Isolde

Isolde moves with the deliberate grace of a predator, each step measured, controlled—like someone who has stood before horrors beyond mortal comprehension and walked away victorious.

Her eyes, cold as a blade drawn at dawn, sweep over the party, not with curiosity, but calculation—as if she’s already deciding how much of a threat they pose, how much effort it would take to cut them down. The scarred, battle-worn leather of her coat whispers as she moves, the fabric still holding the weight of wars fought in realms most fear to tread.

At her side rests Nepenthe, its blade pulsing with a dull, hellish glow, as if it still remembers the screams of the damned it has silenced. The crimson light casts eerie shadows across her sharp features, anointing her in the color of blood. To those who know its name, the sword is a promise of death—a weapon that does not forgive, does not hesitate.

There is no warmth in her stance, no hint of welcome in her expression. Only an unshakable certainty—the presence of someone who has lost everything and will not tolerate losing anything more.

Nepenthe

The holy avenger named Nepenthe was crafted by Eladrin and shadar-kai to mete out justice as an executioner’s weapon. In its lifetime, the sword has beheaded thousands of criminals, not all of whom were guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. The sword cannot distinguish the guilty from the innocent. With each beheading, it hungers for more justice and blood.

Nepenthe came to the Carnival in the hands of a retired half-ogre who moonlighted as a sword-swallower. When the half-ogre died of old age, the sword was deemed the property of the Carnival. It was given to Isolde Mr Witch and Mr Light, who claimed that the sword would help her protect the Carnival against any threat.

In Isolde, the sword found a partner who shared its blind malice toward the guilty. Isolde uses Nepenthe to behead anyone found guilty of stealing from the Carnival or inflicting harm upon it.

As soon as Isolde took up the blade, it rekindled the grief and fury she had suppressed for so long, awakening the desire to avenge her long-dead companions by slaying The Caller.

Isolde always chooses the Carnival’s stops based on her predictions of the Caller’s next steps, and if her pursuit forces the Carnival into danger, so be it. Only by ridding Isolde of Nepenthe can she truly escape the Dark Powers’ clutches. But Isolde will never part with the blade willingly, and if it is taken from the Carnival, the sword will always find its way back.

In addition to having the properties of a holy avenger, Nepenthe is a sentient, neutral evil weapon with an Intelligence of 10, a Wisdom of 8, and a Charisma of 18. It has hearing and darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. It can read and understand Elvish. It can also speak Elvish, but only through the voice of its wielder, with whom the sword can communicate telepathically. When using its telepathy to speak to Isolde, the sword can mimic the voices of Isolde’s fallen companions as it drives her to catch their fiendish killer. Unlike Isolde, whose motives are good, the sword is corrupt and irredeemable.

Isolde was a holy warrior devoted to a pantheon of elven deities called the Seldarine. In this role, she defended the Feywild against dragons, demons, and other threats. In time, her heroics caught the eye of an archfey named Zybilna, who had forged secret pacts with some of the fiends Isolde and her companions had slain. Rather than be angry at Isolde, Zybilna was impressed by her. She enlisted a powerful fiend known only as “the Caller” to corrupt and slay all of Isolde’s companions, leaving Isolde alone, bitter, and vulnerable. The insidious archfey then befriended Isolde and offered to help her forget her terrible losses. Isolde became the master of a traveling fey carnival that served as a gateway to Zybilna’s domain. The carnival did what Zybilna hoped it would do: it brought comfort to Isolde and quelled her thirst for vengeance.

When Isolde’s fey carnival crossed paths with another carnival from the Shadowfell, the eladrin found the escape she longed for. Isolde orchestrated a trade with the other carnival’s owners, a pair of shadar-kai (elves native to the Shadowfell). Isolde would become the master of their carnival, and they would become the masters of hers. To appease Zybilna, this arrangement would remain in place only until the two carnivals crossed paths again.

Zybilna was intrigued enough by the shadar-kai to let Isolde go, but not without casting a spell that made Isolde forget about Zybilna and her Feywild domain, thus preventing the eladrin from divulging the archfey’s secrets. As a further punishment, Zybilna sent malevolent fey creatures to hound Isolde and her Shadowfell carnival. Isolde doesn’t know who is behind this petty torment, nor does she care. Her hunt for the Caller and her thirst for vengeance have become all-consuming.

The Carnival is the closest thing Isolde has to a family and a home, and she expects everyone who works for her to carry their weight. She endlessly overburdens herself, struggling to protect those around her as her hate for the Caller drives her forward at any cost.

Zybilna and Isolde enjoyed a strong partnership for years, but as time wore on, they grew distant until their relationship finally soured. Eladrin crave change, yet Isolde felt like she was frozen in time. She wished to leave the fey carnival and pursue other dreams, but Zybilna wouldn’t hear of it and secretly used wish spells to make Isolde place her devotion to the carnival above her desire to leave it.