January - February Test drive

[indigo_events]

➞ Post with a character you wish to test drive in this game's setting.
➞ Tag other people's starters and thread out shenanigans!
➞ Invite your friends! Try out new characters! Come play with us!
➞ Have fun!

NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN YOUR TEST-DRIVE JOURNEY?
CHECK OUT ALL THE LOCATIONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE IN:

JOHTO | KANTO | SEVII ISLANDS

Feel free to make various prompts in multiple locations!

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OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
NAVIGATION | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS

Comments

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"So it is," Jarlaxle says, pleasantly to the youth. He notes the dark skin and white hair. A coincidence, perhaps, but then, perhaps not. "I am sorry if I chased you off it. That was not my aim."

(Jarlaxle's own pate is shaved bald, of course, but his eyebrows are as white as any drow's.)

"Are you a newcomer as well?" he asks after a moment.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Yes." Ilphyl hadn't noticed the eyebrows first, but that is also hardly diagnostic. "Did you wake up in the same house?"

Deeply weird. Or at least a lot of magic with very little actual brainpower behind it, since it suggested a certain commonality about families that, in Ilphyl's experience, didn't exist except in the minds of people with happy and functional families. Of course, since both the magic and Ilphyl themself wanted to be away, it worked out.

Having it not just attract adolescents was even more interesting. Unless there was an alternate scenario for adults.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"I woke in a small dwelling with a woman who is most certainly not my mother, no matter what she claimed, yes," Jarlaxle says. "I cannot say what your experience might have been, but if it was similar..."

He shrugs, broadly. "Then likely it was the same or similar houses, yes."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

Ilphyl nodded. The answer didn't help with the identity of the stranger. "What are you going to do now?"

Ilphyl was happy about walking around the road, studying the wildlife, since there didn't seem to be anything urgent to do. This close to a town that didn't have walls or anything, there wasn't likely to be a serious danger.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"I am going to catch more creatures," the man says decisively. "They seem to be the only things or beings that are magical on this plane—and my book says that one can earn money and prizes through battle with them."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Does the book say how they feel about that?" Animal companions and familiars are fine, and certainly common in battle. Even trained animals are okay. Throwing the wildlife into cage fighting is dubious. "I can't exactly ask them."

Ilphyl has figured out they can't cast a single spell, which includes all their druidic magic. Of course, they still know how to observe if an animal is unhappy, but it is the principle of the matter. That being a lack of magic.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"... it claims that they enjoy it," he says after a moment. "I suppose the thing to do would be to ask my companion."

The man pulls his cloak aside and a little purple jewel-eyed imp, which has been thus-far clinging to his back, hops down.

"Now Euol," he says, crouching to meet its eyes. "Would you like to battle on my behalf in order to win money and prizes?"

The little imp nods enthusiastically. He rubs the top of its head, before straightening his lanky body.

"There you have it," he says, cheerfully. "Euol is fine with it."

(By this point it has likely not escaped Ilphyl that the stranger has named his companion after the drow word for 'gem.')

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

Yes, there was a flicker of recognition and even concern. Ilphyl is used to going through a world where any sort of elf will have an opinion on dark elves, and there's a non-trivial chance that any dark elf would be a devotee of the Spider Queen (Ilphyl won't even think Her name; it is entirely reasonable to be terrified of a goddess that actually does exist and may actually think She has a claim to his soul).

Not that they wouldn't have approached Jarlaxle anyway, but they might have taken a different tack. Basically, they haven't spent that much time with their people since they left the Underdark, and never outside the context of knowing the politics of the group before going in.

Jarlaxle would notice Ilphyl's body language has closed off a bit more, though they are looking a bit more neutral after the recognition. "Is that what you named your new pet? No one is ever allowed to give me shit about my names."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"It seemed apropos," the mercenary says with a shrug. "But I take it from your criticism that you at least speak the same birth tongue as I—and by your now-guarded demeanor, you've certainly realized that as well. But come now—I am the same fellow I was a minute ago, as are you. Does knowing we are both drow really change things so much?"

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"More that it narrows down your history. Which may or may not be relevant to 'something is transporting people to another plane where magic doesn't work and everyone is human'. Of course, assuming you're even from the same plane as me."

On the other hand, one of their most recent long-term problems were rakshasa infiltrating the upper echelons of Waterdavian society. Humanoid-eating fiends were generally speaking a worse problem than whatever a lone dark elf could bring.

