Looking for Ideas for a Player who is Half-Drow

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Sivanot
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Looking for Ideas for a Player who is Half-Drow

Post by Sivanot »

Hi! First post here, thought this would be the perfect place to ask for advice considering my party has had a good bit of interaction with the followers of Eilistraee, with me as the DM.

if you're one of my players who happened to stumble upon this, get out lmao.

I'm running Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and have altered the third level a decent bit to include the Promenade being reclaimed, or more accurately, the Pit of Ghaunadaur with caves dug out nearby. I'm using information from the DM's Guild supplement Skullport: Shadows of Waterdeep.

In which it's described that only a few years ago (As of 1492 DR), after having been pushed back to where they are now, Qilue Veladorn sacrificed herself to buy time to reseal the Pit, diving into it and presumably dying in the process. Havent been able to find out how much of that is established Forgotten Realms canon, but it works out great for my game so that's what Im going with for my version of the realms.

The main driving force for the party delving into Undermountain is the character im making this post for, a Half-Drow Bladesinger who's looking for his sister. Who, in turn, is looking for their mother who left them on the surface with their father about 9-10 years prior, or at least looking for more information about her and why she left.

The main idea that I'm running with at the moment is the mother being Qilue under a different name, who according to the Forgotten Realms wiki did have a child at one point, so that may not be out of the question. The reason for her leaving being a forewarning from Eilistraee of the attack on the Promenade by the cultists of Ghaunadaur, which would result in the fallback to the Pit itself, and years later, Qilue's sacrifice.

I'm still open to other ideas if something better is suggested or comes to mind, especially considering the player is already suspecting this after meeting Iljrene, who's the current priestess leading the Promenade, as per the information in the supplement I'm using. But currently, the main thing I need help with is what clues I should leave for the player. What his sister would have found out, whether or not she could have made it down to Level 19 yet (Which is where the supplement says the pit leads down to, fitting as it's named the Caverns of Ooze) and if she would have even found anything there. None of these are things I have ideas for and Im kind of scrambling to figure something out, as the player just had the idea of casting a sending spell to his sister, and thats where we ended last session lmao. Anyone have any advice that can help me out here?
Bhaern Quel
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Re: Looking for Ideas for a Player who is Half-Drow

Post by Bhaern Quel »

Well a child of Qilue might be reaching too high. There clearly are many Priestesses that could have been the Mother.

The seeking a Mother still can work, however a ten year gap would tend to indicate the Mother was killed or captured and held captive. Not sure what clues there will be to track after so long a time, though the Dark Maiden might aid in some small ways.

As for your players reading, right now traffic is very low so odds of them finding your post appears low.
Sivanot
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Re: Looking for Ideas for a Player who is Half-Drow

Post by Sivanot »

Ive talked about this site once or twice with my players while i was looking around for more info on Eilistraee, so there could be a chance of them finding it lol. Better safe than sorry.

And fair, Qilue being the mother might be a bit extreme, and possibly hard to explain someone who's seen lots of art of Qilue not recognizing their literal mother lol (though I have already said that she seemed familiar. So my only wiggle room there is someone who looks similar). Do you have any suggestions for another option in that case? I think for now I'll lean into the player's out of character assumption the mother is Qilue, though I'll have to think of other clues to throw in so It's not just a random twist that goes against all evidence.

The supplement Im using does actually give something I could use here though, a list of all the Singing Swords, the majority of them being lost. But also explains who was using them and when they were lost, most being lost during expeditions deeper into Undermountain. Maybe the mother could be one of the other wielders there.
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Irennan
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Re: Looking for Ideas for a Player who is Half-Drow

Post by Irennan »

IMHO you could have had the mother as Qilué from the get go, and have both children look for Qilué herself with the rest of the Promenade and Eilistraee's guidance. Yes, Qilué has sacrificed herself, but she took a dive in the pit and then no one heard of her, right? Maybe her friends at the Promenade won't believe that she's dead, so they're having expeditions to find her. Eilistraee herself could have lost contact with her once she entered the pit, since Ghaunadaur's power is strong there, and she too wants Qilué to be found. Idk, this could have made things simpler.

In any case, as for the clue that the sister found, it could be Qilué's singing sword, but you can make it a sentient weapon, and have all sorts of shenaningans with it. Like, Qilué's soul could be inhabiting it. Maybe Qilué wasn't ready to make this sacrifice and to pass on to Eilistraee's realm. Maybe Qilué wanted to live, because she wanted to see her children grow and Eilistraee's faith that she had nourished into life from its ashes, prosper (though she still had the courage and devotion to her duty to make the sacrifice; courage can be seen as going forward when you don't have the strength, after all). This could have led her soul to do anything to remain on Toril, including binding herself to a singing sword destined to spend a long ass-time at the bottom of a foul place like the Pit. Though, being a soul, maybe Qilué lost many memories, and she now only retains emotions towards what was important to her in life, and fragments of the events that transpired (like the memory of a person with PTSD, not a coherent narration, but fragments of sensory experiences related to the event, as if they're actually living that stuff once again).

The good part about this is that you can provide your PCs with sounds, words, images of places, whatever, as hint to find more info. If you have a main story thread, you can even try to bind things together, and use Qilué to nudge the players towards points of interests through these memories (as long as it makes sense, of course). You can also play the human (not as in the race) angle by buidling relationship between the children and the sentience of the sword, especially as Qilué retrieves her memory, and she finally reconstructs what happened to her, and the reasons that kept her anchored to Toril and why she wanted to go on living, and the regret and sense of loss of not having been with her children for such a long time, maybe guilt too, for not having been there for them.

For example (not suggesting that you should do this, only giving a rather cliché example that just occured to me) maybe, due to being exposed to the Pit for such a long time, Qilué now has glimpeses of something sinister happening with Ghaunadaur (and/or his eldritch ilk) among her shattered memories. She feels a sense of dread, she is terrified of something that could happen to her children, her goddess, and the people she loves. Therefore' she's taken by a dire sense of urgency, that something must be done about this, but she doesn't know what. She only has these images of places, these phrases, names, or whatever, and she begs the players to investigate them as if her everything depended on it. The sense of dread and and urgency that Qilué holds could be played as the result of the love that she has for her children, and of the sense of powerlessness that she feels, being unable to help her children as she would want and as she should have during the years she was missing (though now I'm rambling).

If you're worrying about how Eilistraee wouldn't just retrieve Qilué's soul from the sword, Eilistraee would surely recognize that some part of Qilué is in the sword, but you could have that Ghaunadaur's power corrupted the sword itself--maybe the sword is just a channel that Qilué can use to communicate, but her soul is not in it. Maybe her soul is taken by Ghaunadaur, lost in the Far Realm and in need for someone to retrieve her, what you have (though I feel bad proposing that Qilué's soul would be lost in the Far Realm, that's... cruel).

In any case, don't fear of trailing far off the established canon (which I'm sorry to say, but it's quite a joke), or from whatever the book you're using tells you; experiment at your heart content, and be bold in changing stuff if you feel that it can make for a more engaging campaign.
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
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