AndrewNotes/Avalon/11_Players/Soren Silversong.md

Quick ID

• Name: Soren Silversong
• Race: Changeling (retcon / decided later; big reveal planned)
  • Early presentation: “Drow Bard” vibe (Dark Urge energy), but that is no longer the truth in-world.
• Class/Level (current): PC, Level 6 (campaign state). (Class was described as Bard early; later details focus more on character than mechanics.)
• Core Theme: Intrusive violence + identity instability + “am I real?”
• Tone Role in Party: the dark counterweight to Ben’s social performance and Joe’s suburban normalcy.

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Core Backstory (Player-established)

• Family dynamic: Soren is the “lesser” child in her own home.
  • Parents: Lirael and Rael
  • Sister: Elise (golden child / gets all the attention)
• Soren’s resentment: she hates Elise for the attention imbalance and carries that bitterness constantly.
• Key rumor: last year she was out of school for a few days, and when she returned she “wasn’t the same.”
  • The table/setting rumor mill speculated:
    • “maybe she’s a changeling”
    • “something happened during those days”
  • You later canonized changeling, but the cause is still an open mystery.

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The Body / The Friend / The Voices (Primary Hook)

The corpse “friend”

• Secret: Soren found a dead body near the river.
• Soren treats it as her only friend.
• She has not reported it.
• This corpse is intended as a slow-burn reveal:
  • At first: Soren is delusional / projecting.
  • Later: the “friend” knows things it shouldn’t (hint: Root/leyline/Coherence entanglement).

Voices & hallucination frame (your current intent)

• Soren believes the voice is coming from the river / riverbank.
• You wanted the voice to respond more at the river, and not speak outside the riverbank yet (early constraint).
• Twist structure:
  • Phase 1: it’s “just in her head” (or seems that way).
  • Phase 2: the voice displays impossible knowledge.
  • Phase 3: you reveal the leyline / Coherence has been “listening” through her.

“Dark Urge” energy

• You described her as “Practically the Dark Urge.”
• Mechanically represented in play as:
  • Wisdom saves to control violent urges.
  • Even on a success, the player may choose violence anyway (this has happened).

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Personal Objects / Secrets / Props

• Important item carried: Diary (most important personal object)
• Thing she is hiding: Jar of Fingernails (signature creepy prop)
• Night-before-school scene: sitting by the river, muttering to herself, kicking stuff into the water, then walking home.

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Family / Home (Tone + Conflict Engine)

• Desired tone: suburban realism with cruelty, not “crack den melodrama.”
• Your intent for home scenes:
  • Mother and sister are condescending / superior / cruel “for no reason,”
  • Any attempt to defend herself triggers more contempt.
• This family dynamic is her main “ground-level” conflict (like Ben’s identity lie, Joe’s legacy).

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Key Behavioral Traits (How Soren plays at the table)

• Predatory curiosity: likes to test boundaries and see what she can get away with.
• Fixation behavior: will pick a target and spiral (Millie became that target).
• Disguise + manipulation: uses deception as a weapon (Disguise Self + impersonation).

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Major Relationships / Targets

Party

• Ben: ally by convenience; she has shown willingness to respond to crisis (e.g., arrived at Ben’s house after Circle explosion).
• Joe: ally; can act as “witness” to Soren going too far (and moral friction tool).

NPC Fixation: Millie Fairweather

• Soren’s player explicitly wants a stalking/torture vibe (“Thanos and the birthday guy” reference).
• You have stated a hard boundary: you don’t want the campaign to become “murder porn” or derail due to violence.
• This is the single biggest table-management pressure point right now.

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Major Events Soren Was Involved In (Chronological, high-signal)

Session 1 hooks

• River scene established:
  • corpse friend
  • voices believed to be river-based
  • family hostility at home

Detention-era and early school chaos

• Soren gets detention early (one of the first-day hooks).
• You wanted her detention hook originally different; later:
  • she “gets lost in music,” can’t hear teachers calling her to move on (instruments soothe urges).

The Lunch Incident (recent major escalation)

Soren’s actions (as you clarified):

1. Tried to lure Millie into a bathroom to stab her — failed Persuasion.
2. After lunch, hid near Millie’s classroom.
3. Got spotted by a security guard and ran.
4. Hid around a corner and cast Disguise Self to become Estrada.
5. Entered Millie’s class impersonating Estrada.
6. Lured Millie to the parking lot (Millie failed Investigation/Insight).
7. Used Prestidigitation to make Millie’s face look “fucked up.”
8. Millie screamed and ran.
9. You denied an opportunity attack to avoid severe consequences the player didn’t want.

Outcome:

• Soren successfully escalated to psychological terror.
• You flagged the need for an out-of-character discussion about violence boundaries.

Post Circle explosion involvement

• After Ben/Joe blew up the gas station and Pip threatened Ben, Soren was called and arrived at Ben’s house.

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DM Levers (what reliably moves Soren)

1. The river / corpse (pulls her into solo scenes and gives you horror tone control)
2. Jealousy / resentment (especially toward “effortless” people like Millie)
3. Identity insecurity (changeling reveal pressure, “who am I?”)
4. Authority humiliation (Estrada/guards/teachers; she loves to subvert)
5. Seduction by Coherence (Coherence’s “love + dissolve pain” pitch is a perfect temptation)

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How Soren Connects to the Main Arc (Leyline / Coherence / Instrumentality)

• Soren is a natural “receiver”:
  • porous identity (changeling)
  • history of illness / missing days
  • voice phenomena anchored to a location (river / leyline proximity)
• Her violent urges can be framed as:
  • intrusive thoughts,
  • Coherence “steering tests,”
  • or a predatory “echo” seeking to reduce separation by force.
• Her corpse friend is a perfect Root dead-drop:
  • it’s physically real evidence of something wrong,
  • it can later become “impossible knowledge” without immediately proving anything.

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Table-Management Risk Notes (Important)

• Current tension:
  • Player feels “unfairly constrained” because Soren was told “no stabbing innocents,” but the next session the party caused collateral deaths at The Circle.
• Your stated principle (good rule):
  • Collateral consequences can happen.
  • Deliberate, intimate harm to innocents (especially torture/murder) is disallowed because it derails tone and creates unwanted content.
• Soren’s content needs a lane:
  • “horror” via psychological dread, identity erosion, supernatural compulsion
  • not extended torture or explicit murder scenes.
• Practical tool:
  • Give Soren alternate “predation outlets” that are campaign-relevant:
    • stalking the Coherence cult,
    • hunting Root anomalies,
    • sabotaging villains,
    • social dominance games that don’t require blood.

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Current Status (start-of-next-session snapshot)

• Soren has just executed a major intimidation stunt on Millie using Disguise Self and Prestidigitation.
• Soren is physically at Ben’s house following the Circle explosion fallout.
• The river/corpse thread has been left untouched for “weeks” in-fiction at one point:
  • “the river is dry; you feel it calling; your friend misses you.”
• Changeling identity is now canonical; reveal is pending.

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