Alias is a fictional character in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Alias is the main character of Azure Bonds. She also appeared in the computer game, Curse of the Azure Bonds which was based on the book. Alias later appears in the sequel Song of the Saurials, and the standalone book Masquerades.
Alias is an artificial being crafted by magic as a private assassin, slave and tool of those who created her. She is neither truly human, nor a crude golem or homounculous; but a truly living being with a soul; which was provided by her companion, the saurial paladin known as Dragonbait. As such, she takes the place of a 'non-born child' in fulfilling an ancient prophecy to free the Darkbringer, Moander.
Fictional character biography
As detailed in Azure Bonds, Alias awakens in a tavern room. She soon discovers that she has a newly acquired azure colored tattoo imprinted on the inside of her sword arm extending from her wrist to her elbow; and she has no memory of how she got there, or where the tattoo came from. At first she attributes her memory loss to inebriation and the tattoo as a drunken prank by companions.
Alias is informed by the Innkeeper of the 'Hidden Lady' that she was found unconscious on the doorstep, and no-one knows where she came from. A southern mage, Akabar Bel Akash introduces himself and offers to investigate her tattoo; but a simple Detect Magic spell causes Alias severe pain, and an eruption of azure light from the tattoo. An attempt to have the tattoo removed by a priest goes even less well; and Alias finds herself compelled to attack the hapless priest and nearly kills him.
Before long, Alias becomes the leader of a disparate trio of adventurers - the mysterious lizard-creature whom she names Dragonbait, Bel Akash and the famed halfling "bard" named Olive Ruskettle whom the other three are hired to rescue from a red dragon named Mistinarperadnacles Hai Draco ('Mist').
It is later revealed that Alias herself is in fact a complicated, magically created, artificial being intended by her creators to be their proxy in various nefarious purposes. Her long term memories were actually granted to her by her sole benign (but misled) creator and her short term memory loss is due in part to the gap between the end of her artificial memories and her premature awakening. She was 'programmed' with a variety of unconscious tasks and desires on behalf of her creators, to fulfil their goals without even knowing that she had done so. She was also programmed to attack those who tried to remove such controls - such as the priest she consulted on awakening.
Alias's adventures involve her defeating each of her creators in turn, to become free of their control. By the end of the book, only two are left alive - the Nameless Bard, and the dark god, Moander; who was discorporated, but would return to Faerun in the later novel, Song of the Saurials.
In the first book, Azure Bonds, Alias is relatively self-confident and strong-willed. In the later book, Song of the Saurials, her new self-knowledge coupled with the relatively limited emotional maturity her implanted memories gave her (the Nameless Bard being a man of extreme vanity and selfishness) began to manifest with more immature behaviours, petulance and lack of emotional control.
Appearance
Alias is a female warrior and at the onset of her story she is portrayed as an archetypal adventuress, wearing simple leather armour and chainmail. She is described as tall, nearing six feet, muscular and beautiful, with a mop of unruly red hair. She is depicted on the cover artwork in ceremonial armour, given to her late in the book by Cassana. The striking (and impractical) appearance of the armour is attributed to Cassana's vanity. Cassana, one of Alias's creators, saw Alias both as a toy to entertain her, and a recreation of herself. She thus fashioned Alias's signature chainmail armour "split open at the middle, baring the flesh between her breasts and offering any sword an easy target" yet enchanting it to protect her better than solid steel would have done. Cassana clearly did this purely to amuse herself and to titillate those around her at her cleverness, and Alias's sex appeal. Dragonbait, Alias's friend and soulmate, repeatedly nagged her to stop wearing it, believing that it was immodest; but Alias refused - supposedly because it was more comfortable than plate mail.