Sayla Allurian

Sayla Allurian

Relatives	Eminence Aurora Allurian
Affiliations	Wynteria, The Moon Court
Marital Status	Married to Amaris Luanach
Place of Birth	Wynteria
Species	Archfey Changeling
Gender	Female
Eye Color	White

Sayla Allurian is the current ruler of Wynteria, a magical fey court located in the Feywild, and is powerful sorceress. She was an NPC in the D&D 5e Community Campaign Within the Wicked Wilds.

Physical Appearance

As a changeling, Sayla's appearance can be anything she wants. But in her natural form, she has milk white porcelain looking skin and long flowing white hair. To add a splash of color to her appearance, Sayla likes to wear golden makeup and assorted golden jewelry. Fitting of her station as an heiress and later Eminence, Sayla is dressed in only the greatest of fey fineries.

Personality

Sayla is a joyful and chaotic fey, traits that only seemed to grow as her mother attempted to shelter her during her upbringing. He is naive to much of the world outside the courts and has a penchant to treat situations with little seriousness. After the death of her mother though, Sayla entered into a deeply depressive state that she only recovered from when she was saved by Lady Celenica Luanach's charms by Amaris Luanach.

History

Sayla was the adopted daughter of the ruler of Wynteria, Eminence Aurora Allurian. Wynteria was a fey court located in the coldest reaches of the Feywild, yet was famous across the realm for its incredible magic. Hoping to keep her daughter safe from the dangerous cold, Eminence Allurian was very protective of her, keeping her sheltered within the courts walls. As Sayla grew, Eminence Allurian taught her the history of Wynteria and about the source of their magic, the Reflecting Pool, a magical lake from which they derived their magic and which could reveal any truth. Eminence Allurian instilled in Sayla that it was their job to protect this pool and the court as a whole.

Eventually Wynteria was approached by a rival fey court, The Moon Court and its queen, Lady Celenica Luanach. The two courts would ender into discussions and Sayla would meet Lady Luanach's daughter and the heiress to the Moon Court, Amaris Luanach. Though discussions soon turned into arguments between the two courts which eventually evolved into the Moon-Wynteria Discord, a period of time where the two courts would attempt to continuously outdo each other and engage in social sabotage. Tiring of the constant competition and arguing, Sayla and Amaris came together and managed to convince their parents to return to the negotiation table. This meeting would be interrupted though as shadowy assassins from another fey court, Duskvale, attacked the meeting between the two archfey. After fighting off the attackers, the two courts signed the Moon-Wynteria Concord, bring peace and alliance between the courts. The only catch was that this concord would be forged by a political marriage between Sayla and Amaris, something neither were to enthused about.

Over the next few months, the two courts would battle the encroaching invaders from the Duskvale Court and planned to host the wedding once the shadowy court was defeated. During this time Sayla and Amaris would get to know each other more until Amaris was promoted to the Hunter of the Celestial Watch. After this promotion, Amaris was then sent to the material plane to hunt down a fairy named Luster who had fled the Moon Court.

About a year later, the fighting with the Duskvale Court would die down, and the two courts saw fit to have the wedding. Amaris returned to the Feywild and both her and Sayla discussed the prospects of their marriage. While both knew neither was truly in love with the other and that the marriage was purely political, both acknowledged that they still cared about each other. The wedding commenced, and immediately after the two were wed, assassins from the Duskvale Court ambushed the wedding party. During the attack, Eminence Allurian was struck by a cursed arrow as was killed, and since Sayla was her daughter, Sayla was next in line to become the new Eminence. (For More See The Wedding of Amaris Luanach and Sayla Allurian)

Her grief was taken advantage of by Lady Luanach who gave the poor changeling a shoulder to cry on. Lady Luanach managed to weave sinister charms into Sayla's grief, and convinced Sayla that she was not ready to be Eminence of Wynteria, and that she should give Lady Luanach stewardship of her court until then. Lady Luanach's manipulations were made even more effective by the fact that Amaris, the only person other then her mother that Sayla truly cared for, had returned to the material plane after the wedding, leaving Sayla alone.

Sayla would remain by Lady Luanach's side, now truly bound by the moon queen's charms. That was until Lady Luanach sent out a team of Moon Court warriors to kidnap Amaris and her brother Ronin (Wicked Wilds). Sayla went to her wife Amaris, hoping to find a friendly face to help pull her from her grief, but instead found a face she did not recognize. In her time away, Amaris had made a pact with the archdevil Nuala to help Amaris dethrone her mother. But through this pact, Amaris had been transformed into a Tiefling. Shocked at this change, yet enraged that in her time away after the wedding Amaris had not reached out to her, Sayla lashed out, yelling at Amaris before departing.

