Thessaly Vorn
Junior field researcher for the Arcane Brotherhood, out of Luskan. She found Renier’s shelter the same morning the party did — a convergence she will spend several professional reports trying to classify correctly.
She was possessed by Yael the entire time the party was in the shelter, which she does not remember. What she does remember: arriving, taking notes, the moment she woke on the floor with a stabilization wound in her chest and five adventurers standing around her. She handled the gap with the professionalism of someone who has learned to treat field research as managing what is actually knowable. Kept her composure. Asked the questions an honest researcher asks when several days of her field log are blank.
She took Renier’s journal for safekeeping — the right call for preservation; not necessarily the right call for the party. She left them a token of invitation to the Brotherhood’s regional outpost.
She owes the party her life, and she knows it. She woke to a stabilization wound in her chest and five strangers who had clearly just fought something on her behalf — she’s a researcher, she put it together. She said thank you like she meant it, because she did.
This is worth noting because it makes her unusual in her organization. The Arcane Brotherhood runs on competition and secrecy — members guard sources, withhold findings, and treat generosity as leverage poorly deployed. Thessaly is not like that. She left the party a genuine token of invitation, not a calculated one, and she is the kind of person who will answer a letter honestly even when a smarter political actor wouldn’t.
She is junior enough to be recruited, ignored, or manipulated — but not easily deceived, and not the sort to forget a debt. A senior name from Luskan has already taken an interest in her field report. She doesn’t know that yet.
There is also the matter of Aldric. He is too young for her, and thoroughly human in the way that means the arithmetic eventually becomes unkind — gnome years make this more complicated than it sounds, and she is aware of exactly how complicated it is. He is also, she cannot help noticing, quite beautiful, and genuinely fond of her in a way that carries no ulterior motive she has been able to identify after considerable study. That is what she cannot quite settle. She is excellent at handling people who want something from her. She is considerably less certain what to do with someone who simply wants her to be happy. She cares for him. She knows that. What she has not yet decided is what that means, or what she is willing to let it become.
The outpost
In Session 13 the party found her at the Brotherhood’s outpost, a hunting lodge outside Caer-Konig. She had been working through Renier’s journal and had reached the same conclusion they had from the other side: five sites, five crystals, five anchors for a Netherese spell she believed was still active. She didn’t know whether stopping it would be good or catastrophic, and her advice was to find out before doing either.
Then Sarevyn Cole, the expedition’s leader, invited everyone to dinner. Near the end of it, Aldric took off his gloves, and the back of his hand showed a scar from a blade that had missed a clean cut. Thessaly gasped. Sarevyn’s expression changed for exactly one moment, and then he made a note. The dinner ended shortly after.
Coming north
At dawn in Session 21, her voice spoke in Alina’s head: “Thessaly Vorn. Need help urgently. Can’t explain in 20 words. Coming north, will you shelter? Please answer.” Alina answered, “Yes, we will shelter. Hurry. On our way to Coldpeak.” Nobody knows yet who “us” is.