Zanna Nistori

Zanna Nistori is a Gnome Bard, and the descendant of a  family of powerful merchants residing in Featherfall. She has a Book Imp familiar called Mal'orei.

Character Sheet
Name: Zanna Nistori Race: Gnome Class: Bard Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Deity: Garl Glittergold

Source

Personality
Zanna is a party animal. She loves to dance, drink, smoke, and generally partake in whatever kind of debauchery is going on. While she knows much about diplomacy and tact, she often prefers to feign ignorance and push people's buttons... just to see what will happen.

This is perhaps her greatest flaw: Zanna is wildly short-sighted. She thinks and acts in the moment, incurs massive debts, and burns bridges immediately after crossing them.

Backstory
Zanna Nistori is the only daughter of Wrenn Nistori, the Merchant Lord. As such, she grew up privileged and perhaps a bit spoiled. Her keen mind was sharpened at the best schools of magic, while the harsh rules and her equally self-centered classmates made her a shrewd liar. These schools kept her away from her father for many years, and after losing her mother when she was only a girl, she returned home self-sufficient but wildly selfish.

The first thing her father told her when she came back was that she'd eventually have to take up her father's business. Not "I'm happy you're home, Zanna" or "You've made me proud", but an order to get ready to go to work. Not that those other statements were untrue, but Wrenn Nistori was a highly traditional man that left many things that bothered him or his daughter go unsaid. He was always cold to her, as he was with everything else. Without her mother to counter-balance his logical and responsible ways, Zanna lashed out at him and left.

Perhaps it wasn't just her father's demeanor. In truth, she was also silently scared of the responsibility. The Merchant Lord helped keep many gnomes across the country employed, and required a massive effort just to prevent absolute failure, to say nothing of what it took to manage success.

She decided she'd spend time traveling. Seeing new places, satisfying her many vices, and hopefully learn about herself in the process.

Epilogue
The smoke rolled and writhed through the air lazily, like as a serpent, summoned from the edge of Zanna's half-smoked cigarette. The snake made of smoke twisted upward, only occasionally cut by the rays of dawn peering in from window.

She was staring out over Cornamur. The city of gold had a liquid kind of shine to it, a yellowish oil reflecting the first light of day reaching over the horizon. Cities in the morning always had a gross, dirty look to her, no matter where she went. Still, it was comforting to her. Her home in Featherfall had a view not too different from this one. Less gold, but the chaos and grit was the same. People living and struggling together. Not a pretty thing, but unequivocally familiar one.

The last bits of ash fell from the stub of her cigarette. She flicked the remainder out the window and checked the time. It was still early. Too early to get anything done, anyway. There was much to do, but for now, she would have to content herself to watching the sunrise and thinking.

She thought of her friends. For a while, they were simply associates in a company. Conflict and Co. was the glue meant to hold them together. It wasn't necessary, though. Each one of them was eminently easy for Zanna to like, even love. She supposed that was just a quality of being what people called a “hero”. Not that she knew.

People liked Zanna because she planned for them to. Her natural charisma was anything but. All of her actions these past few months had been calculated moves, meant to advance the goals of Conflict and Co. and more importantly, herself. The face she wore of the resourceful libertine was an easy one to bear, but it seemed like the time was coming to set it aside. She would miss all of them, truly. She'd miss the adventures and the jokes shared. Even if she was not an honest person by nature, her warm feelings for them could be.

In her dream, she had met a queen ofspiders. The Lady offered her power, in exchange for bringing back the web-weaver's religion. She didn't remember what conclusion she reached in that dream. She barely remembered it at all, until that recent meeting with the spidery, dark elf woman.

Myrloch'ra wanted the River Cities for her queen, of that Zanna was sure. She could not abide that. She would stop her, even if it meant setting aside Conflict and Co. to pursue them her own way. The spiders would keep to the shadows and set traps, so Zanna would need eyes all across the country. She would need to buy businesses, earn trusted employees, and from there, forge watchful counter-spies. Her job would be to create a network of fire that could burn any webs before they could be set in place.

And, she needed to do this alone. The River Cities still needed Conflict and Co., but it didn't need her. Her job would be one of arguments and paperwork, equally necessary. It was an easy excuse, but there was one other reason for her to leave. The more honest reason.

Her familiar, Mal'orei, appeared at her side with another cigarette, which she gratefully took. As she lit it, she returned to watching the sun rise over Cornamur. The city was dirty and it was chaotic and it was beautiful. A wisp of smoke escaped her lips. Looking out, she knew why she would protect the River Cities. A feeling she had that had always existed somewhere inside her, but never quite lucid enough to form into words. Her long-held belief, that had been too amorphous until now, set deep into her bones with icy sharp clarity.

No one would take River Cities. They belonged to her.