Naevys Duskbloom

Naevys Duskbloom
Role	War High Mage
Race / kind	Moon Elf
Affiliation	Magnus Arcanum
Seat / location	Arcanum Tower of Deadreach
Status	Alive
GM canon
first cited: [heralds-a#5]

Naevys Duskbloom is a Moon Elf archmage of Magnus Arcanum, the war high mage who now holds the tower over Deadreach — the city she made when she turned a modified Cloudkill ritual into a weapon against the invading Winter Elves and Bella Worthmore's forces. ^{[heralds-a#50 · heralds-a#51 · heralds-a#117]}

Overview

Naevys was sent to the city then called Rosereach by Magnus Arcanum as its War High Mage. ^{[heralds-a#50]} While she appeared to be helping the war effort, her real assignment was to identify the Winter Elves' magic and the frozen corruption it carried. ^{[last-winter#753 · last-winter#754]} As the invasion reached the city, she sacrificed it: she reworked the Cloudkill ritual to raise the dead as weapons against the attacking Winter Elves and Bella Worthmore's forces. ^{[heralds-a#17 · heralds-a#51]} She had full authority to cast the spell, but what it made — the walking dead and the creatures later called the Remains — grew beyond anything she could control. ^{[heralds-a#17 · heralds-a#51]} She and the arcanists who remain with her in the tower now hold what was Rosereach, and she is still trying to bring the dead she made back under command. ^{[heralds-a#51 · heralds-a#117]}

Assignment and the fall of Rosereach

Magnus Arcanum sent Naevys to Rosereach as its War High Mage; publicly she aided the war effort, but her true mission was to identify the Winter Elves' magic and their frozen corruption. ^{[last-winter#753 · last-winter#757 · last-winter#758]} She used a faked assassination attempt — one staged by the party — as a pretext to evacuate the Count of Rosereach, Aric Rosemen, despite not being under the city's other mages' orders and knowing the enemy would not reach him there. ^{[heralds-b#43]} She took a measure of the Count's blood before he left; he is now safe in Timbermire. ^{[heralds-b#49]} For the evacuation, the regency's Arbiter granted her the title Arcane Protector of Rosereach. ^{[heralds-b#49]}

With the Winter Elves' power and Bella Worthmore's magic destabilizing the region, Naevys ran a project to arm the city's defense with plague-touched undead subjects, turning a modified Cloudkill spell into an instrument of chaos and death; the infected dead it produced spread without limit, and the region's magic collapsed into what is now remembered as an arcane catastrophe. ^{[heralds-a#17]} Thousands of Rosereach's people died in the ritual, and both the Remains and the Reminder trace their origin to it. ^{[heralds-a#74 · heralds-a#76]}

Deadreach

Naevys and the tower's surviving arcanists were left holding what remained of the city, now called Deadreach. ^{[heralds-a#51]} She can direct the dead's movement, quiet clusters of them, and delay outbreaks, but she cannot stop the spread, undo the infection, or permanently kill the Remains; she is still preparing a ritual meant to bring them fully under her command, and that ritual requires a subject who has died and returned. ^{[heralds-a#51 · heralds-a#103]} Naevys survived the events that later unfolded within Deadreach, alongside the arcanist Selvara Mourn; in their aftermath she came out of it politically weaker but far better informed. ^{[heralds-a#144 · heralds-a#149]}

Power and politics

Naevys holds the county-level Arcanum Tower of Deadreach for Magnus Arcanum, in a regency that is neither a duchy's nor a regency's capital and carries little importance of its own. ^{[heralds-a#122]} As the region's Arcanum war-manager she directs Deadreach's undead like a standing force, and means to destroy Snakecross before advancing on Winter-Elf-held Grayhost. ^{[heralds-a#5 · heralds-a#6]} She has sought to bring the tower's other mages under her own command as the war reached the city, straining her relations with its local high mage. ^{[heralds-b#53]}

In play

When Naevys learned that Elnaril's party was in the city, she invited him to the Arcanum Tower; she means to travel on to Lucerion with him next, though she has never met Lucerion herself. ^{[heralds-a#120]} She regards Elnaril as a witness to the day she sacrificed the city, and has no one else close enough to see that weakness in her. ^{[heralds-a#118]} She has admitted, at least to herself, that she has gone too far into her plans to turn back. ^{[heralds-a#118]}

The party has already met Naevys once, in the ruins beneath the city; the two sides talked but could not agree on a common purpose. ^{[heralds-a#137]}

Players, stop here. What is hidden behind this point is game-master material. The full detail is on GM:Naevys Duskbloom.

Related pages

• Magnus Arcanum — the arcane order she serves and that sent her to Rosereach.
• Deadreach — the city her ritual made, and that she now holds.
• Elnaril — invited to her tower, and her companion on a planned journey to Lucerion.
• Winter Elves — the invasion her sacrifice of Rosereach was meant to stop.
• Aric Rosemen — the Count she evacuated from Rosereach under false pretenses.
• Selvara Mourn — the arcanist who survived Deadreach's fall alongside her.

Unconfirmed ideas

The source conversations contain proposals for Naevys Duskbloom that the campaign owner never confirmed. They are collected on Idea:Naevys Duskbloom so they cannot be mistaken for canon.