Stephanie Balthrea

Description

A Fetchling of Drow ancestry, Stephanie Balthrea is as cold and deadly as she is beautiful. Devote follower of the Raven Queen and loyal to her Dark Prince, the Lord of the Plane of Shadow. Secret worshiper of an unknown and forgotten deity upon a lost realm hidden deep within the shadow plane, who is the patron to her power, she is an avatar for his will upon the mortal realm.

Personality

Her ancestors having lived on the plane of shadow and subsequently being turned into Fetchlings curbed the inherent evilness of the Drow in her and her bloodline. Relatively indifferent in demeanor and towards others she is ambitious and in turn very jealous.

Powers and Abilities

Initially trained as a Priestess (Cleric) but transitioned into a Witch while still pretending to be a Priestess. Has the abilities, and spells of both a cleric and a witch. She also gained the powers and abilities of an Umbral Court Agent as well as those granted to her from the Ring of the Shadowlords.

Combat and Tactics

Preferring to work in subtle and more indirect ways Stephanie was rarely seen on the front lines of a battle. Her influence and powers reached far, she specialized in controlling the battlefield and the flow of combat, using her powers to confuse and slow her enemies. She would regularly use shadows and illusions to mask her own presence and misdirect enemies. Even though she could easily crush her foes using her powers, she liked to toy with them, cause chaos within their own ranks to capture stragglers, then convert and extract information from them. She was adept at turning even the strongest of her enemies against their most loyal friends and followers, rarely even needing to use her magic for that.

Lore and Stories

Personal History

Lady Stephanie Balthrea is a descendant of a line of Drow Nobles that had fled the Darklands and became trapped in the shadow plane, her ancestors, seeking to escape their god's wrath and a rival family's war against them. The long exposure to the energies of the shadow plane slowly changing them over time, transforming them into Fetchlings. Abandoning their Drow gods they found solace in the teachings of The Raven Queen and the Prince of Pain, gods over the Shadow Plane. The family and their descendants formed a dark cult to their new Queen and Lord.
Early Life in The Legend of Lady Balthrea Childhood in The Legend of Lady Balthrea

