Sister Nira

Level 6 Standard Human (2024 rules) Human Warlock (The Great Old One — reflavored as 'The Void Beyond') (The Great Old One)

Available with DM subscription

STR

8 (-1)

DEX

14 (+2)

CON

13 (+1)

INT

WIS

12 (+1)

CHA

17 (+3)

Defense

Armor Class 13 (Mage Armor (cast before ambushes) or 12 in gray robes; 15 with Mage Armor + Dex)

Hit Points 39 (6d8 + 6 +1)

Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft., climb 30 ft.

Proficiencies & Skills

Saving Throws Wisdom, Charisma

Skills Arcana +3, Insight +4, Stealth +5, Deception +6, Intimidation +6, Sleight of hand +5

Features

Sigil of the Unbound Choir

custom Level 1

at will (communication), 1/day (tracking)

A black-feather sigil burned into her palm. Once per day she can learn the general direction and distance of any creature that has touched a Codex page within 10 miles. She can also send a one-way telepathic report to Magister Mor (up to 25 words) once per day.

Telepathic Speech

class (Great Old One) Level 3

1/long rest, or expend a spell slot

As a Magic action, Nira magically speaks telepathically to a creature she can see within 60 ft. for her Warlock level in minutes. The target hears her voice inside its head — she uses this to torment victims before combat begins.

Choir Command

custom Level 1

Nira commands a squad of Choir cultists (4 Cultists, 2 Scouts, or 6 Cultists + 2 Void-Touched Stalkers depending on the encounter). Cultists within 60 ft. of her gain advantage on saving throws against being Frightened.

Eldritch Invocations

class Level 2

Nira knows three invocations: Devil's Sight (sees through magical and normal darkness to 120 ft.), Agonizing Blast (adds Charisma modifier to eldritch blast damage), and Misty Visions (silent image at will, no slot).

Feather of the Void (Death Transformation)

custom Level 1

on death

When Nira is killed, her body dissolves into a swirling cloud of black feathers over 1 round, leaving no corpse to interrogate or raise. A single white feather always remains — a mystery the Choir does not explain.

Clairvoyant Combat

class (Great Old One) Level 6

Nira can attack creatures she cannot see if they are within 30 ft. and she has telepathic contact with them; she doesn't suffer disadvantage from unseen attackers against such targets.

Void-Blessed Flesh

custom Level 1

The Void's touch has hollowed Nira out. She has advantage on saving throws against the Frightened condition and resistance to psychic damage. The Void does not frighten its own.

Fey Touched (Feat)

feat Level 4

1/day each

+1 Charisma (applied above). Nira can cast misty step (1/day) and command (1/day) without expending spell slots. Charisma is the casting ability.

Pact of the Tome

class Level 3

Nira's Book of Shadows is a skin-bound folio tattooed onto her own forearm. Grants the cantrips chill touch and message.

Magical Cunning

class Level 2

1/long rest

Nira can recover one expended warlock spell slot as a Magic action.

Spellcasting

Charisma DC 14 +6 to hit Level 1: 0 slots Level 2: 0 slots Level 3: 2 slots

Warlock spells are cast with 3rd-level slots (2 slots, regained on Short or Long Rest; Magical Cunning recovers 1 more). All void-themed spell descriptions are flavor only; mechanics are SRD-standard.

Eldritch Blast

Cantrip class cantrip

evocation Action 120 ft. V, S

Three beams (level 6), each 1d10+3 force damage on hit. Her beams are streaks of violet void-light trailing black feathers.

Minor Illusion

Cantrip class cantrip

illusion Action 30 ft. S, M

Creates a sound or image. Nira uses it to make victims hear the whispers of loved ones begging for help.

Mage Hand

Cantrip class cantrip

conjuration Action 30 ft. V, S

Spectral hand. Nira's manifests as a gray, skinless hand.

Chill Touch

Cantrip Pact of the Tome

necromancy Action 120 ft. V, S

Ranged spell attack, 1d8 necrotic; target can't regain HP until start of Nira's next turn. A ghostly flayed hand claws the target.

