“I can see dead people,“ were the first words little Lyria ever spoke at the small orphanage tucked away in a grove at the foot of a mountain range. She had scared people ever since she was a small child, to the point that her caregivers had prayed in the dead of the night to keep their fear at bay. Of course, Lyria knew about that. She knew a lot of things, because despite its remote location, the orphanage was haunted by several spirits who were lonely, bored out of their minds, and really wanted their stories to be heard. And Lyria was a good listener—she'd realized fairly early on that voicing her opinion was useless when a chatty ghost wanted to vent.

But no prayers could protect the orphanage and its charges from the attack that destroyed them all one day. Lyria was the only survivor, led to safety by her dead friends who were too scared to lose the only human who could keep them company. Lyria's first contract with a spirit came in the form of a nursery rhyme. It lent her the power she needed to find shelter and survive the attack on her orphanage. From that point on, Lyria had no one to take care of her aside from the dead. She had one more realization that day: she'd have to care for those who were less fortunate. The foundations of her future power were laid when she stood among the smoldering ruins of her former home, consoling the ghosts of the orphanage workers and her fellow foster children.

Lyria is an intuitive medium who's been able to see and communicate with ghosts her entire life. The dead serve her, but they do so willingly and in accordance with the contracts they've made. They're mutually beneficial arrangements: the spirits get to be laid to rest eventually, and Lyria gets loyal servants for years at a time. Service to her isn't that long compared to the eternity they'd spend stuck in the world of the living otherwise, right?

Many of the souls Lyria holds a contract with dwell in her armor. Each one has their own story, but they all share the desire to honor their contracts and keep her alive.

Sometimes, when Lyria loses focus, the voices of the dead drown out her own and spill into the world. Lyria strives to get rid of a lot of things that she deems wrong, and for that, she needs power. The power of the dead feeds her life force, transforming Lyria's very essence in strange ways. It lets her help people (primarily dead ones) according to her area of expertise, pragmatically molding her situation to her advantage.

Duty in its broadest sense is what keeps Lyria going. She knows that you need leniency and a bit of irony to deal with people because she's seen their true nature. She knows what's really important to them, and she's heard the foolish requests that show their true colors. What's the point in maintaining your facade when you're already dead, right? Sometimes Lyria even grants those requests, if it's not too much of a bother.

She respects her contracts and abhors lies and foul play, but that doesn't make her a kind person. Lyria is a wanderer, some may even say a pilgrim and she loves being on the road. At the end of the day, she's just a human being, with all the same curiosity, fatalism, and stoicism. She's elegant but straightforward, cold but compassionate. Maybe she is the way she is because she's had to adapt to the constant presence of a staggering number of spirits in her armor.