Jaheel Iskandel (Jah-HEEL Iz-KAN-dehl)

Jaheel Iskandel

Jaheel Kills a Dragon

I was, at the time, part of an adventuring party, the Burning Weasels, on our way to Suzail looking for work. It was a fairly dull trip, which always makes me nervous; there’s always something wrong going on in the world, and if none of it’s happening near me, I’m not doing anything to stop it.

We were nearing the end of our third day out – about an hour from the next small town with an inn – when we heard screaming from the woods to our north.

We turned our heads to see what was going on. There was a man running through the woods. Not in a “woodsman” way, mind. He was running over unfamiliar ground in poor light and seemed to spend as much time tripping as he did running, but he did make his way to us pretty quickly.

He said he was from a village called “Pentref” which was being menaced by an enormous red dragon. Well, the village was largely fine. Dragons tend to be seeking stuff to add to their hoards and peasants tend not to have much hoard worthy stuff. The dragon was actually attacking the local lord’s castle.

I put my hand down and pulled the peasant onto my drakkensteed, Marcdraig, behind me. We turned back the way the peasant had come from.

The Burning Weasels had other ideas. “It’s almost sundown,” said one.

“We can go in the morning,” said another, “we’re no good to anyone tired.”

In response, Marcdraig spread her wings and began to fly.

The peasant, Gwenif, didn’t take to flying well and he couldn’t recognize the terrain from above, so we had to land and go on hoof. Gwenif led us back to his village. It took about an hour – far less time than Gwenif’s trip forward had been.

The attack, as it were, appeared to be over. The dragon watched as terrified peasants and manor servants loaded a cart with sacks of stuff – tax money, I presumed, and maybe the occasional silver tea service – as well as two statues and some paintings. It was not clear how the dragon was going to get the cart back to her lair, but it was sure to be more efficient than just snatching stuff and carrying it.

The dragon was smaller than had been described, but I was disinclined to blame Gwenif. Stare down the throat of even the smallest dragon and you’d swear it could swallow the world.

I helped Gwenif off of Marcdraig’s back, which I’m sure was a relief for both, and strung my bow. In less time than it takes to tell, I had two arrows flying towards the dragon. I tried to aim center-mass, in the hope of getting one in the heart and ending the whole thing in a few seconds like the tales say.

The tales lie.

The arrows I had loosed both hit, but neither penetrated anywhere near deeply enough to reach their heart. The dragon whipped their head around and breathed fire at us.

Fortunately, paladins are not – generally – as dumb as we look. We were well out of range. We were hit with a blast of residual heat and a few hairs on Marcdraig’s mane shriveled a bit. I used the time to toss down my bow and unlimber my sword and shield. After the blast of fire petered out, Marcdraig and I charged the dragon. I keep telling myself I’m going to get a lance for just such an emergency, but it comes up so rarely.

As it was, I got a fairly palpable hit on the joint of the dragon’s right wing. I had hopes of removing the wing entirely, but that never happens in real life. Still, I got a few ligaments and maybe a tendon or two. The wing immediately dropped and dragged on the ground.

That’ll slow ‘em down.

The dragon wasn’t out yet, though. Their tail whipped around and knocked Marcdraig and me over.

I didn’t like that.

Neither of us were hurt too badly – although I could tell already that I was going to be very stiff come morning – but Marcdraig stood back up and flew off. Although drakkensteeds are very loyal once trained, they’re not naturally brave and tend to be skittish when they know they are outclassed.

Not that I had time to worry about that. The dragon tried to step on me. I got my shield up in time, so I wasn’t pierced by the claws, but I was having a hard time drawing a complete breath, and, worse, I couldn’t get any leverage with my sword. I dropped my sword, drew a dagger from my belt, and stabbed the dragon in the toe.

Y’ever get stuck by a pin? There’s almost no damage; the physical trauma is negligible, but you still pull your finger back before you realize you’ve done it. Same principle here.

I grabbed my sword and stood up. The dragon tried to bite me, so I tried to prop their mouth open with my shield. My shield was too big to fit, though, so I’m going to call that one a draw.

I swung my sword at the dragon’s neck, scoring a hit some inches deep. Unfortunately, these particular inches appeared to be noncritical.

While I was doing that, the dragon started trying to fly away. But that one wing was still not moving because of the severed tendons. This meant that one side of the dragon was getting some lift that wasn’t balanced by the other. It looked like the dragon was standing on its hind legs and doing some kind of wiggly dance. I stabbed at the dragon’s underbelly, trying to get around the sternum and into the heart. I failed to adequately predict the dragon’s wiggle and, while I might have nicked a lung, I completely missed the heart.

At this point, the dragon’s just not having a good day and probably wishing they’d cast a bunch of spells at me when they’d had a chance. They dropped down back onto all fours and backed slightly away.

