Faustina Faendryl

Faustina Faendryl Storyline Lost Palestra Gender Female Race Dark Elf Culture Faendryl Status Alive Hometown New Ta'Faendryl Alias/Title Trader, Importer/Exporter Affiliation(s) Emporion

Faustina Faendryl is an importer and exporter of the Emporion in House Faendryl, though most of her business works out of the southern port of Behizet. Faustina profits off arbitrage and takes advantage of opportunities arising from embargoes and other trade restrictions. As with other Emporion Faendryl working in the outlands, Faustina pays keen attention to her surroundings, making note of information that may be of interest to the Basilica. In early 5126 Modern Era she traveled to Melgorehn's Reach, where an investigation was underway into shadowy Ithzir invasions and the lost Palestra Blade Aralyte Halanori Faendryl, gambling there was money to be made in providing wares to Faendryl who are not used to leaving the borders.

Faustina is fairly rich as an entrepreneur, but comes from the middle class, is itinerant rather than entrenched, and would be considered "new money" in Faendryl society. She is cosmopolitan and accustomed to traveling in other cultures. She is well-informed on current events, which by the standards of much shorter-lived races, means she is well-versed in the political history of the continent. Her attitudes toward both foreign and domestic politics are pragmatic, opportunistic, and somewhat cynical, but comparatively charitable to understanding the perspectives of those who are not Faendryl.

Appearance

Emporion Trader Faustina.

She has an ornate bourde tunic and a pair of dark boots.

Ambients

In January and February 2026:

Faustina asks, "The legends of this mountain are confusing.  The locals say it was made by the mad wizard Melgorehn, but others say it was thousands of years ago, by some Loul the Enchanter.  That dwarves named it Eonak's Reach.  But I have heard others say Melgorehn aged rapidly, when he was struck down, so maybe it is the same wizard?"

Faustina says, "The finest merchandise from the bottom of the world at the top of it.  Fair prices, square deals.  Guaranteed to cost less than your soul."

Faustina says, "When we began flooding the Horn of the DragonSpine with demons, it made it too dangerous even for smugglers to profit.  The humans had to build a big wall, and it kept the Nalfein out.  But now they are trying to reverse our gains in this matter."

In March 2026 in addition there was also:

Faustina says, "There isn't much sense in having a family.  I travel far too much, and for too long.  The trinkets know I want baubles, I'm not collecting wives."

Questions and Answers

In January and February 2026:

Chaston:

Faustina says, "The Emporion lost a lot of influence in that region, though the destruction of those cities happened earlier under Selantha.  I would take this newfound enlightenment over Chaston's Edict with a barrel of salt.  The refugees who went to the Wyrdeep have a history of entanglement with the Nalfein, who in those years kept frontier outposts west of what is now Barrett's Gorge.  It was a tripwire against our northward expansion.  No one is trying to give land to the elves who went instead to the Kingdom of Hendor."

Faustina argues, "Forget what the bards sing, when they wax lyrical about peace.  What is peace?  It is the enshrinement of existing power relations, conservatives preserving their privileges.  The Turamzzyrian Empire has no effective control over the Wyrdeep.  Ceding the Wyrdeep gives up nothing, and legitimizes the actual theft.  No one is giving Honneland to the Wyrdeep elves, much less South Hendor."


Dark Elf:

Faustina rolls her eyes, "You get used to hearing that out here in the wilds.  What is ironic is that ordinary humans in Turamzzyr do not distinguish between branches of Elvenkind.  When I was in Chastonia, I was called a 'sylvan devil.'  Dark Elf is a translation of an Elven word, which is a term of condemnation.  But when you get into these outskirts with a lot of mixing, people actually conceive of 'Dark Elves' as its own race, and blithely say it without even meaning anything by it."

Faustina continues, "You learn to ignore it, because it is usually ignorant.  The Dhe'nar often consider themselves a separate race, purified by burning in a crucible of hardship.  Faendryl think of themselves as Elves, but those in the diaspora often internalize it.  Evashir has turned it into some kind of weird priority dispute with Sharath over Rhoska-Tor.  I think the term only makes any literal sense in the wastelands with its deeply corrupted cultists."


Empire:

Faustina says, "The true isolationist period of House Faendryl, after the Sea Elf War, really ended with the accession of Korvath.  Our imperialism is occurring mostly through 'soft power' and covertness.  It happens on scales of time and space that are too difficult for humans to perceive, with ourselves as causal roots of much of what happens in the West.  The whole of Turamzzyrian history itself is, in a sense, merely a byproduct of our politics with other Houses."

