Phyrea

Phyrea was the daughter of Senator Inthelph, the master builder of the city-state of Innarlith in the mid–14 century DR. Secretly, she was a thief who stole valuable prizes from the rich nobility of Innarlith.

Description
She had a beautiful appearance. She had black hair and large black eyes. Her neck was long and her cheekbones were high.

Personality
She was born into luxury and was accustomed to living in wealth. Her father allegedly spent about 40,000 gold pieces per month to keep her in the habits that she was accustomed to. She nevertheless sought out the thrill of stealing valuable things that belonged to rich nobles, which she herself had little use for. She was not bloodthirsty, but would occasionally kill people in the course of her thievery to protect her own identity and complete her task.

Eventually, she became haunted by ghosts of her family who slowly drove her insane. She became obsessed with her love for a Cormyrean engineer named Ivar Devorast.

Abilities
She was a very skilled thief who could break into and out of well-guarded areas of the city of Innarlith. She had the skills of a thief and was good at moving unseen and unheard, picking locks, and so on. She was proficient in the use of swords and throwing knives.

Possessions
She came into possession of a magical sword that she discovered by accident had the power to turn its victims into undead after they were slain with it.

Relationships
Her father, Senator Inthelph, was the master builder of Innarlith and he pampered Phyrea in a luxury lifestyle fit for the city-state's aristocracy. Her father saw her as being a bit wild and wasn't aware of her secret thievery. He wanted to try to reign her in and keep her under better control by getting her married to Willem Korvan, whom she detested.

Ivar Devorast was a Cormyrean engineer whom she had met while she was living at her father's estate north of the city and he was working on a project to build a nearby winery on her father's payroll. She became enamored with him and, after having an affair together at the estate, she became obsessed with him. She even swam to the Shou merchant vessel that was built by him in Innarlith harbor and sneaked aboard, so that she could be near something that was made by him.

Willem Korvan was her father's chief aide and the man that her father wanted her married to. Phyrea detested Willem and compared him with Ivar, whom she thought was Willem's better in everything.

History
Phyrea grew up with her father in Innarlith. She learned thievery and secretly engaged in it while she lived a double-life as a noblewoman. She was introduced to Willem Korvan and became aware that her father intended for them to marry each other, although she detested him. In 1364 DR, she went to spend the summer at her father's country estate in a place called Berrywilde to the north of Innarlith. While she was alone at the estate she began to hear voices in the house that she came to realize were the ghosts of her dead ancestors. These voices would continue to haunt her after she left the estate and she ended up hearing them everywhere.

She also met Ivar Devorast while she was there, whom she fell in love with and the two of them had a brief affair with each other while he was working at a nearby winery. Devorast left the work at the winery without her to head back to Innarlith when he became aware that the Ransar was interested in his plans for a canal. However, Phyrea became infatuated with him and tried to follow his activities with interest in the city.

While she was being haunted by the ghosts at Berrywilde, she discovered an ancient crypt that was connected by a secret passage that went from the house to an underground area beneath the estate. She found a tomb that contained a magical sword that the voices urged her to take. She had a habit of cutting herself with knives and the voices urged her to use the sword on herself. She developed a hatred for the foreman of the winery who had been Devorast's superior and she determined to murder him with the sword, at the urging of the whispers of the ghosts. She secretly killed him in his tent at night. Later, she heard rumors of strange disappearances of workmen at the site and she went to investigate it herself and found that the murdered foreman had been raised from the dead as a ghast by the magic of the sword, and he was murdering and eating workers at the site. She killed him a second time with the sword.

She was horrified by the effects of the weapon and determined to try to find answers about it. She went to Marek Rymüt, a well-known wizard in Innarlith, who was secretly a Red Wizard of Thay. She presented the sword to him and he realized that she was being haunted by ghosts and he told her that he would take the sword from her and not give it back, which she accepted, even while the ghosts were screaming at her that they would punish her if she gave the sword to this wizard.

Appearances

 * Whisper of Waves