3. Iejir vur ixen (blood and fire)

Iejir vur ixen (blood and fire)

  • The Halfling Defence League

    Character: Demeana Gorefriend
    Log: Adric Waddell

    Several thousand years ago red dragon by the name Ixeniejir started a necromantic cult called the Crimson Throne. Their symbol was a silhouette of a red dragon wyrmling facing down, its wings out with a white skull on it's back.

    Ixeniejirs' hoard consisted of nothing but rubies. A massive pile of them adorned his treasure room, reflecting his much feared stare and the flames that issued forth from his massive maw. From this, they took their name, the Crimson Throne. Most of Ixeniejers followers were Drow, but there was also a smattering of other races, including humans as well as a few Elven Necromancers. Those who were loyal to their draconic master underwent a forbidden ceremony that granted them some of the benefits of the dragon, including the toughness and vigour of the great red. This also left them marked on their upper arms with the symbol of their master, a mark of loyalty and fealty.

    Eventually the Crimson Throne was defeated. Ixeniejir made one final stand in his throne room, with the battle so ferocious that it brought the roof down, literally. Afterwards, those who survived the cave in found that the collapse was planned and engineered by the crafty red, and that he escaped through the newest tunnel in his network, to plot revenge.

    The Cultists who survived fled. Some of them decided to flee any memories they had of the clan, settling down to try and live a normal life. Others tried to restart the cult, but were hunted down and killed to a man.

    The mixed blood in the veins of the survivors passed to their children, and their children’s children. Over time, the strength of the blood faded, and the symbols of fealty gradually disappeared. But, from time to time, by sheer random chance there would be a pairing of two descended from that wicked cult, and then the blood calls true, and the symbol is awakened…

    Demeana has had a hard life, being looked down upon her whole life mostly for being the daughter of a half-elf-drow and a full elf, born in the Thay city of Bexantur. Her childhood was one of contrasts, for her mother, Elizia a priestess of Eilistraee was a happy and joyful sole, yet her father Terran was a stern strict paladin of Kelemvor.

    Because of the division in their household, Demeana tended to be unhappy or cranky most of the time. The only joy she had came from time with her mother, or when eating an apple, he favorite fruit. But like the apple that never falls far from the tree, Demeana, coming from a family of outcasts ended up one too, although this is mostly of her own doing and her strange powers.

    When she was young, she didn't have very good control of her emotions. Whenever she was upset, it seemed like candles lit themselves, and that metal became warm to the touch. When she was sad, fires would go out, and the same metal would become chilled. Eventually, she realised that she was causing this, although unintentionally and in the worst possible way.

    She was out in the street, playing, when some other children came along and started bullying her. At first she tried to ignore them, but one of them hit her, and she snapped. She felt her blood start to boil, and her hair crackled as it became electrically charged. Suddenly, her hands were enveloped in flame! The shock of it made the other children run away screaming, and Demeana nearly passed out herself. Since that time, she was shunned by the other children who lived nearby.

    As she grew older she secretly tried to learn how to control this power she had discovered. Eventually she learned how to evoke her powers by sheer willpower and emotion. Feeling like an outsider in her own home, she hid her powers from her parents, and because she was shunned by others in her community she had no friends she could share it with.

    Time passed...

    When she was 190 years of age she moved north to Tyraturos. There, she was given a job as a morgue assistant through the connections that her father had with the church of Kelemvor in the town. She stayed there for 78 years, effectively a slave to her superiors.

    During this time she learnt how to embalm the dead and prepare them for burial, as well as continuing to practice controlling her powers. One day, out of the blue, a pixie turned up and claimed to be her familiar. Demeana tried to dissuade it as it wouldn't shut up, but very soon thereafter there was an incident between a newly reformed necromantic human cult who called themselves "The Crimson Throne" and her father.

    What happened that day is still a matter for the scholars, as little evidence could be found. What is known is that Demeana fled soon after her father fell, and the pixie followed her to Narfell.

    Here she hopes to be free of her bondage, and her old life. But blood calls to blood, and Ixeneijir will not be denied again. Now, at night, she has strange dreams, of flame and fire, blood and bone. And the taste of sulphur is sweet, sweet...


  • reviewed, xp pending