Quendel_Mennel

You are looking ThroughAnAltDarkly!

Most half-breeds have trouble finding their place in the world. Half-elves are treated as 'exotics' by humans and with contempt by elves. Half-orcs are unwelcome almost everywhere the world over. And half-dragons...

Quendel's father was the red wyrm Urlurrunax, her mother was a comely serving girl at a small tavern in Druxel. Urlurrunax, possessing a certain predilection for human females, had a habit of sneaking into the city in the form of a man to seduce and lay with whatever pretty girl caught his eye. His trysts never lasted longer then a single night... and at least once they resulted in offspring.

When Quendel came into the world, her mother recoiled at the sight of her own child, with it's horns, clawed limbs, and patches of scaly skin. The infant was cast out into the alley to fend for itself. A human child would have died within hours. But Quendel had the blood of a dragon in her veins. She was smarter, stronger, faster. Tougher. The crying infant crawled it's way into the sewers, where she fed on refuse and vermin. Quendel's childhood was a special breed of hell. After she was old enough to crawl up out of the sewers, almost feral but sharply intelligent for her young age, Quendel was taken in by a kindly old woman she attempted to steal food from, who dropped her off at one off the city's orphanages. Thus began Quendel's life of abject poverty and of being an outcast.

A life of hardships followed. At the age of six she was employed in the city library as a cleaner because she was small enough to get into places an adult could not. In her spare time, a librarian taught her to read. She figured out how to write on her own. But life gives few opportunities to the poor, even if they are educated. There was no money for a formal education and no time... she had to work. On the wharves picking apart old ropes so the threads could be reused. In the streets, scraping the filth out of the gutters to keep them clean. After she was too old for the orphanage, she was left on the street... penniless and alone. It was expected that she would have to turn to the world's oldest profession in desperation.

That was the line that Quendel refused to cross.

Instead, she used her physical strength as a protector for several of the local prostitutes, eager to rid themselves of their pimps. Ultimately, they only traded one for another and soon Quendel found herself making more money then she'd ever had before. The half-dragon's physical strength kept her in power over others and her mental acuity allowed her to exercise that power wisely. In a few years, she was the owner of a proper brothel. She began an aggressive campaign of expansion and acquisition. Today, Quendel Mennel owns the most expensive underground brothel in the Freecity of Druxel. Many of her girls are slaves, bought and paid for from exotic lands, kept loyal with drugs or threats of death. Now rich beyond what she ever dreamed was possible as a child, Quendel lives a life of luxury while administrating her tiny shadow-kingdom of crime and vice like a queen.

It isn't always sunshine and roses, of course. There are always members of the city guard that can't be bribed, or council members that need to be blackmailed to assure their compliance. And of course adventurers come poking around for reasons other then a good lay, this is, after all, the city of Druxel we're talking about. And, naturally, Quendel occasionally needs to make an example out of one of her rebellious 'employees' to help keep the entire operation in check and remind her people who's at the top of the food chain. And in this case, it's literal.