Name: Lily Vaspar
Age: 28
Race: Faery
Height: Varies, typically around 5 ft, 3 in.
Weight: Varies along with height. Never very much.
Physical Description: While Lily changes her appearance according to her current whims, she always exudes a sense of corrupted youth. She looks human, and while the apparent age is difficult to pin down, one of her former associates coined the phrase "old enough to know better, but young enough to not care." Long brown hair, almond-shaped eyes the color of warm chocolate, and a stunning figure makes her hard not to notice. When expecting customers, she dresses in the latest fashions, but when the shop is closed or she and Gauruk are out gathering ingredients on the plains outside the city, she wears one of her traditional faery dresses made of living leaves. The leaves change to match the seasons, and she loves wearing them.
Possessions: Besides a building in the Business district which she runs her business out of, Lily owns a staggering array of tools needed for her trade. Shelves housing glass vials, jars of odd herbs, slightly sinister animal bits floating in murky liquids, tables covered with peculiar tools, and poultices, potions, and the like in various stages of completion fill the ground floor of the building. The upper levels are furnished in a comfortable, if not showy, style. Some of the furniture is sized for Gauruk, and typically made more for durability than anything else.
If Lily is expecting trouble, there are a few things she has ready. The first is a vial of fluid that looks something like blood. This is appropriate, as the key ingredient is the blood of a bull. It dulls pain and quashes fear, to the point that a man might try to punch out a battlemage, and then not notice when his legs are incinerated. This is meant for Gauruk, her first line of defense. The next weapon she has prepared against the possibility of danger is a set of darts. Each one is smeared in a mild poison that mimics the effects of a heavy night of drinking. An attacker hit with it won't be in any condition to give chase, or even fight back for that matter, though it isn't strong enough to affect a troll. This is intentional, as she has found that an enthusiastic Gauruk ruins most shots.
Powers or Strengths: Like most fae, Lily can change her height and small details of her appearance. She prefers to remain human-sized to avoid negative attention. Particularly skilled with herbal medicine, poisons, and folk remedies, Lily is capable of weaving extraordinarily subtle spells into the potions, elixirs, and poultices she makes. While the spells she uses in this manner are varied, they do little other than reinforce the effects of the blend it is placed into, and in fact requires the herbal concoction to work properly. This results in particularly effective remedies and poisons, which she sells at a premium, though most of what she sells lacks the magic, as the risk of getting caught is rarely worth it. Lastly, she has the stereotypical talent for affecting the minds of others. Like most faeries, she can throw subtle compulsions at others, and while not strong enough to dominate someone's mind, she can make some courses of action seem more appealing than others. Reading a person's aura has become second nature, and though it only gives vague impressions as to a person's state of mind and current intentions, it is enough to avoid selling a magical brew to someone looking for evidence of magic to use as evidence against her.
Weaknesses: While her skills may be potent, her lack of offensive magic or physical prowess makes her very vulnerable should her puckish personality get her into trouble she can't charm her way out of. Lacking the wings that most faeries have, her options for escaping an opponent are limited, and her inability to spin more powerful mental compulsions than mere suggestions leave fleeing as the only option when faced with open hostility. It was because of this that she enlisted the aid of Gauruk, and she is now loath to go out without him nearby.
History: Native to the forests of Eyropa, Lily spent much of her youth being instructed in the arts of herbalism and magic by various teachers. As with most faeries, she was left to her own devices as soon as she was old enough, and she immediately sought out anyone able and willing to teach her the skills she thought she would need. Most of her teachings were from the hag Caulgir, a wretched and bitter creature who wanted nothing more than to create a new temptress to send out into the world to spread dismay and heartbreak among mankind. Lily didn't turn out as dark hearted as Caulgir hoped, so the hag threw her out.
Still young and capricious, Lily wandered Eyropa for a few years, using her talents to prey off the various human settlements. She developed a habit of posing as a human and moving into a town or village. Before long, hopeful suitors would start to show up with gifts. Once she had grown bored with toying with the locals, she would "suggest" to her suitors that she might be more inclined to accept marriage if the other suitors could only be driven away. While the young men of the village were at each others' throats, she would take the gifts she had received, slip away into the night, and use her new wealth to buy a home in the next town.
This caught up with her when she included a mage's apprentice among her victims. The boy's master, the local equivalent of a Battlemage, grew suspicious and investigated. Upon discovering her plot, he revealed the trick to the town. The truth was sufficient to break through the magical suggestions she had laid in place, and the resulting mob drove her out of town and passed word of her actions to the surrounding communities.
