Lylia (prime)
Lylia Rashere is a Faendryl sorcerer and a former mayor of Wehnimer's Landing for two terms. Although she rarely talks about her history in detail, she's known to have relatives in the Faendryl Emporion's Guild of Spicers. Former mayor Cruxophim appointed her his diplomatic advisor throughout his term in office, during which she helped negotiate a tenuous peace between the Rooks of the Landing and the Icewall Bandits of Icemule Trace.
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Appearance
As mayor:
You see Mayor Lylia Rashere the Sorceress.
She is taller than average and has a slender build. She appears to be in the spring of life. She has wide-set cloud grey eyes and fair skin. She has waist-length, thick auburn hair smoothed into a sleek chignon and held with a regal silver headpiece of slender spikes arranged in a spiny halo, the adornment almost as wide as her shoulders. She has a highly polished mulberry black glaze brushed onto her well-kept fingernails.
She is wearing a choker of cabochon rubies the size and hue of black cherries, a cobweb-fine black reticella wrap, a bateau-necked merlot velvet ballgown worn low enough to reveal the shoulders, a ruby and silver wedding band, an obsidian ring of thorns, and a pair of dark sheer stockings under some ankle-clasped black leather shoes atop sharp heels.
After mayoral terms:
You see Imperatrix Lylia Rashere the Sorceress.
She is taller than average and has a slender build. She appears to be in the spring of life. She has wide-set storm grey eyes and alabaster skin. She has waist length, thick auburn hair laced with bright copper highlights. The strikingly smooth transitions between her otherwise angular features lend a distinctly patrician quality to her aspect. She has a haze of velvety kohl darkening her eyes.
She is wearing a cobweb-fine black reticella wrap, a black jacquard overgown tightly laced from bust to waist over a full-skirted gown of night black silk, a ruby and silver wedding band, a dark glaes band forged into a duo of spiraled horns worn on the left ring finger, a silk-lined leather gem pouch, a slim ki-lin horn stylus bound in silver, and a pair of polished vruul skin boots set on towering metal heels.
Background and Personal Life
Lylia was born in New Ta'Faendryl on Phoenatos 8, 4686, and although she rarely speaks of her family to others, she's in close communication with them. Despite her own affiliation with the Clerisy, she also has many ties to Emporion traders through an assortment of cousins and more distant relatives with whom she traveled extensively. She came to Wehnimer's Landing sometime in 5097 and chose to stay after meeting her future husband Silvean Rashere around the turn of the century. She later married Xorus Kul'shin as well in a quiet ceremony in 5118. A student of Igaeshian readings, she has recently written a guide to the uniquely Faendryl fortunetelling method and maintains a small library of divinatory records.
She typically prefers to hear more about others' histories than to disclose much of her own. Whether this is innate courtesy or a calculated attempt to gather information while revealing none is hard to say.
Mayoral Election and Political Views
After an unsuccessful mayoral run in 5115, Lylia was elected mayor in the 5118 race. Her platform was one of accumulating "soft power," the capacity to guide events through persuasion and diplomacy rather than through force. Protecting a frontier town by force alone is not an option, she believes. As she described it in the first debate hosted by the Order of the Silver Gryphon, "Our strength lies in not being a viable target to attack in the first place. It is our fortress. It is our safety." One of her slogans throughout the campaign was "The Right Words Move Worlds," and her leadership style is best described as unfailingly courteous, although her recent declaration to the Landing's merchants suggests an iron fist beneath the velvet glove.
Mayoral Term
In 5118, Lylia sought to turn her diplomatic policies into action, forging closer ties to Icemule Trace and improving relations with the Elven Nations by negotiating with Lord Chamberlain Retassal for the restoration of the Elven village to King Qalinor and the nation-state of Ta'Vaalor, a proposal that the Elves within the village favored. In the debates about the village's disposition and the extent of the Landing's sovereignty, Lylia pointed out that "We could do this the easy way or the hard way," opting for the more advantageous position of welcoming a Vaaloran outpost as a neighbor than that of grudgingly tolerating a hostile presence. When asked about it, she pointed out that an Elven outpost would be a suitable counterweight for the Imperial outpost constructed a few years earlier. As of 5120, construction has not yet begun as Elven notions of "soon" tend to be broader than those of the Imperial builders.
During her time in office, she also rejected the krolvin warlord Kragnack and his demands for a tribute of slaves from the town, instead taking the battle to the isle of Glaoveln with the aid of Praxopius Fortney, Imperial warships, Landing residents, adventurers from abroad. Although Kragnack was slain, the warlord called forth a quintet of bone spires with his dying breath; these devices blanketed the island with a choking green miasma that killed most who breathed it. The siege of Glaoveln has significantly curtailed large-scale raiding of towns and villages along the coast and earned Lylia the formal title of Imperatrix, although she also answers to the more common Wehnimerian honorific of "Lady."
Her second term was shadowed by a blight that one of the Landing's longtime antagonists, Raznel the witch, sent along with a bleakstone statue of Lylia (the statue itself was not the source of the blight but only its trigger, a distinction the then-mayor made often and vigorously). As food stores rotted and local flora and fauna withered, Lylia secured more frequent and smaller shipments of food to prevent starvation and allocated guards to patrol the roads to stem the rising tide of banditry. Raznel herself was effectively immortal, having secured the means to extend her life indefinitely through the use of Paragons, people whose lives would otherwise have ended but served instead as repositories for the insect-like creations that fed the witch's unnatural vitality.