The Wonders of Arlia

Nelda Valedriss

Quick facts

Race/Class: Elf bard · Party: The FAM (joined Session 8) · Home: Saline Coast · Family: Thalorian Valedriss (father, deceased), Eldric Valedriss (younger brother), her mother · Instrument: bagpipes, later the Golden Bagpipes · Status: Alive (as of C2 Session 83)

Nelda Valedriss is a young elf bard from a wealthy, political Saline Coast family. She walked away from an arranged marriage and her inheritance to join The FAM, and by Session 81 Wilbur was calling her the heart of the group.

Overview

Nelda knows the city’s political players, plays the bagpipes, flirts her way past guards and is cynical about marriage, which she once called a construct of modern slavery. She studied abroad at CAGS (the Cacklers Academy for Gifted Students) in North City. Her story is bound up with her father, Thalorian Valedriss, and with the cursed glaive she took from Eldon Reed, which filled her head with the moans of trapped souls for much of the campaign.

History

Joining the party (Sessions 8–13)

Nelda overheard talk in the Rusty Anchor of a “Tourist Tinker Terrorist Terrorizes Town” and tracked down Wilbur. She mentioned that she had studied abroad and shared what she knew of the conspiracy. She identified “E.R.” as the poker player Eldon Reed and the monocled dwarf as the city treasurer, Orin Coppercoin.

On the day of the masquerade her father demanded she attend Cedric Lightharbor’s speech so he could arrange her marriage to Cedric Lightharbor Jr. She refused, and he cut her off. The party gave her a place to stay at the Mercenary’s Rest. A mystery potion made her float but took away her ability to walk, so she danced strangely at the ball. The fortune teller drew her the Tower (sudden upheaval, and with destruction the chance of rebirth), the Moon (hidden truths and deception from those who don’t have her best interests at heart) and the Star (a guiding light and healing). At Eldon’s poker game she accepted a smoke and dropped Kip’s quit-smoking pamphlet. She flirted with the guards Murtog and Mullroy to get into the prison. To get out of the city she disguised herself as “Sophie Girardelli.”

Squeebles and the glaive (Sessions 14–25)

Nelda woke the camp with her bagpipes and talked about a past love with whom she wanted different things. She told Ellery her own fears about going home. When the goblin Squeebles joined them, Nelda felt responsible for him and argued he should stay, even after waking to find him staring at her. She fed the sick Steve some eggs. When the Bloodhowler killed Squeebles she was stunned and horrified, and later grieved, feeling responsible for his death. She made Kip smell like an onion to show Escher magic’s playful side.

Her brother Eldric sent word that their parents had been arrested for harboring a fugitive, Nelda herself, and guards stormed the family home while she was there. In the escape a new power surged through the glaive she had taken after Eldon’s defeat, leaving a green hue and silencing the moaning voices in her head. Soon Squeebles’ spirit seemed to possess Kip’s voodoo doll, and Nelda confessed she believed the glaive was cursed and would not let her give it up. When Ellery and Escher tried to take it from her, she froze them both with hold person, then apologized in tears.

In the Saline Coast Sewers a swarm of scarabs nearly killed her. As she lay dying she met Squeebles’ spirit, who offered to take her place. She chose to live, and after a goodbye he faded, leaving the doll lifeless on her chest. Back at the tavern she gave a concert in disguise, got so into it that the disguise fell, and was approached afterward by Cedric Lightharbor Jr.

Pardons and family (Sessions 26–32)

Cedric Jr. turned out to be a pawn of his father, not the “fascist pig” she expected, and promised not to give them away. Nelda persuaded the mortician Victor Blackwood to hand over the fate-changing chest and was recruited to play bagpipes at the closing festival. Mayor Windrider ordered her parents released. The reunion went badly: her father disowned her, demanded she return a family heirloom and began berating her mother as they left. Nelda cast dissonant whispers on him, leaving him with permanent injuries.

In The In-Between, Nelda finished the Bloodhowler by cutting off his head with his own glaive. Back home, Cedric Jr. seemed to flirt with her and asked to join their travels, which she clumsily deflected. Wilbur’s farewell letter had urged her to keep using her powerful voice to fight for others.

At sea (Sessions 34–43)

Moved by Arghen’s plea, Nelda was one of the first to agree to hunt the dragon. After Escher’s bluff failed, she posed as a friend hoping to hitch a ride, which got Captain Teft talking, and she bought a “potion of clouded judgment” to help Stormforge sign the ship away. On a visit to the Gilded Minnow she bought a snarl fin kitten, David, who loved everyone but her. She pierced Ellery’s nose and supported her when Ellery learned the truth about her planet. When she played a mini concert for the crew, Wilbur’s fireworks and Kip’s confetti moved her to tears. She lost a drinking game to Arghen. At Breadstock the musician Verio Nightwind sang her a song he had written about her, and they shared a hug. She beat Ellery at arm wrestling, and a seagull brought her a pouch of rubies.