Amaris and Ronin would later get saved by some of their allies and went to confront Lady Luanach, During the fight, Sayla fought by Lady Luanach's side until Amaris managed to break the charm her mother held over Sayla. After Lady Luanach was defeated, both Amaris and Sayla would reconcile. Sayla admitted to Amaris that her feelings of betrayl were genuine, but was open to maintaining their marriage and rebuilding their relationship.

After being saved from Lady Luanach's influence, Sayla returned to Wynteria to be crowned as the new Eminence of Wynteria, ascending to become an Archfey.

Powers and Abilities

Sayla is an incredibly powerful Celestial Sorcerer possessing both healing and illusion magic. These abilities were only heightened when she ascended to become an archfey.

The Many Forms of Sayla Allurian

Sayla as Marigold Sunbloom.

Sayla as Helga Blackbrew.

Sayla as Nightshade.

Sayla as Iris Waylane.

Sayla as Pari Silentsong.

Sayla in her natural changeling form.

An account by Amaris Luanach from her conversations with Sayla after the Moon-Wynteria Accord

It was awkward when the last part of the Moon-Wynteria Concord was announced. I don’t think Sayla or I could have expected that we would have to marry, but at least the wedding won’t be immediate. During the celebration, Sayla came to me and asked if we could take a walk. I agreed—even if we weren’t the most compatible, I thought it could only help future arrangements for us to get to know each other. When she came to me, she had taken the form of an elegant high elf with gold hair and blue eyes. Changelings can only transform into people they’ve seen before, so I asked her who it was that she’d shapeshifted into. Apparently, all of her different forms had stories attached to them, and she told me all of them. The more I listened, the more troubled I became.

The elf was Marigold Sunbloom. During a ritual to weave together ambient magic from the Material Plane, Feywild, and Shadowfell, Marigold unintentionally ripped open a portal and cast herself into the Feywild. Upon falling through the portal, Marigold ended up in the icy lands of the Wynteria Court: apparently, she fell face-first into the Reflecting Pool during the Day of Reflection, something that immediately cast her in a negative light. While Sayla’s mother, Eminence Aurora, was suspicious, Sayla helped Marigold get to her feet and attempted to help her get her bearings. The elf had lost all of her memories during the planar jump, only able to remember her name and that she was a practitioner of planar magic. Over the next several weeks, Sayla took responsibility for Marigold, keeping an eye on her to ensure that she wasn’t some sort of spy and trying to help her regain her memories. Sayla took Marigold on walks across the Wynteria Court’s three lakes and Marigold talked to Sayla about the wonders of the magic she practiced. The two grew closer and soon became lovers. Then, one day, Marigold remembered something about the ritual that had led her to the Feywild. Just as she was about to confide in Sayla, another planar portal opened at seemingly random and threatened to envelop her. Sayla tried to keep hold of Marigold, but the force of the portal was too strong. Several days passed, during which Sayla tried convincing her mother to allow her to go plane-hopping so she could find Marigold. Eminence Aurora refused, too fearful of the danger. On the seventh day after Marigold’s disappearance, Sayla found a scrap of parchment with Marigold’s handwriting in her room. It simply read: “don’t look for me”.

After telling the tale, Sayla transformed into Helga Blackbrew, a red-headed dwarven woman with an eyepatch. Sayla met Helga when she had snuck out into the Material Plane from the Feywild behind Eminence Aurora’s back. She ventured into a tavern called the Fullwit Pint and saw Helga serving drinks, singing atop tables, and beating patrons at minor tests of strength. She was immediately enamored and offered to buy everyone in the tavern a drink just to catch Helga’s attention. Considering that Sayla had taken the form of a plain, nondescript human to better blend in, Helga didn’t believe that she had the money to pay for everyone present. Sayla insisted that she could put her money where her mouth was (since she had picked more than a few rich pockets during her time in the Material), and Helga instead offered to give everyone a round on the house if Sayla could beat her at arm-wrestling. Obviously, Sayla wouldn’t have stood a chance if she’d played fair, so as soon as their hands were locked Sayla hooked her thumb around Helga’s, distracted her by claiming someone was making a mess of the bar, knocked her elbow, and secured a swift win. Instead of being upset, Helga laughed the loss off, impressed by Sayla’s craftiness. The two got to talking over ale and felt as though they’d known each other for ages by the end of the night. Sayla talked about how overbearing her mother was and Helga discussed her debt to the local thieve’s guild. Eventually, Sayla fell asleep and Helga carried her to a spare room. When Sayla woke up, the tavern had been ransacked and Helga was nowhere to be found; she ran outside and found Helga’s body next to the corpse of what was probably her assassin. After that, Sayla spent a few more days in the city gathering information about the thieve’s guild. She set fire to the guild’s base and was promptly whisked away by Wynteria Court guards her mother had sent to find her.

