A promise was made, a promise to keep,
So Vel’duith returned into Zar’Ahal deep.
She sought a fine ax to return as her prize,
But found there the queen of an empire to rise.
Biographical information
Zar'Ahal, the Undercity
154
Tor'rahel Manor, Zar'Ahal
Physical description
Drow
Female
150cm/4' 11"
38kg/84 lbs
Snow-white
Garnet red
Charcoal black
Political information
Mysterious Houseguest of the Queen
Out-of-character information
Threecups the Caffeinated
9/22/2025
Concocted by MS Copilot
So Vel’duith returned into Zar’Ahal deep.
She sought a fine ax to return as her prize,
But found there the queen of an empire to rise.
Vel'duith, Vyx'aria's Mysterious Houseguest
Appearance
Vel'duith [VELDwith] is a short, stick-thin wisp of a dark elf of youthful appearance, being amid her second century. Her sharp garnet-red eyes impassively appraise the world from an angular face of tightly-drawn, charcoal black skin, and her thin lips often curl into a Mona Lisa half-smirk. Her fine, snow-white hair falls from a widow's peak crowning a high forehead to her mid-back, bound into a single, meticulously even braid. She wears layers of spidersilk robes in various dark colors, spidersilk slippers, a spidersilk satchel, a silver pendant whose wispy tendrils enwrap a carved moonstone eye, and a dark wide-brimmed spidersilk hat.
When encountered outside Tor'Rahel Manor, she dons a supple, mottled-looking lurker-leather mantle pinned by an adamantine brooch and a weapon belt balancing a deep-fullered short sword, a darkwood hand crossbow with engraved adamantine furniture, and a matching darkwood box with a small plug-sealed reservoir of sleeping-poison and a dozen hand-crossbow bolts.
Vel'duith hides a quartet of lightweight flick-holstered adamantine darts within her robe sleeves, a silver dagger belt-scabbarded in the small of her back, and a matched pair of slim adamantine dirks sewn into the inner seams of her lurker-mantle. Lastly, she always carries a handful of caltrops in one pocket and a handful of twisted glass beads imbued to explode with enough magical daylight to fill a 10m/30ft diameter area if smashed or stepped on.
In a hidden middle-robe-pocket, Vel’duith carries a coin-purse containing a few dozen vyxen, cord-strung thin-stamped electrum trade coins used in Underrealm markets, and a handful of small gems, worth a total of several hundred Allirian gold pieces.
Vel’duith’s hands, feet, forearms, and calves are enwreathed by intricately interwoven patterns of fine silver and crushed moonstone embedding, resembling delicate tattoos that gleam in moonlight or sunlight, yet wane and vanish in darkness or shadow. When she taps into her luminancy, these embeddings and her moonstone eye pendant (her focus item) pull light, color, and shadow in to weave into her illusionary tricks, distractions, and diversions.
When encountered outside Tor'Rahel Manor, she dons a supple, mottled-looking lurker-leather mantle pinned by an adamantine brooch and a weapon belt balancing a deep-fullered short sword, a darkwood hand crossbow with engraved adamantine furniture, and a matching darkwood box with a small plug-sealed reservoir of sleeping-poison and a dozen hand-crossbow bolts.
Vel'duith hides a quartet of lightweight flick-holstered adamantine darts within her robe sleeves, a silver dagger belt-scabbarded in the small of her back, and a matched pair of slim adamantine dirks sewn into the inner seams of her lurker-mantle. Lastly, she always carries a handful of caltrops in one pocket and a handful of twisted glass beads imbued to explode with enough magical daylight to fill a 10m/30ft diameter area if smashed or stepped on.
In a hidden middle-robe-pocket, Vel’duith carries a coin-purse containing a few dozen vyxen, cord-strung thin-stamped electrum trade coins used in Underrealm markets, and a handful of small gems, worth a total of several hundred Allirian gold pieces.
