Esmerelda

Twin elf sisters, once bosom friends are now on opposite sides of good and virtue. Each has thought the other dead until fate's twisted paths bring them clashing, one against the other, late in life. Esmerelda's fate has led her to hide in the Black Moor because of an ambitious king who blames a drought plaguing his kingdom on practitioners of magic. She has been taught some novice magic by her adoptive mother before her adoptive mother died. Amid all this, she naturally longs for love but must overcome her timidity. She has dreamed of meeting an elf cavalier who will come, defeat the king, and whisk her away to his castle. Finally, she makes the decision to take matters into her own hands and seek out her own destiny. Having been separated by a flood, Castelia has fallen under the influence of a demonic apparition and haunts the ruins of a once mighty kingdom. The chance meeting of an ambitious dwarf and clan of gnolls brings her back into contact with her sister once again. Esmerelda has followed some deathbed advice from her adoptive mother and employed the services of a gnome wizard who takes advantage of her and the king and the gnolls in an effort to summon a demon from hell to assist him in obtaining immortality. Esmerelda tries to mitigate her circumstances by summoning a black dragon and all hell breaks loose when both sides meet. In the meantime, she meets a dashing elf ranger who has a quirky disappearing act during a full moon.ep

Esmerelda is only a fledgling wizard who has recently escaped from a dismal existence in a desolate, forsaken, and lonely corner of the kingdom. In the process, she has gained the company of some new friends, but with that freedom, she has also inherited several gut-wrenching challenges demanding her devotion. First, she has been reunited with a sister whom she long thought was dead. Unfortunately, it has not been a happy reunion because her sister has turned demonic and is now imprisoned within a magical rod. She contemplates rescuing her sister from her horrible fate, but she has only rudimentary wizardly skills to work with. In the course of her sister's imprisonment, a young gypsy bard has been magically released from his imprisonment and claims the rod. He has a most wondrous tale to tell of shadowy intrigue involving a terrible, mystical, shape-shifting creature called a doppelganger. He also claims to have consorted with some magical, fun-loving blue giants and to have narrowly escaped a fire-breathing dragon. On top of that, he claims to have been tragically parted from his family and requests aid to help him reunite with them.