Then, Sayla turned into Nightshade, a purple-skinned tiefling with ram-like horns and green eyes of slightly differing shades. Sayla told me she had known Nightshade all her life. The two met when they were young because of a deal between Eminence Aurora and an Archdevil named Nesoren. As part of that deal, Sayla had to spend two years within the Ten Hells while the child of the Archdevil spent that same year in the Feywild. The two of them exchanged letters during this time and though both of them hated their new environments at first, they adjusted over time. Nightshade grew to enjoy the beauties of the Wynteria Court’s waters and the introspective nature of its magic; she studied illusion and enchantment spells that went nicely with the evocation magic she already had. Sayla liked getting to witness how devils interacted with mortals as well as their court proceedings: seeing loopholes at work was amusing for her. When the two year time period was up, both girls had developed an appreciation for each other’s homes and could act as effective diplomats for future transactions between the places. They would make time to visit each other whenever they could and their friendship evolved into romance. Sayla learned that Nightshade was planning to become involved in an ongoing war between devils and demons; she wanted to prove herself as more than just her father’s child. When Nightshade left for the war, she wrote letters to Sayla proudly declaring that the tactics of the demon army were inferior. After eight months, the letters stopped coming and Sayla found out that Nightshade had fallen in battle, prompting her father Nesoren to go into a rage and join the fight himself, thus putting a pause on the deal Wynteria had struck with him.

Sayla shifted forms again to become the human Iris Waylane, a tan-skinned woman with pink hair and cool brown eyes. Iris was an adventurer and a philandering rogue, wandering through countries and planes and leaving the broken hearts of men, women, and other folk in her wake all while making herself richer. She was also a highly valued, if hard to pin down, member of a plane-spanning thief organization called the Copper Mockingbirds. Through the Copper Mockingbird information network, Iris learned of one of the Wynteria Court’s ancient treasures—the Glass Heart: a mirror said to have been crafted from the waters of the Reflecting Pool with the power to show the true heart of any who looked at it. Iris intended to steal it, and thus ventured into the Feywild. Sayla came across her during another attempt to venture out of the Feywild to explore the Material Plane. Iris had crossed a tribe of hobgoblins and was fleeing from them—putting on quite the acrobatic display during her escape—when she quite literally stumbled into Sayla. The two ended up in a heap on the ground, allowing the hobgoblins to have an easy time of capturing them. They were dragged away in the same net, and though Sayla probably could have invoked her status as Successor to the Wynteria Court to guarantee their release, she found the situation (and proximity to a beautiful woman) exciting. When they were hauled before the hobgoblin chief, both made a show of running their mouths, talking circles around both each other and the hobgoblins. The resulting irritation they induced caused the chief to order an execution and, as the hobgoblins charged, they were both nimble enough to leap and duck around the assault, with Iris leading quite a few attackers to hit each other while Sayla dazed them with her magic. As they ran away, laughing all the while, they got to talking and found that they had much in common in terms of tastes. The two of them would spend the next several weeks running from whatever groups they managed to tick off as well as Wynteria guards. Iris soon got Sayla to reveal that she was from the Wynteria Court and started subtly sneaking in questions about the Glass Heart. Sayla came to suspect Iris’ motives, but this game of thief and Successor only added kindling to the flame of their romantic involvement. When Wynteria guards finally apprehended them, Iris used the opportunity of being brought to the court to try finding and making off with the Glass Heart in spite of Sayla warning her to leave the relic alone. No one is entirely certain of what happened, but some time after Iris held the Glass Heart, she was never seen again.

Lastly, Sayla turned into Pari Silentsong, a tan halfling with brown hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Pari had been playing as a bard for the Wynteria Court for several years. Despite being a bard, Pari was mute and played lyricless songs, but sometimes her spirit would yearn to sing so much that onlookers would swear they could feel the touch of her unspoken voice. Sayla would often converse with her after her performances with both of them using a mix of written notes and sign language to communicate. One day, after one especially frantic performance, Pari ran from the audience and hid herself by the court’s three lakes. Sayla followed her and found that she was being strangled by her own shadow; Sayla tried using magic to help her and the shadow eventually left Pari alone. Pari was reluctant to talk about what had just happened, but with coaxing from Sayla, she confessed that she’d been cursed by another court. According to the curse, her own shadow would hold hostage her voice and forever be her enemy. On top of that, she had been robbed of her memories of which court cursed her. Sayla offered to help Pari find a way to break the curse and, though Pari had already searched for a cure, something about Sayla’s sheer earnestness convinced Pari to keep trying. For weeks, the two of them searched for a way to help Pari. They looked right up until the day Pari died at the hands of her shadow. Sayla regretted never telling her she loved her.

When it was clear she was finished, I asked Sayla if she bore some manner of curse. Naturally, I was even more worried wedding her now that I knew all her previous lovers had all either gone missing or died. She just grinned at me with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and walked away. Was she warning me? I have no control over the requirements of the Concord. Her Eminence would likely take great offense to any attempt to back out of marrying her daughter and that could land us right back where we were before the Concord. So why did she tell me at all?

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