Message

Cantrip Pact of the Tome

transmutation Action 120 ft. V, S

Whispered message to a target, who can reply. She whispers threats across battlefields.

Dissonant Whispers

Level 1 warlock prepared

illusion Action 60 ft. V

Wis save DC 14 or take 3d6 psychic and use reaction to flee. The whispers read the victim's own secrets back to them.

Arms of Hadar

Level 1 warlock prepared

conjuration Action Self (10-ft. radius) V, S

Str 13 save or 2d6 necrotic and can't take reactions until her next turn. Black feathered tendrils erupt from her.

Hold Person

Level 2 warlock prepared

enchantment Action 60 ft. V, S, M

Wis save DC 14 or Paralyzed up to 1 minute (repeat save each turn). Her primary capture tool — she targets Elara or the party's spellcaster with her 3rd-level slots (upcasting to catch two targets).

Hunger of Hadar

Level 3 warlock prepared

conjuration Action 150 ft. (20-ft. radius) V, S, M

Void-filled sphere for 1 minute: creatures inside are blinded, take 2d6 acid at turn start/end, and 2d6 cold if ending turn inside. She drops it on the ford to herd the party.

Fear

Level 3 warlock prepared

illusion Action Self (30-ft. cone) V, S, M

Wis save DC 14 or Drop Frightened and Dash away; drops held items. She opens with this to scatter the party before singling out her capture target.

Hypnotic Pattern

Level 3 warlock prepared

illusion Action 120 ft. (30-ft. cube) S, M

Wis save DC 14 or Charmed (incapacitated) for 1 minute. Violet feathers spiral in the air. She uses it to isolate the target she wants alive.

Counterspell

Level 3 warlock prepared

abjuration Reaction 60 ft. V, S

Interrupts a spell of 3rd level or lower automatically; higher levels require an ability check (DC 10 + spell level). She hates losing a victim to a healer's spell.

Misty Step (Fey Touched)

Level 2 feat (free cast, 1/day)

conjuration Bonus Action Self V

Teleport 30 ft. to an unoccupied space she can see. Her escape route when reduced below half HP — she dissolves into feathers and reappears 30 ft. away, then flees through a hidden passage.

Command (Fey Touched)

Level 1 feat (free cast, 1/day)

enchantment Action 60 ft. V, M

One-word command on a failed Wis save DC 14. Favorite word: 'Kneel.'

Silent Image (Misty Visions)

Level 1 invocation (at will)

illusion Action 60 ft. S, M

At-will illusion, 15-ft. cube. She conjures images of the party's own flayed corpses to break their morale before the ambush springs.

Behind the character

Character Information

Sister Nira is a gaunt human woman in her mid-thirties, rendered skeletal by a decade of the Void's slow feeding. Her rain-dark gray robes hang from a frame that seems to have forgotten it once held muscle, and her lank hair — streaked with premature gray — is braided with black feathers, one for every mission Mor has praised. Her face is a map of old violence: a scar drags from her left temple to her jaw, self-inflicted the night she first glimpsed the Void Beyond, and her eyes are pale to the point of colorlessness, as though something drank the pigment from them long ago.

She speaks in a low rasp that never rises, never hurries, and never shows surprise — the voice of someone who has already decided how you will die and is simply waiting for you to catch up. Her right forearm is bare beneath the robes, wrapped in a living tattoo of stitched vellum script: her Book of Shadows, bound to her own skin, its letters crawling when she casts. Between her fingers, violet void-light gathers like static, and when she summons her mage hand it manifests as a gray, skinless thing that flexes with obscene patience.

She moves without sound, appears without warning, and disappears leaving nothing but a black feather and the sensation of being read. Nira's cruelty is not hot but cold — she does not rage at her victims, she studies them, learning their fears through telepathic whispers before combat even begins, then reading those fears back to them in their loved ones' voices. She is utterly fearless herself, for the Void does not frighten its own, and this makes her more terrifying than any monster that snarls.

When she dies, she will not leave a corpse — only a cloud of black feathers and a single white one, the meaning of which she has never dared to ask.

Before the adventure

Character Background

Nira was born in the silt-slums of Ashfen, the daughter of a peat-cutter and a woman who drowned herself in Blackfen Bog when Nira was six. She survived by stealing — first bread, then coins, then secrets — and by fourteen she was running messages for smugglers who moved goods through the bog's drowned ruins. At nineteen she stole from the wrong caravan: a gray-robed merchant train carrying something wrapped in lead.

What she took was a page of the Codex of Flayed Whispers, though she did not know its name. What she did know was that the page whispered to her at night, in her dead mother's voice, telling her things no one alive could know. She kept it hidden in her boot for three weeks before the Choir's hunters caught her, and by then the whispers had already begun rearranging something inside her.

The flaying ring in Blackfen Bog was where the Choir sent thieves who had touched the Codex — not to punish them, but to see what the whispers had made of them before the skin came off. Nira was strapped to the table for two days. She did not scream. Magister Vaelen Mor arrived on the third day, purchased her for an amount the ring-master found insulting, and unbound her himself.

He did not heal her. He pressed a black feather into the open wound on her arm and told her the Void had chosen her, and that the flaying had been a test she had passed by enduring in silence. Whether this was true or simply the most effective lie ever told to a broken young woman, Nira never questioned. She spent ten years as Mor's shadow: carrying messages to Choir cells, executing deserters, learning the rites of the flaying that would one day be performed on her.

She hanged the three deserters at Gallows Ford personally — one of them had been her lover during her smuggler days, and she has never explained to anyone why she put the feather in his mouth herself, gently, the way one closes a dead man's eyes. The Void's touch hollowed her out in ways that are visible: her resistance to psychic damage, her immunity to fear, the white feathers that remain when black ones fall away.

She believes these are blessings. She is afraid to learn otherwise. Now she hunts the party across the Reach, patient as bog-water, and she has already decided that the spellcaster among them will kneel on Mor's throne-room floor — she simply has not told them yet, because the waiting is the sweetest part.

Threads to follow

Unresolved Plots

The silent page in Nira's Book of Shadows has begun to bleed through the skin of her forearm, forming words she cannot read — words that may be Vaelthar's original script, or something older.
One of the three hanged deserters at Gallows Ford was Nira's former lover, and she visits the gallows weekly to speak to his corpse. She has never told anyone why he deserted.
A white feather from Nira's collection was stolen by a raven from the Sunken Archive and carried to an unknown location. If the Void's leash can be severed, Nira could be freed — or destroyed.
Nira has been secretly corresponding with a Choir member inside the Order of the Dawn, trading information about solar rituals. She does not know the correspondent's identity, and neither does Mor.
Nira's scarred face matches a description in Vaelthar's journal of a woman who 'shall carry the Void's first wound' — a prophecy that Mor has read but never shared with her.

Beneath the surface

Secrets

Nira was not saved from the flaying ring by chance — she had already stolen a page of the Codex from the caravan and hidden it in her boot, and Mor bought her specifically to retrieve it. She has never told him she kept a fragment.
The scar on Nira's face was not given by the flaying ring. She gave it to herself the night Mor first showed her the Void, trying to cut out whatever part of her the Void had already touched. It did not work.
Nira can hear the Codex whispering even when no page is present, and the whispers have begun using her dead lover's voice. She has told no one, fearing Mor will consider her compromised.

What haunts them

Fears

Being consumed by the Void before Mor flays her — dying as an unremarkable meal rather than an apostle.
That the white feathers are not a mark of favor but a countdown, and that the Void is patiently waiting for her to run out of self.
That Mor sees her as a tool and nothing more, and that the ascension he promised is a lie he tells every lieutenant he intends to use up.

What drives them

Aspirations

To become Mor's first flayed apostle and have her skin become the first true page of the new Codex.
To hunt the party across the entire campaign and personally deliver their spellcaster to Mor's throne.
To one day stand in the Hall of Mirrors and see a reflection she recognizes — even if that reflection is a flayed thing.

Personal quest · 1

The Gallows Lesson

Nira leaves three hanged deserters at Gallows Ford as a message. She returns secretly each week to add a feather and speak to the corpses, and she has begun to suspect one of them buried a page fragment in his boot before dying — a fragment that would prove to Mor she is the Choir's most reliable hunter.

