De Luca Laghari

"'Would you believe I just learned how to use this thing?'""-- De Luca Laghari, about his crossbow."De Luca Laghari was a human male mystic, and a member of the Adventurer's Guild's Team 11. Following the events of the Due Diadem Incident, De Luca worked for a number of years in Burnet Maxwell's lab. After Maxwell's death, he went missing.

Appearance
Although De Luca was raised in Ayah, he seems to have facial features more akin to those of the western nations, like Aldurend, Avalon, or Axiphos. He has medium length brown hair swept to his right, and deep brown eyes; a life under the baking Sheherazad sun has given De Luca a darker, more tanned complexion. In addition to his normal attire, he sports a long brown muffler, a leather satchel, and a copper amulet with indecipherable glyphs. On his shoulders, arms, and legs he wears studded leather armor, and strapped to his back is his light crossbow. His pet rat Welker can almost always be found hiding in his sleeves or scurrying around his muffler, often peeping out to interact with De Luca and others.

Personality
De Luca is generally mild-mannered, polite, and friendly to most people everyone he interacts with. His years of difficult city life have instilled an importance in amiability with people he meets. De Luca is quite often the most social of the party, especially when compared to the more utilitarian Erkos and more awkward Virgil. He seems to, by his own admission, be inexperienced at interacting with children; when after saving Soledad Wilfong from an enraged owlbear, he relied on Welker to soothe her. De Luca seems to be improving this skill, as he was eager to become a teaching assistant to Nina Valero at St. Anton's Day School.

Background
The Illithid was born Kane Becquerel, to wealthy Avalonian merchants Didier and Caroline Becquerel. Not long after his birth, a Praesidium druid named Demeter Luca, tasked by Ganymede to kill the newborn Kane. She infiltrated the Becquerel summer home in the wealthiest district of Sheherazad, making her way to Kane's nursery. Even knowing he would become the Illithid, Demeter found herself unable to kill a newborn and resolved to spare the child. Pursued and attacked by all of Sheherazad’s guard, she held onto the baby Kane, gravely injured. In a last ditch effort to save Kane from further Praesidium assassinations, she laid his swaddled body on the doorstep of an orphanage. Demeter left with him a small copper amulet with his name inscribed, which she took from his crib's bedside. She also left with him a parchment bearing her name "De Luca," so he could find her should she survive. Demeter then summoned her familiar Welker, the last remaining Agolant rat in Eingrad, to watch over Kane. After scurrying into a nearby alleyway, Demeter eventually died from her wounds. When orphanage workers would find the infant, they would confuse which article left with him bore his name. For the rest of his life, he would go by the name "De Luca."

De Luca was raised in the orphanage, located in the Ayahn capital of Sheherazad, until his 13th birthday. After, he was forced to fend for himself by pilfering food from merchant stands. His penchant for learning would manifest in hungrily reading books from the city's library and listening to provoking lecture at the athenaeum. After stumbling into Sheherazad's branch of the Adventurer's Guild, De Luca would find himself serendipitously joining the organization. With the promise of steady income and travel, De Luca decided to go through with joining the guild in an attempt to "get [his] life together."

Plot
Eventually, De Luca left Ayah with Welker to join the Adventurer's Guild, where he would be placed in Team 11. While traveling to Sugarland  from Jacinto to meet Team 11's handler, Siebold Wilfong, he would meet his first teammates, Virgil and Erkos, on the Velasco Railway. De Luca was friendly with his teammates, although he noted that the group of them were a "guarded bunch." To Erkos's annoyance, De Luca and Virgil introduced the running joke that they were all brothers because of their similar features.