no one asked, but i wanna yap :)
her name is Eulalia “Bodach Bairn” Teufel, a teifling fighter, former pirate captain, and now lich.
at 11 she accidentally killed the captain of an infamous and ancient pirate crew, The Southern Kraken, by shoving him over a railing when he groped her mother, the barmaid. following pirate inheritance law, eulalia became the new captian.
for the next nine years she strove to prove herself as a good captain, paralyzed with fear that one of her crew members would kill her im her sleep as revenge for their former captain or ambition for her position.
until during a sea battle in the midst of a violent storm, The Callisto sunk. Like a the good captain she had been spending the better part of a decade fighting to be for honour and survival, Eulalia tied herself to the mast and went down with her ship.
But the universe would not accept her sacrifice, dishonouring her for life. Eulalia found herself washed up on the shores of a foreign country, and ashamed of her failures as a captain she resigned herself to a life of gambling and drinking.
Rory was the one to pull her out of her wallowing; a mediocre abjuration wizard in search of a fighter. for the next three years they worked together (along with the rest of their party) on quests, building trust and friendship. She told him about her survivors guilt and her ultimate goal of finding true honour.
While fighting a white drake, Eulalia and her party—save Rory—perished. Eulalia got her dream: a hero’s death. Rory, who’s main function in the party was support, had landed in his worst nightmare. His friends were dead, and he had survived. He spent hours searching for any cleric or druid to help save his friends, months searching for someone to resurrect them, and years working to afford a spell that could, but it was too late.
There was only one option: turn them all into Liches. For the next 20 years Rory worked, cracking the secrets to lich-dom, until finally, after losing many pieces of himself in the process, he brought his friends back to un-life.
Unfortunately, he was not a necromancer, nor even a particularly skilled wizard at all, so something went wrong. None of them remembered him upon waking, and everytime he tried to remind them or even say his own name they immediately forgot again.
Crushed that he couldn’t get his friends back, but comforted by the thought that at least they could continue to live their lives, he let them go, and resolutely slaughtered people every full moon to feed their phylactories.
Eulalia awoke, yet again failing to die with honour. The universe simply did not think she was worthy. Now, she found, she could not die at all, lich as she was. It didn’t take their party long to notice the missing villagers each full moon, and to realize that someone was killing innocent people to keep them alive. Not only was she not a hero, but she was also an abomination.
After months of living as a lich, Eulalia slowly started to properly mourn her concept of a good captain, realizing that maybe there was life after tragedy, swimming after the ship sinks.
Until her memories were returned. It wasn’t the universe that denied her honour, it was someone she considered her closest confidant. She wasn’t being given a pass by the gods, but rather stripped of being a hero by her friend. Someone who knew how much survivors guilt had haunted her.