No D&D Week: Lex Post Instead!

We didn't have D&D night this past week because two of our team members were out of town, so, this weeks post will be a behind the scenes of Lex and her personality, and motivations, enjoy!

Lex as a character is still uncomfortable being part of a team because she can't seem to take herself out of survival mode. It may come off to others that she's cold and calculating, and only looks out for herself. But, the reality is, Lex is coming out of 3 years spent living among people she could not trust, all to try to save her sister, who she feels responsible for. Saving her sister has been the only constant and purpose in her life. She has to hold onto that goal to feel like she's redeeming herself.

Being the half-elf love child and only elf in her family was a sense of shame and confusion for Lex in her youth. She doesn't know who her elf mother is, her father refusing to talk about it because it's a painful subject for him. Despite her father and human stepmother raising her and not being abusive, Lex always sensed she was not loved as much as her younger, human sister Mei. Her elf-ness was something she was ashamed of, something that separated her from her family. It was also a visual reminder that she knew nothing of the mother who abandoned her.

When Lex began displaying magical ability, it was the first time she felt unashamed of her half-elf heritage. Her father seemed very uncertain about allowing her to train, however, and instead wanted her to stay on the family farm and work. Lex felt that her elf-ness was making her family suspicious of her, and she grew resentful. She trained alone in secret in the woods behind their farm, using books she hid under her floorboards, bought on the rare trip to the city to sell goods.

It was during one of these secret magic lessons that Mei was kidnapped from the fields by slave traders. Lex was late going to help her, and when she arrived at the fields her step mother was crying in her father's arms for her stolen daughter. Lex was filled with an immense guilt at the image, and resolved that night to get her sister back and redeem herself.

Before winding up in Blood Spot, where her game story begins, she tracked the slavers across many miles. She harnessed her abilities with deception and manipulation magic by attempting to intimidate information out of low-lifes in the towns and camps she crossed. She developed a small reputation as a con woman by the time she landed in Blood Spot, where she would spend 3 years working as an enforcer and interrogator for the Blood Brothers before meeting the team and helping over throw the evil duo.

Lex's feelings toward her team are complicated. She has never been able to trust anyone, and has always felt like an outsider. She still considers her chief concern to be rescuing Mei.

For specific team members, Corax causes her the most immediate friction, because his outgoing and open personality conflicts with her closed and quiet demeanor. He also struggles to understand her choice to betray them with the end goal of saving the in Blood Spot. Crag and Lex have not interacted very much, but Lex respects that he understands her quest and allows her to do what she needs to do to fulfil it. Jamlamin she actually somewhat likes because he is also a practice of magic, though she secretly feels jelous of his formal training. Her feelings towards Quickroot and Eglan are colored with her own issues of being a half elf. Quickroot, especially makes her nervous because his wild, nature based behavior is in such contrast to her own, most human approaches to problems.

I believe in time Lex will grow to warm up to her team, once she truly feels she can be accepted and trust them. Her personal issues with being half-elf and loosing her sister, and her abandonment by her mother may be harder to solve and will depend on where the story goes.

I hope you've enjoyed learning a little more in detail about Lex, quiet and calculating, but with a tender heart underneath it all.