Littlehorn Lana



A refugee from Tyr in Southern Cath Bruig; her younger years were spent in a Religious reformation school on the periphery of the town. Her mother, Melisma, was a Tiefling, and her father, Roger, a human - whilst her parents’ union was not socially extraordinary, Roger had never been particularly proud of the direction his lust had taken him. When Lana, their first and only child, was born, Roger’s somewhat racist sense of civic duty drove his desire to send the ‘tainted’ child to the sisterhood of Erathis convent to live out her days in piety and celibacy. Melisma of course refused until Lana, age 5, unwittingly burned down an entire block of terrace houses following a tantrum so intense she had subconsciously called upon the vehement fiery malevolence of her accursed race and set fire to the family’s Tyranian blinds. After the blaze had claimed its final home that afternoon, Roger is recalled to have drawn a half-melted kitchen knife against his child; only to be opposed by his wife. After a very public scuffle between the couple, Roger is quoted as having said “Well she didn’t get the arson gene from my family!” and he was then immediately stabbed by his wife as ‘penance for years of prejudice and poor taste’.

Lana was sent by authorities to the convent, Melisma was sent to Tyr’s dungeons. Lana held no great love for the Pastors of Erathis, nor Erathis herself. She would often, aged 9, find herself following the clerics of the convent into town, specifically to Tyr’s famous brothel ‘The Raunchy Haunch’. She would observe the Clerics in the often disconcerting act of coitus through voyeuristic little holes in the brothel’s pantry wall. She was often let in the back of the brothel by Mary, a young attendant who took a shine to the Tiefling girl. However, whilst on one such expedition, the head pastor of the convent, stepping out of the brothel for fresh air, found Lana waiting at the window. The Tiefling child was dragged by the horns back to the convent, and the following day was publically humiliated in one of Tyr’s lesser public squares - her back was flayed, her horns were severed and her hair was cut to the scalp in a show of justice based on a somewhat loose interpretation of Erathis’ commandments. ‘Be merciful’ was of course conveniently overlooked. Lana was from that day declared to be ‘not admitted outside of holy grounds without express permission from Erathis herself’.

The following week Melisma was released from her penal servitude, and upon hearing of Lana’s punishment, appealed to the school to release her. The school refused, claiming the child was now a church issue. Melisma immediately went about organising board for her now deformed Tiefling daughter upon a Tyranian merchant vessel, hoping to get her away from the prevalent religious nuttery in Cath Bruig and Children of Spring held territory. Melisma stole the child away at night with help from several ex-convicts who would occasionally play poker or charades together on Fridays, and the group brought Lana to Naza Na Laurel, an Elvish Tyranian Captain of the frigate Rosey Tuesday. The Elvish Captain agreed on a modest sum in exchange for the girl and her mother’s safe passage. Captain Nazza was no older than 18, an intelligent and vivacious Elvish woman of lavish living standards, whom Lana immediately idolised. Nazza in return quite admired Lana’s own vivacity, and demanded Melisma allow her to apprentice the Tiefling child. Melisma agreed and Lana spent the next seven years under the Captain learning the value of song, drink, maritime practice, and lesbianism. The latter, for taste’s sake, was only taught when Lana was technically of legal age in Tyrania. Lana grew talented in both song and self-defence aboard the Rosey Tuesday and was often called on to calm hostile dockworkers or entertain guests of the Captain. Her horns eventually grew back to a respectable, though somewhat stunted, size - Nazza and the crew affectionately named her 'Littlehorn' for the disfigurement and Lana came to enjoy such playful rebuke.

In Rios, Lana was introduced to many influential Tyranian figures through Nazza, including Riccardo Si Bebo, Merchant Marine Extraudinare, who convinced Lana to take part in an unforgiving and elite year-long training program for Tyrania’s most esteemed agent provocateurs, spies, diplomats, and assassins, the ''Velour Claws. ''Lana was one of five who survived that year’s training regime and was immediately posted, for Tyranian Federate interests, as a spy in Southern Harken, which had apparently just become the Vale’s first Socialist State and thereby more reserved in its trading of commodities. “Selfish comrade bastards.” – Si Bebo, Avandaranduary 12th, year 180.