The Drow Bard

Irthos Miirik

Born to a middle class house in a prosperous drow society, Irthos Miirik was immediately noted for having particularly rare physical characteristics. From his rose-hued eyes to his silvery baby hair he was perceived as a potential threat with possible latent powers that could end up threatening the current ruling houses if he was allowed to mature and would subsequently attempt a coup. Considering this meant the complete elimination of the targeted house, the drow nobles couldn't afford to take the chance, and devised a plan to get rid of the baby.

Hired assassins snuck into his childhood home, snatched baby Irthos and brought him to the members of the house that hired them, as instructed, who then proceeded to perform a sacrificial ritual where they offered the baby to a particularly powerful demonic overlord. As part of the ritual, baby Irthos was delivered to the demonic realm through a Gate-spell, and left there to be captured and presumably eaten by the demon.

As fate would have it however, the demon and his realm had visitors. A group of adventurers had been tasked with the elimination of the demon as they happened to stumble upon the crying baby. Confused but concerned the party took pity on the poor small creature before them, particularly the human bard Lotoc Miirik. Some unease was raised by the concerns of some of them, especially the elven archer-fighter, as they pointed out he was clearly a drow baby, but Lotoc reassured them he was but a baby and couldn't possibly have been influenced by the malicious nature of the drow already. Drow, after all, were not born evil; they simply grew up to embrace the ways of their society.

Due to this unforeseen delay their presence in the realm was noted, and as the hordes of demons now approached them in swarms from the direction of their intended target the mission was aborted.

Upon returning to the material plain, the initial idea was to give the baby up for an adoption. The adventuring life didn't really lend a lot of room for babysitting, after all. However, it turned out people's willingness to adopt a drow baby was more or less nonexistent, despite the reassurances of Lotoc. The more he attempted and the more time he spent with the baby, the more attached Lotoc however became to the baby, and soon enough he became convinced that the best person to take care of this small creature was himself.

Taking a break from the active adventuring life and acting in more of an advisory role, Lotoc raised the baby as his own, giving him his name; thus the baby came to be known as Irthos Miirik, the unofficial heir to the Miirik family legacy.

The extra time spent at home watching over the child gave Lotoc an opportunity to delve into books and expand his already respectable knowledge on several worldly and otherworldly things. He even gained a reputation for this and was personally approached by a Brother, a representative of the League of Mastery, who tried to persuade him to participate in their next trial for the title of Master Bard, but feeling he was needed at home and not truly caring for the title despite the benefits it offered, he declined the offer. In fact, he declined all of the offers sent to him over the years, until his death, and not due to the lack of them.

Irthos grew up a respectable young man, greatly influenced by his step-dad whom he idolized. He also took many of the same traits as his own, from his up-beat personality to his penchant for singing and performing in front of crowds of all sizes. Much like Lotoc, Irthos aims to light up the room and brighten up the spirit of everyone he comes across; much to the initial shock of most who meet this drow for the first time. Whilst he had no solid mother figures, Irthos never felt he was missing out on much, and despite Lotoc being as free-spirited a womanizer as one would expect a handsome bard to be, he also made sure to teach Irthos to respect and value women.

Looking up to his step-dad led Irthos down the road to become a bard himself, and sure enough Lotoc took great joy in teaching Irthos. For the most part his training went smooth, but a few mysterious incidents troubled Lotoc greatly. For example, one day whilst practicing his singing out in the yard, Irthos got slightly too excited and in a sudden burst of resonating energy managed to release a sonic blast that broke the sound barrier and it traveled straight to the road that passed their small house, impacting with a passing horse and its rider, knocking them over. Having never seen this before Lotoc assumed it had something to do with his drow origins, and seeing how distraught by this Irthos was he decided to come clean the following evening. And so Irthos came to know, and hate, his heritage and all drows. Lotoc explained where they had found him, and also told Irthos he assumed he had been supposedly offered to the demon as a sacrifice in exchange for a boon or as a sign of appreciation or devotion to the demon.

"Is this all I meant to them? Was I nothing but discardable goods?", Irthos wondered ever since.

Another member of the original adventuring party also took a liking to Irthos as he saw him grow up to be an upstanding member of the society; the elven archer-fighter Kieran Beileth. He felt that as he was being taught bardic skills so should he have some training in archery, as means of defending himself against whatever he were to face as he set out on his own adventures. And thus Irthos gained another mentor, an elf teaching a dark-elf, and although extraordinary the bond between the two deepened and flourished.

Outside of performing in the role of a bard, Lotoc also introduced Irthos to the Miirik family legacy; they were known as the Keepers of Dragons. A long family line of bards that had a history of both slaying and communicating with dragons. Wherever dragons emerged, the Miirik family was often one of the parties that both offered consultation and was sought out to help with the situation. When the dragon or dragons in question were willing to talk, diplomacy was utilized, and if nothing got through to the dragons it was time for more permanent solutions. Even in situations where the dragons did nothing but were merely spotted would the Miirik family be interested in providing both assistance and a line of communications between them and the nearby inhabitants. And on very few and rare occasions would the dragons themselves seek the help of the Miirik family line to take care of a particularly vicious renegade dragon that terrorized both the dragons themselves and humanoid beings alike.

