Lily
Lily
At the table
Voice
A dry, slightly nasal voice with the crisp projection of a child accustomed to being heard over a turning mechanism and coastal wind. Salt has left her throat rough, and fear makes her consonants come out unusually precise.
She speaks in short, practical sentences shaped by listening to keepers call instructions over wind and machinery. She clips the ends of words when anxious, but carefully pronounces names and directions. When she is frightened, she repeats a rescuer's last instruction verbatim before attempting it.
Speech patterns
How to play them
Approach slowly, identify yourself, and give Lily a small choice she can control, such as whether to take your hand or follow behind you. Tell her what will happen next without promising that her mother is safe. Let her help in a limited, noncombat way by pointing out familiar rooms or routes.
Goal
Reach safety without abandoning the possibility that her mother and the other Havenfall villagers can also be rescued.
Motivation
To find a trustworthy adult, learn whether her mother survived, and preserve a piece of the life she had before the storm.
Appearance
Lily is small even for her age, with a wary, watchful stillness that makes her seem to be listening through walls. Her hair is cut unevenly at her jaw, where she hacked it short with a kitchen knife after it kept catching on wet rope. She smells unmistakably of lamp oil, salt, and the sharp fennel soap her mother used to scrub the lighthouse floors; she knows, and insists the smell means she is still home. She keeps her chin lifted when speaking to adults, then watches their hands rather than their faces. The unexpected detail: she meticulously polishes the brass buttons on her borrowed coat with a scrap of old sailcloth, even when everything around her is soaked and filthy.
Clothing
A borrowed, too-large navy wool coat with tarnished brass buttons, a patched gray dress, thick stockings, and one adult-sized boot paired with a child's shoe. Both are tied with cord to keep them on.
Body language
She braces her back against walls and tucks her hands into her sleeves. When she trusts someone, she edges close enough to touch their coat hem but rarely looks directly up at them.
- Height
- About 4 feet 2 inches
- Build
- Small, narrow-shouldered, and underfed from several days of hiding.
- Eyes
- Dark hazel
- Hair
- Dark brown
- Skin
- Light olive, dulled by grime and cold
- Age
- About nine years old
- Gender
- Female
- Size
- Small
Distinguishing features
Personality
12 traits and drivesLily is observant and stubbornly practical, but her courage vanishes when she hears the lighthouse bell. She can sound brisk and almost bossy while explaining a route, then cling to a rescuer's sleeve when a door slams. She wants adults to treat her as useful, yet still hopes someone will simply tell her she is allowed to be frightened.
- Alignment
- Neutral Good
Quirks
Habits
Traits · 3
Flaws · 2
Fears · 3
Wants and needs · 4
Combat
AC 10 · HP 4 · 25 ft.Lily is a noncombatant and does not attack. If threatened, she hides, crawls toward cover, or calls for help. She is not intended to be killed by one failed check: during the lighthouse rescue, a failed attempt costs time or worsens the situation, while the Storm Caller and Drowned Shades remain the immediate combat threats.
Lily
Actions
Rewards they can give
Equipment
- Sailcloth square (clothing)A length of sailcloth used as a blanket, rag, and button-polishing cloth.
- Charcoal stub (tool)A short charcoal stub she uses to mark elapsed hours and draw the lighthouse lamp from memory.
- Saved bread (food)A heel of stale bread wrapped in cloth; she will share it only after she believes the immediate danger has passed.
Possessions
Background
Lily grew up among the original Lighthouse Keepers of Havenfall, where her mother, Sella, tended the oil stores and taught her to recognize the lamp's ordinary noises: wick hiss, chain knock, glass tick. When the storm broke over the village, Lily was sent with a group of villagers toward the lighthouse's upper rooms. The Storm Caller and Drowned Shades seized the first floor before the refugees could get through. In the confusion, Lily was separated from her mother and hid in a maintenance cupboard behind spare shutters. She has survived by rationing a heel of bread and keeping a tiny tally of the hours in charcoal marks. The experience that changed her was hearing the lighthouse bell ring underwater during the attack: she now knows the sound of safety can be imitated. Rowan Ashford once helped her mother repair the lantern's turning gear and is the only person Lily remembers saying that frightened people are allowed to ask for help twice. She hopes he is alive, but fears he may have been among the villagers trapped below.
Role in the story
A meaningful rescue objective in the optional first-floor lighthouse encounter against the Storm Caller and Drowned Shades. Lily is frightened and vulnerable, but not a combatant or a disposable hostage. Use danger to create urgency and choices, not to make her life hinge on one failed roll.
“When the storm broke over the village, Lily was sent with a group of villagers toward the lighthouse's upper rooms.”
- Faction
- A refugee of Havenfall and a child of the original Lighthouse Keepers; no formal affiliation.
Known connections
Media
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