Fade, a Factotum kobold with the soul-tasked as a kitchen sculler. Of the four Factotum that the Ree adventurers had...captured? Rescued? He seems the only one who has not had his individuality and personality crushed by the long servitude to the Drudge, Jeffrey. Fade and Zazaz have started to develop a friendship.
• Sitha, a medusa who had been trapped in Sanctuary and now lives in Ree after the party rescued her.
• Danu Nolan, a clerk who works in the Mayor's office. Danu had been found in the river about a year ago with no memory of his prior life. He chose the name Guyus and began a new life. Sorlandira and Shaza suspect that he is their target. They have also determined that the Black Sun, probably hired by someone in the Gir government, is out to kill him. Guyus & Shaza both recently vanished without a trace.