Full Story

Childhood

While her ancestors were disgraced from their original home, they were still nobles in their own right. Stephanie was born into a family of royalty, her mother a high priestess to their god, the Raven Queen.
As a child growing up in the dark recesses of the plane of shadow, she like other children were told fairytales of lost realms, fantastical adventures, myths, and legends of places with untold power. Everyone took them as they were, just stories, and fables to inspire and entertain the youth. But one such feature with some of the tales stuck with her through the years rang true and felt real to her. It was not very exciting, was more a background entity to tie a couple of the stories together, but there were rumors, mostly spoken in hushed whispers of an ancient tower lost in the darkness. A tower of unknown power, and knowledge.
While these tales stuck with her throughout her childhood, Stephanie was forced to focus on more important things, forming more immediate and realistic ambitions. Groomed from birth to serve as a Priestess of their Convent, she had ambitious plans to become the Grand Priestess of her cult and Matron Mother of her family as her great, great, great grandmother had once been. The only problem was she had shown no real signs of power and had no apparent aptitude for magic. She also was fairly petite, too frail and small to make a strong warrior like her older sister. Bullied and tossed aside for being less than ordinary, mostly forgotten and looked down upon, this gave her ample time to study and read in the library of her coven.
Always struggling to harness the power from her faith and divine teachings she started looking into other sources of magic. She spent countless hours hiding in the libraries of her convent, pouring over scrolls and spell books of all kinds. One day while training with the other adepts, they all were practicing the ways of shadow magic, meditating to their queen, looking into the dark for knowledge and guidance, manipulating the shadows before them to do as they will it. Before she knew it she had become lost in the darkness, only to emerge at the base of a dark abandoned fortress, a tower so high it disappeared into the void above her, lost in an unknown realm. No movement or activity could be seen in the tower or the surrounding areas, like the tower had been left to ruin for years, yet not a single sign of old age scars its walls. A terrible and familiar feeling crept into her soul as she stood frozen in terrified awe before the structure. A dark shadow of some small winged creature flew past her, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.
A small bird's skull fell from the creature, dropping at her feet as it rolled away, stopping just out of reach. As she started reaching for the skull the world around her began to disappear in thick darkness, the ground under her feet turning fluid, pure black, sinking she franticly grasped for the skull as some unknown force dragged her down. A familiar but faint and distant voice was yelling at her, "Do you know what to do? Prove to me that you are worthy!" sharp pains could be felt on her back as the tendrils of shadows that were dragging her away lashed out at her. "Are you Listening?" as another sharp lash whipped across her back. In a last-ditch effort, she summoned what power she could and reached out with her magic to bring the skull to her. Finally feeling the skull on her fingertips she snatched it up at the last moment as she was swallowed into blackness, hearing the words "Do not fail!". As she emerged back into her training hall the voice she had been hearing clear as day screaming at her, "Do you hear me? You are a priestess in training and will not fail this convent" As her teacher lashes her with a spiked chain whip." You will answer me and show me you can cast the spell we had been practicing and stop your daydreaming." Another lash across her back. "Prove to me that we are not wasting our time with you!", at that she turned to her instructor, weakly responding. "…I'll show you, I'll show all of you that I'm worthy…". The instructor, content with any response from the pupil, simply says in a reductive tone, "Then prove it little one". Stephanie finally opens her hand to look down at the small bird's skull she had put so much effort into grabbing, its eyes flash a deep purple as soon as she looks at it, it instantly crumbling to dusk and smoke. The smoke quickly seeps into her skin as the dust falls through her fingers, the stinging pain in her back begins to fade but she can still feel the gashes bleeding and the warm blood running down her back. Again the voice of her instructor, irritation and impatience returning to their voice. "Well what are you waiting for show the class how miserable you are at casting, at least try and stop your bleeding, so we can re…" before the instructor could finish Stephanie clearly and concisely spoke the words of the spell and her hands moved with deliberate and precise gestures. As the spell comes to completion, the soft lights in the area go out and small wisps of smoke form around her and start to heal the deep gashing wounds in her back. Slightly impressed the teacher waves their hand and the smoke vanishes and the lights return, "Maybe there is hope for you yet.." Stephanie's wounds almost fully healed.
Smiling with satisfaction she kept her experiences of the realm to herself and redoubled her efforts in her studies. She took all of this as a sign that she was chosen to discover the realm she had heard about as a child and unleash its power. Secretly abandoning her clerical teachings, her power not coming from her faith or devotion to her god, instead, she fully gave herself to this unknown dark patron that had saved her that day in class, it granting her all the power she needed. A witch masquerading as a cleric, an honored priestess to their queen and god, fooling them all as she quickly rose in power and prestige in the convent.

Adult Life

She joined a group of like-minded explorers and adventures, together they established a library of sorts, a home base to store and research information on everything they came across. She primarily focused on this Lost Realm in the Shadowfell. Finally after decades of searching and inconsistent stories of the realm and those who had visited it and returned, evidence of a true way into the realm and back was found. Legends of a powerful ring emerged, a ring that transports anyone who touches it to a dark realm that few ever return from. The ring was rumored to be located in an ancient temple built by a race of Aztec lizard-like humanoids, creatures rumored to have been born from the eldritch powers of the dark realm itself.
The group set out in search of this temple, Stephanie keeping her true intentions for the ring to herself. The quest for the ring was long and treacherous, many of those that initially left with them perished during the journey. Deep within the temple the ring was found, giant alien lizard-like creatures guarded the inner chambers of the temple, Steph slipped past while her companions were fighting for their lives against the immense beasts.
There, upon a non-descript pedestal lay a rather ordinary ring, forged or carved from some pure black material. No enchantments or auras could be detected upon the ring or pedestal, a dark smoke-like mist flowed from the ring onto the floor, concealing the ground in a thick black fog and choking the room with a dark haze. As Steph approached the ring, runes of dark purple and blue started to glow on the walls of the temple. Indecipherable whispers of an alien language started to fill the cold air, the temperature dropping rapidly as the whispers getting louder as she approached the dais.
Steph knew this was the ring, her ultimate goal within sight, all she must do is reach out and take it. Her companions, now just trying to reach her and stop her fought against the beasts, whose only goal now seemed to be to just keep them away from her, as they shouted and screamed for her to stop. Without hesitation, she looked back towards her companions, a slight smile on her face as reached out for the ring and instantly vanished, consumed in a shadowy smoke and disappeared. The whispers and runes all went silent in the temple as the temperature in the room started to normalize. The great beasts they were engaged with broke off the fight and without a trace silently disappeared into the maze of tunnels.

