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A LORE LOOK AT THE LADY LAERAL

For those of you who have campaigns set in Waterdeep, or that often visit the City of Splendors, perhaps in the wake of running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, it’s well worth shining the lore spotlight on the Lady Laeral, Open Lord of Waterdeep (the formal ruler of the place), as she tends to take a look at adventurers of all stripes operating on her turf.

So we’ll begin with a very abbreviated tour of Laeral’s life, that made her into what she is now, and then wind up with what she’s like if you meet her at your gaming table right now.

So who is Laeral, anyway?

Born Anamanué (“Ann-ah-MANN-you-ay”) Laeral (LAYER-all) Silverhand in 765 DR, the Year of the Cowl, and much later known as Laeral Silverhand Arunsun (AIR-un-sun), Laeral is the fifth in birth order of the famous Seven Sisters, and a Chosen of Mystra. Many of her friends just call her “Laer,” and her truename is Myroune [“My-ROON”].

She is currently the Open Lord of Waterdeep (the spokeswoman for the Masked Lords who rule that city), and has in the past been the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, “Lady Blackstaff,” and styled at various times the Witch-Queen of Stornanter, and the Witch-Queen of the North. (In the parlance of those days, “witch-queen” was what folk called a queen who was powerful in arcane magic; it was spoken with respect by many, not just with fear or loathing.)

After her mother died, Laeral, along with her sisters Dove and Storm, was raised by Elminster (under Mystra’s orders). You can see a glimpse of this in my short story “Dark Talons Forbear Thee,” in the 2005 anthology The Best of the Realms II: The Stories of Ed Greenwood.

As they came of age and felt ready, Dove and Storm departed Elminster’s care, but Laeral chose to stay with him as his apprentice, learning to become a wizard of power, until she felt “capable enough in magic, and wise enough in its uses and quirks” (as she put it) to fend for herself. Whereupon she left life with Elminster for a career with the Harpers.

Finding Harper life to be far too violent, far too filled with fellow Harpers who loved acting mysterious and important and who enjoyed keeping secrets from their fellow Harpers regardless of the cost, and grieving the loss of several Harper friends in action, Laeral soon left the Harpers.

Unbeknownst to her, she’d attracted the attention of the Chosen of Mystra Khelben ‘Blackstaff’ Arunsun, who kept an eye on her from a distance (and close up, assuming many different guises to do so, to conceal his true identity from her; he was falling in love with her but being very reluctant to accept this, and “testing himself” as well as taking his measure of her repeatedly, to make sure this wasn’t just a passing infatuation).

Laeral might have left the Harpers, but she hadn’t abandoned most of their goals of the time, and one of them was to increase “safe” (under the rule of law, and protected by “just” armed lawkeepers) settled territory in the Sword Coast North. Going on adventures and patrols with like-minded adventurers from Waterdeep, Amn, and Tethyr, she gained their support, and with them founded the kingdom of Stornanter, building its capitol of Stornanter from the fishing village of Stornal (present-day Port Llast). She ascended the throne of Stornanter as its first ruling Queen (in the Year of the Warrior’s Rest, 806 DR, when she was 41). During her reign, which lasted until 841 DR, she sought to refound ruined Illusk (present-day Luskan), so as to form a shoreline of settled territory along the coastal trade-road to Mirabar, linking Mirabar overland with Waterdeep and the Sword Coast beyond. Unbeknownst to her, a disguised Khelben served in her court as her court mage Malek Aldhanek, and the two became very close until his death (which was faked by Khelben so he could depart, and deal with what he saw as the imminent, and dark, effects of one of Alaundo’s prophecies).