Vel’duith’s hands, feet, forearms, and calves are enwreathed by intricately interwoven patterns of fine silver and crushed moonstone embedding, resembling delicate tattoos that gleam in moonlight or sunlight, yet wane and vanish in darkness or shadow. When she taps into her luminancy, these embeddings and her moonstone eye pendant (her focus item) pull light, color, and shadow in to weave into her illusionary tricks, distractions, and diversions.
Magical Items
Vel'duith's Lurker-Leather Mantle: Crafted and dweomered from the pelt of a Lurker which Orebith once saved Vel'duith from, the mantle passively blurs her silhouette when near stone walls or floors and lets her blend invisibly into such surfaces at will, for as long as she stays still.
Vel'duith's Moonstone Eye-Pendant: This pendant stores an extra reserve of mana and serves as her spell focus, much like a wand or staff might for other wizards.
Vel'duith's Spidersilk Hat: This dark-hued spidersilk hat has a dweomer on its wide, floppy brim that subtly dims light passing in front of Vel'duith's eyes. This allow her nearly normal vision on the surface.
The Haunted Lyre: This lyre bears a psychic imprint of its previous owner, allowing Vel'duith to play far better than her modest skill usually affords, provided that she is not inhibiting her Accursed Open Mind. Whenever played near Vyx'aria, one note will always be played dissonantly.
Vel'duith's Moonstone Eye-Pendant: This pendant stores an extra reserve of mana and serves as her spell focus, much like a wand or staff might for other wizards.
Vel'duith's Spidersilk Hat: This dark-hued spidersilk hat has a dweomer on its wide, floppy brim that subtly dims light passing in front of Vel'duith's eyes. This allow her nearly normal vision on the surface.
The Haunted Lyre: This lyre bears a psychic imprint of its previous owner, allowing Vel'duith to play far better than her modest skill usually affords, provided that she is not inhibiting her Accursed Open Mind. Whenever played near Vyx'aria, one note will always be played dissonantly.
Vel'duith and her Accursed Open Mind
As a result of Vel'duith's close encounter with pandemonic possession, her mind has been awakened to psychic influence and intrusions, such as from spirits passed on, demons, fey-kind, and even world dragons. She can passively sense demons, faeries, and similar psychically active phenomena within 15 feet / 5 meters. This is a double-edged sword, as such a being within range may attempt to communicate, influence, or even possess her. She has adapted a ward spell to guard against hostile influence, but maintaining it blocks her from using other magic. She has recently tried researching a dweomer version to enchant an appropriately prepared headband, but the urge to practice her lyre often interrupts such research.
Currently active psychic influences:
Neha's unborn dragon-egg sang to Vel'duith about all the wonders she would create when born, and the song has driven Vel'duith to seek knowledge and lore about Neha and the world-dragons. To Vel'duith, Neha is the Creator, not the Destroyer; the mother of all that was once beautiful and unspoiled, betrayed by the world that rejected her gifts.
The spirit of Vyx'aria's little sister resides in the lyre Vel'duith claimed from her old chambers. The spirit helps Vel'duith play lyre noticeably better than normal, but she always teases her sister with a bad note if she is present. She also influences Vel'duith to read her favorite stories from her library to the empty room.
Currently active psychic influences:
Neha's unborn dragon-egg sang to Vel'duith about all the wonders she would create when born, and the song has driven Vel'duith to seek knowledge and lore about Neha and the world-dragons. To Vel'duith, Neha is the Creator, not the Destroyer; the mother of all that was once beautiful and unspoiled, betrayed by the world that rejected her gifts.
The spirit of Vyx'aria's little sister resides in the lyre Vel'duith claimed from her old chambers. The spirit helps Vel'duith play lyre noticeably better than normal, but she always teases her sister with a bad note if she is present. She also influences Vel'duith to read her favorite stories from her library to the empty room.
