Stephanie

Stephanie, usually known in Senera as Tiphanie, is a shifter hag associated with Baba Yaga, the Children of the Coven, and the Vengeful affair. She is recorded as one of Baba Yaga’s scribes and as a former student of Scholomance, though her known talents did not center on necromancy.

Tiphanie became one of Crown Prince Marlion Dragonheart’s most important magical allies during the Travertine crisis. Under the cover of serving as one of the Prince’s court wizards, she examined Luke Malthrek for Reformist influence, helped expose the danger surrounding Pallia Travertine, and later assisted with the political repair that placed Katalin Helsinki beside Luke.

Background

Stephanie grew up in Murkendraw among fey folk who worshiped Baba Yaga. After reaching a certain age, she exchanged years of her life for magical artifacts and knowledge, a bargain commemorated by Baba Yaga’s gift of a broomstick and by Stephanie’s reduction to a childlike form. She later traveled with a group of adventurers whom she betrayed and sacrificed in Baba Yaga’s name, an act that brought a hunt upon her and left her living under concealment.

She eventually crossed from the Feywild to Thera with the crew of the Rozenmaiden. Her goal was to regain Baba Yaga’s favor after the destruction of an important otherworldly item that she had been tasked with protecting. In Seneran events she often appeared through the name Tiphanie, and her catlike or shifter nature made her easy to underestimate in indoor spaces.¹

Baba Yaga and the Coven

Tiphanie remained linked to Baba Yaga and to hag politics even when working with Seneran allies. Faithful hags who followed Baba Yaga were treated separately from the Children of the Crone, and Tiphanie’s reputation among hags was severe enough that even hostile factions were cautious about provoking her. Some later accounts describe her as having slain many hags, while other hags of the Faithful claimed kinship or coven ties to her during the Thralmal and Malthrek operations.

Her older role as Baba Yaga’s Scribe shaped how others understood her authority, but Tiphanie did not always act as a simple agent of Baba Yaga. She pursued her own bargains, protected selected wards, and made practical alliances when aberrations, Reformists, and rival hag factions threatened to overtake the crisis.

Travertine Crisis

During the proposed wedding of Luke Malthrek and Pallia Travertine, Tiphanie operated beside Marlion under the guise of being one of the Prince’s court wizards. She made an agreement with Marlion, learned his true name Steinar, and gave him a flask of Essence of Nymph to present to Luke as a liege lord’s wedding boon. The boon created the formal opportunity for Marlion to speak with Luke directly while Tiphanie examined Luke’s mind.²

Tiphanie found that Luke had not yet become a Reformist, but that he had been groomed toward Reformist doctrine. Duchess Antoinette Malthrek had instilled ideas around pain, pleasure, and the Divine Masochist, while another voice in Luke’s mind was likely Pallia’s. When a Reformist spy attempted to interfere, Marlion killed her with the Topaz Sword of Summer, giving Tiphanie more time to work on Luke. The group later moved Luke to Marlion’s rooms at the Grand Waterfall Inn, where John Malthrek helped explain the family’s suspicions.

Suspicion then turned toward Pallia. Her bedroom opened into a pocket dimension, and she was identified as a dangerous hag and Reformist agent. Tiphanie judged that killing and raising a Feywild hag might create something worse, and ultimately consumed Pallia into her hat to make a potion from her remains.

Luke and Katalin

After Pallia’s exposure, Tiphanie began planning a replacement bride for Luke. Katalin Helsinki emerged as the intended replacement, brought forward with the help of Mystine Nightingale. The arrangement preserved the political usefulness of Luke’s marriage while severing the settlement from Pallia and the local Reformist operation.

Tiphanie also studied Marlion’s Topaz Sword of Summer during the same period. She concluded that the sword’s protections may fail if the wielder holds fear in his heart, which helped explain why Marlion could wield it so effectively when other Dragonheart bearers had failed.

Later Operations

Tiphanie remained active with Marlion during later University operations. She and the Prince fought shadowy forces and conjured monsters, then reached a brief respite in an altered or protected University space. She believed the distortion around them might keep enemies from finding them, even as Marlion remained wounded and the wider Malthrek crisis continued.³

During the same operations, John addressed Tiphanie as Mistress, and she used SendingSendingLevel 3 · Evocation1 action · Unlimited · 1 roundV, S, M (a short piece of fine copper wire)You send a short message of twenty-five words or less to a creature with which you are familiar. The creature hears the message in its mind, recognizes you as the sender if it knows you, and can answer in a like manner immediately. The spell enables creatures with Intelligence scores of at least 1 to understand the meaning of your message. You can send the message across any distance and even to other planes of existence, but if the target is on a different plane than you, there is a 5 chance that the message doesn't arrive. to contact Matthew Malthrek. The connection helped confirm that Matthew was alive near the geography department dormitories and made him a possible rescue target. Later plans even considered whether Tiphanie might impersonate Matthew as a decoy while the real Matthew escaped.

Footnotes

1. Earlier accounts place Stephanie in Murkendraw, Scholomance, the Feywild, and the Rozenmaiden’s passage to Thera after her failed charge from Baba Yaga. ↩

2. The Travertine audience records Tiphanie’s cover as Marlion’s court wizard, the Steinar disclosure, her probing of Luke’s mind, and Marlion’s intervention with the Topaz Sword. ↩

3. The University front records Tiphanie and Marlion fighting together, Marlion’s wound, John’s contact with Tiphanie, and Tiphanie’s message to Matthew. ↩