Rovelin Dyrie

Rovelin Dyrie is one of the most powerful druglords on the world of Therqin, controlling, according to various estimates, between twenty and fifty percent of the world's commerce in illegal drugs. While an extremely wealthy woman, Dyrie does not live in opulence; she keeps a low profile to keep away from law enforcement, hoarding her money and living in one of several spartan hideaways she maintains on the devare.

Description

By Therqinian standards, Rovelin Dyrie is positively svelte, though by the standards of most other worlds she would be, at 93 kilograms (and a height of 1.73 meters), considered moderately obese. She has stringy red hair she wears long, and which she occasionally braids or ties back but just as often leaves loose and tangled. Dyrie has naturally dark lips that contrast with her light complexion, and small, high ears with very little lobe.

Though far from lavish in her lifestyle, Dyrie does have a touch toward ostentation in her dress, favoring elaborate costumes of black and metallic tones. She usually affects a gauze band over her eyes, sufficiently transparent from close up to minimally impede her vision, but opaque enough from a distance to hide her eyes from others' sight. When visible, however, her eyes are striking, one being a bright blue and the other almost as bright a green.

History

Unlike many who turn to similar lives of crime, Rovelin Dyrie was born to a relatively well-off merchant family, living in the city of Qadan on the world of Merethe. While brought up wanting for little, however, she was jealous of her siblings' success; her brother Ragan achieved success at an early age as a singer, and her sister Rashan distinguished herself in college in the study of natural philosophy. Angered at what she saw as being unjustly overshadowed, Rovelin Dyrie ran away from home. Needing to make a living, she eventually fell in with a gang of drug dealers and took quickly to their lifestyle.

Resolved to prove that she could have more success than her siblings ever did, albeit in a different field, Rovelin Dyrie decided that, however apparently squalid her chosen field was, she would excel in it. And she did; if she lacked her brother's artistic skills or her sister's academic intelligence, she had a shrewdness and a commanding presence that served her well in her new pursuit, especially when combined with her utter lack of scruples. Soon, eliminating her superiors and competitors, she rose to a high position in the local trade. Even so, she wasn't satisfied; hearing of Therqin and its extensive black markets, she decided this was the place to go to really make a name for herself. And so she did; moving to Therqin, she applied the skills that had served her so well elsewhere to build an empire there. If it was harder than she had anticipated, it turned out to be not beyond her capabilities, and eventually she rose to run a huge proportion of Therqin's drug trade.

Goals and personality

Though she has amassed and continues to amass considerable wealth, Rovelin Dyrie does what she does not primarily for the sake of the money, but mostly to prove that she can, to show that she's capable of greatness. The fact that her greatness has been achieved in such a disreputable field is, apparently, beside the point. Still, however much money and power she has attained, Dyrie is unsatisfied; she is always looking for opportunities to make more, and to increase her share of the trade. She no longer takes an active personal part in either the manufacture or the sale of drugs, leaving that to her underlings, but she continues to manage her empire and direct their activities, and has lost none of her acumen.

Outside of her own expensive clothing, Dyrie spends her money on few luxuries; she has no apparent taste for any art or entertainment. The one pleasure she allows herself is sex, and her money and influence mean she usually has no trouble finding that, though she's certainly willing to hire male prostitutes when no other option presents itself, or when she wants a change. Regardless of her partner's identity, she always insists he consent to having his hands bound behind his back, however awkward this may make the act. This is not because of any particular fetish she has, but rather for her own protection; she has learned the value of paranoia in her position, and intends to minimize the danger of her paramour making an attempt on her life.

For all that she seems to have little she wants to buy, Dyrie is careful to save up her money, putting it in profitable investments and monitoring its increase. She has not made public the full extent of her wealth, but it must by now be truly vast. It may very well be that the money is, to her, little more than a mark of her success, a means of keeping score, but some wonder whether perhaps she does have some more concrete plans for it, whether she's saving it to fund some ambitious scheme in the future. If so, she has told no one what her plans are.

Relations

Rovelin Dyrie's success as a druglord has not softened the envy she felt for her family into better feelings. Rather, her bitterness toward her siblings only festered and increased, to the point that she decided to take action against them. She kidnapped her own brother and sold him into slavery, and would have done the same to her sister had she not evaded her and gone into hiding. Her parents she ruined and left destitute. She does, however, have at least one daughter of her own, to whom this antipathy does not extend. While she has left her daughter's rearing to others and seldom if ever sees her, she does at least care enough for her to have paid for her upbringing. She may very well have other children as well, but if she has she has managed to keep them secret.

There is probably no one Dyrie fully trusts, but she does by necessity have underlings she must rely on to some degree. The highest of them, who play the largest role in overseeing her empire's proceedings under her leadership, are a eunuch named Misupti Lavat, a khori Faghllalite named Ru Koa Nadi, and a corpse named Lubigon. Dyrie has intentionally refrained from clarifying their relative positions in her empire or setting any one of them up as the highest, reasoning that they're less likely to turn against her if doing so would not plainly lead to their own leadership of her empire. Enemies, naturally, Dyrie has many, law enforcement and her rival druglords being only the most obvious. One particular inspector, Salkan Ieri, has made taking down Dyrie his particular obsession; likewise, one particular druglord, Ke Ne Oena, is particularly focused on seizing her share of the trade.