Linu La'neral is an elven cleric (of Sehanine Moonbow) from Evereska who is constantly finding herself in awkward situations. She is kind, but her self-consciousness causes her to lose the grace of her race and descend into clumsiness at times, which only serves to make her more self-conscious. This, combined with her awful luck and uncanny timing leads many people to ask her to please help somewhere else.
Linu is a henchman who is available in both the original and Hordes of the Underdark campaigns. As a cleric, Linu provides support for a player, healing the injured and turning undead. In addition, she can deal out damage with power attack, and she has some measure of survivability in combat, being one of the few henchmen who make use of a shield (the only such henchman in the original campaign).
Bug: The AI neglects to equip a shield when switching weapons. Since Linu must unequip her shield to wield her crossbow, doing so in the original campaign causes her shield to go unused (until the next chapter or her next level-up). This is also an issue in the Hordes of the Underdark campaign, but in that campaign, the player can access her inventory and manually equip a shield. This has been fixed in the Enhanced Edition.
In-game description: While rubbing a stain off her shirt, this young elf glances around with a cheerful visage; yet there is a hardiness that belies her gentle exterior.
Background[]
These are the background stories told by Linu as part of her henchman quests in the original campaign.
While still young, Linu was sent to a school for "potentials", children of gifted wizards who are expected to take after their parents. However, on the first day of class, Linu's curiosity led her to accidentally disrupt a spell being cast by the teacher. This led to some unpleasantness, but Linu stayed in the school for another month, when she accidentally jumped into a portal to another plane of existence. She should have died, but was saved by the intervention of Sehanine Moonbow, who wanted Linu to go on a quest. Centuries earlier, Sehanine had discovered a forest of oak trees with a special adaptation that allowed the forest to survive the eruptions of the surrounding range of volcanoes. Sehanine had been smitten with the majesty of those trees, and had wept when she discovered that the forest had been destroyed (by unknown forces). Sehanine saved Linu, and in return, Linu dedicated herself to Sehanine, becoming her cleric and accepting the task of finding a seed from one of those volcanis oaks (chapter three quest).
Later in her life, Linu met Synth La'neral, a handsome, charismatic, intelligent, adventurous archeologist who was respected within Evereska despite the city's usual disdain for adventurers. The meeting was an embarrassing encounter for Linu, but it piqued Synth's interest. Synth set himself to woo Linu, one night climbing a ten-story wall to serenade her while she slept. Not realizing who was singing, Linu reacted defensively, kicking him in the jaw. Not wanting to fight back for fear of hurting Linu, Synth decided to make an exit off the balcony, intending to swing to a lower terrace. By this time Linu had recognized him, and sought to save him from falling, but ended up stepping on one of his hands. Praying for strength, she managed to haul Synth up by the other hand, dislocating his shoulder in the process. Synth started begging Linu to not touch him. Knowing her own abilities at healing, Linu ignored his protests, popped his shoulder back into place, cast a healing spell to relieve the pain, and kissed him soundly. They married a year later.
Synth retired from his adventuring life for a couple of years, but then discovered the location of an ancient city. The timing of his announcement of this discovery meant that he would seek out this city while Linu was committed to preparing a special temple celebration. A mage friend of Synth created a pair of magic journals so Synth and Linu could remain in contact while Synth was exploring the ruins. They did write, but Synth would write about his thoughts and philosophies rather than about what he was doing, until his last message, which ended with a foreboding indication that "they" were coming again. While it was clear that Synth had been killed by "them", Linu did not have enough information to locate those ruins and quiet the ghost that haunts her dreams. It was not until her adventures pursuing the cult that threatened Neverwinter (chapter two of the original campaign) that she learned the location of those ruins and recovered Synth's journal (from the player, who finds it in a troll cave above some ancient ruins).
After working in the Temple of the Full Moon for six years, Linu was finally called upon to leave Evereska when a thief stole a silver goblet from the temple. The task of recovering the chalice fell upon Linu in part because she was the one who let the thief into the temple (thinking he was a starving child who could use some food), and partly because she had a vision from her goddess indicating she would recover the chalice after a long journey to the north and west. A cheerful celebration was held (which Linu chose to view as being in honor of her quest, rather than a response to her and her luck being sent far away), and Linu set out.
Arriving in a small town called Llork, Linu found a mob of people about to hang a halfling who was unjustly accused of murder. The halfling, later revealed to be Tomi Undergallows, had tried to sell the stolen chalice to a Zhent merchant for 500 gold. The merchant had responded by confiscating the religious artifact as a tribute to Bane, which was backed up by the Zhent mayor of the town. Protests over this led to the murder accusation. This was an injustice Linu could not stand, so she ran into the crowd, hoping to stop them. Instead, she tripped and managed to instigate a brawl. This provided the halfling the opportunity to escape. Linu saw him once more, silver chalice again in his hand, before he disappeared into the wood.
