Lyre

Lyre is a member of the Clasp in Westruun who was tasked with kidnapping Vex'ahlia for Berin Abenard. As punishment for his failure, he was transformed into a copy of Vex'ahlia and given as a decoy to Abenard.

Appearance
When Vax'ildan first encountered him, Lyre was a young man with silver eyes and a scar running from below his right eye to his chin. He wore all black clothing, including a long ankle-length cloak, a hood, and a mask over his mouth. He wielded long needles, daggers, and blackened darts.

Lyre was later turned into an exact copy of Vex'ahlia, and Spireling Gideor tore out Lyre's tongue and added it to the Despoiler of Flesh.

Background
Prior to his encounter with Vax'ildan, Lyre failed to deliver on at least two other contracts for the Clasp: one involving a "young girl in the Shields" and another involving "a sizable sum of gold owed by a certain bookseller".

Kith & Kin
Around 807 PD, Lyre was assigned by Spireling Gideor to kidnap Vex'ahlia. The contract was put out by a local nobleman, unnamed by Gideor but presumed to be Berin Abenard, who had had a confrontation with Vex'ahlia the previous day. Lyre followed Vex'ahlia as she travelled through Westruun at night. She realized she was being followed as she left the the Cobalt Reserve in the Scholar Ward. She encountered a swarm of rats that didn't behave normally, presumably due to being commanded by Lyre, and he shot long needles at her from the rooftops. Vax'ildan, who had also been following her, intercepted Lyre, and the two went tumbling off of a roof. Vax convinced Lyre to bring him to see Gideor, in the hopes that he might be able to cancel the contract. Lyre led him to a basement under a flower shop, where Ro took over, sending Lyre to be healed by Elisen and putting Vax'ildan to sleep to bring him to Gideor. When Gideor later brought Vax'ildan to the Clasp's tavern, Lyre was at the bar with a tankard of ale. Gideor noted that Lyre had previously messed up other contracts, and asked him to help them put this one right. The three men went into a room behind the bar, where Gideor pulled out a staff made of human tongues, the Despoiler of Flesh, telling Lyre he could be useful, instead of being executed. The staff transformed Lyre into a copy of Vex'ahlia, and Gideor tore out Lyre's tongue and added it to the staff. He told Vax'ildan that Lyre would be in the nobleman's custody "for as long as our gentleman contractor has use of him."

Campaign 1: Vox Machina
When later asked what happened to Lyre, Vax assumed he was "in a dungeon, in a rubber suit", implying that he was still in Westruun as a captive of Abenard. Upon hearing the story, Vex'ahlia expressed interest in finding out who her stalker was. As of the end of the campaign, Lyre was said to probably still a captive of Abenard and living with significant mental trauma.

Abilities
Lyre is able to command rats, presumably by some magical means. He wields needles, daggers, and darts.

Trivia

 * Before the publication of Kith & Kin, any detail of Lyre's identity before he was transformed was unknown. Some fans have unofficially dubbed this copy of Vex'ahlia as the Black Vex'ahlia, a reference to the Black Dahlia, an unidentified Los Angeles woman who was a victim to a particularly lurid murder. Like Vex'ahlia's stalker during the campaign, the Black Dahlia's murderer was never found.
 * Vex'ahlia's stalker, the Despoiler of Flesh, and this doppelganger were written out-of-game by Liam and Matt for a session Matt ran for Vax and Pike, and to explain why Vax'ildan was a member of the Clasp.
 * When the story about the doppelganger was originally retold during, Vax'ildan said that the man who became the Vex copy was a child rapist. Liam later stated that he had a bad memory of the storyline, and this is not mentioned in Kith & Kin, so this was likely either an error, a retcon, or a lie Vax'ildan told to make the story more palatable.
 * Vex'ahlia is not aware of Lyre's current whereabouts, though Laura stated that if Vex ever found him/her, Vex would hire the doppelganger as a decoy for public events.