Shattered by Malek’s demise, Laeral quit her court and spent twenty five years wandering Stornanter, grieving him and seeking purpose as she adventured and aided her people. Her reign as Witch-Queen of Stornanter ended in the Year of the Hunted Elk, when she battled her sister Syluné (who’d come looking to rule the “queenless” land that ambitious rival self-styled nobles were fighting over). The goddess Mystra manifested to them in mid spell-battle, to stop them destroying each other, revealed to them that they were sisters and her daughters, and offered them the mantles of Chosen to serve her. When both accepted, Mystra’s servitors assumed mortal guises to spread the word that Laeral had fallen in battle, as Mystra and the god Azuth, who served Mystra, made it clear to Laeral that being a Chosen would mean constant travel and missions, and to serve properly—and to protect the folk of Stornanter from reprisals, she could not continue to rule her realm.

Becoming a Chosen, for any of Mystra’s daughters, involved some mind-sharing in which the goddess not only saw everything of their characters and knowledge, but altered them, conferring powers upon them. Mystra gifted Laeral with the ability to understand and skillfully master the infusion of dweomers (magical auras) into items, understanding how materials withstood enchantment, and able by handling existing items, to identify their powers and properties precisely. (And protect herself in certain ways from harm from item magic by calling on the Weave to ground energies and harmful effects.) By touch, she could divine the ability of a magic item, without activating it—and this included holding curses and traps on items in abeyance; Mystra had granted her the power to deactivate magic item abilities or cause them to go awry into “wild” effects she could aim or steer.

Azuth then instructed Laeral in the making of simple magic items, and encouraged her to experiment and craft her own, which she did, making hundreds of magic items down the centuries, though she’s made relatively few since she first fell under the influence of the Crown of Horns.

For about a year after becoming Chosen, Laeral and Syluné adventured together under the guidance of the god Azuth, learning what was expected of them (to carry out Mystra’s greatest goal, which was to make magic available to all sentient beings across Toril, curbing the activities only of those individuals who sought to use their magic for tyranny, and deny magic to others) and the details of their new powers and abilities (silver fire and Weave-work).

Then Azuth “set them free,” as he put it, and encouraged them to forge their own lives when not carrying out missions he, Mystra, and Mystra’s servitors would communicate to them, and to do so separate from each other. They were also encouraged to conceal their Chosen status as much as possible, and avoid drawing attention to their longevity by adopting various assumed names and appearances (living successive “ordinary mortal lives” rather than being Laeral and Syluné the Chosen for century after century).

Finding she had a taste for it, Laeral chose to become a succession of adventurers, leaning on her Chosen powers (for instance, using the Weave to rapidly heal and purge infections and poisonings in herself) to become fearless and to enjoy life, both drinking and lovemaking.

For centuries she fought monsters and bandits and robber barons all over Faerûn, with many different adventuring companions, exploring the planes and learning Draconic, Elvish, Giant, and Infernal beyond what Elminster had taught her to master spells.

Eventually, in 1337 DR, the Year of the Wandering Maiden, as the leader of the adventuring band known as the Nine (based nigh the Unicorn Run river in the High Forest), Laeral encountered an ancient Netherese artifact, the Crown of Horns; it had been “planted” for her to find by the Netherese lich Aumvor the Undying, who sought to use the Crown to influence her to marry him. However, when Laeral put the Crown on (intending to master its evil), her innate silver fire wrestled with the Crown’s powers, and she went mad.

Aumvor couldn’t control Laeral, but the Crown had the power of the god Myrkul in it, and gradually tightened its hold on Laeral; she became its thrall, and acted for evil across the Sword Coast North, becoming known as the Wild Woman and the Witch of the North.

She used the Stronghold of the Nine as her home, and either enslaved, drove away, or slew the rest of the Nine. Eventually her depredations became damaging enough that Khelben, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, was forced to act against her

Khelben took counsel with Mystra, was advised as to just how to conduct himself to defeat Laeral without destroying her or causing huge waves of wild magic to rend the Weave and leave dead magic and wild magic chaos behind, and in the Year of the Prince, 1357 DR, he lured Laeral out into the High Forest and into a spell-duel that did much damage to the landscape (though Mystra, Azuth, and Mystra’s servitors invisibly and silently dampened much of the havoc).