Meeting her Patron

The moment she touched the ring it wrapped itself around her finger, its icy touch siphoning away the heat from her body. The whispers were now louder around her, instantly she was engulfed in black smoke as she fell to the ground in pain, a freezing bolt of lightning hitting her whole body. Losing all sense of direction and consciousness for a few seconds she tried to rise but the smoke was heavy, it wrapped around her and she had to struggle to fight free.
As she emerged from the strangling blackness she was no longer deep in the temple. The voices no longer whispers and clear, one voice though, cutting through the rest, a deep laughter that pierced into her soul. Flashes of other dimensions entered her mind, an endless void of darkness, great astral entities swirling in the sky, then she realized they weren't in her mind but directly in front of her, looming over her on this alien plane she now found herself on. She turned towards the laughter now regaining a sense of direction, towering over her from miles away was an immense figure, its pale bloodless flesh, scarred with open wounds, hooks, and chains. Half dressed in a black leather robe, with great chains wrapping to the ground, and flanked on either side by dark black clouds that almost look like wings that cover the entire horizon behind him. Its head is nothing more than a charred black bird's skull with a long beak, deep sigils, and runes carved into it. Silence fills the air as it speaks, its empty eye sockets flare a deep dark purple, and its voice seems to fill the entire endless realm around you. "Hello again child, seems like you weren't a waste of time after all… little one. Surprising though, that you have knowingly sought this out after all you have learned.. Interesting…". The voices slowly returning as its deep laughter cuts through Steph's body, this time the voices seemed directed at her, about her. Her body once again is wracked with pain as it is engulfed in darkness, the weight of the shadows wrapping around her and pulling her into the ground, all the sounds and voices fading away as she loses conciseness once again.
Awaking, but still deep in the dark mist, she struggles against the shadowy tendrils that are wrapped around her, breaking free from the smoke she falls to the ground, looking up into the night sky. It's endless astral void seemingly and eerily familiar. She looks at her hand, the ring still firmly in place around her finger, she looks back at the swirling tendrils of shadows and waves her hand at it, the shadows going dormant as the light breeze disperses the dark smoke to the wind. Smiling she stand up and looks around, freezing as she spots a dark fortress tower in the distance. Instantly recognizing it as the tower from her childhood, she has made it back, back to the realm she had been searching for all her life. The voice from her childhood returning, the same voice she had just encountered "Your lessons are only just beginning little one, if you thought this was the end of your journey you are mistaken, you haven't even started yet!". With that the voice was gone and she set out towards the tower.

