Lyra
The Noble Thief
Physical/Personal Bio:
Name: Lyra
Race: Bosmer
Race Traits: Resist Disease and Poison, Resist Fatigue
Gender: Female
Class: Nightblade (Subclass: Agent, Scout)
Age: 41 (young by Elven standards)
Height: 5’ 2”
Weight: 56 kg
Build: Slender and athletic
Skin tone: Fair
Eyes and hair: Brown and blonde.
Political allegiance: Imperial
World view: Neutral (Defender of the poor and homeless, society's outcasts)
Guild: Thieves Guild
+ Roleplay Rank: Doyan
Places of Residence:
- The Tower of the Wolf - Player Home In Solitude Mod
- Shadowfoot Sanctum, Riften Ratways. Creation Club Add On
Canon Quests: For her quests, I wanted to focus on all side stories that involve thievery, infiltration, or investigation (I suppose a great many do). Lyra has a personal vendetta against the Thalmor, and a thirst for solving mysteries, she has a talent for it also. Here is my list of favourites:
The Mages Guild, the Thieves Guild, Missing in Action, the White Phial, The Black Star, Served Cold, Promises to Keep, The Forsworn Conspiracy, Rebel’s Cairn, Lights out! The Man who Cried Wolf, Tending the Flames, Lost Legacy, March of the Dead, The Final Descent, Old Friends, Forbidden Legend, Infiltration, The Pale Lady, A Scroll for Anska, Siege on the Dragon Cult, The Heart of Dibella, Pieces of the Past, Waking Nightmare, Distant Past, The Lover’s Requital
Roleplay Quests:
- The Fall of the Forsworn. After their numbers are decimated by the Vampire Clan, aid the Vigilants of Stendarr to rebuild and confront a new enemy, the Daedra-worshipping Reachmen. With the escape of their King Madanach from Cidna Mine, and his intentions to resurrect the war chief Red Eagle from the dead, these cultists are now more dangerous than ever…
- Queen Elisif. Aid the Jarl of Solitude in her quest to become a Queen worthy of a broken land. The Civil War has left a permanent scar on the face of Skyrim, but unity and faith can be restored, if only light can finally be shed upon the meddling schemes of the Thalmor justiciars…
Overview:
Lyra is a Bosmeri Nightblade, firstly an associate of the Cyrodilic Thieves Guild, and formerly a member of the Imperial Court. Her mother is a much celebrated Imperial battle-mage and an ambassador of the Imperial Council, a figure very much in the public eye. Everything changed when the Thalmor sacked the Imperial City and forced many of the citizens, Lyra included, to cower in hiding in the sewers below the citadel. There, she became entangled with what remained of the Thieves Guild, and began her life as an ‘infiltrator,’ specialising in completing jobs that required infiltration, the procuring of sensitive documents and incriminating evidence, all without leaving a trace of her presence. Becoming one of it’s most valued members, she is tasked with a dangerous, vital mission: to transport an Elder Scroll, stolen from the Imperial Library during the cities capture to protect it from Dominion hands, and deliver it to the hands of a scholar, far away at the Mages College of Skyrim. The rest of her tale, dear readers, is yet to be revealed…
Gear:
As a thief devoted to upholding her guild’s tenants of abstaining from violence while completing ‘jobs’ (self defence being about the only exception), Lyra must rely on a multitude of skills and abilities not combat oriented to survive Skyrim’s hostile landscape and population. These include alchemy, stealth, the arcane skills of illusion and alteration, and even the ability to talk her way out of trouble with sheer charm.
Personal Bio:
To understand Lyra, the youngest Doyan in the history of the Thieves Guild, you must first know her mother, who lived an entirely different life...
Liriel
Battle-Mage, Former Archmage of the Mages Guild, Ambassador of the Elder Council
Born seventeen years before the events of the Oblivion Crisis, Liriel was a noble-born Bosmer of Falinesti, a woodland tree city that disappeared inexplicably before the crisis. It’s disappearance coincided with the schemes of the newly arrisen Aldmeri Dominion, a xenophobic political entity that had its sights set of Valenwood, and in time, the entirety of the Cyrodiilic Empire. Like a sleeping serpent, the Dominion lay in wait for the perfect moment to strike, but from the shadows, they were already infiltrating and crippling the Bosmeri people. Using propaganda to win over the broader population, Liriel’s family were of the few eleven Houses to resist the return of the Dominion. Unfortunately for them, this resulted in their decimation during a purge of dissent, and young Liriel, still but a child, was the sole remaining heir of their ancient bloodline. In secret, she was spirited across the border to Cyrodiil’s golden coast, escorted by a loyal servant to live in hiding in the rolling fields of County Anvil.