Skills (Specialties) and Abilities
Weapon Skills:
Short Sword (parrying, opportunity attacks, jabbing legs to hamper pursuit)
Dagger (parrying, stabbing from advantage, stabbing joints to hamper pursuit)
Hand crossbow (off-hand, sleep poison)
Darts (trick shots like pinning sleeves, stopping trap mechanisms, severing ropes)
Rogue Skills:
Perception (Hearing)
Investigation (Details and Things Out of Place)
Stealth (Hiding)
Sleight of Hand (Lockpicking and Disarming Traps)
Trapping (Combination Traps with Physical and Magical Elements)
Wizard Skills:
Arcana (Pandemonium, Luminancy, Shadowmancy)
History (The Sundering, Drowish History, Neha the World Dragon)
Deciphering Ancient and Dead Languages (Ancient Elvish, Draconic)
Fungicology (Edible and poisonous wild mushrooms)
Alchemy (Sleep-poison and antidotes)
Social Skills:
Deception (Assuming Disguises)
Persuasion (Eloquent Confusion)
Languages Spoken:
Eloquently:
Drowish
Undercommon
Tradespeak
Pandemonic
Fluently:
Draconic (Ancient Draconic)
Elvish (Ancient Elvish)
Smatteringly:
Dwarvish
Orcish
Gnomish
Goblinspeak
Hobby Skills:
Musical Performance (Lyre, Singing)
Cooking (Shebali comfort food)
Art Appreciation (Drowish, Ancient Elvish, Dwarven)
Short Sword (parrying, opportunity attacks, jabbing legs to hamper pursuit)
Dagger (parrying, stabbing from advantage, stabbing joints to hamper pursuit)
Hand crossbow (off-hand, sleep poison)
Darts (trick shots like pinning sleeves, stopping trap mechanisms, severing ropes)
Rogue Skills:
Perception (Hearing)
Investigation (Details and Things Out of Place)
Stealth (Hiding)
Sleight of Hand (Lockpicking and Disarming Traps)
Trapping (Combination Traps with Physical and Magical Elements)
Wizard Skills:
Arcana (Pandemonium, Luminancy, Shadowmancy)
History (The Sundering, Drowish History, Neha the World Dragon)
Deciphering Ancient and Dead Languages (Ancient Elvish, Draconic)
Fungicology (Edible and poisonous wild mushrooms)
Alchemy (Sleep-poison and antidotes)
Social Skills:
Deception (Assuming Disguises)
Persuasion (Eloquent Confusion)
Languages Spoken:
Eloquently:
Drowish
Undercommon
Tradespeak
Pandemonic
Fluently:
Draconic (Ancient Draconic)
Elvish (Ancient Elvish)
Smatteringly:
Dwarvish
Orcish
Gnomish
Goblinspeak
Hobby Skills:
Musical Performance (Lyre, Singing)
Cooking (Shebali comfort food)
Art Appreciation (Drowish, Ancient Elvish, Dwarven)
Vel'duith's Spellbook
Specialty Spells:
Guise of Still A Mere Child - Vel'duith assumes the appearance of a child of equivalent apparent age to a 12-year old drow/10 year old human of her actual height and frame, of whatever the prevalent species is in her vicinity. Lasts until ended, injured, or she takes her next reverie. If made fast to the touch, lasts up to six hours or until she takes her next reverie.
Guise of A Thematic Gathering - Vel'duith disguises a group of humanoids up to large size for up to two hours, injury, or she takes her next reverie.
Guise Fast to the Touch: Vel'duith disguises herself or others weaving shadowmancy into the disguise, making it tactile. This disguise cannot not dispelled by touch or injury, but halves the duration of the guise.
Shadow Hand: Vel'duith summons a silvery, barely visible shadow hand incorporating both luminance and shadow. The hand can pass through solid walls, then materialize to interact with objects, pass tactile sensory information back to her, operate mechanisms, grasp and carry small objects up to the size of a one-handed weapon, and may use the same degree of legerdemain as she is capable with her own hand. Lasts up to ten minutes unless injured.
