The Swan Bride

"A woman haunts the quayside of Jericho Locks, her long black gown damp from the miasma of Hell's waterways. She wears a mask depicting a golden swan, which enhances rather than disguises the sickly emerald hue of her skin."

The Swan Bride is an eerie woman who frequents the canals of Jericho Lock. The Gonfaloniere of the Guild of Gondoliers forbids contact with her, nobody is willing to ferry her and she is barred from the local establishments. She speaks little yet she seems to be fond of books and learning. She doesn’t seem to remember her past.

Who was she in the past?

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The Swan Bride was a sacrifice - a part of a contract between the current Gonfaloniere and the Poisoned Priestess that dwells in the Sere Place at the confluence of the canals in a poisonous pool. The current Gonfaloniere wanted to get out of the eventual fate that awaits any Gonfaloniere that loses a boat race. The challenger becomes the new Gonfaloniere and the old Gonfaloniere gets taken by Hell and his future seems highly unpleasant. To escape this fate he wanted to poison his blood with the waters of the Sere Place so he’d become tied to the Canals so it would be impossible for Hell to claim him.

"He spoke to the Lotus Pool, and the Pool answered. Blood for water. If the canals flow through you, how can you lose a race on the red waters?" The Poisoned Priestess. "The price was too rich for his blood. But he could read men well, and though far older, to him I was an open book. In my loneliness, I allowed a substitution."

As it turned out he wasn’t strong enough for the Poisoned Priestess’s gift so he ended up getting a substitute in the form of a poor girl who’d become the Swan Bride. She became tied to the Canals and he got guaranteed victory in any boat race and the title of Gonfaloniere.