Driven back to the forests, she survived as best she could, but unintentionally trespassed on the territory of the Korpiklaani trolls. She was captured and caged, the trolls' open hostility requiring more time than she had to change their minds by magic. Learning that she was going to be fed to the clan's shaman when he returned from his vision journey, she devised a plan. She spent hours talking to the low-ranking warrior they had set to guard her, laying mental compulsions as thickly as she dared. She managed to convince her guard, Gauruk, that if he were to bring her the ingredients she needed, she would make a potion for him that would give him the strength to challenge the chief for rulership. He complied, and the potion she made did just what she promised. However, the killing rage it drove him to led to the ultimate sin among the Korpiklaani: killing a defeated opponent in a ritual duel. Exiled, he freed Lily and the two of them have been traveling together ever since. Over the years, it has become unclear if Gauruk is a servant, partner, or commonlaw husband.
The duo left Eyropa, and Lily has gradually turned away from parasitic plots for easy wealth. More of a witch than a seductress now, she has been selling her magically infused herbal concoctions, and has found that it pays better. Recently, Lily and Gauruk made their way to Marn, where Lily used the wealth she had earned to buy a shop in the Business district. The newly opened Vaspar Herbalism sees enough customers to earn a comfortable living, and her standing promise of discretion brings in plenty of people looking for remedies to embaressing conditions as well as the city's underclass, looking for the next poison, drug, or sneaky advantage in a back-alley fight.
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Name: Gauruk Korpiklaani (“He who Hungers” of the Forest Clan)
Age: 42 (not that Gauruk can remember)
Race: Troll
Height: 9 ft, 3 in
Weight: 600+ lbs
Physical Description: Lean for a troll, Gauruk lacks the blubber that many of his kind develop. Slabs of muscle across his arms and chest give him a top-heavy appearance, and his jagged teeth and thick nails make him an intimidating figure without any effort on his part. Dark red tattoos, courtesy of his partner Lily, form strange glyphs on his face and shoulders. Lanky black hair cascades across his hunched shoulders. As per Lily's instructions, it is kept very clean, an unusual effort for a troll. Lily braids it when she's bored, though Gauruk typically lets it simply flow freely.
Possessions: Besides numerous barbaric totems made of bone, Gauruk owns little. He rarely carries weapons or wears armor, though he has a suit of hardened leather made from the bear he killed as part of his ritualistic passage into adulthood. He typically wears pants made of some tough material, canvas or leather usually, and little else. No one makes shoes big enough, and any shirt sized for him could double as a small tent. He has a rain cloak stashed somewhere, which he wears only in the heaviest of storms or when the weather starts to get cold. Anything else he needs is usually provided by Lily, his partner, who handles the finances along with most of the thinking. His one prized possession is his sluugtral, or troll horn. A large wooden horn with four finger holes for the various notes the instrument can produce, these horns are used by trolls to communicate across large regions, and can be heard echoing for miles.
Powers or Strengths: Besides the normal troll traits (regeneration, tremendous strength, etc), Gauruk has been on the receiving end of so many mental compulsions from his partner Lily that his mind has become well entrenched. Further magical compulsions from Lily are unneeded, and others attempting to magically influence his mind find that the residual effects of Lily’s spells have given his mind defenses on par with some of the most powerful mages, though they may more accurately be called a mental cage than armor.
Weaknesses: Gauruk is morbidly afraid of fire, even more so than most trolls. The fear is sufficient to make him cringe away from torches and lanterns and other sources of fire too small to do any significant damage to his massive bulk, though his slavish devotion to Lily, along with nearly a decade of magical mental compulsions, would send him charging into a burning building were she in danger.
History: Born a Korpiklaani troll in the forests of eastern Eyropa, Gauruk was named for his unusual physique. Where most trolls quickly put on flab and muscle with equal ease, guaruk never put on much fat, and was thus named “He who Hungers” in the ancient troll language. Because trolls measure respect among their own kind according to physical size, he would have been doomed to a life as a lowly warrior had his tribe not captured a wingless faery. As the lowest ranking warrior, he was boring job of guarding her until the shaman returned and devoured her. The faery, a girl named Lily Vaspar, worked subtle mental magic until he agreed to bring her ingredients for a strength potion so that he could challenge the chieftain for leadership of the tribe. Lily intentionally made it too effective, and when Gauruk killed the chief, he broke the laws of the Korpiklaani. He freed Lily and the two of them fled.
Recently, Lily and Gauruk made their way to Marn, where Lily used the wealth she had earned to buy a shop in the Business district. Gauruk, somewhere between servant, partner, and husband, ensures that no one causes trouble for Lily while she makes a good living for the both of them selling herbal remedies during the day and morally questionable substances at night.
