Lei Crowley

Overview

Lei is Crowley’s adopted daughter, the unofficial princess of Lea Monde. She is kind, popular, introspective, and has an expansive mind that can intuitively interpret reality and multidimensionality on a level that is far above what anyone else in the universe is capable of.

Rescued from an EDF black site as a child, where she was being studied and tortured, she was raised with love and support by Crowley and his lieutenants, given the advantage of mentorship from the most prestigious minds in the outlaw galaxy.

Lei is a genetic experiment, spliced with mysterious Draconic DNA that was discovered on an abandoned world.

Origin

Crowley discovered Lei in a highly classified EDF black site being studied and tortured in isolation. He rescued her and brought her into Lea Monde.

When she first arrived she presented signs of severe trauma and psychosis, signs of every form of insanity and catatonia in the books.

After a decade of treatment and care from Crowley, Salem and the other lieutenants, Lei became a thriving teenage girl, normal except for one trait: the capabilities of her mind are beyond human comprehension, almost like she can swim in reality as easily as a fish swims in water.

Lei’s Playlist

  1. Paramore: Last Hope (LIVE)
  2. covet – coronal (official video)
  3. Caroline Polachek – So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings (Glastonbury 2022)
  4. fiona apple – PURE IMAGINATION
  5. Cyn – Losing Sleep
  6. Lone Alpha – Here We Go (feat. kyOresu) [MV]

Role

Lei has no official role in Lea Monde aside from being a student at Crowley’s academy on Djevica 9 and the adopted daughter of Crowley and his lieutenants.

For all intents and purposes, Lei is an ordinary girl living an ordinary life making memories with friends and family. Lei, however, is shrouded in mystery; her playful, kind nature belies a history of horrific treatment, and what her mind is capable of is beyond the understanding of even Salem, Crowley or Nyx.

A posterchild for the question of genius or madness, Lei is surrounded be one singular pervasive rumor: that she’s the first of a breakthrough in human evolution.

Author’s Note

Lei is the type of person who, at first, seems like a total space cadet, but the more you talk to her and understand her, you begin to realize she has awareness, insight and wisdom far beyond anyone else. Her personality is kind of this classic old soul kind of stereotype.

The biggest inspiration for Lei came from this music video from Alissic called Like, (which isn’t in Lei’s playlist because these playlists are more like, what would be on that character’s playlist, not playlists about them). I realized after I wrote the book she has a lot of similarities with River Tam from Firefly, or like Eleven from Stranger Things, but you’re introduced to her after she’s completed that reintegration arc. Weird coincidence River Tam and River Crowley… that was unintentional, maybe I made the connection subconsciously.

The basic idea behind Lei was that she’s somewhat the opposite of Crowley. Whereas Crowley was pulled from the highest reaches of society into the mud and had to fight his way out, and developed a justified vengefulness that he fights with internally, Lei was rescued in the lowest reaches a person could find themselves in — complete isolation and torture — and delivered to the best place a person could be: safe, surrounded by family and love, and as a result she has a natural gratitude and dreamy quality to her.

In other words, in Lei’s world, torture was normal and dreams came true, as contrasted to Crowley’s life, where privilege was normal and disaster struck. So in many ways, she’s the complete opposite of him emotionally.

Each member of Lea Monde’s inner circle has some sort of specialty — Crowley’s knowledge and psyops, Salem’s insight into the mind, Aria’s military prowess, Nyx’s scientific genius, Lyra’s athletic ability. In that context, Lei’s specialty is spirituality, and a highly advanced, futuristic take on spirituality at that. She has an indomitable spirit, a genius imagination, and the ability to see reality as it is, an expanse of time and multidimensionality much greater than what a normal human is capable of sensing. True compassion, true care, true empathy.

There’s definitely a sort of RPG party motif to the Lea Monde crew, and if Crowley and Nyx are mages, Aria and Lyra are warriors and Salem is a healer, Lei is the druid of the group. Attuned to nature, plugged into the flow of the universe, that kind of thing.

She’s blindingly optimistic, but not naive: she’s fully aware of the worst aspects of reality and human nature, in graphic detail not only as a witness but through direct experience.