The theaters and museums in the Arts District vary in age, but as it happens several of its most famous venues were built about a hundred and fifty years ago, and designed by the same architect, Euhade Illaren. At the time, there was a particular vogue for shows that involved a lot of concealed passages and trapdoors, and the theaters were designed accordingly, with all sorts of secrets and hidden areas. As a matter of fact, it was eventually discovered that there were more hidden areas that not even the theater's owners knew about; Illaren had put some additional secrets in the plans, and the builders had been summoned creatures who were not in a position to tell anyone else about what they had built. What was more, it was eventually discovered that Illaren herself had been living in these hidden areas, having arranged for herself a luxurious secret residence inside the theaters she designed. Naturally, when this was discovered, she was evicted, and when the story got around she got no further work. She disappeared from the public view, and is generally assumed to by now be long dead.

Which she no doubt would be, were she an ordinary human, but although she kept the matter hidden Illaren was actually a rarig, and rarigs live longer than humans do. Not all her secret passages in the theatres were discovered, and she bided her time, eventually sneaking back into the theaters and gathering material with which she could blackmail or demand ransom from the next generation of theater owners, extorting her way into being allowed back in her residence. Now, Illaren is again fully ensconced in her hidden rooms in the theaters, with few people the wiser... and she's been gathering quite a collection of additional material she can use against anyone who might try to evict her again. It's been long enough that she's considered reappearing in public under a new identity to try to get more architectural work, but she hasn't actually done so yet.

In human form, Euhade Illaren is a woman with a somewhat blocky build and a freckled, egg-shaped face. She has jug ears and a thin-lipped mouth often curved in a sly smile. In her other, feline form, she is a long-haired brown cat with black spots. Of course, as a rarig, Illaren is never entirely in either form, usually retaining a cat's tail in human form (concealed under her clothing, and human hands in cat form (which she tucks under her body when she thinks she might be seen). Illaren has a slightly nasal voice and a tendency to stress odd syllables in words. In human form, she usually wears a black and white tunic and a long skirt.