The devil and the bullette (Sessions 44–50)

Nelda gave the Coast Chronicle an official quote that she did not support her father’s mayoral campaign because their values didn’t align. In the crypt she held the risen Tobias Blackwood with a spell, burst through the locked door, and accidentally knocked Escher out with her thunderwave. Chasing the VTC necromancer, she was struck down. That night a red devil with golden bagpipes challenged her to a musical duel, her soul against his instrument. With Rusty Dunlaw’s help negotiating the contract and her friends’ magic backing her, she won, and the devil vanished, leaving the Golden Bagpipes at her feet. She visited her father before leaving the city. He warned her that the VTC was watching her friends and that he would not protect her, then ordered her out.

A bullette dragged her into its burrow, and Escher saved her. On watch with Arghen she saw a bright star in the constellation of Isidar the Conqueror flare and vanish (The Vanishing Stars).

Green Hollow and her father (Sessions 51–58)

In Green Hollow, Alana Elmheart called Nelda a “prostitute.” In the Temple of Cyrollellee Nelda split a giant spider’s head with her glaive, blinded the cultist Hob with a smite, and caught Sawyer Elmheart in a cloud of daggers. In Brinewick Hollow she intercepted the Judge’s mail and found a letter in Elvish from Lazra Vant.

Back on the coast, Nelda reached Eldric by messenger bird and learned VTC guards had beaten him for searching their father’s desk. She and Escher snuck into the Valedriss mansion and overheard her father agree to deliver the Fellowship to Lazra Vant in exchange for her safety. When the fight broke out, Thalorian tried to defend her and was fatally wounded. Nelda killed Lazra Vant with a thunderwave. She cradled her father as he apologized for the man he had been and told her to stay strong, then took his sending stone and told Eldric to take their mother and flee the city.

North City (Sessions 59–71)

Nelda argued with Ellery in the Underdark while mourning, and finished a beholder by blasting it into her own cloud of daggers. In North City she visited her old school and met former classmates from CAGS, Mia, Joanie, Lynn and Bryn, who now ran an adventuring group called Bitch Perfect. She and Ellery reconciled under the moonlight as found family. Then The Whisper sent her a message saying she had broken their deal and withdrew his aid, and the moans in her glaive came flooding back. During the Ozaroo battle she used a cloud of daggers on the apes’ tails. Before the Cell Games, Ruby purged the souls from her glaive and revealed that her father’s soul had been shielding her from the worst of it. Fable tried, unsuccessfully, to flirt with her.

Mia met Nelda, warned her they were being watched, and confessed she had been ordered to plant the Asset Songbird tracker on her with a goodbye hug. Nelda finally sold the glaive, still cursed, for 2,300 gold and a ring of swimming after some masterful haggling. Mia later admitted she didn’t even work for the VTC and that her father used her as a pawn. Nelda told her about her own father’s marriage plans and said she respected Mia for choosing what was right. Mia also told her that Verio Nightwind was Cedric Lightharbor Jr.’s stage name and that the company meant to keep him in North City with a love potion. Nelda was relieved he had moved on but horrified he was being coerced. Their dinner with Bitch Perfect at Chili’s was crashed by the whole FAM. Nelda argued that Mia deserved the chance to repair things with her father, so the party agreed to get him fired rather than killed.

Coghaven and the gallows (Sessions 72–83)

Wilbur found the tracker wriggling in her curls. In Coghaven, Nelda caught Ellery sneaking out to trade herself for Cabba, clipped her with a thunderwave and reminded her she didn’t have to do everything alone.

Before Catman’s execution, Wilbur told Nelda she had become the heart of the FAM and gave her a gift to keep her protected. She answered, “I love you, Dad. I mean, Wilbur.” At the gallows Khalor’s Dream Harvest weighed her down, and she shredded Daask Bruiser with a cloud of daggers. He took it as an affront to his masculinity, “pronounced sentence” on her and buried his axe in her collarbone, then spat on her as she lay down. Nelda answered with a phantasmal killer that showed him his deepest fear: his own hands covered in long nails and pink nail polish. She held him in place for Escher’s final arrow. Later she fell asleep sitting upright, exactly as Arghen used to, proving Arghen’s sleeps were Khalor’s doing, and Kip woke her.

Relationships

Notable quotes

  • “I love you, Dad. I mean, Wilbur.”

Appears in

8 · 9 · 10 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55 · 57 · 58 · 59 · 60 · 61 · 62 · 63 · 66 · 68 · 69 · 70 · 71 · 72 · 74 · 81 · 82 · 83

Nelda’s kitchen. Set from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (NBC).

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