For our very first legend of the Inn, let us hearken back to the earliest days of the place. This was around 1999 or 2000, when I was in college and had started the Inn on Angelfire, while hosting the message board portion on a free bulletin board host that has long since slipped into the void.
There were so many players at the time, and I ran with an ambitious idea; three distinct games, all happening at the same in-game time, all working on threads of the same overarching plot that would one day come together. Naturally, it was in fact overly ambitious; one of the three games fizzled out fairly early on, though the other two showed remarkable staying power, running literally for years (though they ended up organically going their own ways, never seeing a merger). One of these games, "Meanwhile", featured the esteemed Vanadia, one of the founding members of the RDI staff, in the role of Runyacath, a sylvari Bladesinger.
If you never got the pleasure to play with her, I am very sorry; Vanadia was a master of prose, of making you see and feel her character's thoughts and emotions. Runyacath was a complex, deep character who carried a lot of emotional baggage with her, and was an absolute joy to read.
The character was wise and thoughtful, yet decisive and brave. She developed a romantic connection over the course of the game with the party's antihero leader, Zibli, and in fact helped to change him for the better... helped him to let go of much of the rage that was pulling him down a dark path.
Runyacath was also incredibly important to the Audalis campaign setting, as she was the first truly worthy character of the Bladesinger class that I ever DMed. When Runya was adventuring, we lacked a great deal of the Audalis source material here on the site; in fact, much of it had yet to be created by the community. Vanadia herself ended up developing a lot of the standards by which later players have been expected to live up to; the various steps of the Bladesong, the teaching methods and discipline, all were groundwork that Vanadia laid through her play, much of which became canon source material for the Bladesinger class.
To this day, I cannot think of a Bladesinger without thinking of Runyacath, how that character behaved, as the standard by which I judge all other Bladesingers. She truly embodies the entire idea of this series of posts, as a true legend of the Red Dragon Inn.
One of my big regrets of the site is the fact that some of these earliest games are not available for the public to enjoy still.