Firiona Vie

Tunare’s Chosen

Her name was Firiona Vie. She was the daughter of King Tearis Thex of the high elves, and the Mother of All had marked her as her own: Tunare’s Chosen. Through the Thex line she was distantly kin to the house that ruled Neriak, the city of her people’s darkest cousins.

Taken by the iksar

Then she was taken. The iksar Danak Dhorentath carried her off into Kunark, and the crown did not give her up. On royal orders Galeth Veredeth crossed the sea and raised an elven outpost on that hostile shore, a base from which to search for her. The outpost took the name of the woman it had been built to bring home: Firiona Vie.

Arrival at Kunark

Her story on Kunark begins at the waterline. Tired from the long voyage, Firiona and her friends stepped off the elven ship near the tiny stronghold in the new lands. The morning air was cool, and a stiff wind blew in off the sea.

Her companions

She did not walk that shore alone. With her travelled Lyirae Oakwynd, the gnomes Ognit Eznertob and Dabner Drednever, Dagda Icefury, Sir Jevik Isqual, Thubr Axebringer and Dreezil Pocketdip, and her chronicler, Sionachie Heartsinger. When at last she was rescued, the outpost that bore her name held a festival of thanks, the feast of Tunare’s Harvest.

Bloody Kithicor

Kunark was not the only darkness she faced. Firiona Vie stood in the battle remembered as Bloody Kithicor, against Lanys T’Vyl, the daughter of Innoruuk, and the in-game histories of that battle carry her to its last moments near the entrance to High Pass. There the two armies’ leaders met. Lord Tephys raised his mailed fist and swore, “By the grace of The Mother, you will be stopped Child of Hate!”

Tephys fell. Firiona moved to help him and saw that she was too late, and in that moment Lanys “sprung upon Firiona like a hunting cat.” The fury of the attack caught her by surprise, and so did the sheer strength behind each blow.

Restored and sent out

She survived, and she knew whom to thank. Simple prayer would not be enough for what Tunare had done in protecting her, so she went to Kelethin in search of a devout follower named Mirriana. The goddess answered with a charge: “Seek them out, My Child, and restore them as you have been restored. First, find your chronicler.” The chronicler was Sionachie Heartsinger, who “still sings the history of the elves.”

Homecoming

Months passed before Firiona saw Felwithe again. After her rescue she rested at the outpost and attended its celebrations, and only then, word came to Captain Silverwind, was she finally coming home. A torn diary page later found in the Faydark records that she and Galeth Veredeth had returned safely from “the bitter lands of Kunark.” At the Tunare’s Harvest feast her father, King Tearis Thex, named her restoration “the crown of the Mother’s gifts to us this year.”

Missing again

Norrath’s newspapers never tired of her. “Firiona Vie Missing Again!” ran in Volume 8, Number 6, in papers across many cities, and in Oggok the ogres’ own paper printed one reader’s opinion that she would make a good meal.

The outpost in the game

For players, her story left a place behind. When The Ruins of Kunark opened in 2000, the outpost of Firiona Vie was the good-aligned foothold on the new continent: a safe harbour for elves and their allies in lands ruled by the iksar and by the dragons of the Ring of Scale.