Acquiring her Library

Years passed by while her companions desperately searched for their missing friend, looking for a way to find her and bring her back, when one day she just walked through the front doors of the library they had built almost a lifetime ago. Calmly strolling into the grand hall past the bewildered stares of her companions, she looks around and quietly says, as if to herself "Oh, how I have missed this place." Turning now to her companions who have all slowly gathered before her, the commotion throughout the library coming to a halt as they stare at their old friend. "My Queen is pleased with all the work I have done and everything I have accomplished" she says to them, but oddly it feels like it she's talking past them and to the room itself, like a self-congratulatory speech for her own benefit. "In the time that I have been gone, I fought for not only my life but my very soul, as the power and control over the ring does not come easily, and I have learned much about myself." She turns now to the wall beside her, a grand painting of a triumph that her and her companions had accomplished years ago, as she gently traces her fingers over the masterfully carved frame. "I have dined with and conversed directly with My Matron Queen, I have even been Tortured by my new Lord, and I have gained power beyond what any of you had imagined." She turns back to her friends, finally acknowledging their existence and directly speaking to them now but in a different tone, almost like there is excitement in her voice. "The Realm, it is even more impressive than I had remembered it as a child. The stories, the myths, everything we had heard and read about, does not give it justice.
I have become the first, the only, person to ever wield the power of the ring, became the Master of the Dark Tower and have complete and total control over the Realm." She holds up her hand, the nondescript dark ring clearly displayed on her finger, showing it off to her companions. Slightly more relaxed but still speechless they stand there awestruck by what she is saying. "I can't wait to show all of you the realm and the wonders it holds." as she turns from them once more, looking up and around the vaulted and decorated ceilings, her hand still in the air. "And this library… I have the perfect spot already picked out for it…" her more serious tone coming back and again speaking mostly to herself. Her companions startled out of their bewildered state now looking to each other. In an instant her hand comes down as the spell that she had been secretly and silently casting in the background while she was talking to and distracting her old companions finishes. Her companions completely caught off guard spring to action in an attempt to stop her, shouting for the guardians of the library to seize her. But instead, her spell has already taken a firm hold and the library and its guardians are now under her control.
In an instant she dismissively waves a hand at them, sending a blast of darkness and force knocking them back with a flick of her wrist. Dark shadowy tendrils and chains spring up from the now spreading and lingering smokey darkness clinging to the ground, seizing their arms and bodies, bringing them kneeling to the floor with great force. "Fools, did you forget? I helped create the enchantments on this place, assisted in the capture and binding of most these guardians. I carved the very runes and sigils that power the wards into the very foundations of the building. Did you think I wouldn’t return to claim it!?" As all the Guardians of the Library quickly subdue everyone else within the building and surrounding areas.
A floating humanoid like creature of pure shadow emerges from behind Lady Balthrea, staring blankly at those in front of it. Stephanie looks to it and says, "Ascaros, be a dear and fetch her for me." as it vanishes into a wisp of smoke.
She then starts walking over to Nelos Nightfall, an impressive human she had met on the shadow plane, he had become trapped on the plane years back and most astonishingly not only survived on his own, but thrived in the harsh conditions of the plane, he became infused with the planes dark energy and learned the ways of the Shadowdancers.
Throughout this whole ordeal he had not taken his eyes off Stephanie or moved a muscle against her. Snapping him out of his trance, Stephanie locked eyes with him and said, "Have you missed me my love?" as she places her hand on his face, the chains growing tighter, slightly arching his shoulders backwards and forcing him further to the ground. "Yes... What... Why are you doing this?" he's barely able to breath, let alone speak as his bindings keep tightening around him. She looks towards the others and responds, but not to his question. "You have all spent so much time and energy attempting to find me, especially you my love", as she slowly scratches her nails across his face, lightly cutting into his skin, his blood, a light blueish color from his mutations on the shadow plane, slowly starts trickling down his cheek as she turns back to him and kisses him. A muffled sound of movement and a gagged voice can be heard coming closer through the adjacent hallway, she turns away from him and moves towards the hallway. "But…." as she speaks a beautiful young female half-elf aspirant from the library is dragged out by a large guardian, the dark shadowy creature known as Ascaros following close behind. The captives eyes widen in horror and fear as she sees what's happening and who stands before her. "You have also spent quite a lot of time and energy on someone else as well…" Lady Balthrea says as she glances over to Nelos. The Guardian roughly releases the young woman and she falls to the floor petrified, too afraid to move. Nelos is speechless as he looks between the two of them, his eyes pleading, but not sure to who as the room closes in around him.

Lady Stephanie Balthrea

Augmented Fetchling (Drow)

Unique Character

Information

Titles

The Raven Queen
Lady Balthrea

Aliases

Beatrix Sylver

Alignment

Neutral Evil

Gender

Female

Homeland

Plane of Shadow, Dark Convent to a Raven God

Deity

The Raven Queen

Loyalty

Her Dark Patron

Languages

Shadowtongue, Shae, Magius, Common, Undercommon, Elven (Drow), Sign Language

Character Properties

Type

Fetchling(Drow)

Size

Medium

Aura

Strong - Evil

Senses

See in Darkness

Perception

Passive:## Active:+##

Initiative

+##

Character Statisics

Str: 00

Dex: 00

Con: 00

Int: 00

Wis: 00

Cha: 00

Atk: 00

CMB: 00

CMD: 00

Hit Points:

####

Life Points:

####

Physical Skills

Mental Skills

Acrobatics:

Deception:

Athletics:

Diplomacy:

Disable Device:

Handle Animal:

Fly:

Heal:

Ride:

Intimidate:

Sleight of Hand:

Sense Motive:

Stealth:

Survival:

Armor Check:

Use Magic Device: