Scyllua Darkhope
Scyllua Darkhope is the Castellan of Zhentil Keep, the High Captain of its armies, and the city’s acknowledged champion. She is a sword in the hand of Fzoul Chembryl, a zealous agent of her dark god and a foe of all that is good. Under her leadership, the Zhents are recovering from the destruction of their city four years past and marshaling their strength once again in their home territory. In Scyllua, the soldiers of Zhentil Keep have their most determined, persistent, and intelligent captain in generations.
Scyllua was not always a champion of evil. She grew up in the Dalelands and was carried off to slavery in Zhentil Keep with her mother when she was still a child. Her mother attracted the attention of a Zhent noble (a cousin of Teldorn Darkhope of Mintar), and they were taken into his household. Scyllua took his surname for her own. Despising the circumstances in which she grew up, Scyllua took service in the army of Zhentil Keep, but at the same time she devoted herself to Tyr. She meant to bring justice to the Zhentarim by someday leading the downtrodden common folk against the parasitic network in their midst.
In 1368 DR, Cyric leveled Zhentil Keep in retribution for what he saw as the faithlessness of its people. Scyllua rose through the ranks quickly in that dark time, proving herself over and over again in personal combat. By the end of the siege, she was one of the city’s foremost champions and an outspoken critic of the ways of the past. Because the Black Network largely abandoned the city during the siege, Scyllua set her sights on Lord Orgauth, determined to penetrate the layers of corruption and evil surrounding the city’s de facto ruler and bring about the fall of the evil lords.
With determination and courage, Scyllua sliced through Orgauth’s deceptions like an avenging scythe through grain. She finally cornered the lord and confronted him on a cold winter night in 1370 DR . . . but Orgauth, in reality a pit fiend of great power and cunning, surrendered to her wrath and offered humbly to help put right what he had marred. Scyllua listened to his honeyed words, and so she fell from grace.
Led deeper and deeper into corruption by Orgauth, Scyllua repudiated her vows to Tyr and became a blackguard in the service of Bane. As the final act of her fall, she turned on her tempter and destroyed him a few months later—after which Scyllua was approached by Fzoul and brought willingly into the Black Network she worked so long to destroy.
Scyllua is lean and athletic, with a fierce charisma that inspires her allies and gives pause to her foes. She leads Zhent raids in person, riding a great white nightmare named Targaraene and wading into battle with joyous abandon.
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