Liana

Liana
Type	NPC
Actor	Brennan Lee Mulligan
Character Information
Name	Liana Saph[presumed, (as Nia's sister)]
Creature type	Humanoid
Race	Half-elf
Age	Young (toward the end of the Calamity)
Place	Torm's Hill, Gwessar
Family	Casimir and Marsa (parents) Rei'nia Saph (older sister)
Status
Status	Dead
Cause of death	Her divine soul abandoned her body
Death episode(s)	"Mirror and Key" (E4x03)
Appearances
Stream	Exandria Unlimited: Divergence (2 episodes)

Liana was a half-elf and the younger sister of Rei'nia Saph, a cleric who lived during the Divergence. She was also the mortal incarnation of the Moonweaver. As an NPC, Liana was played by Brennan Lee Mulligan.

Description

Liana was a young half-elven woman who had grown slightly taller than her older sister. She had a grace and cleverness that impressed even her enemies.

Biography

Background

During the last three decades of the Calamity, the Moonweaver, as the goddess of love, decided she wanted to experience that emotion from a mortal point of view and to know what it was like to be loved by mortal family, not just as a member of an eternal pantheon. Thus, she sent a part of herself to Exandria and was born as the second half-elven daughter in Rei'nia Saph's family named Liana. She grew up with her older sister and with no memory of her true identity. They were both friends of Luz, a tiefling that shared stories about the Moonweaver, causing them to develop their own personal beliefs connected to the goddess and Catha. During her childhood Liana always felt that there was something strange in her, but she didn't know what it was.

At some point towards the end of the Calamity the sisters separated from their parents, and they traveled across Gwessar with other companions. Eventually Liana went off to search by herself, agreeing with Nia to meet up at Torm's Hill. During her journey she met an eisfuura warrior in the middle of a battle that gave her the Orb of Avalir, asking her to take it away from danger. When she arrived in Torm's Hill, Liana found Luz again, and learned that her parents had been there but had already left; as she promised, she waited for her sister for months (not knowing she had been imprisoned), but she left after receiving a vision in dreams, prepared to travel to Snowgrave Pass. Liana kept moving, getting more visions, but also gaining skills that helped her survive; about four months before the Divergence she avoided the arrows of soldiers of the Strife Emperor with impressive ease. Shortly after that she arrived at a lake where she found the body of Donaea, a fallen cleric of the Moonweaver. Liana gave her a proper burial, and while looking at her holy symbol she had a moment of revelation, understanding her own identity as the mortal avatar of the Moonweaver and the importance of her existence and her connection to her sister.

"Mirror and Key" (E4x03)

Liana became the guardian of a hidden sanctum inside a promontory, in which several magic items and artifacts were kept so that they couldn't be used for evil. Eventually, Nia arrived in the area, along with her own friends; when she was examining Moon's Mirror, Liana appeared in its reflection, silently asking her sister to follow her. Shortly after Nia saw her on the top of a nearby mountain, where Liana told him she knew he would find her, and apologizing because "they" had not been able to find a better solution; her body then collapsed, and when Nia reached her crossing a bridge made of pure moonlight, Sehanine revealed herself, still with Liana's familiar features. The goddess and the half-elf greeted each other, hugging and crying, and the Moonweaver revealed her story to the one that had been her mortal sister (using that chance to confirm that their parents were safe and in Vasselheim); she also explained the creation of the Divine Gate and how important her connection with Nia was, since it would serve as an example of love defying the new barrier between gods and mortals. They talked for a bit, and Sehanine/Liana expressed genuine confusion when Nia asked her if she had sent fireflies to her back in Rybad-Kol; eventually, they had to say goodbye, and after kissing her sister's cheek and hugging her one last time, the goddess abandoned Exandria.

Relationships

Liana and her sister deeply loved each other, and even after the younger sister realized she was the incarnation of a goddess, that loved was unchanged. She wanted to meet her again eventually, in her divine realm, but valued Nia's life enough to want her to live as long as possible.

• Exandria Unlimited: Divergence
  • "Give and Take" (E4x01) (first mentioned)
  • "Seven of Them" (E4x02), mentioned only
  • "Mirror and Key" (E4x03), mentioned only
  • "By Heart Alone" (E4x04), mentioned only

Fan art of Liana's confusion, by Elaine Tipping.

Quotations

• Nia: (about the love between her and her sister) It is unending.
  Liana/Sehanine: Unending.

Trivia

• Celia Rose Gooding created her character and her dynamic with Liana as a way to honor sisterly love and her own sister, Zaya.
• When they were younger, Nia and Liana believed that they could find each other in Catha in their dreams.
• Nia kept a locket with a picture of Liana, her sister, and whenever something magical happened, she instinctively thought of her. Although Liana was divine, she (even as the Moonweaver) wasn't responsible for the fireflies that came out of the locket.

References

Art: