Drolta Amara Tzuentes—the Crimson Priestess—is a dhampir warlock whose amber-gold eyes burn with divine fire and dangerous secrets. She was a High Priestess of Nephthys the Phoenix, reciting the prayers for her Goddess, healing the broken until ancient vampires led by Lady Nectaria attacked her temple seeking something still unknown, killing the children in her care—including a little girl she loved like a daughter. Drolta destroyed them with holy flame and nearly died herself, but Nephthys transformed her into something between living and dead, binding her to a mission, her Pact of the Blade.
Now she wanders Astrodia hunting vampires, wielding the power bestowed onto her by the Phoenix Queen. She carries a scar on her neck from the attack and occasionally feels a psychic “tapping”—possibly Lady Nectaria trying to reach her mind. Nephthys’ protection may be blocking this connection.
She says she’s protecting the world, but late at night, while she quietly prays the evening liturgies, she wonders if some truths are too heavy to hold, and if the Phoenix Queen chose the right warrior.
Allies
Aren Greycloak - A cleric of Pluto whose pendant detected Drolta’s undead nature. After a tense confrontation, they formed a cautious alliance based on their shared mission to destroy undead abominations.
Leif - Leif confronted Drolta about her fangs. She revealed her dhampir nature to him, and they agreed to keep it between them for now.
Session Events
Session 0
At the village inn, Drolta nearly lost control when Leif showed his neck scars from a carnivorous plant attack. Her fangs became momentarily visible before Aren physically restrained her. Leif clearly saw the fangs. That night, Drolta snuck out to feed on a farm sheep, successfully making it look like a wolf attack.
Session 1
At the campfire, Drolta shared the story of the Phoenix Queen rising from the ashes, revealing to the group that she was a high priestess at the Phoenix Queen’s temple and that she and the Queen still have a relationship.
Drolta privately told Aren she would kill Aren if Aren’s curse ever takes over. Aren responded: “You can try.”
Leif confronted Drolta about her fangs. She teased him—circling him and pinching his cheeks—before revealing she is a dhampir, not a full vampire. She asked him to keep it secret and they agreed to let the others maintain their wrong assumptions. She called him “little one.”
In combat, Drolta opened against the bandits with Eldritch Blast and demanded the chalice’s location. Against the goblins, she used her Hexblade pact weapon (Phoenix Queen’s feather—bladed claws) and Hex. She cast Detect Magic on the Golden Chalice, discovering it radiates all schools of magic simultaneously—highly unusual and powerful.
That night in the cave, Drolta snuck out to commune privately with the Phoenix Queen. She also let the last fleeing bandit on the road escape, saying: “Mercy.”
Session 3
At the Bow’s End Tavern, Drolta spotted a woman playing lute in the corner — Aurora, a born dhampir wearing Witherbloom robes. This was the first time either had met a dhampir of the other type (born vs. turned). Aurora shared that Professor Valentine is a full vampire and one of the deans of Witherbloom — a sangromancer who denounced the higher vampires and serves as Aurora’s mentor. Aurora confirmed vampire assassins still occasionally target Valentine for defecting.
Aren followed them outside, sensing the dhampir presence with her pendant and assuming Drolta was in danger. Tense moment, but Drolta explained and it resolved peacefully. The group exchanged contact info with Aurora (she can use Sending).
Drolta also failed a Wisdom saving throw during the night at the University Inn, though the specific effects were not revealed.
Session 4
During the Giant Frog fight at the Fire Jolt Café, Drolta was swallowed whole by a frog before Leif freed her with Ice Knife. While grappled by another frog, she used a vampiric bite on its tongue to heal herself for 4 HP — Red saw her do it and reacted with shock: “What the fuck? What tarnation?”
In the Lost Library of Leith Chantos, she dealt the killing blow to a brown bear and killed a hobgoblin with Chill Touch. She summoned her pact weapon — “The Broom of the Phoenix Queen.”
Mystery: Drolta received a private DM message after Leif’s Starry Wisp flew past her head during combat (Arcana check: 17). Something about his magic is unusual.
Session 6
In the Lost Library of Leith Chantos, Drolta missed a platform jump and fell into the webs of the spider pit — then went on to eradicate the entire spider swarm in a single flaming-claw strike (“a thousand blades”). At Myrna’s safehouse in Lathen, Simone confirmed (by commanding her) that Drolta is a Warlock. She also recognized that Leif is a fellow warlock when the green fourth-magic sand crawled toward him; she offered to help him, but warned she can’t come between him and his patron if one exists.
Drolta joined the newly-named party, The Fallen, and allied with the S.A.T.O.. The party’s next move is to carry the Golden Chalice toward the White Forest, stopping en route at a temple to Nephthys — a higher-being hotspot of deep personal significance to Drolta, near the site where Lady Nectaria’s vampires attacked her temple. If those attackers remain in the area, the party means to hunt them.
The party reached Level 3.
Session 7
- As a fellow warlock, reassured Leif about his patron — “it depends on your relationship with them… it’s not always bad.”
- Joined Red and Leif in trying to break into a locked upstairs room at Myrna’s beach house (her lockpicking failed); later apologized to Myrna at dinner (Persuasion with advantage, backed by Red and Aren), smoothing things over.
- Offered to ask her patron, Nephthys, for information about The Whispering One — the name Úlfr gave Leif’s patron.
- Shared more of her past en route planning: she was a high priestess at the Nephthys temple until Lady Nectaria’s vampires attacked it searching for something; she’s been seeking the truth ever since. The party set the temple as their next destination (~6 days from Quandrix College).
- Still intends to seek out the vampire dean Professor Valentine at Witherbloom College as a source on vampires and the Severance — deferred for now.
Session 8
- At the Level 3 reintroductions, Drolta re-told her origin — orphan, High Priestess of Nephthys, the vampire massacre, her rebirth as a dhampir — and confirmed she now wields celestial-patron warlock healing. Only Aren and Leif know her true nature; Úlfr still does not.
- Her history roll identified the midway town of Freedale and its devastation by the White Forest curse.
- In the bandit ambush, she worked Inflict Wounds, Hex, and Mind Sliver, taking heavy dagger damage but finishing the Muscle alongside Úlfr; Aren repeatedly healed her (“sisters in arms”).
- A haunting dream: someone she deeply loved at the Nephthys temple, now with blood-red eyes and fangs. She confided to Leif her fear that vampires may still hold the temple they’re approaching, and that the homecoming will be “a little rough.” She resolved to warn the group, and to ask Nephthys about Leif’s patron.
- Her dhampir agility let her free-climb to the tower’s third-floor balcony and drop the rope for the others at Morgana’s tower.
Session 9
Drolta’s dhampir mobility solved the tower’s hardest obstacle. When the fourth-floor statues incinerated a rolled barrel with crossing cones of fire, and Bama proved the trap was floor-triggered, Drolta walked up the wall and across the ceiling over it — “vampire shit” — and opened the far door into Morgana’s workroom, where she found the potions (still unidentified) and the abjuration glyphs chalked on the floor. She made the crossing repeatedly as the party worked the floor.
In the basement she was one half of the warlock pair that ended the first fight almost immediately — her Eldritch Blast killed the bloodied ghoul outright, and later the second ghoul as well — followed by a triple fist bump with Leif.
She also, unknowingly, provided the party’s exit. Her plume — the Phoenix Queen’s feather from the Nephthys temple — served as Archibald’s associated object for the teleport, letting him target a temple he had never seen and land the party a full day early.
Which means Drolta reaches her homecoming sooner than she expected, with her vampire dream still hanging over it. “I just want to get to the temple and get traumatized.”
Session 10
(Yemko was out; the DM ran Drolta.)
Drolta’s contribution to the misfired teleport was to confirm the obvious as soon as the party stepped out of the circle: “This is definitely not where my temple is.” She had been the one whose plume Archibald used as the associated object, which makes the miss faintly personal.
Otherwise she travelled quietly with the party through Pentamarone. Her homecoming at the Nephthys temple is deferred a second time, and the party is now further from it than they were at the end of Session 9.
Session 11
(Yemko back at the table after missing Session 10.)
Drolta worked the chalice research with Seed and Ceramia on the hardest of the four questions — are the conjured living copies actually alive — after a spirited table argument that Deception was the correct skill for the job (“aren’t undead things deceptive in nature?”). She settled for Investigation.
Then she took the campaign’s first death saves.
In the alley fight against Cocytus, she used her spider climb to scale a wall for line of sight and landed a Guiding Bolt on Aleister the Invoker through three-quarters cover — one of only two hits anyone managed on him. The elemental came down off the roof and hit her with a slam for 28 damage.
She went down. She failed her first death save — rolled privately to the DM, at her request — before Úlfr burned his last spell slot on Healing Word and brought her back up for 8. She spent her next turn standing and going straight back at it: “it fucked me up, boy.”
(Her Nephthys temple homecoming is deferred for a third session running.)
Session 12
Drolta finished the living-copies research and then spoke to her goddess about the biggest secret of the night. See Session 12 Recap — Something from Nothing.
Her team’s findings went into the report. With Seed and Ceramia, she had worked the question of whether the Golden Chalice’s conjured creatures are alive. The answer was that they are physically real but hollow: they feel no pain, don’t bleed, and have no self-preservation, emotion, or social response. Injuries that would kill or maim the original destroy them, and separated pieces and dead copies evaporate without a trace. The guild had already put the cats down.
At the Temple of Venus she gave the mural its religion read. She knew the story it depicts, the Solemn and his host casting down the Morning Star and his armies, and sensed that something in the depiction doesn’t belong to it. Red found it: a small, deliberately added flaming meteor, which the priest later tied to She Who Fell Before the First Fall.
Then she meditated and reached out to Nephthys. On the mural:
“I do not know what this is trying to invoke. The battle between the Dark Lords and the Solemn Pantheon was even before my time. There are still many mysteries about it that the higher beings are not aware of.”
Then she asked about what Leif had shared earlier that day: a portal to another world, and beings coming through it (the party’s new understanding of the Great Cataclysm). Nephthys was silent for a moment.
“I cannot speak of this freely.”
”…But continue on your path.”
“Of course, my child.”
(Her Nephthys temple homecoming is deferred for a fourth session. The temple is one of the party’s two candidate next destinations, the other being the White Forest.)