Alaricks' father, Myuldrac Alibor, was born on the Dragon Isles but was the son of Thimbar and Aphid, members of the Silver Thread Magic Guild. His parents had travelled to the Isles during one of their expeditions and eventually remained there for several years. Myuldrac was therefore a somewhat unusual figure: Dragonborn by blood and upbringing, but with a family connection to Valenor that never completely disappeared. He knew the old family stories, but he had little reason to return to Valenor and eventually considered the Dragon Isles his home.

Myuldrac became involved with Erjas, a Dragon Isles huntress. Their relationship was not particularly scandalous, but it was never entirely comfortable either. Erjas came from a traditional island community that valued clan, lineage, and belonging, while Myuldrac was already somewhat detached from those structures because of his foreign family background. They had Alaricks, but Myuldrac died shortly after his birth — killed in an accident while travelling between settlements, leaving Erjas to raise the child alone.

Erjas did her best, but she died when he was ten: a hunting accident in the wilderness. She was an experienced huntress, but the Dragon Isles are dangerous, and experience does not make someone invulnerable.

The problem that followed was that Alaricks did not have a strong recognized family connection left to claim him. His father's family was effectively absent, and his mother's relatives were either unwilling or unable to take responsibility for him. He could have been placed with distant relatives, but that required someone to formally claim him as part of their household or clan. Nobody wanted that responsibility.

So Alaricks ended up in an orphanage.

On the Dragon Isles, being Dragonborn is not the same thing as belonging. Family, clan, birthplace, reputation, and community ties matter. Alaricks had the appearance of someone who should belong, but no recognized household willing to claim him. He was effectively a person without a place in the social structure.

As a child this distinction was especially cruel. People could look at him and say, in effect, "You're one of us, but you're not one of ours." Once he became involved in petty crime and later street fighting, that perception became self-reinforcing. His reputation gave people another reason to dismiss him as an undesirable outsider.

His success in the fighting world changed his reputation, but not necessarily his social status. He could become the greatest fighter on the Isles and still not gain the acceptance that someone born into the right family would have received almost automatically.

That gives his championship a contradiction: everyone knew who Alaricks Alibor was, but that didn't mean everyone considered him one of them.

He doesn't have a political analysis of the Queen's project. But he knows something is changing. He has spent years hearing that the relationship between the Islands and Valenor is shifting, while his own life reached a point where he no longer had much tying him to the life he had before.

So when an invitation from a Valenorian guild arrived, it didn't feel completely impossible. It felt like the sort of strange opportunity that might not have existed when he was twenty.

A semi-mythical archipelago southeast of Valenor, long shaped by powerful draconic influence, elemental instability, and isolation from mainland politics. Though officially outside Valenor's direct control, the islands maintain limited contact with the kingdom through carefully regulated trade and diplomatic agreements.

The archipelago is inhabited primarily by tribal communities of humans, dragonborn, and genasi, many of whom trace their lineage and traditions back centuries before modern Valenor existed. The islanders are fiercely protective of their independence and intentionally limit outside influence to preserve their culture, spiritual practices, and way of life.

As the name suggests, dragons and draconic creatures remain deeply tied to everyday life. Many communities coexist peacefully with wyverns, drakes, large reptiles, and other scaled creatures that would be considered dangerous elsewhere. Some island clans are known for their ability to raise and train flying draconic beasts, though the process is extremely long, dangerous, and expensive. Trained wyverns and drakes are exceptionally rare outside the Islands and are viewed as symbols of status, trust, or military importance.

Travel to the islands is heavily restricted. There are no official mainland-controlled ports, and landing without permission is strongly discouraged — both politically and practically. Sudden storms, dangerous reefs, territorial creatures, and intentionally hidden navigation routes make uninvited travel risky even for experienced sailors.

