Lady Wilhelmina Kemlar
Wilhelmina Kemlar is a self-styled aristocrat and seeker of secrets. Kemlar collects anything that she considers potentially useful, from information to magic items. As patient as she is cunning, Kemlar has bided her time while slowly gathering resources to complete her goal: █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
Table of Contents
History
History
Early Life
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Master of Secrets
Having managed her father's finances, Kemlar was quite familiar with trade. She understood the value of commodities and how to turn copper into gold. She asked ██████████████ for small secrets, things not known but ultimately inconsequential, and began trading up to acquire true treasures. She gathered resources and built a mansion in the heart of the Black Isles, using the fog-covered marshes as a base of operations to conduct activities in both Nexus and the Planes beyond.
Over the years, the Black Isles acquired a reputation for disappearances as Kemlar ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████. She began to ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. These additional minions made excellent spies and allowed her to grow her information network quickly.
To collect more powerful servants, Kemlar began seeking individuals looking to ██████████████. She traded the ██████████ for anything she considered valuable but never handed over the █████████, purposefully picking individuals she know would attempt to betray or shortchange her to justify her actions. The incomplete ███████ have a habit of █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████; this was how Jinxer and Deviot came to be in her service, among others.
Conflict with Tiamat
At some point during this time, Kemlar infiltrated a Cult of Tiamat outpost built around the gravesite of a chromatic dragon. She effortlessly dispatched the cultists and an angered Tiamat sent more, not realizing the threat Kemlar posed to her followers until it was too late. Kemlar slaughtered the reinforcements, save for a man named Dave who decided to throw in with Kemlar instead. She offered him employment and made use of his historical education to further her plans until Dave's dying day, at which point he declined her offer to remain in the Material Plane as an undead.
Later, Kemlar became aware of the Blood War spilling into Nexus in the country of Jezero. Learning of the exploits of the new Quintus Gemholders, she introduced herself to the one called Marshall and whispered just enough into his ear to inspire him. With some minor probing from Kemlar, Marshall resolved to gather Nexus' giants and march them into Avernus in a bid to slay Tiamat in the name of his own deity, Stronmaus.
This accomplished two objectives for Kemlar. Firstly, it would keep Tiamat otherwise occupied and hinder the Dragon Queen in her efforts to extract revenge against Kemlar for defiling the gravesites of chromatic dragon. Secondly, the departure of the giants would leave the world's giant-kin without aid to call upon. Kemlar set upon kidnapping a great many of Nexus' trolls, imprisoning them in the Black Isles and using them as a regenerative food source for her growing ███████ army.
(Un)friendly Rivalry with Mesogog
When Mesogog came to Lothal, the son of Orcus took notice of Kemlar's necromantic activities and sought her out as a potential ally. Discovering she served █████, the two realized their masters would inevitably clash in their efforts to become ███████████████████████████. The two formed a loose alliance, each eager to take advantage of the other in the knowledge their masters would eventually do battle. As the more clever of the two, Kemlar generally came out ahead during these arrangements.
After Mesogog was imprisoned, Levira went to Kemlar looking for a solution to the problem. Kemlar was already entertaining another guest, Sweetmeat, and forced Levira to wait for an audience. Levira's temper stewed at this, but she kept her composure long enough to request Kemlar's help politely. When Kemlar refused, Levira demanded assistance instead. Kemlar had her minions throw Levira out, face-down into the mud and much to Sweetmeat's amusement.
Meeting the Headhunters
Kemlar kept tabs on the Morlocks and was aware when they succeeded in freeing Mesogog, but still didn't consider them a threat. She also kept tabs on the Headhunters, both their activities against the Morlocks and the ways they were manipulated by The Raven Queen. When they came to the Black Isles seeking aid, she opened a path through the fog and sent Nizzre, a swamp serpent from the Shadowfell under her control, to clear lesser monsters from the trail.
Kemlar offered the Headhunters one of the Seven Swords and information on the location of another. In exchange, she wanted the box they had previously delivered to Mount Celestia (which, unknown to the Headhunters, contained the Eye of Vecna). She also mentioned being aware of the box due to Sweetmeat mentioning it when he called her asking for a lawyer. Deciding that burgling the Seven Heavens was a bad idea, the group made other offers instead.
The adventurers traded one of Urthemiel's scale for the Dusk Dagger. For information on the Mistwalker Blade, Rhith spoke to Hugh through his Gravestone and claimed he could offer Kemlar information on purifying spirits of the dead. Really, he gave her the information she required to ████████████████████████████████████████████████. Meanwhile, Mesogog arrived and waited for an audience with Kemlar; she attended him shortly after the Headhunters left.
As an "apology" for refusing to help Levira, Kemlar offered to aid Mesogog by granting him additional power. Cautious but ultimately unable to resist the promise of power, Mesogog accepted Kemlar's offer. She used Urthemiel's scale to empower him with a piece of The Destroyer's power, making Mesogog nigh-unkillable. She neglected to tell him, however, that it would make him vulnerable to The Four Weapons.
A New Alliance & Friendship
Between the Headhunters' visit and Mesogog's arrival, Kemlar knew her timetable was beginning to shrink. During her meeting with Mesogog, she offered him a list of places the Headhunters may head next in exchange for a Gravestone. This surprised Mesogog as he knew Levira had previously offered a Gravestone that Kemlar turned down, but he nonetheless agreed to her offer.
