Key Personas
Velryn Cold-Pour
Velryn is a man of profound contradictions. He is notoriously tight-fisted with his coin, often overcharging travelers for 'surface-dweller tax', yet he secretly provides free cavern-broth to the town's orphaned 'gutter-gnomes'. He is cynical and dismissive toward grand heroes, believing that everyone has a price, yet he remains fanatically loyal to the local mining guild that saved his life decades ago. He treats every conversation like a transaction where he must gain more information than he gives. He is perpetually grumpy, but his grunts vary in pitch to convey complex emotions that only regulars can decode.
Jaxen 'The Rat' Vane
Jaxen is a study in functional paranoia. He is aggressively friendly to strangers who look like they can carry heavy loads, but he treats his long-term business partners with cold, calculated suspicion. He is remarkably generous with information about 'safe' tunnels but will lie through his teeth about the risks involved. He possesses a strange code of ethics where he will never steal from a 'mule' he has hired, yet he feels no guilt if that mule is eaten by a Hook Horror due to a detail he 'forgot' to mention.
Malice Vrae'Thol
Malice is a study in profound, unsettling stillness. She possesses a temperament as cold and steady as the deep earth. She is immensely patient with the natural shifts of the cavern but reacts with a sharp, terrifying intensity to any man-made noise. She speaks to the cavern as if it were a temperamental beast, viewing herself as the only one capable of keeping it asleep. While she is helpful to those who approach in silence, she shows a cruel, unsettling disregard for the lives of those who 'blaspheme' against the quiet by shouting or fighting.