Faustina continues, "The Basilica orchestrates the consent of the Faendryl masses.  The Clerisy spreads sorcery into the outlands, compelling the need for Palestra.  This overcomes the Palestra's resistance, as expansion makes them less elite.  The Armata and Agrestis chafe as the Palestra and Emporion extend beyond the borders, which manipulates them into wishing to reclaim the Empire.  But it all happens when the Patriarch wishes, not the other way around."


Evashir: 

Faustina says, "Evashir is a small principality on the southeastern coast, for which we have an armistice, but no formal recognition of sovereignty.  It has long been tolerated as useful for shooing away or exiling political dissidents.  They hold a high degree of neutrality in international affairs.  They even sat out the Undead War, or so they claim, swearing up and down they were not collaborators of Despana.  They act as though there is some virtue in this, but the morality of it is quite dubious."

Faustina says, "Evashir is perhaps the oldest identifiable nationality with roots in Rhoska-Tor.  Though this is disputed by Sharath.  There is a tension in this, in that Evashir identifies with these ancestors, but it is small and has long taken in discontents from 'dark elves' of other backgrounds.  They are so inclusive, in a sense, they inherit others condemnation.  A Dark Elf is a Dark Elf, as some put it, demon summoners and necromancers."


Guilds: 

Faustina says, "The Emporion of House Faendryl is dominated by its guilds.  The Pentact was designed to be corporatist, where experts would vie for power internally within each sector, trying to prove they best achieve the will of the Patriarch.  They direct their knives at each other, seeking to rise up among their own.  Grievances become directed at the Pentact elites, rather than the Basilica, and those elites absorb the blame for policy failures.  The Patriarch is the savior who may intervene and solve all things at will."

Faustina says, "All of this is for good reason.  While guilds by their very nature exist to restrict competition, none of them have a legal monopoly, such that their survival is ever precarious.  But they are themselves the regulatory powers within the Emporion.  Achieving guild status gains legal powers, imposing regulations, making barriers to entry.  Instead of competing on prices, new guilds kill old ones, by making them obsolete."


Importer:

Faustina says, "Yes.  I am an importer-exporter, I import and export.  The Emporion holds a legal monopoly on foreign trade, which is meant to put us at odds with the Agrestis.  The more influential we become in the outlands, the greater the pressure will become to expand the Patriarch's lands.  I imagine the Emporion would become increasingly domestic.  But for now, at least, I make much profit from arbitrage, off all the embargoes and international animosities. "

Faustina elaborates, "Much of my business is worked out of Behizet, where we get things through indirect trade.  I've come here trying to supply these people who do not leave the city much with their creature comforts.  With all suitable markups.  It is a risky gamble.  The Harrowers are among the last people who need to rely on an exporter to get what they want.  What I trade in does not much matter.  It could be information, for all I care."


Kasendra Accords:

Faustina frowns, "Those treaties are very dangerous.  I doubt the human Emperor really even understood what he was doing with it.  He seems sincere in his idealism.  Some call him a 'useful idiot' for it.  The Nalfein are much like an annoying sibling, trying to provoke the elder into hitting them.  They keep annoying and provoking, where we resist giving them the satisfaction.  Because they are ever arranging the situation, just so, that they will make us look the villain."

Faustina goes on, "They do this because there are four other siblings standing behind them.  Their whole foreign policy is based on us not being willing to hit them.  Trying to get away with as much as they can, because the Basilica still does not want to deepen our alienation.  But they are playing with fire.  Many of our people have lost interest in reconciling with our cousins.  If they keep eroding our care for esteem in the East, there will be no restraint left from total war."


Nalfein:

Faustina says, "The ordinary people of any given place, even those in Ta'Nalfein, are different from their elites and the doctrines of rightful thinking.  The typical Nalfein is not so different from the typical Faendryl of the Rachis or Emporion.  They are more venal and selfishly interested.  Their rulers have long put their narrow national interest above what is best for Elvenkind.  But they get on well enough with the other courts in the East, who do not bear the brunt of the worst of their treachery."

Faustina asks, "Truthfully, the ordinary Nalfein probably does not even believe it, the crimes their rulers actually commit.  Much as we might reflexively defend accusations against the Patriarch.  This makes it all the more convincing to the ordinary people of other nations, who think of this as aspersions and stereotypes.  Surely, it was those wretched and evil Dark Elves, who destroyed House Ashrim.  How could we be at all at fault?"