With a Gravestone now in hand, Kemlar had a direct line of communication with Rhith to barter more secrets with him. Furthermore, she had put Mesogog and the Headhunters in positions that would cause one to destroy the other. No matter who came away the victor, she would have one less enemy to deal with. After Rhith's revival, the illithilich arrived at Kemlar's mansion where she greeted him with open arms. The pair entered a full partnership, each more than willing to borrow the others power in pursuit of their respective goals.
Rhith and Kemlar quickly found common ground on a personal level as well as a professional one, first bonding over their mutual hatred of █████. The pair found their skillsets complimented each other with Kemlar's mastery of ████████████ mixing well with Rhith's extensive study of arcane magic and the Weave. Rhith's primary concern was rebuilding his power base and ultimately his chief desire was to ██████████, though he pledged to assist Kemlar with her goals simultaneously in return for her aid. What started as a purely business relationship soon turned into a genuine friendship between equals.
Dealings in Hell
Having learned that Marshall's forces were practically on Arkhan the Cruel's doorstep, Kemlar decided it was time to remove the dragonborn general and claim the █████████████ from his possessions. The timing was not ideal, as she herself had a pressing appointment and all her subordinates powerful enough for such a task were otherwise engaged. Her options limited, Kemlar opted to hire a group of powerful adventurer mercenaries and send them to assist Marshall. She sent letters to four such individuals, promising each of them information they'd been seeking as well as a bag of holding filled to capacity with gold in exchange for their services.
When her guests arrived, she waited in her teahouse as they were guided there by Jinxer. Kemlar explained the terms of her deal to them: bring Arkhan the Cruel to her, dead or alive, intact for interrogation and they would have their reward. She all but directly stated that she intended to torture Arkhan for information, but despite this the adventurers accepted her gold as the advanced half of their payment and formed a verbal contract with her. Wasting no time, Kemlar used the plane shift spell to transport herself, her bodyguards, and the adventurers to Avernus. She gave them directions to Marshall's camp was well as a few potions to assist with their task before departing to attend to her own business.
Kemlar and her bodyguards traveled through the Nine Hells until they reached the sixth hell, Malbolge. Here they traveled to Ossiea, palace of Archduchess Glasya, where Kemlar requested an audience with the archduchess. Her reputation preceding her, Kemlar was granted her audience decidedly quickly by infernal standards and sat down to barter with the archdevil.
Kemlar told Glasya she had come seeking an infernal lawyer on behalf of her acquaintance Sweetmeat, who was currently being held awaiting trial on Mount Celestia. Glasya questioned why Kemlar had come to her and not some other archdevil, and Kemlar replied that Glasya's reputation at finding legal loopholes was a skill she believed would be critical for Sweetmeat's defense attorney. As payment for these services, Kemlar offered Glasya a soul coin containing the soul of the adventurer of Myster E.
The two continued to barter for a length of time considered polite by infernal standards, making various addendums to the details of their deal before formally sealing a contract. Kemlar had bartered with Glasya honestly, knowing that even with her skills she was unlikely to be able to deceive the archduchess in any fashion. Still, she did not reveal her true motivations for assisting Sweetmeat and the fact that much had been left unsaid did not escape Glasya. Her business in Malbolge concluded, Kemlar returned to Avernus and made her way to Arkhan's Tower to check on her mecenaries' progress.
Acquiring the Hand of Vecna
Her deal with Glasya complete, Kemlar decided to check on her mercenaries progress. When the mercenaries deduced Kemlar's intentions and tried to break the verbal contract made with her, the magics binding their deal made Kemlar aware of their intentions and she rushed to Arkhan's Tower with all haste. She and her bodyguards arrived to see Tim the Great & Powerful, Ibrahim Moizoos, and Genevieve had removed the Hand of Vecna from Arkhan the Cruel's corpse, contrary to her instructions. She could also see shackles of green fire around Tim and Ibrahim's wrists, indicating they attempted to teleport away and take the Hand of Vecna with them.
Kemlar kept her tone polite as she interrogated the adventurers, complementing them for their success in conquering Arkhan's Tower while also scolding them for fumbling at the finish line. The moment Genevieve had the opportunity, she grabbed the Hand of Vecna from Tim and dropped one bag of holding into another to transport herself and the Hand to the Astral Plane. Displeased, Kemlar informed the remaining adventurers they would not be receiving the 2nd half of their payment due to their violation of their contract. She then freed them from that contract and suggested rather heavily it would be in their best interest to leave her sight immediately, an offer they quickly took her up on.
The moment they were gone, Kemlar cast a gate spell that pulled Genevieve from the Astral Plane and dumped the warforged back in from of Kemlar. Beaten and weary from her battles up Arkhan's Tower, the warforged woman could put up little resistance as Kemlar and her bodyguards assailed her. Kemlar herself dealt the the killing blow, lifting Genevieve by the throat and squeezing hard enough to obliterate her neck. She claimed the Hand of Vecna from the warforged's death grip before taking out the █████████████████████ and reading the Decay Incantation to destroy Arkhan's Tower. As the structure began to collapse, she used a plane shift spell to send herself and her bodyguards back to her teahouse.
Once there, Kemlar ordered Koragg to lop off her left hand and attached the Hand of Vecna in its place. Flexing the fingers to test her new appendage, Kemlar sat down and took out a crystal ball to being scrying. As Koragg asked her what was next, Kemlar lamented that it was a shame that the Headhunters had not brought the Eye of Vecna directly to her. Nonetheless, she was pleased that they had nonetheless left a reason for her to visit Mount Celestia behind on their visit there, providing a perfect opportunity for her to claim Eye of Vecna during Sweetmeat's trial.
Age
2,500+
Children
Current Residence
The Black Isles
Ruled Locations
Dress of Many Pockets
Hand of Vecna
Comments