Lucius Lorelei

Lucius Lorelei
Official art of Lucius Lorelei from "Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36), by Kendra Wells.
Official art of Lucius Lorelei as a werewolf, by Kendra Wells.
Type	Guest Player Character
Actor	TJ Storm
Character Information
Name	Lucius Lorelei
Creature type	Humanoid
Race	Human (Werewolf)
Class	Cleric (variant of the Moon domain)
Age	At least 24 (in 835 PD)
Languages	Common, Elvish
Place	Castle Lorelei, Wildemount
Family	Haldur Lorelei (father) Rosalind Lorelei (mother) Aurra Lorelei (older sister) Portia Lorelei (younger sister) Lawrence Lorelei (younger brother, twin to Benicio) Benicio Lorelei (youngest brother, twin to Lawrence) Katerine Lorelei (great-aunt) Geneviève Lorelei (grandmother)
Connections	Moonweaver (deity)
Status
Status	Alive (in 835 PD)
Stats
Level	6
Appearances
First seen	"Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36)
Stream	Specials (1 episode)

Lucius Lorelei is a human cleric and a member of the Lorelei family. He was played by TJ Storm in "Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36).

Description

Appearance

In the human form Lucius looks like a man of dark skin with a soft purple hue (sign of his drow ancestry), dark eyes, a black soul patch and a shaved head; if his werewolf form can be indicative of it, Lucius' hair would be predominantly black, with a section of white hair beginning at the crown of his head and running down the nape of his neck. He dresses in shades of the traditional green of his house, with vine patterns on some of his garments; his cloak has a brooch (also green) with the symbol of Sehanine.

Personality

Lucius is a devout man with great regard for his fellow believers, and takes the credit for his magical acts to Sehanine, and sometimes even showing some arrogance for the protection that the goddess offered him. He is respectful of his older relatives, and slightly humorous around his siblings, while maintaining a serious demeanor.

He maintains contact with the small folk.

Biography

Background

Lucius was the second eldest child in the Lorelei family after his sister Aurra, two years his senior. He had vague memories of his mother, Rosalind, but for him it was his great-aunt Katerine Lorelei who raised and nurtured him alongside his father, Lord Haldur Lorelei (who had also been raised by Katerine), teaching him how to read and write.

As a child, Lucius heard the voice of the Moonweaver whispering to him by the light of a full moon. He prayed to her nightly, and when he was old enough to make up his own mind, he followed her voice to the Temple of the Moonweaver and joined her cult, finding a second family, and leaving behind his family traditions (which made him unfit to become heir). His father respected his decision, and even adapted part of the settlement to give Lucius a place to pray. Since Sehanine is a protector of love and night trysts, Lucius had vast sexual experience working for the temple.

"Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36)

After Lucius was reunited with his siblings in Deastok after a long time apart, he took a moment to speak with the locals, receiving news about the increasingly worrying conflict with Xhorhas; he also made sure that the Deastok criminals had not started any suspicious activities recently, and after that last check, he and his siblings left for their home.

When they went to Castle Lorelei and saw it in the distance with no lights but open doors, Lucius proposed to enter through a passage on the back side of the castle, as a precaution, and on their way there they argued about the cleric's lack of stealth. When they finally entered, they found about fifteen butchered corpses in the Moonweaver chapel that Lord Haldur Lorelei had built for Lucius. The siblings immediately began to investigate, and as they toured the area, Lucius picked up a shield bearing Sehanine's emblem. They followed their father's trail, using Aurra's highly developed sense of smell, and when they were approaching the main keep of Castle Lorelei Lucius tried to listen to any potential activity, hearing absolute silence, so they entered.

When the siblings arrived at Lord Lorelei's office, they found Haldur's severed hand and a note stating that he was in the crypts; after investigating there for a bitLucius remembered their great-aunt Katerine, and ran to her chambers. They discovered her dead, with signs of having been killed while fighting. Lucius proposed to bury her, and Aurra suggested doing it in the woods. Although Benicio protested, they ended up agreeing that the two elder siblings would take care of Katerine's body, and then rejoin the rest. Aurra and Lucius buried their elderly Aunt Kat and couldn't help but cry, since they were the closest to her; the second-born, more specifically, had become a worshiper of Sehanine because of the stories Aunt Kat told them when they were young.