Shimmering Storyteller: Vel'duith conjures illusory images to float in the air before her audience to illustrate a story as she tells it.
Wall of Nothing to See Here: Vel'duith summons a wall shaped illusion, curved or straight, making those on the opposite side see only the scene behind the wall, hiding anyone on the back side of the wall from few. It muffles sound as though a stone wall of six inches thickness. The wall is non corporeal and lasts up to a minute unless injured.
Useful Novice Spells:
Inhibition of Influence: Vel'duith shields her accursed open mind from influence. Lasts as long as concentration is actively held. She cannot cast other spells while concentrating on the inhibition.
Ribbon-Flame Fingers: Vel'duith shoots flames from her fingers to a target less than 10 feet/3 meters distance. The flames may be sustained up to thirty seconds.
Ward-Away Charm: Vel'duith waves her hands, creating a ward that blocks a single magical attack or psychic intrusion (see her curse below).
Silvery Servant: Vel'duith summons a silvery platter-sized disc that can carry as much weight as a strong adult drow. If dispelled, it sets its load down gently on the closest appropriate surface to her. Lasts up to an hour or injury.
Cantrips:
Clean-Up Clap and Dap: Cleans up to one wall or floor's worth of a medium size room.
Finger-Flick of Flame-Fashioning: Spreads, diminishes, moves, or snuffs out a fire of up to medium size (i.e., the size of a small room).
Snuff-or-Light Snap: Lights or snuffs candles or similar small, flammable objects.
Waggle of Water-Wise: Cools, warms, freezes, or boils a body of water up to medium size (i.e. a bathtub). Also capable of evaporating water from skin, hair, and scales. Lasts as long as she actively waggles her finger.
Personality
Vel'duith is almost always smiling: broadly and warmly around Vyx'aria, Zathria, and their fellow egg rescuers, an easy smile among scholars, musicians, and those who display common interests, and a slight Mona Lisa smirk for the world at large. She finds her smile sometimes puts strangers off guard, making it easier to read their intentions or influence them.
Vel'duith is an extro-introvert who tends to think transactionally. She can be silent as a lamb or loquacious as a bard, depending on her company and the topic at hand. She tends to analyze and synthesize ideas in real-time, thinking them out loud in branches and asides, and she displays the elevated vocabulary and diction of her station whenever speaking. She usually prefers solitude for reveries or reading, although she always seems to catch herself reading out loud in her chambers at Tor'Rahel Manor.
Vel'duith appreciates beauty, whether natural or artificial, and she yearns for long lost knowledge. She can be easily distracted by things like intricate frescoes, stunning vistas, and shelves of cobwebbed books. She has lately been reading everything she can find about dragons and especially about Neha's earlier creative period.
Vel’duith is pansexual and favors confident partners most of all, especially should they happen to have well-defined, powerful arms. She is occasionally attracted to members of other species.
Vel'duith loves and admires Valsharess Vyx'aria Tor'Rahel. She sees her as a sister or a mother figure, and has taken her call for Drowish unity deep to heart. She also shares Vyx'aria's devotion to safeguarding the heiress-egg of Neha the Creator Dragon, although she does not yet worship Neha as a goddess. Vel'duith has recently taken to rationalizing Vyx'aria's more violent behaviors and finding common cause with these rationalizations.
Vel'duith is an extro-introvert who tends to think transactionally. She can be silent as a lamb or loquacious as a bard, depending on her company and the topic at hand. She tends to analyze and synthesize ideas in real-time, thinking them out loud in branches and asides, and she displays the elevated vocabulary and diction of her station whenever speaking. She usually prefers solitude for reveries or reading, although she always seems to catch herself reading out loud in her chambers at Tor'Rahel Manor.