Already a talented young mage, her guardian took Liriel to be tutored at the Mages Guild chapter house in Anvil, a place where she could flourish in safety and comfort. Then, in her eighteenth year, fate would thrust her into the events of the Oblivion Crisis. She had gained a recommendation to enter the Arcane University from her guildmaster, the High Elf Carahil, and set off on her road to Kvatch, where she would have to prove herself again to the guildmaster there. Several weeks passed without event, time in which she familiarised herself with the local people, and began to hope that finally she might be able to put her dark childhood behind her. Folk in Cyrodiil appeared oblivious to the crimes the Dominion were committing against the elves of Valenwood, and she let herself believe that perhaps they had gone back to the Summerset Isle for good.
Now, the events of the Crisis are largely known to the public, although several different, possibly conflicting accounts have been published and became legends in themselves. A humble prisoner happened to cross paths with the Emperor, witnessed his death and delivered the Amulet to his only surviving son, Martin Septim. The full truth may perhaps never be known, but these details were more than enough to immortalise an endless array of songs and books on the subject. Liriel herself was a player in this tale who was trapped alongside Martin and a handful of citizens inside the chapel of Kvatch. She stayed by his side during the evacuation, and accompanied him further to the Priory of Talos, where she learned of the Blades and their desperate plight to preserve the Septim Bloodline. She pledged herself to their cause without hesitation, and thus ensued a long adventure throughout every county of Cyrodiil, and into the planes of Oblivion itself. Did she know the Hero of Kvatch, yes, and like many others, she respected their desire for anonymity. To allow themselves to become lost on the pages of time. Such a thing is less a curse than one might imagine.
Along with defending Martin to the end of his life, Liriel eventually achieved her original goal, access to the knowledge and power of the Arcane University. There she rose through the ranks until she became a member of the Mages Council, and in time, she would hold the position of Archmage herself. A friend and confidant of Chancellor Ocato, de facto ruler of the Empire, she became a key figure at the Imperial Court, advising the Imperial Council on numerous matters as they struggled to hold the Empire together in the absence of the Septims. In time, she would give up her position in the Mages Guild to devote herself to a far more pressing task… acting as an envoy to the Imperial provinces, before political chaos fractured the Empire irreparably. It was during her years as a member of the court that it became public knowledge that she had begun a family, and by the year 4E 180 she would have six children of her own, although the identity of their father would never be revealed.
Lyra
The Noble Thief
Born 4E 160, Lyra was just eleven years of age when full scale war with the Aldmeri Dominion began, and fourteen the day her home at the Imperial Palace was completely overrun by the forces of the Dominion.
4E 171 - When the Elves launch their first attack on the Colovian Highlands, close to their home in Skingrad, Liriel moves her youngest child, eleven, to the safety of the Imperial City. As a member of the Imperial court, Lyra is given lodgings in the White-Gold Tower, as her mother sets to work aiding the War Council and leading the Imperial battlemages once more. There is no room for diplomacy in war. However, most nights Lyra would sneak away from their quarters, learning the secret routes around the palace by heart and even discovering a passageway into the sewers directly below, thanks to the existence of old Ayleid ruins. After some years adventuring on her own, the young wood elf crosses paths with members of the Thieves Guild, and begins to learn their crafty ways.
4E 174 - Liriel is away from the Imperial City the day that the Dominion began its siege. Without her mother's protection, fourteen year old Lyra takes it upon herself to evacuate the women, children and elderly from the Imperial Palace, taking them into the sewers through the old catacombs, while the palace soldiers are busy leading the defence. In the sewers, she works alongside the Thieves Guild to bring as many citizens as they can to safety, beginning with the vulnerable homeless who had nowhere to hide with fireballs raining from the sky, and then anyone who could fit below once the elves breached the city walls. For an entire year, they cowered below the streets of the city, waiting for the Emperor to return and free the city.
