Vivian
Half-Elf - Rogue, Vigilante, Shadowblade

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Backstory

Vivian was born nameless in the gutters of Mordholm. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father an elven thief from the north, was executed days later for a failed heist. No one claimed her and the city would not shed one tear for her plight. A street urchin raised by the misguided, unwanted, and feared, she survived the only way she could, by taking what she needed and vanishing before someone stronger took it back.

The closest thing she had to a family was an aging apothecary named Waylen, who let her sleep under his counter in exchange for helping grind herbs, sweep floors, and eventually, delivering potions to clients he didn’t trust to come to his shop in daylight. Waylen had been a war medic once, and though he never spoke of it, his hands shook when he thought no one noticed.

Vivian learned about poisons and powders during this time, but also how to read people, the way eyes flicker before a lie, the way hands move when guilt makes them restless. She learned the art of disappearance, of misdirection, and she learned to be invisible, even in the open. If ever there was a time she looked back fondly before the present it was in these moments, but one day... Waylen was gone.

He was drug from his home and strung up outside the governor’s hall as a traitor. The charge, aiding insurgents. Vivian waited for someone to speak in his defense, but just as silence echoed for the death of her parents, so too did the city fall silent as Waylen hung from his noose. She thumbed a broken coin that Waylen had worn around his neck, he had given it to the girl and she held it close, the first gift she received from anyone. But her mind raced, and she had different plans. That night, she crept through the slums, climbed the tiled rooftops, and entered the governor’s manor through the skylight like a breath of cold air. By morning, the man was dead in his bed, his tongue cut out and replaced by the broken coin that had once hung from Waylen’s neck.

It was the first time she killed, and it would not be the last.

Over the next few years, Vivian became a vigilante, a rumor, that turned into whispers among criminals. She would claim no guild, not be a servant of coin or cause. Just a phantom who did what had to be done. She robbed corrupt priests, poisoned slavers, and burned ledgers. She did it in silence, and she never stayed long. She didn’t believe in redemption, but she did believe in punishment.

But guilt doesn’t rot alone, it eats through the soul like rust through steel, and the weight of this guilt hung heavy within her.

Despite this however, she could only move forward.

Years passed and it happened in the port of Lorehelm, where the docks were just as crooked as the men who ruled them. Vivian had just finished a contract, a noble who trafficked children and laundered his sins through temples. She left him hanging in his own prayer bells, but the contract, unbeknownst to her, had been a setup.

Someone had known she’d come. There were too many guards. Too many pursuers. She’d been injured, cut across the ribs and staggered into the tide, bleeding, hunted, cornered.

And there, at the edge of the wharf, was The Emberwake.

A strange ship, built like nothing she’d seen. Its hull bore the marks of old flame and older scars. The sounds of cannon-fire rang out, and a gangplank lowered, without a word, and at the top of it stood a half-orc in a storm cloak, his hand resting on a boarding axe.

“On my ship,” Captain Arden said, “we won't ask what you’ve done. Just whether you’ll fight for those who’ve done worse.”

She climbed aboard and collapsed. Three days later she woke to the sound of laughter, sea spray, and a little girl humming a song about moonfish stew.

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Life on the Emberwake

Vivian didn’t trust the Emberwake at first. It was too warm... too forgiving. Too full of people who looked you in the eyes and expected nothing. That kind of place gets you killed. That kind of place doesn’t exist.

So she kept to herself.

She slept in the smallest berth, closest to the hull where the sound of the ocean could drown out her thoughts. She cleaned her gear twice a day, because stillness made the past too loud. For the first few weeks, she spoke only when spoken to, offered no name, and ate alone at the edge of the galley.

No one forced her to be different.

And that’s what started to change her.

One night, she woke up gasping from a nightmare, sweat down her back, fingers curled around a phantom knife, and found a blanket draped over her shoulders. The scent was sea salt and lavender oil. Pickles, probably. The next morning, there was bread on her workbench. Not fresh, not warm, but still soft.

She didn't say thank you. But she didn’t throw it away either.

Over time, the silence between her and the others changed. It wasn’t a wall anymore, it was a space she could move through. Rokkun would nod to her in passing, and she’d nod back. Thalion asked her once how she moved so quietly, and she showed him, because he asked with genuine curiosity. Galli sang a tune during a storm that made her hands shake for reasons she couldn’t explain. That night, Vivian stood outside the mess for nearly an hour before walking in to sit at the table.

No one said a word. They just shifted, made room, and passed her the stew.

Eventually, she began training some of the younger crewmates. She’d correct their stance. Show them how to disappear into a crowd, how to listen to footsteps in the dark. She never raised her voice, never scolded. But if they failed, she made them do it again, because she started to care... because if they were going to survive, she wouldn’t let them do it half-prepared.

Vivian doesn’t laugh often, but when Xidayn pulled a coin from behind her ear and it was her own, she smirked for the first time in months. When Lorelai brought her a crumpled drawing of the crew with “VIVEN” scrawled under a stick figure holding a knife, she didn’t correct the spelling, and she still keeps it in her trunk to this day.

Now, Vivian wakes early and walks the deck before dawn, the wind in her face, the crew still asleep. She counts the stars, watches the horizon. She still keeps a ledger in her bunk, with names and reasons written in code. But next to each new entry, there's a second column now.

“Didn’t run.”
“Protected one of ours.”
“Still trying.”

She still doesn’t talk much about her past, but every once in a while, around the low-burning lanterns of a nightwatch meal, she’ll mutter something dry and bitter that makes Sir Bron chuff with amusement and Tayasha nod like she understands.

The Emberwake didn’t fix her, but it stopped her from bleeding long enough to heal.

“If you ever think you’re alone, look behind you and I'll be watching over you. If I’m not there I’m dead. And if I’m dead, then I died making sure the world still has you in it.” - To Lorelai

“Do you know what it’s like to die a little every time someone is kind to you?
Because part of you knows… you don’t think you deserve it.” - To Tayasha in a moment of vulnerability