Fan art of Lucius and Portia, by Elaine Tipping.

When the Lorelei siblings reunited again, the three youngest showed the firstborn a strange dagger with "Silent Message" written in Elven on the hilt, explaining that they had found it in her room. Aurra recognized the scent of the weapon, comparing it to that of a guest their parents had hosted part of the summer when she was six, adding that the individual (possibly an elf in disguise) had not given her a good feeling. The siblings continued exploring, prepared for a confrontation, and at Lucius's suggestion they made a detour through the forest to be more stealthy. Aurra's nose guided them to the family mausoleum, where they found some humans who had camped there. A small battle ensued, in which Lucius advised his siblings to attack the spellcaster who was raising their deceased relatives as undead; the cleric used his own magic to attack the intruders, heal Portia and Turn Undead, making their fight easier. After Aurra interrogated Ray (one of the intruders) and threw her off the roof, Lucius cast Toll the Dead to finish her, but the human resisted his magic, so Benicio killed her with his glaive.

After that the siblings took a small break, during which Portia berated her older siblings for their decision to bury Katerine in the woods, away from the rest of House Lorelei. Aurra, however, defended her decision, saying that the old woman deserved a natural burial, and Lucius pointed out that half of their deceased ancestors were wandering the Cyrengreen Forest as undead anyway; that caused him to notice the censers that were used to raise the dead, and he buried them in the mud to make sure they wouldn't activate again. As he did so, Benny asked if he had promised chastity as a cleric, to which his older brother reminded him that his deity was the goddess of secret romances, prompting Portia to clarify that Lucius had an active love life. The younger brother admitted that if he had known, he would have paid more attention to his Aunt Kat's stories about the Moonweaver, and Lucius took advantage of the moment to reminisce about the deceased woman's teachings, Haldur's lessons, and why the siblings were there, using his Inspiring Leader feat to strengthen them all.

The siblings finally entered the crypt, proceeding cautiously in the darkness, with Lucius casting Light to help them see. Along the way Aurra informed them that she heard someone breathing up ahead, making Portia change into her werewolf form, while Lucius re-inspected the elven dagger with Lawrence, deducing by the inscription, "Silent Message", that it might be from Xhorhas.

They eventually reached an area with torches where they encounter a chitinous armored drow who has a flail wrapped around Haldur Lorelei's neck. Lucius threw a coin enchanted with the Light cantrip to eliminate any areas with limited vision just as the battle began. Benny pulled his father away from the drow roughly, but since the captor had the flail on Lord Lorelei's neck, its barbed edges tore his throat and he began to bleed profusely, which alarmed Aurra, who used her magic to stop him from bleeding out. Haldur catched his breath and yelled "Stop!", but the battle raged around him. Just as Lucius cast Silence on the area around the the Kryn agent, the drow's summoned ally, the Iron Woe, appeared: the reanimated grandmother of the siblings, Lady Geneviève, as an undead figure with a lupine head, darkened bones, inky energy coursing through her body, and the remains of Lorelei green drapes covering her skeleton. After that the Xhorhasian intruder left the area of Lucius' spell to command his Spiritual Weapon to attack Portia, and then took the opportunity to turn invisible and put some distance from the Lorelei siblings; meanwhile Geneviève managed to fend off Aurra (who was transformed into a direwolf), at which point Lucius, still keeping a safe distance, cast Moonbeam on the Iron Woe. The undead creature expelled dark energy around itself, radiating anger, pain and sorrow; Portia and Benicio resisted it, but Lawrence was overcome with fear, loss and confusion, feeling the urge to walk away from the battle. Aurra was overcome with the same sensation, but Lucius sent his magic to strengthen her, dispelling her fear, while Sehanine whispered in her ear to stand. Portia and Benicio attacked their grandmother, and Lawrence joined them, though even with his older brother's magical assistance he was unable to shake the fear of the Iron Woe. Lucius summoned his own Spiritual Weapon (a silver scimitar in the shape of a crescent moon) and continued to hit their reanimated enemy with Moonbeam, using his magic to slow her down. However, the invisible dark elf took advantage of the chaos of combat to approach Lucius and hit him with necrotic magic (becoming visible by doing so) and receiving a cut from the Lorelei's sickle when moving away from him. The cleric focused on their enemy, making sure to keep his Moonbeam over their enemy again, and attacking with a Guiding Bolt; he briefly tried to assess something about the drow too, but was unable to remember anything about their culture, other than that the Dwendalian Empire was at war with them.