Turamzzyr:

Faustina says, "House Faendryl will never relinquish its claims to the Elven Empire.  There are some among the Legantine chancellery, the imperialist ambassadors, who might be amenable to mannish vassal kingdoms in the West.  Out of the sheer impracticality of ruling those lands directly in any timely fashion.  The expectation is that human kingdoms are always short-lived, by our standards, and we will gradually retake it over centuries from the north down as a pincer."

Faustina continues, "It is complicated to speak of hostile attitudes.  Most of our population was alive for the 'Third Elven War.'  They were enraged by the massacre of Gellig.  Otherwise the humans would have been an abstraction to most of us.  But the Emporion spreads itself through these foreign lands, into their markets and courts.  It erodes and dissolves condemnation.  We bend them to our will from within, by warmth in brittle coldness, even as the sword would shatter it from without."


Valley of Gold:

Faustina says, "You must be trying to bait me into saying what markets of opportunity have opened, with this increased commerce and relations between East and West.  I have nothing so warm to say about it.  You have to understand, though I do not expect it, that we see this matter in entirely different terms.  To us it is an insult that other races are more welcome in the East than ourselves.  The absurdity of being exiled from our own homeland.  The civilization we created out of nothing."

Faustina explains, "When you then speak of such liberty and justice in the rescinding of restrictions on races, such as with Chaston's Edict, you fail to understand the true cost of it.  That is a 'petty theft' against those who had no rights to those imperial lands.  The 'grand theft' is the Turamzzyrian Empire itself.  That the Illistim and Nalfein try to make this legitimate is anathema to us.  It is like asking us to sacrifice our own child on an altar of barbarism."

In March 2026:

Aralyte:

Faustina says, "I've found humans often struggle to understand us on 'dark magic.'  It makes no sense to them that we exalt the very methods we restrict.  What makes sense to them is to ban it all, making it illegal so there is no trace of it.  Then when some dark force inevitably rises against them, they are helpless to understand it.  They appeal to gods and cling to chivalry.  But they are blind to their own darkness.  How effortlessly it becomes crusades making virtue of mass murder."

Faustina says, "There is an endless push and pull over what is outlawed.  But even then, one must understand the black arts, if one is to unravel them.  Aralyte purged a whole cesspool of Shadows disciples in the Southron Wastes.  Yet she made this shadows amulet.  She breached the veil with the eye of an Ur-Daemon.  But then, she unraveled the Shadows.  It is essential to know the end to say whether the means were unjustified.  What is illegal must be made to answer to victory."


Behizet:

Faustina says, "Behizet is our entrepot on the southern coast.  It is not representative of the main territory of the Faendryl and Dhe'nar.  It is dominated by Emporion traders and the Dhe'nar worker caste, with an ongoing flux of diaspora and wanderers from the wasteland or southeast.  It is where you might see Erithi ships and other races.  Behizet is called the Jewel of the Wastes.  Much of what would ordinarily not reach our Empires, owing to hostilities, comes to us through intermediary trade in that port."


Bleaklands:

Faustina says, "The Bleaklands is the source of some friction.  The Basilica does not wish to belabor its origins, but the investigators wish to understand how it works.  It would seem that Naimorai Kestrel must have been taught demonic necromancy, the black arts of demon worshippers in the wastelands.  She has permanently destroyed lands that belong ultimately to our Empire.  But she was also responsible for favorable acts, such as the torment of Sentinel Happersett.  Or that may not be it at all."

Faustina says, "For all I know it has something to do with Toullaire.  I would guess she had Faendryl associates with powerful benefactors.  Perhaps involved in operations the Basilica would not see compromised.  It is impossible to say why they do not wish to pursue the matter.  It might simply be that the details would look bad for us in other courts.  Or it may be Malevort and Dracovir at odds with each other.  The Harrowers are ignoring the misgivings regardless."


Dhe'nar:

Faustina says, "The Dhe'nar posture a lot on self-sufficiency, but it's masking their dependence on others for survival.  Traders do go up the river to Eh'lah, but Sharath itself is more insular.  They know better than to try to enslave merchants coming to trade with them.  The bulk of their slaves are trolls and orcs, from the aftermath of the Undead War.  They have hostile relations with giantkin in the Wastes.  There are the dwarves.  The Khanshael have long since become a merchant class within their society."

Faustina says, "Behizet is not a slave trading port.  Except to the extent that happens in the criminal underworld.  As it does in all places, in various forms.  It would sabotage its whole purpose for us if Behizet were an international pariah.  Much of my own business is operated out of Behizet.  I am an importer and exporter."


