Tartarios and Yseult

Tartarios and Yseult is a play by Damotyre Nudrassen. It is a tragic love-story about the corrupting lure of power.
The play is about a noble family living in Falwyth before The Rending. The protagonist, Tartarios, is a Tiefling, in love with a Human named Yseult who is a noble of higher position than he. In order to gain power and rise above his station, Tatarios makes a bargain with Asmodeus (only referred to in the play as the Dark One) and becomes a Warlock.
Using his newfound powers, Tartarios is able to increase his wealth and station, but, when he goes to Yseult’s father to ask for her hand, he finds that she is to be wed against her will to a rival. He attends their wedding reception, which is a masquerade ball, dressed as the Dark One himself, hoping to see Yseult and run away with her.
The brother of his rival goads him, saying that the married couple are consummating their wedding even as they speak, and Tatarios kills him. This causes the Dark One to enter his body, and he lays waste to the masquerade, slaughtering the guests. One guest, dressed as a swan, runs to him, but he kills without mercy or discrimination. She falls, her mask falling away to reveal Yseult, and this helps jar him partially out of the Dark One’s control.
There then follows the play’s most famous scene, referred to as the Confrontation Dialogue, where the actor playing Tartarios argues with himself as the Dark One. The Dark One tries to claim Tatarios’ service forever, but, in the end, Tartarios wrests control back and uses his remaining powers to light both himself and the house on fire, bringing ruin to himself and everything around him.
The play is considered one of Nudrassen’s most personal, as it’s known that the woman he loved was married to another man. The role of Tartarios is considered one of the greatest roles an actor can portray, because of the Confrontation Dialogue.

Type

Text, Literary (Novel/Poetry)