The only widely recognized point of contact is Tidecross, a rugged trading settlement on the outer edge of the archipelago. There, mainland merchants exchange exotic resources, alchemical materials, rare scales, volcanic glass, dyes, medicinal plants, and draconic crafts with local island communities. Even in Tidecross, outsiders are tolerated rather than welcomed, and few foreigners are allowed deeper into the islands without invitation.

Long before Valenor became a kingdom, before roads connected its cities, and before guild banners hung above its harbors, the island was little more than a scattering of isolated coastal settlements surrounded by dangerous seas.

In those days, the waters were feared. Storms appeared unexpectedly, currents shifted overnight, and strange lights were sometimes seen moving beneath the waves. Ships vanished often enough that sailors across distant continents spoke of the island in whispers. "The surrounding sea chooses who arrives," they would say.

Small Genasi, Animal and Bird folk communities already lived on the island, tied deeply to the elemental energy that flowed through the land, following traditions older than the kingdom itself. Then came what later generations would call the Long Storm. For nearly an entire season, the sea became impossible to cross. Winds screamed without pause. Waves swallowed ships whole. Entire stretches of coastline flooded beneath dark water, and the sky remained hidden behind black clouds for weeks.

At the height of the storm, a small trading vessel became trapped near the cliffs of what would later become Valenor Bay. The ship carried exhausted travelers and sailors from distant lands, all certain they would die before morning. No stars to guide them. No shoreline in sight. No hope of surviving the reefs hidden beneath the waves.

Then, through rain and darkness, they saw a single golden light. A lantern. Small. Steady. Impossible. The sailors followed it. Again and again, the light appeared through the storm, guiding the ship through jagged rocks and violent currents until at last the waters calmed. Near dawn, the vessel drifted safely into a quiet harbor.

The survivors rushed ashore, searching for the keeper of the lantern, desperate to thank whoever had saved them. But they found no one. Only wet stone, untouched shoreline, and a single silver thread tied around an old driftwood post near the water's edge.

The survivors chose to remain. Others arrived over time — traders, wanderers, refugees, explorers — and slowly the settlement grew. A harbor became a town. The town became a city. The city became the heart of a kingdom. And so, over generations, people began saying: "No one reaches Valenor accidentally."

Nearly every child in Valenor grows up hearing some version of the Harbor Light. In different regions the details change. Some say the lantern belonged to a spirit of the sea. Others claim it was an old wandering healer, or an ancient magical beacon from a forgotten civilization. Along the southern coast, sailors tell stories that smugglers once used hidden lanterns to guide refugees safely through storms. No one truly knows which version is correct. Perhaps none of them are. Or perhaps all of them are.

For many people in Valenor the Harbor Light represents the soul of the country itself: the belief that strangers deserve shelter, that survival depends on helping one another, and that even in darkness, someone should keep the light burning for those still trying to find their way home.

Even now, during storms, many homes across Valenor place lanterns in their windows. Sailors watch for them when returning to shore. Families light them for loved ones travelling far. And every so often, when the sea is dark and the weather turns strange, people claim they still see a lone golden light somewhere beyond the waves.

He has never visited Valenor. He knows it is much larger and more interconnected than the Dragon Isles, with many peoples, cultures, religions, and magical traditions living close together. From what he has heard, people are generally less concerned with whether someone belongs to a particular bloodline or clan. That doesn't mean discrimination doesn't exist, but it is different from the social structure he grew up with.

Because of his fighting career he has met people from Valenor at Tidecross many times — sailors, merchants, mercenaries, and occasionally adventurers.

He knows Valenor is famous for innate magic in its people and in the land itself, though his understanding is broad. He has no solid information about what a "magic guild" actually means. He knows magic on both the Dragon Isles and Valenor started as a deeply spiritual practice, but that Valenor lost their spirituality almost completely — they use magic as a tool, not a guiding light.