But it did suggest that Ilphyl probably needs to work on this, and hadn't, given the main time they were interacting with a diverse group of people was in Waterdeep, where there was some element of anonymity of a large city.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"I think that can be solved fairly easily," the mercenary says. "The matter of if we are of the same plane, at least, for I doubt geography would be consistent between planes. Does the name of Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders, seem at all familiar to you? For it was where I was born, though I have primarily dwelt among surface folk this past century or so."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

This does get a brief teenager look of 'do you think I'm an idiot' out of reflex before Ilphyl remembers that, no, extradimensional travel means that a valid question. "Yes. I've never been, but I've certainly heard of it. I'd give you my own birthplace, but it's unlikely you've heard of it. I'm mostly based out of Waterdeep right now. I've been on the surface for a few decades."

Ilphyl is not yet an adult, but they do look old enough that they would have been the equivalent of a young- to mid-teen when they made it to the surface. Since they didn't gain any height or bulk on becoming human (and were on the short side even as an elf), they may look younger as a human than they might otherwise.

[OOC: Also the mun needs to come up with a name for some middle of nowhere settlement in the Underdark.]

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

That gets a bark of laughter from the older drow—well, drow turned human. "How very curious—I too was in Waterdeep before being drawn here. I'd only just arrived, in fact—how very curious!"

In that moment, Jarlaxle makes a decision and commits wholly to it.

"But it occurs to me that I've been remiss in introducing myself. I am Jarlaxle. Perhaps you may have heard of me?"

(He omits the surname that he has only just begun to use among his men, for his house has never officially claimed him and he dared not use it publicly for many centuries, for fear of inciting civil war. But Menzoberranzan is on the brink of civil war in any case and there was the appeal of declaring just who he was... but not with this skittish and defensive youth. The Baenre name would only spook them.)

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

Probably for the best; any of Menzoberranzan's Great Houses were so far above Ilphyl's pay grade even if they hadn't completely rejected their own birth family (which, hopefully, still assumed Ilphyl was dead).

"In passing." Ilphyl was a lot more comfortable eavesdropping around Waterdeep, where 'unusual person' was a high bar. Especially given Skullport beneath the city meant that there was access to the Underdark. Ilphyl was more likely to be backup when someone else was gathering information.

"I'm Ilphyl." They could probably claim the druid circle that had finished their training, but they hadn't been back there in a while.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle notes the singular nature of young Ilphyl's name and wonders if the lack of surname is due to the youth's caution or to lacking a house altogether.

"Well! I hope what you have heard is favorable, then! I must confess I had yet to hear of you—but I really had just arrived in Waterdeep." And not under his own name, either.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Well, any bounties on my head are out of date," Ilphyl said. They were smiling when they said it. That didn't mean they were joking, mind.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"I try not to give my real name to surface folk when I can," Jarlaxle says with a smile of his own. "It tends to help with the bounties."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Useful life lesson," Ilphyl nodded. "Sadly, they also had a good description and a picture."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"Alas, that is a complication. Easily solved with a hat of disguise, of course, but the upfront cost..."

Not to mention the fact that his seemed to have broken upon reaching this plane.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"And when it's the entire group, and you want to avoid people asking questions like 'why is there an aura of illusion magic around all of you?'" Ilphyl shrugged. "Not that anyone would recognize me here."

Yes, sure, Jarlaxle had identified him as 'potentially dark elf', but the human facial structure might confuse the issue as to who.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"Hats for all?" Jarlaxle suggests wryly. "Ah, perhaps not. But you make a good point—this is not our own plane and we shouldn't expect recognition."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Except two people from the same city on the same world happened to arrive here nearly at the same time." Ilphyl sighed, grabbing their braid and examining it. "I wonder if I should just dye my hair again." Dark-skinned humans tended to have dark hair if they weren't old enough to have their hair whiten with age.

Ilphyl doesn't really really want to. They don't actually have an issue with being a dark elf, just the dominant culture of dark elves in Faerun and the idea that even in rebellion, they still are affected by stereotypes about them. Humans didn't have to deal with this shit, even in planes where non-humans existed.

Plus, they like their natural hair color.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

"I'd say this is why I shave mine," Jarlaxle says, lazily stretching, "but that wouldn't be quite true."

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[spacetogrow]

"Otherwise, you wouldn't have forgotten about your eyebrows." Ilphyl taps their own brow for emphasis.

Re: New Bark Town/Route 29

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle chuckles. "Observant. Yes, well, when I was hardly much older than you, my hair ended up on fire--" Three times in less than a year. "--and there really wasn't much that could be done to salvage things, so I shaved it all off. And then I decided I quite liked the look and kept it that way."

He shrugs. "I suppose it's a rebellion in a way. We males are always pressured to look appealing to the women of our race and the hair is part of that. So why not remove it?"