Naevys Duskbloom
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| 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.