Current Stage

Nira ambushes the party at the ford and demands they leave Elara and the page.

Choice

Spare the party as a 'gift' to Mor

Nira lets the party go but reports their route to Mor, earning his trust.

Alternative

Kill the party and take the page

Nira becomes more confident in her role as Mor's enforcer.

Mechanical Rewards

Nira learns the location of the Sunken Archive page
Gains a permanent +1 to Charisma (Deception) when posing as a Choir authority

Narrative Rewards

Mor acknowledges her as a true enforcer of the Choir

Personal quest · 2

The Skin That Speaks

Nira's Book of Shadows is tattooed onto her own forearm, but one page of it has gone silent — the page that recorded Mor's promise to make her his first flayed apostle. She believes a rival lieutenant, Matron Vela, has cursed the page to keep her from ascending. Nira sends the party (unwittingly) to the Gilded Asylum to steal Vela's ledger, which she believes contains the counter-curse.

Current Stage

Nira, disguised as a Highwatch clerk, hires the party to retrieve a 'stolen ledger' from the asylum.

Choice

Deliver the ledger to Nira

Nira learns Vela never cursed her — Mor simply never made the promise. Her faith wavers for the first time.

Alternative

Keep the ledger and expose Nira

The party learns of Nira's ambition and her fear of the Void consuming her.

Mechanical Rewards

Nira's Pact of the Tome gains a new cantrip: toll the dead (flavored as a flayed whisper)
Nira gains resistance to psychic damage from Vela's silver thread

Narrative Rewards

Nira learns Mor's true intentions and begins her transformation into a flayed thing willingly

Personal quest · 3

The White Feather

Every time Nira's Feather of the Void transformation is triggered (or nearly triggered), a single white feather remains. Nira has collected three of them and believes they are the Void's mark of favor — proof she is becoming something beyond mortal. But an old beggar in Ashfen, a former Choir member, tells her the white feathers are actually the Void's leash, and she sends the party to kill him before he can tell anyone else.

Current Stage

Nira confronts the party in Ashfen's alleys, demanding they hand over the beggar.

Choice

Let Nira kill the beggar

Nira never learns the truth and doubles down on her transformation.

Alternative

Protect the beggar and learn the truth

The party learns the white feathers mean the Void is slowly consuming Nira's soul, and that killing her before full transformation would free it.

Mechanical Rewards

Nira gains the ability to cast darkness once per day (the Void's favor deepens)
Her Sigil of the Unbound Choir tracking range increases to 25 miles

Narrative Rewards

Mor names her his chosen apostle, cementing her role in the Hall of Mirrors

Major Decision

Context

Nira has cornered Elara Voss alone at Gallows Ford. She can capture her for Mor's ritual, or let her go to earn the party's trust for a future betrayal.

Choice Made

Capture Elara or release her

Impact

Capturing Elara gives Nira access to the Choir's Fane rituals and accelerates her transformation, but the party must rescue Elara in Act II, delaying their progress. Releasing Elara means Nira must find another way to prove herself to Mor, pushing her toward the darker quests above.

Major Decision

Context

Matron Vela offers Nira a position in the Gilded Asylum, away from the Void's direct gaze, in exchange for betraying Mor's trust.

Choice Made

Accept Vela's offer or report her to Mor

Impact

Accepting gives Nira a safe haven and the ability to flee encounters more easily (misty step becomes 2/day), but she loses access to the Choir's resources. Reporting Vela gives Nira command of the asylum's guards (adding 2 Guards to her Choir Command feature) but makes an enemy of a fellow lieutenant.

Major Decision

Context

In the Hall of Mirrors, Nira sees a reflection of herself who never joined the Choir — a woman with a family, unscarred, happy. The mirror offers to let her trade places.

Choice Made

Embrace the reflection or destroy the mirror

Impact

Embracing the reflection transforms Nira into a tragic figure who fights the party out of desperation, gaining 20 temporary hit points each round but losing her Void Blessings. Destroying the mirror completes her flaying, granting her the Flayed Apostle form (full transformation, +2 AC, immunity to frightened) but permanently binding her to the Void.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

Nira is reduced to 0 hit points for the first time

Transformation

She dissolves into black feathers but the white feather remains, and she returns one day later with a scar that will not heal — a permanent reminder of her mortality.

