#and adelina and romi are *chef's kiss*

[deconstructthesoup]

I'd like to hear about your oc lore. It's always interesting to hear about.

*slams book shut* EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT NEW STORY CONCEPT!

So, a little while ago, the title "The Damsel & The Damned" popped into my head, which is inspiration enough on its own... and that led me to decide to answer the age-old question: what if a princess trapped in a tower made a deal with a demon in order to escape, and what if that demon was a burnt-out millenial dealing with a curse of their own? And what if I used their story to better flesh out my homebrew D&D setting?

The story follows the adventures of Adelina Carletti Lapina, an elven princess (half-high elf, half-drow) who is every bit your typical fairy-tale princess save for two things: fifty years of being imprisoned has made her want to live as much as possible, making her the most reckless person you'll ever meet... and she is an incredibly powerful necromancer, in a world where that kind of magic is strictly forbidden. Traveling alongside her, and desperately trying to keep her alive, is her new warlock patron---Romiera "Romi" Wrath, who is actually not strictly a demon, but a devilkin (this world's version of a tiefling) who was raised in Hell by their dad. And living in Hell as the child of an incredibly powerful archdevil has caused Romi to inherit all of their father's powers... which are not in any way suited for a mortal body, and could quite literally kill them unless they share their abilities with someone else.

As the two make their way through the world, they attempt to uncover Adelina's past, which she's all but forgotten, and to figure out who imprisoned her in the first place. Along their way, they find some allies:

Hilda Brosgul, a middle-aged orcish swashbuckler who's the latest in a long line of accomplished adventurers. She's lived a life of sailing through the open seas, standing up for the downtrodden and fighting gigantic sea monsters, but her wild lifestyle wound up causing a rift between her and her wife, and she hasn't exactly been taking the separation well. Romi and Adelina find Hilda at rock bottom, and after she helps them out in a skirmish and proves to them---and herself---that she's still a capable fighter, she winds up tagging along with them as their self-appointed protector.

Kassius Heller, a formerly-human vampire alchemist whose existence has been greatly hindered by the fact that he's never been able to stomach killing anything, even to survive. Luckily, he's also a brilliant mad scientist, and has been able to create a substitution for blood---kind of like Marceline in Adventure Time, though it's not quite as simple as just eating shades of red. They meet him at a science exhibition, and he and Adelina get along almost immediately, bonding in a way that only insatiably curious queer nerds can. His intelligence, boundless optimism, and undead nature endear him to Romi and Hilda pretty quickly, too, as all of those traits are key when you're trying to survive.

Matilda "Tilly" Trinket, a fairy of the Seelie Court who used to be one of Queen Titania's most loyal knights, but now that the fey have evolved with the times (in their own odd way) and have no real interest in waging wars, she now works as the queen's personal secretary, and she takes that job just as seriously. After the gang winds up in the Faerie Realm in order to speak to Titania (for... reasons I haven't yet figured out), they get to meet Tilly, who admits that though she loves spreadsheets and paperwork and keeping things shipshape, she does kind of miss her old days of swinging her little sword around and smiting her enemies with the power of chaotic fey magic. Titania hears this and gives Tilly a special mission---to follow Adelina and the others and to keep them safe, in the way that only a true knight of the Seelie can. Tilly absolutely becomes the voice of logic and reason in the group, even more so than Romi... even if it's very clear that she's a bit out of practice when it comes to intense, battle-heavy moments, and that her smaller size does pose a slight disadvantage. She's still the best lawful whatever-the-fey-see-as-good fairy godmother, though.

And throughout it all, shadowy forces follow Adelina wherever she goes, the most mysterious one of all being a reanimated, stitched-together huntsman. Adelina only has dim memories of him from her first days in the tower... but Kassius knows him as Julio Delgado, an old friend from his university days. A friend whose father married the widow of the most powerful and wicked necromancer the world has ever seen.

A necromancer who had a daughter, Lorelai de Crypt. And she's hell-bent on proving that she can do everything he can... except, of course, be defeated.