Editing Quest:Lamia Daughter Quest (section)

=== Citadel ===

The '''Citadel Kingdom''' itself is actually a mildly sentient and tremendously powerful genius locus with the personality of a young, spoiled child.  It demands stories that fit the stereotypes (e.g. monsters are always [[Chaotic Evil]], "protagonists" are always the last survivors of destroyed hometowns, the male lead has spiky hair and an impractically huge sword), and it can exert some influence over the creatures living within its borders, and especially those within its capital, to enforce them.  It does provide for the humans, ensuring that winters are never too harsh, harvests are always bountiful enough to feed everyone (everyone who toes the line, anyway), and so on, but it has kept the land in a near-stasis for seven "Ages" (inventors and freethinkers are poorly treated by all) and those creatures on the "outside" are entirely out of luck -- for example, Citadel-corrupted monsters will kill their children when confronted with adventurers, to remove any potential moral conundrums from the adventurers' minds (in fact, Ssen only survived because she was the fourth child of her family -- the other three had been killed by the time Liam killed her mother).  Ssen, having grown up in a tower built of a material that happens to have strong anti-magic properties, is basically immune to Citadel's influence, and her father's paladin medallion seems to help ward it off from those near it.  Most of the party is mildly resistant to Citadel, though this is partly thanks to Ssen keeping everyone level.  Isen is also immune to Citadel thanks to his massive ego.

There is a running joke that Citadel actively interferes with dice; we seem to roll high when we need to roll low, and vice versa (though we do well enough in combat).  Particularly disastrous rolls are usually greeted with cries of "CITADEL!"

* The (current iteration of the) '''Lightbringers''' are the "designated" heroes of the story, having been chosen by the Dramatae to run around, fight monsters and villains, and eventually get fed to Citadel.  Ssen gets visions of their progress every so often.  They are every inch the stereotypical RPG party, and if the discussions of the Dramatae are any indication, they are the ones who should have been following the path taken by Ssen and company and fighting the same enemies, but the main party's actions have disrupted the Dramatae's scripted events, which cause things to go awry; the "muscle man", "smart girl", and "Would-Be-Traitor" all died during the attack on Stone Gate, leaving only Adahn ("the boy") and Ava ("the girl").  The Dramatae eventually got so fed up with the Lightbringers' failure that they resorted to tying them up and bringing them along for the attack on the Old One, hoping to kill the dragon, wake up the pair, and make them think that they had done it.
** '''Adahn''' is the designated lead hero, and he is a spiky-haired, minimally-armored jerk with a big sword, who makes the angstiest of JRPG protagonists look positively friendly (his favorite word seems to be "Whatever").  After the rest of his party either died or defected to the Dawnchasers, Adahn was reformatted into the designated villain, as a "fallen Lightbringer".
** '''Ava''' used to be '''Lilly''' before becoming the designated love interest (though there wasn't any chemistry between the two, and it seemed that Adahn was a little ''physical'').  Lilly was plain, while Ava had impractically large breasts, impractically long hair, and impractically revealing clothing.  She turned out to be a little more level-headed than her companion; Ssen gave them Lea's Caligo Clarus medallion, hoping to disrupt Citadel's influence over them, and while the boy threw it away, the girl kept it.  Eventually, she broke out of the mold at the Old One's cave, though she was poisoned shortly thereafter.  She could have been totally healed on the spot, but that would have meant becoming Lilly again; at first, she tried to push the decision onto Ssen, but eventually she chose to stay Ava, asking to be brought back to Bronze Peak and get healed there.  She recovered, and while she is no longer as talented as she was as a Lightbringer (presumably, the Dramatae's enchantments faded), she has finally been able to realize her dream of becoming a hairdresser.