For these reasons the Miirik family name is known far and wide, at least by name, and they are generally both respected and revered by those who know what they do for others. On the other hand there are also those who are more sceptical of these 'do-gooders' with the ability to commune with the great wyrms, claiming there's more at play than seems apparent at first glance, even going so far as to accuse the Miirik as being in cahoots with them.

All in all Lotoc taught a great deal to Irthos, preparing him for his own journey which he would have to eventually start, in order to hone his skills as both a bard and an archer, as well as an adventurer.

Irthos received the final push to becoming an adventurer at a party roughly a century ago, though the events of it have haunted him ever since, keeping the memory of that day vivid as if it just happened. The old adventuring party had planned to meet up again after several years, and upon meeting spent an entirely uncouth amount of time at the local inn drinking, dancing and singing, as well as drunken adventurers could. However a third party had caught wind of this planned get-together and decided to crash the party. Some time into the jolly gathering a group of demons burst down the doors to the inn and in practically no-time-flat killed off a handful of peasants that had joined in on the celebrations. A scuffle ensued between the demons and the old party, allowing the rest of the layfolk to escape, and so Irthos both participated and witnessed his first real battle. In true bardic fashion he took center stage and started singing to encourage his party to fight on. The demons quickly saw this and noticed the clearly less experienced target. One of them leapt towards Irthos and just as its claws should've pierced his chest, Irthos found himself laying on the ground looking up at Kieran who now stood between the two, fending off the demon with his bow, telling Irthos to get out and seek help. Before Irthos had time to react however, he could see the demon's face twist and distort in a horrific smile. With one swift swipe it snapped the bow in half, causing a loud crackling sound as the magic surrounding it was released, and the demon sank its claws and teeth to both sides of the archer's neck. It wouldn't have a lot of time to take in the taste of fresh blood however. as shortly after this the demon found itself pierced by Lotoc's blade, and it turned around to slash viciously towards its assailant, but only managed to land a single claw on Lotoc's face before he was pinned to the ground by its shoulders. At this time most of the demons were laying slain on the inn floor, and those still alive realized fleeing was the smartest course of action. Most of the party followed after the demons for a bit but Lotoc moved on to interrogate the demon he had pinned down to gather information from it. Irthos, still in shock on the ground, watched as all of this unfolded. The demon hissed and resisted but Lotoc found a vial of something green from one of his pockets and poured some of it on the demon, causin its skin to boil and hiss, and with a voice so angry and so distraught Irthos had never heard from Lotoc's lips the old bard demanded answers from the dark, twisted, winged being. Between the hisses and the growls the demon snarled out a threat; "You think we were the only ones? You think it's over? He'll find you. He'll hunt you! He'll get you for this!!". It was then Kieran moaned the last time as the blood pouring from his venom-infused wounds wouldn't stop leaking out. This caused Lotoc to turn around towards his friend, which gave the demon an opportunity to act. It wrapped its hands around the blades pinning it on the floor and in realizing they were too deep to pull out yanked his shoulders through the blades, and quickly ran out of the door. Too worried for his friend to follow after it, Lotoc leaned over to hear the last words of Kieran Beileth; "It was an honor, old friend. Make sure... you find out... who...".

Not long after this Irthos set out on his own adventure, leaving his step-dad to take care of his own business and dealings, of which Lotoc was very hush-hush about. Irthos was driven by not only his desire to become a great bard to impress his father, and a great archer in memory of his late mentor, but also by his desire to find out what had happened that fatal night, why it all happened and who or what was behind it. He had gathered the splinters and pieces of Kieran's bow and delivered them to the local weaponsmith in hopes of getting it repaired. The smith explained that tho the craftsmanship of the bow was indeed astounding, he couldn't repair it to its former glory no matter what. Some of the components had simply been destroyed beyond repair, and some were also missing, and so the best he could offer was to get it back together as a functional bow, but that's all.

However, this was enough for Irthos, as it served as a memento for him as well as a weapon, and so he started his journey of experiencing the world, meeting new people, creating connections and crafting another piece for the Miirik legacy. But he would soon learn that despite whatever his given name might mean to some people of the realm, moving about adventuring as a drow was easier said than done.

Irthos Miirik

Alignment

Neutral Good

Date of Birth

6th of Miana

Year of Birth

535 AM 130 Years old

Circumstances of Birth

Special traits observed at birth, cast out to be sacrificed

Birthplace

The Underdark

Gender

male

Eyes

Rose-hued, bright

Hair

Silvery

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Charcoal

Height

5'8"

Weight

130 lbs.

Known Languages

Common, Undercommon, Draconic, Abyssal, Elven