Khelben prevailed when he managed to sunder the Crown, freeing Laeral from its control. He took her to his abode, Blackstaff Tower in Waterdeep, and nursed her back to health. She became his partner, the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, and dwelt in Blackstaff Tower. Waterdhavians addressed her as “Lady Arunsun,” though they never formally wed, and some folk in the city believed Khelben had magically enslaved Laeral—something she never denied, as it led some foes of Khelben to try to ally with her, revealing their intentions. Laeral became chatelaine of Blackstaff Tower and ran the Blackstaff Academy she and Khelben founded to train all the would-be wizards who came seeking apprenticeships.

She spent much of her days meeting socially with folk who sought her out, building friendships among the nobility and guilds of Waterdeep and its independent merchants, so magic would be better accepted and trusted, and the Blackstaff would be seen as an ally rather than someone to be feared. She also met in secret with Harper agents, coordinating their activities in Waterdeep and across the Sword Coast North (and after the Harper schism, co-ran the Moonstars Harper offshoot with Khelben). She acted as a covert diplomat for the Lords’ Alliance, and as a spy for the Lords of Waterdeep (using the disguise and persona of Irusyl Eraneth {“Eye-ROOSE-ill Air-ANN-eth”] in Skullport). Her spying also extended to apprentices and former apprentices when they’d departed Blackstaff Tower, and she used spells and the Weave to scry multiple individuals at once, when she found it needful.

Beyond these “duties,” Laeral would also study spells, attend feasts and revels in the city to network, and shop for clothes; she had time for all of these things because, as Azuth had taught her to draw on the Weave for energy and to balance her body chemistry, she didn’t need to sleep.

Elminster and many Waterdhavians have said that her chief contribution to peace, order, and good governance in Waterdeep and across the Sword Coast North was her influence over her partner Khelben; he was a law-and-order stickler with little patience for incompetence and none at all for corruption, and she calmed his rages and guided him in diplomacy to keep relationships cordial. As a team, they were far more effective diplomatically than the inflexible Blackstaff alone had been.

Those interested in learning more of Laeral’s time with Khelben, and their relocation to Rhymanthiin on the High Moor, and Khelben’s fate, are directed to the novels Blackstaff and Blackstaff Tower by Steven Schend.

As revealed in my novel The Herald, Laeral and her sister Alustriel then hid, disguised, among the Avowed (monks) of Candlekeep, until 1487 DR, the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant, when they battled the lich-lord Larloch there.

These days, as the Realms approaches 1500 DR, there is a new Blackstaff (Vajra Safahr, the seventh to hold the title; she and Laeral have had their differences, but get along professionally now) in Blackstaff Tower, and Laeral is no longer Lady Mage of Waterdeep, but rather its Open Lord, asked by the Masked Lords in late 1488 DR to take the post after they ousted the corrupt Dagult Neverember from the lordship (she accepted, and took up office—and residence in Mirt’s Mansion, as he hadn’t been seen since the Spellplague, and was presumed dead—in 1489 DR, the Year of the Warrior Princess).

The Masked Lords were divinely manipulated to make this offer by the goddess Mystra, who spoke directly to Laeral after Luruar failed, and asked her to take up residence in Waterdeep, and then to accept the Open Lordship that would soon be offered to her, to prevent the Sword Coast North descending into strife, to curb tyrannical misuse of magic that would turn popular opinion against wielders of the Art.

In the full version of this post (Audio / Video), I expand even more on Laeral Silverhand, including an extensive look at Laeral and her motivations now. I've recorded a reading of my entire lore look at Laeral in video and audiobook formats. In the second half of this recording, Ivan from ManyRealms follows up with several questions with the aim of making Laeral more relatable to your table, investigating her flaws, her secrets, and more.

Thank you for your continued support, and I'm grateful to have such a thriving community of fans keeping the Realms alive!

Hugs,
Ed