Vel'duith appreciates beauty, whether natural or artificial, and she yearns for long lost knowledge. She can be easily distracted by things like intricate frescoes, stunning vistas, and shelves of cobwebbed books. She has lately been reading everything she can find about dragons and especially about Neha's earlier creative period.
Vel’duith is pansexual and favors confident partners most of all, especially should they happen to have well-defined, powerful arms. She is occasionally attracted to members of other species.
Vel'duith loves and admires Valsharess Vyx'aria Tor'Rahel. She sees her as a sister or a mother figure, and has taken her call for Drowish unity deep to heart. She also shares Vyx'aria's devotion to safeguarding the heiress-egg of Neha the Creator Dragon, although she does not yet worship Neha as a goddess. Vel'duith has recently taken to rationalizing Vyx'aria's more violent behaviors and finding common cause with these rationalizations.
Biography & Lore
Vel'duith was born to Ilharess Kyona of House Voiryn, at the very lowest cusp of the Zar'Ahal nobility. House Voiryn, named quite literally for its commodity - books - maintained its precarious perch at the edge of the highborn caste by procuring and selling arcane tomes to noble-born priests and wizards. Her mother was a beautiful, graceful, sadistic, terrifying, sharp-tongued eminence grise of a Malezafanean priestess and assassin. As a very young child, Vel'duith manifested natural ability at luminancy, warping light, color, and shadow to her will. First, she manifested her shadow hand, to get things her mother had forbidden her from shelves out of her reach. As she grew and learned to read, she would bring her imagination to life, having the action play out before her in illusory mobiles. After trying and failing to get Vel'duith accepted into the Temple of Maelzafan, Kyona enrolled her in the Suulet'jabar Cadre, hoping to make something useful of the frail, seemingly useless child.
Vel'duith grew up smaller and weaker than all of her cadre peers - 'a useless runt' in her mother's words- but she was also nimbler and cleverer than most. She delighted in besting rivals with bamboozling displays of cunning, legerdemain, and spelltrickery. In the penultimate act of deception of her youth, Vel'duith passed her cadre's blood-night trial by breaking into the village's wizard tower, stealing a spellbook, an heirloom battleax, and a couple armfulls of potions, and simply letting the priestess who had ordered the raid draw her own assumptions about how she had come to claim such valuable trophies.
After graduating cadre, Vel'duith enjoyed several years of a secret three-way tryst with her house-cousin Kre'thil and a shebali swordswoman named Orebith. Orebith was Vel'duith's perfect foil and the love of her life, but her mother strongly disapproved, intending to match Vel'duith with a lesser son of one of the great houses to improve House Voiryn's standing. When Kre'thil and Orebith conceived a child, he brought her into House Voiryn, but when they named their newborn boy-child in honor of Kyona, the matron took severe offense, ordered their assassinations, and trapped Vel'duith so that she couldn't warn them.
After eliminating Vel'duith's primary distraction from her duty to her house, Kyona mercilessly drilled her in the art of skullduggery for nearly a decade, and then put her to work acquiring tomes and scrolls for the family business. Even though she hated her mother, Vel'duith grew to greatly enjoy the work. She took pride in how neatly and discreetly she could complete missions, almost never bloodying her weapons save on the various dangerous natural predators she sometimes encountered while skulking through the bowels of the Undercity. She read every tome she acquired before delivering it to her mother, and copied numerous scrolls, which she hid in abandoned catacombs she had discovered prowling the sewers and tunnels beneath Zar'Ahal. She even gained something of a shadowy reputation among Zar'Ahal's spellcasters, who would request "Vernutar" if a given tome needed to be found and acquired as discreetly as possible, such as from a rival's bookshelf. Vel'duith's reputation and success at obtaining salable tomes and artifacts helped her avoid many of the less savory duties he might have otherwise owed to her house. Her exasperated mother eventually gave up on matching her with any higher house males, for example.