4E 175 - Early in the new year, word reaches the Thieves Guild that the eleven lord occupying the city, Naarifin, intends to unleash unspeakable horrors upon the citizens that remain above ground. The arena had become a playground of the elves, using the occupied Imperials as sport for their entertainment. Lyra and a few others take it upon themselves to infiltrate the White-Gold Tower, uncover the source of Naarifin’s power, and hopefully allow for the Imperial Army to retake the city while he is distracted and vulnerable. Shortly after their success, the Battle of the Red Ring takes place, and Emperor Titus Mede, with Liriel amongst others at his side, retakes the city from the elves in a brutal and merciless display of bloodshed. Few elves are left alive, but the people of the city are safe once more. With this success, the armies of the Dominion are left crippled and exhausted, as are the Empires, and a treaty of peace between them is signed. Lyra in the meantime remains with the Thieves Guild, becoming a permanent and trusted member of their ranks.
4E 176 - The Gray Fox reveals to his most trusted agents that he had organised the removal of the Elder Scrolls from the Imperial Library, foreseeing the likelihood of the Dominion breaching the city walls and benefiting from the power contained in the Scrolls, should they be seized by Elven hands. They are now to be hidden in various corners of the world. Lyra is chosen to escort the Scroll ‘Rhunen’ into Skyrim, where a scholar of the Mages College had pledged to keep it safe, hidden in the Midden below the tower. She is further tasked with remaining in Skyrim until the day comes to return the scroll to the Imperial Library. She keeps connections with the Thieves Guild organisation in Riften, but keeps to herself for the most part. The Thalmor have made it known that they intend to occupy an Embassy close to the Nord capital of Skyrim, so that they can witness the terms of the White-Gold Concordat being observed, specifically the condition that Talos worship be outlawed. To combat this, Liriel asks that her daughter watches the Thalmor’s movements in and out of the embassy. She arrived in Riften shortly after an exchange of power from the old guildmaster, Gallus, to his lieutenant Mercer Fray. Gallus had been apparently murdered by a disgruntled lover, a Dunmer who had fled and erased her trail utterly, evading even Lyra’s skills of investigation.
4E 180 - Normality has returned to the Empire, despite several more provinces ceding from it’s control. Liriel returns to her duties publicly as an ambassador for the Imperial Council, while she continues to assist the Blades to go into hiding, and gather intelligence against the Dominion from the shadows. Her work takes her to Hammerfell, where the Redguards revel in their success against the Aldmeri Dominion, and stoke the fires of the betrayal the Empire had dealt against them. Her task to renew communication between Hammerfell and the Empire appears almost impossible. In the meantime, her daughter Lyra aims to do good for the poor people of Cyrodiil, and the many displaced and impoverished by the war. Now twenty, Lyra has shown her loyalty and worth to the guild ten times over, and is named one of it’s youngest serving Doyans in history. She remains in this position for the next twenty years, using her access to spies across the Empire to aid her mother’s political goals wherever she can. Liriel’s fame and public status hinders her ability to work from the shadows, and while she and Lyra do not always see eye to eye, her daughter provides eyes and ears in places she cannot infiltrate.
4E 201 - Civil War has erupted in Skyrim with the murder of King Torygg at the hands of the rebel leader, Ulfric Stormcloak of Windhelm. Peace appears in sight when he is captured early, despite the fracturing of the country in half, however his execution is interrupted by the return of Alduin the World-Eater, who heralds the return of dragons to Nirn. Liriel is dispatched to the Blue Palace in Solitude in order to present the Imperial Council's softer, diplomatic hand, while General Tullius remains in charge of their military operations from Castle Dour. Liriel suspects that the Thalmor have played a hand in the turmoil plaguing the once peaceful province, and asks for her daughters' help in watching their movements, unable to strike against them in the open herself. Lyra fears that the Thalmor have set their sights on the Elder Scroll she had hidden at the Mages College, due to the presence of one of their agents now acting as an ‘advisor’ to the Archmage. However, on arrival she discovers that both Septimus, the secret guardian of the scroll, and the Scroll itself, have disappeared. Her story begins here, with two seemingly impossible tasks at hand - recover the Elder Scroll before the Thalmor learn of its existence, and thwart them before their dark games succeed in sundering the Nord people from the Empire forever.
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