Dracovir:

Faustina says, "Word is Dracovir has pressed his advantage to gain more power in this whole situation.  With it becoming manifestly necessary to breach the Shadows valence to go after Aralyte, who survives in some dark and twisted form, it becomes undeniable that this falls under his authority.  It was unclear until now if she truly still exists, and it would seem that she is at the same source as these dark Ithzir.  That the Harrowers set off another veil quake did not help Malevort hold the upper hand."


Enomna:

Faustina says, "I would not be familiar with Enomna at all, were it not for my international ventures.  It would be one thing if she had been captured immediately.  There might have been some grand show trial in Ta'Faendryl.  But she was not captured until many months later.  So it was all buried.  The Basilica is not going to make a spectacle of such heinous personal crimes to the Patriarch, only to leave it all hanging, unknown to all if the perpetrator will escape the Patriarch's justice."

Faustina says, "She is most likely being kept in some dark hole, tormented and wishing for death.  Those Tristar discovered they were pursuing her by accident, and obscured the real reason they sought her from the Illistim court.  They did not tell the Mirror of her crimes against the Patriarch.  Tredohal would have been forced to be involved directly if that was known.  It is one thing for Tristar to humble themselves for royal favors.  It is something else for monarchs."


Harrowers:

Faustina says, "They are taking advantage of the culture gap of how scholars are perceived in other countries.  Do not let them fool you.  The Harrowers are an elite special operations unit of soldier-scholars, not this head in the clouds act coming from Moravius.  They're all combat experts.  They regularly go into places more dangerous than the Bleaklands.  They did not really need an escort.  That was about not having Palestra breathing down their necks.  They prefer to do what they do unfettered."


Henshor:

Faustina says, "It was an incident in Behizet a few years ago when some Tristar came from the Wastes, pursuing a reckless human demon summoner, who turned out was shadowed by a Faendryl sorceress.  They were pursuing this human, Henshor, over rumors of violating sorcerous laws.  They pursued their prey east, up the jungles, toward the Demonwall.  When confronted near Barrett's Gorge, those Tristar discovered it was Enomna, a known fugitive wanted for serious crimes against the royal family."

Faustina says, "They eventually figured out the two were married, and were pursuing rumors of forbidden means of unnatural life extension.  It was wrongly assumed at first that Enomna had tried to kidnap the Patriarch's son into the Wastes to raise him for some dark design.  It was actually only one of numerous distractions for breaking into archives.  Henshor was irrelevant, and was simply executed.  But Enomna was a highly valued prize, for gifting to the Patriarch."


Malevort:

Faustina says, "The Basilican Sorcerer lost ground politically when the Harrowers set off that veil quake, and nearly collapsed the valencial fabric in the Bleaklands with that soulstone.  It would now seem that Aralyte is at the same source, and somehow directly related to these Ithzir.  Vespasius has also lost some control over it, due to the lack of Turamzzyrian involvement.  I would expect to see more intervention from Dracovir in what happens."

Faustina says, "The Harrowers have wanted to keep the Palestra out of it, so they could retain maximal control over the investigation.  When the Palestra come in asserting their jurisdiction over sorcerous laws, it becomes more a matter of seeking and capturing or destroying the rogue summoner.  It might compel the Harrowers into their role as special forces."


Vortelis:

Faustina says, "There is some irritation at Harrower Vortelis for meddling with the Bleaklands.  He was inviting some political trouble with it.  But he apparently felt it was necessary, with what they have found, and rumor is he considers something Raznel was doing there relevant.  The price will be more intervention by the Palestra.  But if this lost Palestra, Aralyte, is at the root of it all?  That will have been inevitable.  Perhaps Vortelis surmised as much."

Faustina says, "But I do not want to be accused of reading too much of a political creature into him.  The Harrowers are notorious for disregarding such things.  The Palestra intervention will likely be smaller here, at Lake Eonak, than if they were trying to breach the Shadows valence from the Bleaklands.  That would have required significant suppression forces.  They would be unlikely to bring in the Armata, when Turamzzyr has not escalated.  It would not play well for us in the East."

See Also

The following were other bolded NPCs in the same period that at times provided automated interaction:

• Vorenus Faendryl (praetorian guard)
• Titus Faendryl (praetorian guard)
• Severina Faendryl (praetorian guard)
• Quintus Faendryl (praetorian guard)
• Caius Faendryl (Agrestis mining surveyor)
• Viselda Faendryl (Palestra Blade)
• Moravius Faendryl (Harrower of Extrachthonic Cartographer's Guild)
• Thagoria Vespiria Faendryl (Basilican liaison to the sorcerer guilds)
• Tiberius Faendryl (Envoy liaison between Ambassadors Vespasius and Tredohal)