A century into her career as a book thief, Vel'duith stole a pandemonic tome from the tower of Nimruil Suulet'jabar. Ever craving arcane knowledge and ancient lore, she foolishly tried reading it, leading to the book imprinting itself upon her mind, and a demon trapped within the tome attempting to dominate her will. Whether by dumb luck or divine intervention, on the way home through the sewer, in mid-mind-wrestle with the evil tome, Vel'duith tripped and fell through the weakened, ruined roof of a hidden antechamber. Here she discovered a very different tome, bathed in a weak ray of moonlight, though miles of bedrock lay between the chamber and the night sky above: The Light of Sse'ellah. This book was the dogma of a forbidden cult, forgotten for over two thousand years. Their creed was repentance of the ancient sundering of the elven races through word and deed, and ultimately achieving reunion with the elves on the surface. Reading an inscribed prayer on the margin silenced the infernal whispers that had been assailing her thoughts and broke the demonic tome's imprint upon her. She resealed the tome with a ward and delivered it to her mother for sale to the buyer, but she also secreted away the forbidden dogma for herself.
Further reading and reflection on the dogma and how it had saved her led Vel'duith to a moment of epiphany, questioning who truly benefited from her existence and why she had been so fortunate to find this book whose inscription had saved her. Ultimately, Vel'duith decided to try to follow the forbidden teachings of the moon-goddess whose serendipitous intervention had saved her life. When her mother ordered her to re-steal the pandemonic tome a few years later, this time from Regent Elzyrra Myrlochar and her House Tuin'Znar allies, Vel'duith stole the book, warded it, and started the long climb up to the surface. Doing so achieved Vel'duith's long-awaited revenge, as Kyona was snared and devoured by cavefishers after giving Vel'duith up for dead while trying to fulfill the acquisition herself.
Vel'duith emerged onto the surface near the Noct Yaegir stronghold of Crobhear Keep. There, she met a dwarven axe-maiden who fiercely accosted her and a stoic human warden who mysteriously greeted her in her mother tongue. Offered shelter and succor, she meditated out the sun's fury in a dark corner, before being roused from her reverie for an important meeting about a mysterious relic. Detecting a plume of unknown magic leaking from a broken ward, she warned those gathered, and formally offered her services. Warden Gabriel accepted her offer, naming her a provisional Yaegir.
After her first training mission very nearly ended in disaster, Vel’duith returned to the Underrealm with the intent to steal back and return the jeweled dwarven ax she had stolen during her cadre’s blood raid 133 years earlier. On the way to Zar’Ahal, she encountered a motley band of surfacer misfits led by the former Queen of Zar’Ahal, Vyx’aria Tor’rahel, and her general, Zathria At’arel. Realizing that the discovery of the queen’s presence would hopelessly complicate her own mission, Vel’duith revealed herself to them and helped them infiltrate the complex of House Suulet’jabar in the upper circle of Zar’Ahal. Along the way, Vyx’aria took a liking to the daring, diminutive trickster, offering her safe passage and a future place in her household. She even entrusted her with the most crucial part of the mission; a daring rescue of the only known egg of the infamous world-dragon Neha.
While Vel’duith was still smitten with her Noct Yaegir trainer Sigrun Flintfeet, Sigrun had deeply hurt her feelings by questioning the sincerity of an oath she offered. She was already beginning to doubt her new faith, and the harsh reaction she received in Quarry Hill prodded her to reconsider her choice to live on the surface, as much as she loved its wildness and beauty, and as fond as she was of the budding friendships she had started within Croghear Keep. After receiving another invitation from Vyx'aria, Vel'duith chose to return the ax as promised, write her farewells, and slip back into the Underrealm to find out whether she might fit in the place Vyx'aria had promised her.
