Alluvius Ruskin

“If Sigil is the City of Doors, then it’s also got to be the city of keys - it just follows.” So says Alluvius Ruskin, owner of Tivvum’s Antiquities, the largest supplier of gate keys in the Cage. Need a white rose petal to open a gate to Arborea? Or bow about a baatezu heart for a trip to the frozen wastes of Cania? Whatever the key, it’s a good bet that the object’s in a bin, barrel, or case at Tivvum’s.
Alluvius, a small, elderly tiefling, speaks in a shaky voice, but she’s fiercely confident about her business. “I’ve had to work twice as hard to get my good reputation,” she says. ‘It‘s almost been the death of me! I know what folks think when they see a tiefling, and believe me, it ain’t ‘Here, take my jink’!.
Alluvius (Lu, for short) exaggerates just a bit. But no one else knows that practically nothing could he the death of her. She’s an incantifier. She no longer lives in the normal sense of the word, having no need to breathe, eat, or sleep; instead, she feeds on magic. Lu can absorb the effect of any spell thrown at her or drain every last drop of power from any magical item. Fact is, she must - she’s got to absorb enough magic each month to keep from permanently losing some of her own power.   But Lu’s need for magic goes far beyond just sustaining herself from month to month. For an incantifier, magic is the key to everything because it equals might - if a body gets enough of it, he can bend the multiverse to his will. Centuries ago, the incantifiers were a full-fledged faction in Sigil. Called the Incanterium - and nicknamed the Magicians - the magic-eaters grew in power and influence until they could make the other factions jump. Then they just disappeared one day, citadel and all.   Most folks chalked it up to the Lady of Pain. But a few incantifiers remained. One of them, a blood named Tiwum, took Alluvius under his wing; she underwent a dozen years' worth of spells and rituals that  transformed her into a Magician in her own right. And wheter Tivvum left the Cage in search of life-sustaining magic or ultimately met the same fate as his fellows, one day he, too, vanished - leaving Lu in charge of Tivvum's Antiquities.
Lu’s determined not to fade away like her incantifier predecessors. She figures they went about their mission of collecting all the magic in Sigil a little too obviously. As she sees it, a magician ought to have a bit more sleight of hand - especially if she hopes to get one up on the lady.   See, Lu's ulötimate goal is to drain Sigil itself of magic, and she's looking for a magical item (or perhaps a one-of-a-kind wild magic surge) that'll let her do it. Lu figures that the Lady derives power from the city. That means she'll get weaker as Lu gets sronger. And when Alluvius rules Sigil - and all the wondrous magic of its portals - she imagines she'll also rule the multiverse.   'Course, this is no small feat for the frail tiefling. But while she gathers every spell and magical item she can get her hands on (often trading them for gate keys). She's got a scheme in the works that might quicken her rise to power. She trades raw evil magic to the shadow fiend Ly'kritch in exchange for gems that contain trapped intellects. Lu hopes that, sooner or later, the fiend'll bring her a gem that houses the spirit of a wizard strong enough to help her defeat the Lady.   Legend has it that, millenia ago, an unnamed wizard almost put Sigil's high-ups down all by himself. But the Lady managed to capture his mind in an orb and stash it deep in a cave on Pandemonium. Now, Lu's sources tell her that the "orb" - really a gem - is in the posession of a shadow fiend in the Lower Planes. She wants to find that gem, free the wizard, and gain an ally for her eventual showdown with the lady.