I stabbed at the dragon’s snout, hoping to get the dragon to rear back, allowing me to get a slash in at their throat. It’s still a slain dragon if they drown in their own blood.

Right as I was doing that, however, the dragon decided to breathe fire on me. My sword went past the snout, into the mouth, through the back of the brain, and finally out the back of the skull. Through sheer luck, the dragon was dead.

The fire was already on its way, though. There was no place to dodge even if my reflexes had been up to the task. I was bathed in dragonfire.

I inherited more than red eyes from my father. I am also resistant to fire. Not much, but enough to be useful. Thus it was that I was only brought to the brink of death by the fire and not vaporized instantly.

The locals tried to help me, but it was several minutes before my armor cooled enough that anybody could touch me without scalding themselves. Even then, the only reason it cooled so quickly was that the local blacksmith came by with two buckets-full of cool water.

It makes sense. That guy probably had more understanding of hot metal than everybody else in the village combined. My armor was – largely – ruined, of course. The fire wasn’t hot enough to melt the steel, but it was hot enough to warp the metal. This wasn’t too much a problem for the breastplate and pauldrons – just cut the straps and the suit fell apart on its own – and the gambeson was a total loss. The helmet, on the other hand, had no straps (anymore), but it had curled under my chin and couldn’t be removed without some major work.

I was still pretty dazed, though, and spent several minutes trying to retrieve my sword without impaling myself on the dragon’s teeth.

Eventually, I gave it up as a bad job and let the villagers lead me to a place to sleep overnight.

In the morning, the blacksmith and I discussed the helmet problem. Fixing the helmet would have been something either of us could easily have done except for the undeniable problem of my head still being in it. Neither of us wanted to heat it to glowing or hit it with a hammer under that circumstance.

When the Burning Weasels found me, it was about midday, and I was lying on a table with my head on an anvil, and the blacksmith was trying to bend the helm back into shape with his largest tongs. He had his foot on my helm to brace it and was shouting things like “Bend, damn you” and “This is more work than killing the dragon!”

I was inclined to disagree, but it definitely took longer.

And that is the story of how I killed a dragon single-handed.

You may have heard it from a bard, but they got it all wrong.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Jaheel was born and spent many of his formative years in the town of Cythraul (pronounced: KURTH-rial) in Cormyr.

Cythraul was a small port town that included little more than docks, a caravansary, and related industry -- lots of brewhouses and brothels, mostly -- along with a few farms to feed the dockworkers. This is the kind of town where the Dockmaster has more power than the mayor and everybody knows it.

Jaheel's father, Owain, was a tiefling dockworker whose natural intelligence had him on the fast track to becoming the next Dockmaster (his mother, Carys, was a homemaker). This inspired a jealous dockworker, Daffyd, to whip up a mob to attack the family. Jaheel's parents were murdered trying to protect him and the family's home was burned down.

Jaheel managed to escape, largely through the efforts of his mother and ran away down the main road through town. He kept running until his little legs couldn't move anymore and he passed out.

He was found the next day by the retired Dragonborn paladin, Iskandus, who was on his way to Cythraul to conduct some business. What business was never specified.

Iskandus got the story -- translated from "freaked-out-toddler-ese" -- in fits and starts and made up his mind, then and there, to adopt the lad and teach him to be a good person. Or, at least, better than Daffyd.

Iskandus taught Jaheel the lore of Bahamut and, eventually, the way of the paladin.

Gender Identity

Cisgender male

Sexuality

Straight with a normal libido. Sex is deprioritized due to emotional fallout. Has relatively few sexual prospects in any case, due to the red eyes.

Education

Jaheel is well-read on the subjects of religion, magic, and dragons and can discourse intelligently on these topics. He is not otherwise well-educated in any meaningful sense of the term.

Mental Trauma

As a toddler, Jaheel watched his parents get murdered. He has some prescription-grade abandonment issues.

Social

Family Ties

Jaheel has no siblings and his parents were murdered when he was a toddler; he may have aunts, uncles, or cousins out there, but he's never met them.

Religious Views

Jaheel was introduced to the worship of and service to Bahamut at an early age.

Despite an early (and short) period of resistance, curiosity took over and he began to study the philosophies and traditions of Bahamut.

After a short time, he was down on his knees, begging Bahamut to remove the evil taint from his demonic heart.

It's not clear whether Bahamut granted that prayer -- or even heard it, come to that -- but Jaheel has had no problems maintaining Bahamut's teachings thereafter.

Alignment

Lawful Good

Current Location

Waterdeep

Species

Tiefling

Age

28

Birthplace

Cythraul, Cormyr

Pronouns

He/him

Gender

Male

Eyes

Red in both iris and scelera, no pupil

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Light brown

Height

5'8"

Weight

192#

Belief/Deity

Bahamut

Known Languages

Common
Celestial
Chondathan
Draconic