Some Drowish Words/Phrases Vel'duith Uses Often:
"Abban/abbanen" - acquaintance(s)
"Abbil/abbillen" - very close friend(s)/lover(s) (usually a pejorative, though Vel'duith embraces the term a la "me and my bitches")
"A'ni" - general
"Cretok" - orc
"Co'nbluth" - non-drow
"C'rinti" - noble
"Darthirii" - light-elf
"Dwen'del" - dwarf
"Iblith" - shit, filth
"Ilharess" - House
"Ilythirii" - drow
"Ja'luk" - Male (pejorative)
"Lu'oh eyyil!" - How exquisite!
"Mal'ai" - moron
"Rivvil" - human
"Rothe" - an underdark ox, slang for "slave"
"Shebali" - commoner
"Vallabha'Ilhar" - Beloved Mother (ALWAYS with a bitter tone)
"Valsharess" - queen
"Waela" - idiot
"We'ha-whol'aknen" - dick for brains
"Yathrin" - priestess
Vel'duith grew up smaller and weaker than all of her cadre peers - 'a useless runt' in her mother's words- but she was also nimbler and cleverer than most. She delighted in besting rivals with bamboozling displays of cunning, legerdemain, and spelltrickery. In the penultimate act of deception of her youth, Vel'duith passed her cadre's blood-night trial by breaking into the village's wizard tower, stealing a spellbook, an heirloom battleax, and a couple armfulls of potions, and simply letting the priestess who had ordered the raid draw her own assumptions about how she had come to claim such valuable trophies.
After graduating cadre, Vel'duith enjoyed several years of a secret three-way tryst with her house-cousin Kre'thil and a shebali swordswoman named Orebith. Orebith was Vel'duith's perfect foil and the love of her life, but her mother strongly disapproved, intending to match Vel'duith with a lesser son of one of the great houses to improve House Voiryn's standing. When Kre'thil and Orebith conceived a child, he brought her into House Voiryn, but when they named their newborn boy-child in honor of Kyona, the matron took severe offense, ordered their assassinations, and trapped Vel'duith so that she couldn't warn them.
After eliminating Vel'duith's primary distraction from her duty to her house, Kyona mercilessly drilled her in the art of skullduggery for nearly a decade, and then put her to work acquiring tomes and scrolls for the family business. Even though she hated her mother, Vel'duith grew to greatly enjoy the work. She took pride in how neatly and discreetly she could complete missions, almost never bloodying her weapons save on the various dangerous natural predators she sometimes encountered while skulking through the bowels of the Undercity. She read every tome she acquired before delivering it to her mother, and copied numerous scrolls, which she hid in abandoned catacombs she had discovered prowling the sewers and tunnels beneath Zar'Ahal. She even gained something of a shadowy reputation among Zar'Ahal's spellcasters, who would request "Vernutar" if a given tome needed to be found and acquired as discreetly as possible, such as from a rival's bookshelf. Vel'duith's reputation and success at obtaining salable tomes and artifacts helped her avoid many of the less savory duties he might have otherwise owed to her house. Her exasperated mother eventually gave up on matching her with any higher house males, for example.
A century into her career as a book thief, Vel'duith stole a pandemonic tome from the tower of Nimruil Suulet'jabar. Ever craving arcane knowledge and ancient lore, she foolishly tried reading it, leading to the book imprinting itself upon her mind, and a demon trapped within the tome attempting to dominate her will. Whether by dumb luck or divine intervention, on the way home through the sewer, in mid-mind-wrestle with the evil tome, Vel'duith tripped and fell through the weakened, ruined roof of a hidden antechamber. Here she discovered a very different tome, bathed in a weak ray of moonlight, though miles of bedrock lay between the chamber and the night sky above: The Light of Sse'ellah. This book was the dogma of a forbidden cult, forgotten for over two thousand years. Their creed was repentance of the ancient sundering of the elven races through word and deed, and ultimately achieving reunion with the elves on the surface. Reading an inscribed prayer on the margin silenced the infernal whispers that had been assailing her thoughts and broke the demonic tome's imprint upon her. She resealed the tome with a ward and delivered it to her mother for sale to the buyer, but she also secreted away the forbidden dogma for herself.
