Exemplars of Evil

The young queen set about restrengthening her kingdom’s
reputation, knowing that the surrounding nations would
underestimate her resolve. To this end, Valbryn divided
the Urdred into groups and dispatched them down out
of the mountains with complements of ettins and trolls.
The death maidens stormed every realm that had attacked
the fire giants during the reign of the late king, razing
villages and cities alike. Before long, the greatest heroes of
each nation arrived at the gates of Gilgirn in the custody
of the Urdred, bearing generous gifts and pleas to end
the war.
Once again secure, the fire giant kingdom began to thrive.
Valbryn, now an adult, took up an interest in arcane magic,
gleaning insight from some of the tomes that the envoys
had brought as gifts. The queen studied forgotten lore,
determined to unlock mysteries that were said to be hidden
in the magma beneath Gilgirn. Her studies also revealed
spell secrets that, among many other magical effects, could
alter her size and shape for long periods of time.
GOALS
Of course, Valbryn’s principal goal is maintaining her reign
over the fire giants and extending her realm as far as possible.
She believes that the most important means to this end is
locating and controlling the gateway to the Elemental Plane
of Fire that lies beneath her fortress.
Through her studies of lore and magic, Valbryn eventually
discovered why the magma reservoir under Gilgirn had
been dormant for so long. Following a clue in one of her
arcane tomes, Valbryn descended into the molten rock and
found a secret portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, through
which lava once flowed. Ancestral fire giants had magically
sealed the portal so that nothing could pass through in
either direction.
According to legend, the fire giant race was born in the
magma of Gilgirn. Based on this story, the queen surmises
that the first fire giants were natives of elemental fire who
came through the portal. Valbryn believes that if she can
unseal the portal, she will find masses of fire giants on the
other side—legions she can use to bolster Gilgirn’s army.
The kingdom’s forces were nearly depleted in the war against
the neighboring realms, and Valbryn has no intention of
honoring the peace treaties she established; thus, she is
eager to rebuild her military. As soon as she can muster
an army large enough to launch a multipronged invasion,
she means to crush the smaller races and pick their bones
clean. Valbryn has therefore made opening the portal her
primary objective.
Accordingly, she has dispatched Helthra, Thaden, and
members of the Urdred to acquire information about
portals to other worlds. So far, the group has learned of a
minor artifact known as a planar trestle that can force open
portals between planes. Once the scattered, constituent
pieces of the planar trestle are identified, deciphered, and
assembled, Valbryn hopes to use it to unseal the portal
to the Elemental Plane of Fire. If the queen finds allies
on the other side, the results could be disastrous for the
surrounding kingdoms.
USING THIS VILLAIN
Valbryn is a formidable female giant who has the resources
of a wealthy kingdom at her disposal. However, she wishes
to conceal her nation’s true strength, and so avoids extravagant
displays of power. When her legions are again ready
to march, she wants the smaller races to be complacent and
unwary. To keep up the pretense of peace, Valbryn operates
by proxy through her Urdred. Fortunately for the queen,
fire giants are so independent in nature that whenever her
CHAPTER 7
VALBRYN
MORLYDD
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HOW THADEN MET VALBRYN
The queen of the fire giants and a mighty human ranger:
Seldom has a more mismatched pair of individuals turned out
to be companions.
The saga of Valbryn and Thaden began several decades ago.
The ranger battled stalwartly but unsuccessfully against the
raiders that the queen had sent forth to subjugate the humanoid
realms that adjoined the territory around her fortress.
Valbryn had ordered her assault squads to subdue the most
valiant survivors among the nations the Urdred defeated and
bring those captors before her. Then she selected one member
of each vanquished force to carry back her terms of surrender
and had the others killed. Thaden turned out to be an exception
to that rule; the raiders that captured him, unconscious
and near death, related tales of his pride and fighting spirit.
They spoke highly of his skill at combating the giant invaders,
which led the queen to conclude that it might be wiser to keep
him alive and persuade him (through torture, if necessary) to
reveal those special techniques. Accordingly, she ordered him
to be imprisoned in a cell beneath her quarters and nursed
back to health.
After the ranger’s wounds healed, he proved to be an uncooperative
yet gregarious prisoner. He would not speak of
his special skill at fighting giants—not even under threat of
pain—but he deflected the queen’s anger by flattering her and
encouraging her to converse with him on a personal level. As
time went on, Valbryn grew to prefer Thaden’s company over
that of her subjects—most of whom were sorely lacking in
intelligence (compared to her) and did not share her interest
in spellcasting.
Originally, Thaden’s use of flattery and conversation was a
stalling tactic—he was trying to stay alive long enough to
figure out a way to escape. But the longer he acted the part
of the friend and confidant, the more he genuinely enjoyed
the role. He captured Valbryn’s trust to such an extent that
the queen allowed him to serve as a surrogate father to her
daughter Helthra.
Today, Thaden spends much time with Valbryn in her personal
quarters, even though he is still “officially” confined to
his cell. Their emotional bond is a mutual one, and equally
strong on both sides. The ranger will fight on behalf of the
queen if her fortress or her reign is threatened, and Valbryn
will not hesitate to bring her spells and her weapons to bear
against anyone—even another fire giant—who opposes her
companion.
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