Kestos Remorayz

Kestos Remorayz is an author and intellectual who has been based for a number of years on the Left Bank of Loros. She is famous for her scandalous prose fiction and poetry, which focuses on tales of romance and sex. She is also the focus of many rumours about her own personal life, which have escalated over the course of her career.

Early life

Kestos Remorayz was born in 423 AWR in Chogyos, the daughter of one of the city's indolent aristocratic families. She has spoken little about her upbringing but it seems likely she was a member of the Bruised Ones in her adolescence. As she reached marriageable age she claims her parents sought to marry her to the son of a major player in the city's especially powerful Commercial Guilds. This young man remains unidentified, but Remorayz has stated that she wanted little to do with the boy, who she describes as having been pale and having runny eyes. When her parents insisted on the match, Kestos returned all her belongings to them and left Chogyos, reputedly in a single sari carrying a satchel containing a loaf of bread, a quill, an inkwell and three sheets of parchment.

Writing career

Remorayz claims to have spent five years traveling the Eleven Cities "and somewhat beyond," visiting all the cities, exploring the Empty Quarter and traveling the rivers of the Alluvial plain as far south as the Forest of Veils. In 446 AWR she settled in Loros, choosing to make her home on the Left Bank, a location she claims to find stimulating. How she supported herself in her travels she has not said, but in order to live in Loros she took to writing.
Her first book was The Perils of the Crimson Phantom, the tale of a young lady of Chogyos  who finds herself in a series of licentious situations as she is pursued through the city by a mysterious crimson-clad figure whose identity is never revealed. She sold the manuscript of this book to the Scribe's Guild of Pholyos, who had no difficulty finding buyers for the copies of it that they manufactured. In the twelve years since Remorayz has produced an ongoing series of books, including eight sequels to her first book. Her work is noted for its interesting tone, describing acts of sex and violence with disarming frankness while treating less controversial subjects with a judgmental furtiveness. 
Remorayz's writing has become popular among a wide audience, making her the most famous and successful writer of erotica in the Eleven Cities. She has inspired numerous imitators, mostly in her native Chogyos, though these writers work under pseudonyms - some drawn directly from her work - whereas she has remained scrupulously open about her activities and authorship. Independently wealthy, she lives in a well-secured house not far from the docks of the Left Bank.

Rumours

The nature of Remorayz's work has naturally inspired rumours about where she gets her inspiration. Many assume her work is autobiographical and atrributed her with a variety of wild adventures and experiences. Proponents of these stories note her affinity for the stews of cities, observing that she lives on the Left Bank and, when visiting her buyers in Pholyos, comes and goes from the city via The Wreckage. Some sailors go so far as to visit her house in Loros, thinking it a brothel, although such visitors always find her door locked and barred. She entertains only close friends, of whom she has a small but widely-spread circle.
Darker rumours circulate around Remorayz as well. It has been suggested, mostly among her former townspeople in Chogyos, that she is a devotee of Maryas, and that she receives her inspiration by communing with the goddess. Some go further, suggesting that her work contains a series of coded instructions on how to stage and conduct rituals to Maryas. The supernatural elements of her stories are apt to appear immediately following her larger and more outlandish narrative set pieces, and it is thought that these events are demonstrations of the magical results of conducting those acts. Some even accuse Reymorayz of being one of the  Shadow Men, arguing that her undocumented five-year tour of the cities was in fact a cover for a tour of duty of that famously nefarious organization of people.
Serious thaumatologists are doubtful about these claims, not least because a mention of the Shadow Men is typically a good indication that a theory is about to swerve from valid speculation to superstitious nonsense. This opinion is not universal, however, and Remorayz's work has found a place in some thaumatologist's libraries. Sceptics observe that it must be nice to have such a high-minded excuse to read pornography.

Bibliography

The Perils of the Crimson Phantom series

* The Perils of the Crimson Phantom
* Warmer than the Evening Star
* Dark as Sweet Wine
* Swept Away on Opal Tides
* The Five Black Pearls
* Malice Pure as Love
* Where Cats Fear to Fall
* The Fate of the Blue Sari
* Tread Softly Through Morning Mists

Other works

* What is Seen in Green Smoke
* The Usurper of Chogyos
* A Butterfly at Night
* Four Ladies of Halumay
* A Confession of Things Remembered
* The Keeper of Pink Flames