Still looking for the chalice, Linu eventually arrived in the city of Neverwinter in time to help tend to victims of the Wailing Death. Fortunately for her, the Silver Chalice of Moonbow had also found its way into the city, where it can be found by the player (chapter one).
All these troubles originating from the theft of the goblet has left Linu with an intense hatred of thieves. The fact that her father was also a thief did not help.
Original campaign[]
- Main article: Original campaign
In the original campaign, Linu starts in the Trade of Blades in the city core (chapter one). In later chapters, she can be found in the area where the player character starts.
If asked about her background, she gives quests to the player, the reward of which is a pendant ("of the Elf") that grants a bonus to dexterity and abilities inspired by the racial abilities of elves. The items she is looking for are the Silver Chalice of Moonbow, the Journal of Synth La'neral, and a Volcanis Oak Seed. These can be found in a cabinet in the Blacklake room where Meldanen is fought, in a corpse in a troll cave along the East Road, and in some stones near the altar in the ruins near Fort Illkard.
Hordes of the Underdark[]
- Main article: Hordes of the Underdark campaign
In the Hordes of the Underdark campaign, Linu can be found in a sarcophagus in the eastern part of level 2 of Undermountain. (There is also a fake Linu in the area, in reality a disguised rakshasa.) The experience of waking up in a coffin has left Linu thinking of retiring from adventures, possibly establishing a temple with the reward money offered by the city of Waterdeep.
In the end, she finally returned to Evereska, and her temple there at long last forgave her for the accidents of her past and granted her the title of High Priestess. A month later, with the temple reduced to ruins (purely an accident, of course), she returned to Waterdeep once more. There she was said to have been a force of good in troubled times, guiding its citizens with a sense of justice and diplomacy that, as once noted by the sage Elminster, "held all the grace that her feet did not."
An observation made by Daelan Red Tiger in this campaign suggests that Linu's apparent clumsiness is purely due to her self-consciousness, as it disappears when she is lost in thought. This makes a short snippet of conversation from the original campaign potentially more significant, as when Linu is asked about her home, the first story that comes to mind is of her falling during a childhood game, then being teased about it for the rest of her childhood (sixty years).
Misadventures[]
When Linu first came to Neverwinter, she worked in the temple of Tyr. After several exhausting days, she tried to stand, but instead fainted into a glass statue of the symbol of Tyr. One of the balanced plates flew across the room and smashed spectacularly right above the head of the high priest, who reacted by sitting down, right on a rather large shard of glass. She was asked to find somewhere else to help with the wounded.
In Port Llast, Linu bumped into a waitress, causing her to spill some drinks. Linu reacted by leaping backwards, right into a dwarf, knocking over his ale and stew. The dwarf crashed into a half-orc, starting a brawl. Fortunately, she was able to avoid the brawl by hiding under a table. When the fight was over, she put on an apron and helped clean up the mess. Finally, she stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and slipped in a mud puddle, which caused her to change her clothes and almost miss seeing the hero of Neverwinter arrive.
On the way to Beorunna's Well, Linu had a nightmare that a dragon was chasing her. She woke to see the outline of the wagon she had been riding in. Still frightened by the dream, she reacted by unleashing a blast of lightning, which fortunately did only a little (direct) damage to the wagon, but the tree that the blast knocked down managed to shatter the wagon to tiny pieces. (Linu was able to get a ride from the next wagon, though, and resolved to pay for the wagon out of her own wages once the immediate concerns facing Neverwinter had been dealt with.)
After returning to Neverwinter, Linu stopped by the Bridge district (a district not featured in the original campaign) to buy a chicken for some soup. The chicken escaped her, and when Linu dove for it, she knocked over a cart, disturbing a sleeping cat who ended up in a fountain. Dogs chased the wet cat under some horses, spooking the horses. Trying to calm the situation, Linu chased the horses to get them back, but caused some damage along the way that ultimately resulted in a full-scale riot.
In another incident in Neverwinter after the plague, Linu was dancing with the ambassador from Sembia at a court function when she tripped and fell into a waiter, who spilled boiling hot soup on the ambassador. Flailing about in pain, the ambassador stumbled into a brazier and caught fire. Naturally, Linu tried to help, so she poured a bucket of water on him. Only the bucket contained brazier fuel, not water...
External Links[]
- Linu La'neral on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.