When Benicio finally finished off the undead Geneviève Lorelei with his glaive, Lucius redirected his siblings' attention to their remaining enemy, who was trying to escape. Larry marked the Kryn Agent with his blood curse and Aurra cast Wind Wall to catch him. The force of the current in such a closed space caused the dark elf to be hit mercilessly and die.

The siblings brought Haldur to his chambers, where he explained the whole situation and the truth behind his own mother's death, as well as the identity of the drow as his own father and Geneviève's former lover; he told them to learn from such a dark incident in their family history, asking them to help him seal the tomb again in the coming weeks, and expressing how much he loved his children. After such intense events he fell asleep, leaving Lucius and his siblings thinking about the future of House Lorelei.

Character information

Notable items

• Sickle
• Ancestral shield containing the symbol of the Moonweaver.

Abilities

Unless otherwise noted, the following abilities are assumed from the standard Dungeons & Dragons materials:

Feats

• Inspiring Leader

Werewolf abilities

• Keen Hearing and Smell
• Resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage dealt by non-silvered weapons.

Cleric abilities

Class features

• Channel Divinity (2 uses per short rest):
  • Turn Undead
    • Destroy Undead (CR 1/2)
• Divine Domain: Moon Domain (partially a homebrew; transferred from D&D 3.5e)
  • Luminous Clarity
  • Mark of Waning
• Ritual Casting
• Spellcasting (Wisdom-based ability)

Domain spells

Lucius always has access to these spells.

1st-level

• Faerie Fire

2nd-level

• Moonbeam

Cleric spells

In addition to his domain spells, Lucius has access to four cleric cantrips and 1st- through 3rd-level cleric spells. As a 6th-level cleric, he can prepare up to 10 of these spells per day.

Cantrips

• Guidance
• Light
• Toll the Dead
• Sacred Flame

1st-level

• Guiding Bolt
• Healing Word

2nd-level

• Silence
• Spiritual Weapon

3rd-level

• Spirit Guardians

Appearances and mentions

• Specials
  • "Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36) (first appearance)

Quotations

• Benicio: Come on, you allowed to be with a lady or anything? Or do you have to be all chaste?
  Lucius: Do you not remember the stories our aunt told us? The Moonweaver is the goddess of secret trysts in dark places.
  Portia: He gets a lot of action.
  Lucius: A lot.

Trivia

• His name derives from lux, which means "light" in Latin. In a way, the name itself is a reference to the goddess Lucius worships and her divine magic, with many of the cleric's spells being based on moonlight.
  • Interestingly, he shares that etymology with Lucien Tavelle, who by the end of his life also ended up connecting with the Moonweaver.
• Lucius was the only one of the Lorelei siblings not to transform into his werewolf during the one-shot episode.
  • It is possible that this is because, while his sister Aurra learned to master her animal side on her own, living many years in the forest to make up for not having undergone the Taming, Lucius focused on his work as a cleric, so perhaps he has less control in his lupine form than the rest of his siblings.
• Lucius' Moon Domain is apparently unrelated to the Moon Domain presented in Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, although it may have served as an inspiration for Matthew Mercer to create a new one for Exandria. Since TJ took an adapted subclass from an older edition, it could be interpreted as if Lucius' discipline as a cleric was more old-fashioned (in the same way that other elements of older editions of Dungeons and Dragons are considered ancient knowledge in the world of Exandria).

References

Art: