Lysianthos

Occupation: Spelunker/cave explorer, Maren beastclan representative
Partner(s): Skyla, Celestine, Crush
Birthplace: Wispwillow Grove
Pronouns: she/they
Personality: persistent, generous, steady

Lysianthos owes her somewhat unusual name to an obscure ritual performed by her clan of origin, a small, mostly snapper-populated tribe dwelling in the Tangled Wood. Soon after she hatched, she was placed in a meadow lush with Shadowland growth and observed. The first plant or fungus she interacted with would be the name she chose for herself. The tiny snapper surprised them all by wandering quite far out of her way, continuing to descend down steep hills until she met the face of a yawning cavern. There, she sat and took a large bite out of a purple blossom peeking out between a limestone crag. The lisianthus, owing its name to a language almost forgotten in modern Draconic. A flower of dissolution.

Her family met this omen with grave concern. They thought the child was fated to bring chaos and discord to the already small nook of Sornieth they called home. This wariness was not lost on Lysianthos as she grew up. Her parents loved her, obviously, but she could see the fear hiding in their eyes whenever they looked upon her. They raised her as they would any clan member; they taught her what plants to gather in which season, the right molds with which to age cheese, how to strip thistle branches for basket weaving, how to divine the future from patterns in the night sky. But she always felt outside of them. Whenever a clutch yielded a lone egg, whenever an accident befell a snapper, Lysianthos was the first they turned to.

It came as no surprise that Lysianthos set off on her own as soon as she came of age. It hurt them to part with one of their own as their numbers slowly dwindled, but they reasoned it was for the best. The weight she carried festered into a deep grudge as she carried on past the edges of the Tangled Wood. Her heart ached to have them shed their ridiculous superstition, to embrace her as they did her siblings, her parents, any other snapper blessed by the Shadowbinder. Without realizing it, she began another descent. Strangely, the lower she went, the more at home she found herself. She found herself at the entrance of a cave once more. This time, there was no one to stop her from going in.

Navigating the subterrain wasn’t an easy task, but her family’s rejection drove her further into the depths. She sidestepped every fissure, squeezed through every crevice, headbutted every crumbling stalagmite stubborn enough to remain in her way. She continued on this fashion until she came across something perhaps more stubborn than a determined snapper: a Maren pod none too pleased about the destruction being done to the formations of their sacred cave.

Lysianthos submitted herself to Maren judgment without protest. By that point, her resolve was gone and her spirit had drained. Thalassa, the pod’s oldest matron, could see the internal struggle going on within this lost dragon and asked if she could be of assistance. Lysianthos only wished to stay there, miles below where any other dragon could see her and fear the things she could not do. Feeling sympathy, Thalassa was willing to allow her to stay, provided she help with a problem of hers: negotiate peace with the hostile Plague dragons that constantly looted their caverns and wished to spread their pestilent Contagion deep within Sornieth.

Expecting violence to be inevitable, Lysianthos was pleased to find some of the looters amicable to discussion. She even found herself signing a treaty with the Matriarch of a clan called Macrophage, calling for a cessation of Contagion spread in exchange for a periodical fair trade of goods with the subterranean Maren. Not only was she accepted as an honorary member of the Maren pod, she was welcomed into Macrophage as well. As she lives, the prophecy on her head has not come to pass. And stars be damned, nor will she let it.