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Lady Viper

Founder of the Twilight Company • Greyport • Real name Elizandra Legrand

Overview​

Lady Viper founded the Twilight Company about fifty years ago, after the Eldoran Empire killed her family, and she still leads it. She runs it from Greyport, where the headquarters sits by the zoo under the cover name Richard Jones Investments. As of Session 63 she is in Greyport. She planned and sent off the party's infiltration of the Eldoran capital but stayed behind herself, because she is "too recognizable from her own years 'in the service.'" Elspeth is openly smitten with her.

Appearance​

  • Black masquerade mask
  • A large cobra, Mr. Slithers, often coiled around her shoulders
  • Red and black floor-length coat that moves like a formal gown
  • Brown hair in a precise bun, black leather gloves
  • Smokes through a long cigarette holder
  • Keeps a needle-thin dagger in a thigh holster (Session 54)

Background​

She told the party she had been due to attend a ball the night her family was killed. She fell ill and stayed with her aunt, and after the guests retired, her family was killed. Young, alone, and heir to a family fortune, she founded the Twilight Company from what was then a movement.

In Session 47, Olivia rolled a natural 20 on a history check and remembered something from a detectives' conference years earlier. Some Greyport colleagues, after a few drinks, had whispered that "they" had the Legrand family killed and that only the daughter, Elizandra Legrand, survived. Olivia has not told Lady Viper that she knows. (The transcript garbles the name as "Lrange"/"Alexandra Lrron"; the spelling here follows the knowledge base.)

Her grandmother, Lady Legrand, owned the private animal collection that Dane used to found the Greyport zoo (Session 43).

Her name first came up in Session 3, when the Twilight Company told Olivia that Finnegan was on a mission and meeting "someone called Lady Viper."

Aims and Methods​

At their first meeting she set out her plan against Eldoran. The Empire's power rests on belief, since it manufactured itself into a religion. Her targets were its places of worship across the continent, the spaceport in Eldoran's harbor, and its violescence caches, where a chain reaction could cripple the Empire. At that point she had no plan for the space station. Asked about civilians, she said she wants to hold accountable those who killed her family, and that she does not believe that means everyone in Eldoran.

Silas's read on her (Insight 28) was that she is less a strategist than a charismatic figure who gathers anarchists, misfits, and people the Empire has hurt, and aims them at her own revenge. By his reading, her plan for Eldoran is meticulous and she has no plan at all for what comes after. He kept this to himself. The party agreed to work with her and to add "finesse" to spare civilians.

She was visibly moved when Elspeth opened the pocket village in her sitting room and Luna appeared inside it. She agreed to help with events, space, and connections for a congregation to Luna.

The Eldoran Mission​

In Session 54 she invited the party to a pre-dawn dinner at headquarters and briefed them. Eldoran's capital detects magic, so casters of the party's calibre can only get in under an aristocrat's sponsorship. The Twilight Company had arranged a place for them in Lord Bradicus's mercenary contest, and she told them to "hold their punches" and win without looking elite. She assigned Finnegan as their escort, pointed them to Little Cradle, left them a motorized wagon, and warned Elspeth: "You're going into the mouth of the beast."

Relationships​

  • Elspeth: The attraction was obvious from their first meeting: lingering eye contact, Viper pressing a goblet into Elspeth's hands, and a blush at Elspeth's fumbled attempts at nicknames. Session 53 sets up a date, which became the Session 54 dinner. Elspeth arrived in her coveralls and was too flustered to finish a sentence, and the party's attempt to push the romance ended with Bru in Viper's lap. Elspeth left an apology note on Mr. Slithers ("I'll take you on a real date when I get back"). In Session 62, Elspeth confided to Scarlet that she will probably go wherever Lady Viper goes next.
  • Victor: He had been working with her for months before Session 46 ("Lady Viper tells me how to blow things up now") and brought the party to her.
  • Olivia: Knows her real name and keeps it to herself. Viper greets her as "retired detective Olivia Cooper."
  • Mr. Slithers: Her cobra, who took to Elspeth immediately.
  • The butler: A gaunt, impeccably dressed gatekeeper who judges visitors' clothes and once pressed Silas's outfit on the spot.

Session History​

  • Session 46 — Victor tells the party he now works with Lady Viper, an older Twilight Company figure with plans against the Eldoran grid and, eventually, the space station.
  • Session 47 — Receives Taco Cat at Twilight Company headquarters, explains her origin and her plan to strike Eldoran's worship sites, spaceport, and violescence caches, and is moved by Luna in the pocket village; Olivia privately identifies her as Elizandra Legrand.
  • Session 54 — Hosts a pre-dawn dinner that doubles as Elspeth's date, briefs the party on infiltrating Eldoran through Lord Bradicus's contest, and sends them off with Finnegan.