Aurelia is a tall, lean drow woman with smooth obsidian skin, silver-white hair braided tightly against her scalp, and vivid crimson eyes. Her face is narrow and severe, with a small scar crossing her left eyebrow and another pale mark circling her throat like a collar. She wears fitted chain mail beneath layered crimson, violet, and black robes patterned after overlapping spider legs. Her armor is lacquered in dark purple, her paired curved blades are etched with tiny web designs, and a spider-shaped holy symbol hangs over her heart. Her movements are controlled and ceremonial until violence begins, when she becomes startlingly quick and animalistic.

Aurelia is formal, disciplined, and unnervingly patient. She speaks as though every conversation were a ritual before an execution, offering precise courtesies while quietly measuring the most vulnerable point in everyone present. She admires competence, despises sentimental loyalty, and treats pain as a language that reveals truth. Despite her cruelty, she has a genuine appreciation for craftsmanship, beautiful fabrics, intricate knots, and anyone who can keep their composure while afraid.

Aurelia was born beneath the protection of a minor drow house whose name has since been deliberately erased from her memory and records. She was given to Lolth's temple as a child, where she learned the catechisms of obedience, the ritual language of sacrifice, and the delicate cruelty expected of an aspiring priestess. She excelled at doctrine but failed to cultivate the useful talent of pretending to love anyone besides the Spider Queen. Her superiors considered that honesty a defect, until the spiders came for her during a midnight rite and covered her body without biting. By dawn, every web in the sanctuary had been drawn into the shape of a blade. The priestesses interpreted the omen as Lolth's claim. Aurelia was not raised to the rank she sought. Instead, she was stripped of her house name and sent away as a living weapon, an instrument who could serve where formal clergy could not. On the surface, she studied the habits of warriors who fought beneath colorful banners and called their discipline bushido. She copied their curved swords, layered armor, formal bows, and devotion to personal honor, then twisted each principle toward Lolth's satisfaction. Her version of the code, the Way of the Black Widow, praises concealed knives, poisoned gifts, deliberate humiliation, and victory achieved before an enemy realizes a contest has begun. She now travels in search of worthy targets, secret cults, and any sign that Lolth intends to call her home.