He has heard of Greenveil, mostly as a regional city rather than somewhere he knows: forests and wilderness, strong ties to hunting, logging, agriculture, and adventuring. He knows Tidecross gossip about Valenor's cities and ports better than he knows its geography. He recognizes names like Solport and the capital, Lunerath, but his mental map is incomplete. Asked how long it takes to travel between two places, he may confidently answer based on something a drunk sailor told him fifteen years ago.

He knows very little about the Silver Thread specifically. His father's family connection was not discussed openly during his childhood; if he knows the name at all, it's an obscure piece of family history rather than a guild he understands.

One thing that may surprise him: Valenor's Dragonborn are not necessarily one unified community. His experience taught him to associate Dragonborn identity with clan and homeland, while Valenor may have Dragonborn who consider themselves simply citizens of whatever region they live in.

Because he knows the Harbor Light legend, he knows Lantern Tides as a major Valenorian tradition rather than just a name. It falls around the autumnal equinox, 21–22 September, and is associated with the safe return of travelers and the remembrance of those who never returned. People place lanterns on rivers, lakes, and the sea; it matters most in coastal and maritime communities.

Growing up on the Dragon Islands, he understands the emotional meaning better than some mainlanders. Sending lights onto the water for people lost during journeys does not feel foreign to him. But he does not know the local customs of Greenveil — what people eat, what songs they sing, how the lanterns are decorated, what happens during the local ceremonies. Those he discovers when he arrives.

Lantern Tides is not exclusively religious. Ordinary families, sailors, merchants, and travelers all take part regardless of belief.

His knowledge of other holidays comes through people rather than books, so he knows what people do more than why. The strongest overlap is maritime and seasonal tradition — sailors leaving offerings before long journeys, welcoming returning ships, marking deaths at sea, avoiding certain actions before a voyage. None of that seems exotic to him. The interesting part: he sometimes assumes something is a Dragon Islands tradition when it's actually common across Valenor, or the reverse.

As a Dragon Islands native who spent much of his adult life around Tidecross, he is aware the Queen has been working to improve relations between Valenor and the Islands — and that it is politically sensitive.

The Islands have traditionally valued their independence and controlled access to their territory. Islanders view her efforts with mixed feelings: some see opportunity for trade, travel, education, and cooperation; others worry closer relations are simply the beginning of mainland influence over island affairs.

Alaricks knows practical changes rather than royal policy. New trade agreements, increased diplomatic contact, foreign merchants receiving more access, efforts to ease travel — all of it moving very slowly. The archipelagos are still closed off. Tidecross is effectively the meeting point between the two worlds; foreigners are tolerated there precisely because the port has always been the controlled place where outsiders and islanders interact.

Because he was a famous fighter, he met people who came from the Kingdom specifically to watch him fight. He has a surprisingly broad collection of casual impressions: sailors who loved the Kingdom, merchants who complained about its taxes, adventurers who thought the Islands were backwards, scholars fascinated by Dragonborn culture.

Termina “Mina” Junius, youngest of 9 children in the mercantile dynasty of Lunareth artificers, a plucky, self-assured recent graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Fair of skin, befreckled of face, with a mop of fluffy curly auburn hair and eyes as verdant as new spring growth, she stands at a towering, for a halfling, 106 cm (3½ ft) and weighs around 25 kg (55 lbs).

Dressed, in her own words, plainly and practically for the road, she's wearing a sturdy and well-made pair of dark chocolate brown leather high-top traveling boots, nice burgundy leather breeches, a white peasant blouse with golden musical note embroidery on the voluminous sleeves, neckline and collar, waistcoat of matching burgundy short-fiber fine velvet, gold buttons, diamond pattern quilting with deep blue alternating rhombie, brown leather waist-hugging open chest coat, a lovely blue beretta with a colorful plume in it and a dark navy wool cloak to cover under in the rain.

Mina is fond of jewelry, receiving a whole treasure trove of it throughout her life, and she wears something new every performance. There's a coil of braided leather around her hips, and a small sheathed dagger. She has a cross-body letterman bag in the same fine leather and a sturdy pack on her back, filled to the brim with useful (mostly useless) things for the road.

