Sabrina “Brie” Fawkes is a Rock Gnome from Daggerford in the Western Heartlands. Known for cheerful disposition and friendly nature, Brie is one of two children of parents who immigrated to the peaceful if rather ramshackle farming township from the island of Lantan. Daggerford was looking to attract artisans and tech in order to compete with Waterdeep as an urban center. Jobs for inventors like her father were well-paying and abundant. “Brie and her brother Bryn” as the inseparable youngsters were known, spent long summer evenings playing sack-kick in the narrow lanes of their neighborhood and chilly winter afternoons tinkering in papa’s workshop. Bryn and Brie were always trying to outdo one another with crazy inventions and intricate mechanical gizmos. Brie finally conceded that her brother was the more skilled inventor when he created a complex mechanized device activated by his morning alarm clock that would tilt his cot and roll him into the washroom, scrub his face and brush his teeth for him, allowing him to remain essentially asleep for an extra 10 minutes each morning. He was 7 at the time. Brie was a decent tinkerer herself, her piece de resistance was a mechanical repeater for her crossbow that allowed her to fire up to eight arrows before reloading. No that she would ever shoot anyone!
Another favorite pastime of the Fawkes children was to put on plays and “Magical Musical Extravaganzas” for their extended family and neighbors. Brie would sing and play the lute, flute or anything else that was on hand, and Bryn performed silly acrobatics and magic tricks.
When the children were grown, Bryn, in fact, became a professional magician, performing all up and down the Sword Coast telling jokes and captivating the audience (sometimes literally!) with his illusions. Brie stayed closer to home, working in a local tavern as a barmaid and singing with the band. Though their parents might have secretly wished that one or both of the children would have followed in Papa’s footsteps, they doted on Brie and her brother Bryn and were very supportive of their choices.
In the summer before our story unfolds, Bryn was performing his magic act in a large theatre in Waterdeep to a full house each night. He wrote home each week with tales of big city life and the colorful characters he met in the theatre. Then one week, no letter arrived. Another week passed and still no post from Waterdeep. Brie’s family’s friends all told her and her parents not to worry, that young men meet young ladies and thoughts of families back home escape their minds. But Brie and her parents were worried nonetheless. Brie decided to take some time off from the tavern and travel to Waterdeep to speak with Bryn in person so she and her folks could be certain his lack of communication was young love and nothing more serious.
Brie arrived in Waterdeep, located the theatre and asked to speak with the manager. She was ushered without delay into Mister Orangeblot’s office. He told her he had been hoping someone from home would contact him. Bryn, he told her, had disappeared from the stage during his disappearing act the third-day before last– “he popped into a trunk and never popped back out”– much to the dismay of his comely assistant, Camilla Bridge. The lovely blonde Camilla had been back to the theatre every day in tears since the incident, hoping for word on her boss. Mister Orangeblot rather thought there was more to the relationship than employment, he confided. He expected Camilla to be in the following afternoon, if she maintained her daily pilgrimage, he told Brie, and she was wlecome to return and speak with her.
Brie returned to the theatre early the next afternoon, but Camilla did not come. Nor did she come the following day, not the day after that. Mister Orangeblot did not have an address for Camilla, as he paid Bryn directly and Bryn paid his assistant himself. He gave Brie the name of her brother’s lodging but the inn where he had been staying had no information. They had moved his things into storage when he did not return to pay his bill. The Innkeeper, a dour woman with a hairy chin, refused to even let Brie look through her brother’s possessions for clues until she paid his bill for room and board for the two weeks before he disappeared. Brie continued to visit the theatre each day for two weeks, speaking with all the employees and even regular customers who might have information on Bryn. Brie wrote to her parents to update them and to tell them she intended to stay in Waterdeep and get to the bottom of things. She took a room in a much friendlier inn than where Bryn had been staying and sought work as a barmaid in the same neighborhood so she could stay close and continue looking for clues to her brother’s sudden disappearance.
Tyranny of Dragons 