Nurneene

Nurneene was the flamboyant proprietress of Nurneene's Marvelous Masks, a shop that sold custom-made masks and costume accessories in Waterdeep, circa the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR.

Description
Nurneene was small and fairly thin, with large, green eyes, reddish-brown hair, and a very pale complexion. She carried herself with grace and wore colorful clothes that were tasteful and elegant on her petite frame. The only thing rough about her was her voice. She intentionally lowered her volume to a murmur to keep the raspy quality in check.

Personality
She was fascinated by thieves and a life of crime but Nurneene was cautious and knew herself well enough to choose much safer pursuits on the edges of the law rather than becoming a burglar. She never let greed overrule her common sense and preferred making long-term plans and working toward increasing her reach and influence from behind the scenes. Her patience and diplomacy served her well when dealing with the nobility and customers of all attitudes.

Abilities
Nurneene was a gifted seamstress and artisan that could create truly wondrous masks that were sturdy enough to hold their shape, properly fit to stay on while dancing, light enough to not be a burden to the wearer, and beautifully designed to engender the desired effect, even to the point of disguising the shape of one's head. She was a master at cutting, steaming, gluing, and binding various materials to achieve most any design, including the all-important surface texture, such as scales, fur, metal, or satin.

Possessions
Her shop was fairly famous in the greater Waterdeep region and its success made her comfortably wealthy.

Activities
Nurneene ran her shop but by 1372 DR she had gradually reduced her time out front and let her six well-trained staff handle most of the public part of the business, making a queenly appearance only when a customer was being difficult. Unbeknown to most, she had a second profession as a priestess of Mask. Below the second cellar in her establishment was a secret subbasement that held a small shrine and chapel to the Lord of Shadows. She had a troop of about sixteen rogues and street thieves that she treated almost like her children, and they in turn loved her like a mother. Nurneene gave them food and shelter, a place to bathe and sleep, and useful news and encouragement. She hid their loot, healed their wounds, repaired their clothes, and fenced their acquisitions.

While building a small army of larcenists, Nurneene was subtly subverting the younger generation of Waterdhavian nobility by spreading rumors of a secret society headquartered in Skullport known as the Deep Lords. The story was that by contacting certain people and proving their worth by completing some tasks, they would be invited to join and become part of a plot to gain wealth and someday rule Waterdeep. If they succeeded in their tasks, she profited. If they failed, it was one less spoiled noble brat. She was happy with either outcome.

Other projects to which she devoted her time included corrupting some tax clerks in Castle Waterdeep and organizing a cartel to control a number of warehouses in the city. For fun, she occasionally donned one of her own masks and attended a party, passing herself off as a visiting noble and wheedling gems or other favors out of easily impressed young noblemen.

Relationships
Her staff, four females and two males, were all trained to make masks, handle fittings and sales, and keep the books. She trusted them and they were loyal to her. At least the two human males were also members of her congregation and kept various weapons at hand if the shop or its personnel were ever threatened. From her flock of rogues, she demanded nothing more than their "confessions", i.e., all their personal and professional desires and concerns, tragedies and triumphs. Although she never required it, those that could afford to leave offerings to Mask did so, as much in appreciation of her services as in devotion to the Master of All Thieves.

History
In her early working life, she was an apprentice seamstress at another shop in Waterdeep that sold masks. Her crafting skills soon became evident, but the shopkeeper sold her creations as if they were his own work. This practice continued for years. Then one day, a very ancient-looking man came to the shop seeking the maker of the fine mask he had purchased there and worn to a recent ball. The shopkeeper claimed credit, but the old man dismissed this claim with scorn and demanded to meet the real artist. The shopkeeper backed down and brought out Nurneene to meet the indignant customer. He thanked her and told her that someday he would reward her for her exceptional talent.

After that visit, things went back to business as usual, but Nurneene saved her money and eventually left her employer and opened her own competing shop a few years later. It was a struggle trying to build a reputation and bring in customers while doing all the work herself, and she became despondent over her failing business when the old man from years ago walked through her doorway. He told her to make a very large mask using her best materials and her best efforts, and he would guarantee more customers that she could possibly handle by herself. She did as he asked, and when the oversized mask was finished a few days later, he returned and placed the mask in her front display window. He began casting a series of spells on it, and it rose up into the air and seemed to take on a personality. Then he thanked her again, and left.

Since that day, the mask flitted about the display window and seemed to watch people on the street, occasionally flying right up to the glass to startle or thrill them. The animated mask obeyed simple commands from Nurneene and also protected the shop when a drunken lout decided the mask was evil and the shop should be torched. The animated mask easily fulfilled the old man's promise of a surfeit of customers and Nurneene's became the premier shop of its kind in town.

Sometime in the 1360s DR, a small group of thieves commissioned her to make masks that could conceal various thieves' tools such as lockpicks, poisoned darts, and flexible saws. She was excited by their stories and she aided them by being a fence, a coin-cleaner, and procuring supplies while they laid low. She was wise enough to know that, being an outsider, her curiosity could get her in real trouble with dangerous folk, so she found a way to participate without taking big risks&mdash;she became a cleric of Mask.

She began by becoming an acolyte to a domineering and cruel master named Hathrel who coldly took advantage of her beauty and wealth. Among his many demands, he commanded that she finance the excavation of a chapel to Mask beneath her shop and that she start a side-business acquiring and selling poisons with the proceeds going to him. Being subservient to Hathrel was far worse than anything she had suffered under her mask-making master and she grew to hate him. She endured his tyranny for a year or two before reaching a decision&mdash;overcoming her distaste for handling poisons, she used her wares on him down in Skullport and took over the chapel and its small band of worshipers.

By the early 1370s DR, she was truly devoted to Mask and her flock, spending many hours praying for guidance. Her dedication was rewarded by dreams and visions that led her to a scroll that Hathrel had hidden and inspiration to "weave schemes and plots to make thieves of Waterdeep's wealthy and powerful".

Rumors & Legends
Ever since the creation of her signature floating mask there have been rumors of a connection between the god Mask and Nurneene, her shop, and the mask itself.