Further reading and reflection on the dogma and how it had saved her led Vel'duith to a moment of epiphany, questioning who truly benefited from her existence and why she had been so fortunate to find this book whose inscription had saved her. Ultimately, Vel'duith decided to try to follow the forbidden teachings of the moon-goddess whose serendipitous intervention had saved her life. When her mother ordered her to re-steal the pandemonic tome a few years later, this time from Regent Elzyrra Myrlochar and her House Tuin'Znar allies, Vel'duith stole the book, warded it, and started the long climb up to the surface. Doing so achieved Vel'duith's long-awaited revenge, as Kyona was snared and devoured by cavefishers after giving Vel'duith up for dead while trying to fulfill the acquisition herself.
Vel'duith emerged onto the surface near the Noct Yaegir stronghold of Crobhear Keep. There, she met a dwarven axe-maiden who fiercely accosted her and a stoic human warden who mysteriously greeted her in her mother tongue. Offered shelter and succor, she meditated out the sun's fury in a dark corner, before being roused from her reverie for an important meeting about a mysterious relic. Detecting a plume of unknown magic leaking from a broken ward, she warned those gathered, and formally offered her services. Warden Gabriel accepted her offer, naming her a provisional Yaegir.
After her first training mission very nearly ended in disaster, Vel’duith returned to the Underrealm with the intent to steal back and return the jeweled dwarven ax she had stolen during her cadre’s blood raid 133 years earlier. On the way to Zar’Ahal, she encountered a motley band of surfacer misfits led by the former Queen of Zar’Ahal, Vyx’aria Tor’rahel, and her general, Zathria At’arel. Realizing that the discovery of the queen’s presence would hopelessly complicate her own mission, Vel’duith revealed herself to them and helped them infiltrate the complex of House Suulet’jabar in the upper circle of Zar’Ahal. Along the way, Vyx’aria took a liking to the daring, diminutive trickster, offering her safe passage and a future place in her household. She even entrusted her with the most crucial part of the mission; a daring rescue of the only known egg of the infamous world-dragon Neha.
While Vel’duith was still smitten with her Noct Yaegir trainer Sigrun Flintfeet, Sigrun had deeply hurt her feelings by questioning the sincerity of an oath she offered. She was already beginning to doubt her new faith, and the harsh reaction she received in Quarry Hill prodded her to reconsider her choice to live on the surface, as much as she loved its wildness and beauty, and as fond as she was of the budding friendships she had started within Croghear Keep. After receiving another invitation from Vyx'aria, Vel'duith chose to return the ax as promised, write her farewells, and slip back into the Underrealm to find out whether she might fit in the place Vyx'aria had promised her.
Some Drowish Words/Phrases Vel'duith Uses Often:
"Abban/abbanen" - acquaintance(s)
"Abbil/abbillen" - very close friend(s)/lover(s) (usually a pejorative, though Vel'duith embraces the term a la "me and my bitches")
"A'ni" - general
"Cretok" - orc
"Co'nbluth" - non-drow
"C'rinti" - noble
"Darthirii" - light-elf
"Dwen'del" - dwarf
"Iblith" - shit, filth
"Ilharess" - House
"Ilythirii" - drow
"Ja'luk" - Male (pejorative)
"Lu'oh eyyil!" - How exquisite!
"Mal'ai" - moron
"Rivvil" - human
"Rothe" - an underdark ox, slang for "slave"
"Shebali" - commoner
"Vallabha'Ilhar" - Beloved Mother (ALWAYS with a bitter tone)
"Valsharess" - queen
"Waela" - idiot
"We'ha-whol'aknen" - dick for brains
"Yathrin" - priestess
References
DnDwise, inspired by an arcane trickster/illusionist multiclass character. Concept wise, kind of a cross between Evie O'Connell and Lara Croft, with perhaps a Tyrion Lannister sprinkle.
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