Name: Misery Real Name: Xytres Vo'dare Age: 57 (as of the year 1375) Height: 5'5 Weight:136 lbs Race: Half Vampire Drow Hair: Long White hair that falls just below his shoulder blades and streaked with purple locks. These streaks are inherited through a ritual gone through by the one who learns the swordstyle that Misery has undergone. They are now permanent and even should he shave his head, when his hair would grow back it would contain the streaks once again. Eyes: Silver Skin: Ebony Identifying Marks: His main identifying mark are the purple streaks in his hair. Because of this, it makes it very hard for him to disguise himself against anyone familiar with him. Even if he tries to dye the purple locks out, the magic permanency of them shines through whatever he tries to do. Basically, his hair is forever as it is. Deity: None Class/Lvl: 5 Scout/ 4 Swashbuckler/ 10 Duelist/ Family -- His mother died soon after giving birth to him, having fled the Underdark and into the light of Eilistraee. Her name she carried with her was Vo'dare, but her past was not explored greatly by the priestesses before her demise. Whether his name is a noble one or if he is a commoner from the Underdark, Misery neither knows nor cares. He is unaware of any other family, not knowing if his father lives or if siblings exist, Misery has not sought answer for these questions. Personality -- Misery has the training of the stealth and guile of a rogue but hardly puts these abilities to use, preferring a more direct and bold approach to everything. He would rather face a foe out in the open than play a game of stealth and assassination from the shadows. His attitude is very devil-may-care, often relaxed in the most serious situations. Unlike most adventurers of Faerun, Misery's primary goal is simple: Strive for the best. Any challenge he'll tackle head on and is always trying to push himself past all possible limit and by doing so, increasing in skill from every fight. He's always willing to learn from others new combat techniques and tricks if he finds them useful, but usually this never happens as student and teacher, but as opponents with the drow learning what he can by simply watching, it often becoming enough. Background: Misery's story seemed to go from bad to worse. As a youth, he was orphaned after his mother's passing and raised by the outpost community at which he stayed. The drow possessed incredible agility at an early age, but this was hardly fine tuned to anything useful for some time. As he grew in age, the elders knew he had a sharp mind and could possibly make a well enough mage save that his attention span seemed a bit distant when it came to learning magic. In fact, he was several years behind the other children to even come about learning to summon his innate drow abilities of faerie fire and darkness. When given a sword the young drow proved that his agility was indeed a great gift and his eyes keen on watching the enemies movements in anticipation, but his actual skill with the sword seemed hard pressed in growing to great use.  They began training the drow as a scout to learn the ways of shadows, and this was a skill he took up with ease given his natural grace. However, the boy still found the life of a rogue a bit too subtle for his devoted interest. Those among the outpost were nurturing and once again tried to teach him the sword, but the young drow never felt comfortable in what they were trying to teach him. He often argued the manuevers just didn't flow right and often tried to fight out of stance or routine, which always lead to his defeat. The boy seemed ill fated and his desire for a fighter's life would not come. Or so he thought. Shandra, a legend of the outpost and among Eilistraeens alike, had happened into the outpost after an assignment to seek a rest. The drowess' hair was streaked with purple locks, something unique to her style of combat and a tradition passed on by all who learned it. It wasn't required to learn the techniques, but to them it marked their amazing boldness and creativity in combat. Shandra had watched the young ones training, just as a reprieve when she noticed Xytres suffering for his inability to listen to attack routines and trying to do what felt right. What other teachers saw as a lost cause, Shandra saw as a possibility.  After pratice, Shandra spoke to Misery and her teachers. One look at those strong, silver eyes, eyes the color of steel, and she knew that those eyes saw everything before they even happened, even if he did not yet know it. Shandra had found her successor.  Everything she thought was true as she began training the bold drow child. He encouraged his experimentation of manuevers and showed him ways to mold those into true attacks, stances, and routines. Xytres learned it all and excelled. Her style focused on lighter weapons, relying on the wielder's agility and intelligence in a fight over the brute strength. Reading your opponent and their body movements, and just wear to attack to cause the maximum damage, crippling an opponent far more savagely than a crude greatsword could ever begin to do. Within a year, Shandra and her student returned to the outpost. Misery fought every last student under the instructions of the other battle teachers and bested them all. The following year they had returned and Xytres than squared off against the teachers themselves. He beat them too. Misery learned from every fight and only grew stronger with each passing battle, Shandra growing proud of the boy's skills and talents.  However, all good things must end. In an ambush by surfacers (who were under a mind control though unbeknowest to him) and another unknown force that, to this day Misery still cannot quite make out in his memory, the pair were attacked. Misery was tossed off into a cavernous cliff with his last flitting image seeing that of the cloaked figure that had tossed him into the dark abyss removed Shandra's head from her shoulders with his sword with the skill of a god, faster than he could ever think mortally possible. He remembered the skintone of the hand appeared like that of a drow and the weapon used an oriental one known as a katana but nothing more. Misery survived the fall somehow, and using a healing scroll that Shandra had taught him to read, he made his way to the top of the abyssal hole and back to his fallen master. He wept, holding her head within his hands in a morbid denial of what had happened. Whoever had killed her, they had left the drowess her honor with Darkriver, her sword, still on her person. Misery took up her sword and her waist cloak she wore and stalked off in her name. He found the small village of humans that the brainwashed ambushers came from, slaughtering the town to the last child. The Eilistraeens could not believe his actions but before they could argue against him, he denounced his faith in the Dark Mother, as well as his name. He took up the title of Misery and left the outpost. From there, Misery left to live in the Underdark where he believed he belonged. Coming to a drow city known as Undrek' Thoz, Misery became employed as Sintesse's bodyguard and not too much later (within the span of a few hours) lover as well. Eventually Misery left the Underdark though, unable to stomach the ways of the drow world any longer. It wasn't so much that they were vile but the way they performed their tasks held no interest to the drow, not to mention the pressuring interest of other drow females for him to join their own ranks with promises of Patron or Weapons Master. Titles meant nothing to him. After leaving and wondering the Underdark for 5 years, he came back to the surface and eventually met Azaelyn in the Shining South in the Dambrath region. Misery had never felt such chemistry before, even with the drowess Sintesse, and the pair become nigh inseperable save for a mission called their individual attentions instead of group effort. From there, Misery has traveled the realms, above and below ground, with the beautiful assassin by his side, neither with a destination in mind and both just improvising every step of the way. Abilities: Most of Misery's abilities revolve around melee combat. His Elaborate Parry and Precise Strike abilities are the most dangerous by far.  Elaborate Parry allows him to fall into a state of absolute and becoming a fighting demon, dodging blows impossibly fast and working his lone blade quickly enough to parry any number of swords or attacks coming his way. (In D&D Terms from this ability and the Defensive Fighter feat, when Misery fights defensively, he takes a -2 to hit and receives a +14 Dodge bonus to his AC) Precise Strike allows him to use his rapier to find the most vulnerable parts of a body with discernible anatomy and deal grievous wounds (D&D terms adds 2d6 points of damage to all his attacks while fighting with nothing in the other hand) His other used skills follow his class features, especially his ability to read scrolls and use wands. His ring he wears gives him aid in using these items and often never has a problem using fairly powerful scrolls and wands without any error.