Although her family forged a clear path for her, she took the road less traveled and changed schools after a first year of formal education. Her training in the science of magic was just enough to realise her desired path, so Mina, after creating a self-playing hurdy-gurdy, decided to pursue music instead of her family tradition.

Even though the relationship with her parents can only be described as cordial, she hid the transfer and the subsequent graduation, sending vague letters home, unwilling to face the consequences of familial disobedience. Her numerous siblings, who help out with the business or have adult lives of their own, mostly stay out of hers, though she is close with one of her sisters, Tertia, and the twins Sextus and Septimus. The siblings in the know encouraged Mina's pursuit and supplied her with additional finances and gear before she set out to find fame and fortune.

Mina grew up in the wealthier part of the city, enjoyed great food and drink, lodged in the nicest dormitory and got used to all the little luxuries a comfortable life provides. She was, admittedly, spoiled, but never rotten. An open-minded, friendly and easygoing individual, Mina's not without a flaw or two.

With a high echelon upbringing and a taste for fineries, she's woefully unprepared for the harsh realities of life outside the capital and clueless about a lot of goings on in the lower classes of society. In fact, she might be snooty and condescending at times, but her fun-loving nature frequently overrides whichever prejudice towards simpler things she might have.

She'd received a mysterious invitation to join a guild right as her journey began and that sounded like a proper mischief, so she decided to join.

She wishes for an exciting adventure-filled life of a traveling bard, for tales to tell in the future, for fame and glory. But, most of all, she wants her own life — and for people to finally call her friends.

Handles the business side of things and has many connections both in the old country and in the clan's new homeland. She's loving and used to be a bit overbearing with her older children, but somewhere along the way became far less hands-on in their upbringing.

A smart, shrewd businesswoman who has very little time for anything that doesn't pertain to growing their empire. Her children are either handling themselves or helping each other before she has to step in. Even though she ultimately wants them to be happy, it's more important that everyone in the family prospers financially or socially, moving up the ladder so to speak. Her favorites are Prima and Secundus.

Takes care of engineering and production, constantly in the workshops or factories, innovating, improving, developing and taking charge of their employees. A talented mechanical engineer — knowledgeable, extraordinarily educated, brilliant in all things magic-tech, but helpless when it comes to marketing and business.

His approach to parenting is softer, and he roots for his children to enjoy their callings as much as he does — though he assumes everyone shares his interest in his way of life and work. He relies on his wife for guidance with the kids, but steps in when peacekeeping is needed among the siblings. His favorites are the mischievous twins.

The first-born heiress to the estate, she handles the family's business like it's her own, helping her parents day and night. Takes after their mother a lot, even though her softer side comes out at family gatherings.

Currently the most eligible bachelorette among her peers, she's not interested in building a family just yet because of the workload she runs daily. A parentified older sister, she knows just enough of what goes on in the family to keep tabs on everyone — but doesn't interfere unless absolutely necessary.

An ambitious son and the outward pride of the family, with a promising political career and a footing in the largest guild, and plans for even bigger things in the making. Scheming, conniving, nearly omnipotent, he knows a lot more than he should.

He figured out the whole sibling plan without leaving his headquarters, and has useful people everywhere. Dreams of a high position and an empire of his own — bigger and richer than his sister's.

A kind and loving older sibling who frets for everyone's happiness, the big sister who will take care of you whether you like it or not. Owns and operates a small chain of beauty parlors in the city, with a reputation as a reliable confidant to her high-born clients — she has enough leverage and knowledge for favors, but uses it rarely.

In a secret on-again-off-again relationship with one of her lady clients.

A chaotic genius duo of inventors working for their father, prank-loving and mischievous. They supported Mina's ideas for the fun of it, helped pull funds and hide her preparations from the rest of the family, and are happy to modify any magitech for their siblings purely out of curiosity.

They built Eye-Spy. They openly dislike Secundus for being a tryhard.