Mechanical Changes

Void-Blessed Flesh

Nira gains immunity to the frightened condition (previously advantage)

The Void has marked her as its own

Ally

Magister Vaelen Mor

Relationship Fanatic devotion

Influence 9/10

Loyalty 95/10

Shared History

Ten years ago, Nira was a cutpurse in Ashfen who stole from the wrong caravan and was sold to a flaying ring operating out of Blackfen Bog. Magister Vaelen Mor — then merely a scholar with dark interests — purchased her at the last moment, not out of mercy but because he saw something in her eyes: a hunger that matched his own. He unbound her from the flaying table himself, and where her skin had been parted he pressed a single black feather, whispering that the Void had chosen her.

Nira spent the next decade as Mor's shadow, learning his rituals, carrying his messages, and executing his enemies. She was the one who hanged the three deserters at Gallows Ford; she was the one who delivered the Void Anchor to the Fane. Every scar on her body is a lesson Mor taught her, and every lesson made her more devoted. She does not love Mor — love is a mortal weakness — but she believes with religious certainty that he is the only reason she still exists, and that serving him is the only path that does not end in the Void consuming her whole. She dreams of the day he will flay her himself and make her his first apostle.

Potential Breaking Points

If Nira learns Mor never intended to make her an apostle, her devotion can crack — but only a DC 20 Persuasion check can turn her, and even then she will betray him out of spite, not goodness.

Enemy

Matron Vela

Threat Level 7/10

Conflict Type Rivalry within the Choir

Personal Stakes

Nira and Vela are the Choir's two lieutenants, and they despise each other with a patience that borders on ritual. Vela sees Nira as a blunt instrument — a sadist with no understanding of the Void's true purpose — while Nira sees Vela as a coward who hides behind lullabies and silver thread. Their rivalry began when Mor assigned them both to recover a Codex page from a desert caravan: Nira flayed the caravan's leader alive in the road while Vela quietly stitched the eyes of the survivors shut and harvested their terror from a distance.

Both claimed the page; Mor gave it to neither. Since then, each has sabotaged the other's operations. Nira deliberately let a strike team die rather than call on Vela's asylum for aid, and Vela has twice withheld the Solar Sigil's ward-keys from Nira's patrols. Nira believes Vela cursed the silent page in her Book of Shadows to block her ascension — a belief that may be entirely imagined but drives her to undermine the asylum at every turn. If the party exposes Vela's operations, Nira will not lift a finger to save her, and may even tip them off.

Possible Resolutions

The party can exploit the rivalry by feeding false information to one lieutenant about the other, causing Choir resources to be wasted on internal conflict.

Faction

The Unbound Choir

Standing 8/10

Influence

Nira is the Choir's blade — the lieutenant sent when others fail. She was initiated into the Choir by Mor himself and has never attended a single open sermon; her faith is practiced entirely in Mor's shadow, which makes her both feared and slightly distrusted by the rank and file. Cultists obey her instantly because she has hanged two of their own for hesitation, but she has no true faction of her own within the Choir — no patrons, no proteges, no allies among the other lieutenants.

Her authority flows entirely from Mor, and everyone knows it. This isolation is her strength (no one can turn her followers against her) and her weakness (if Mor's favor shifts, she has nothing to fall back on). The Choir's gray robes and black feathers are her uniform and her identity; she sews a new feather into her braid after every successful mission, and her braid is nearly full. She commands squads of cultists and void-touched stalkers with cold competence, and she has personally trained the Void-Touched Stalkers to hunt spellcasters — a skill she considers her signature contribution to the Choir's war.

Obligations

Nira must report to Mor once per day via her Sigil of the Unbound Choir
She is forbidden from killing a Codex page-bearer without Mor's express permission

Benefits

Access to the Choir's network of safe houses across the Reach
The Choir's ritual knowledge, including the flaying rites that will transform her

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