This, what you read now before you, is the simple profile of a prince of
darkness. Not a vampire or demonic lord, but a moriel. One of the dark elven
males who has actual status in their backstabbing and yet terrifyingly rigid
socieity without being a slave to a more powerful woman. Further more, the
youth is unmarried, slightly under three hundred years of age, and yet sits on
the council of his House when his Matron requests his presence - at least when
he is close by. (This status of sitting on the council has since been
rescinded. His presence within the NetherGloom has not been felt for over a
decade. Some think him dead, and other enslaved by forces of the high elves on
the surface. Neither of these are true, but such will be learned later on...)
Unescorted, he has crossed the surface of the second continent from end to end,
and some believe he has even gone to the first continent in order to learn
foreign and deadly arts of assassination and swordwielding. His name is
Ichilandar, and the surface world has a lot to answer for in his eyes.
Much like the legendary Elthorion Kinslayer, Ichilandar Shimmerstrike of House
Tintoreda is the first born son of a Matron Mother of a House. As his mother is
the Matron of the entire House, Ichilandar received much in the way of leeway
that most sons of a dark elf would face in such circumstances. Being both
gifted of body and of mind, the young dark elf saw the way his fellow male
moriel were treated in his society and swore to himself to never be placed in
that position, ever. To that end, Ichilandar trained himself in the arts
of combat and sorcery, of alchemy and botany. Within his first fifty years, he
made sure to make himself over in the image of the father he never knew but was
always told he appeared to look just like... but taller.
A Lot Taller.
Ichilandar during the course of the next fifty years of his existence was the
constant target of assassination attempts. If not for the quick thinking of his
Honor Guards - one of which being the talented and seasoned "Dagger Of
House Tintoreda" - he would have fed the maw of great and powerful Lloth
with his soul long before he saw the surface world for the first time. His body
was no use for carrying the massive blades those older than he were wielding,
so he started off fairly small with longknives, coated in a poison of his own
concoction.
He WAS a dark elf. There is such a thing as a moriel who fights with honor all
the time: they are called "dead and buried."
Even at the tender age of seventy, he was developing the two-handed style of
fighting which would serve him well over the next two centuries and more. His
"trick slice" technique grew as he did, evolving to twists and turns
of the blade which would throw off even some of his most seasoned opponents. And
as he grew in size, so did his reputation - not just for fighting, but for the
way he would catch on to how to work with various chemicals and magical
elements to come up with rather unique solutions to more mundane metallurgical
problems. Even while his studies increased as his mother tried to keep him out
of sight of rival moriel females (not to mention potential suitors for her
son), he sensed something else in his life would change dramatically, and not
necessarily for the better OR for the worse.
Shortly after his eightiest anniversary of life, the Matron Mother of House
Tintoreda had a second son. His name was Deraden`Efrem, and it seemed that he
was destined for sorcery. Given the way all of the mage texts in the room he
was born in turned to the three hundred and forty-third page as they fell from
their shelves, such was a calling Ichilandar was glad not to have to go through
with. He far preferred to get his hands dirty, working now alongside the
armorers and blacksmiths of House Tintoreda whenever he had a chance. The art
and precision of creating weapons and armor fascinated him and he insisted on
learning as much about this work as he possibly could. This interest in the
metallurgical paths would stay with him, and help him in the long run of his
life.
As his younger brother grew older, he noticed that Deraden's thoughts and
methods differed so greatly from his own he had no fear of his younger sibling
assassinating him. The younger Tintoreda brother was far too focused on his
studies to even care about prestige in the House. This was a good thing for
Ichilandar, even though he also cared not to be famous or powerful in the eyes
of other dark elves. All he wanted was to know how to slay his foes better, and
see the surface for the first time. His wish for the latter would not come for
a long while yet, but the former was easy to acquire when his weapons' trainer
took him on as an assistant and down to the arenas to watch the matches held in
the Evernight caverns. Not just moriel could he observe in some of these duels,
but dark dwarves, humans who had conquered various aspects of the Neverlight
for their own selfish uses, and other races strange and some not even humanoid.
Once he was the sole witness to a battle between two demons summoned by
accident by rouge clerics... both of whom must have been consumed, given the
gristly entrails left on the floor of the passage he had mistakenly happened
across. When he told his much younger male sibling about this (for about this
time, there were seven daughters, two which were older than he), Deraden
insisted on seeing what remained of the combatants. By the time they managed to
race there unaccompanied, nothing was left but spell residue - which Deraden
somehow managed to capture using a series of minute rituals he had stolen out
of a dwarven spellbook he had managed to acquire. Without being discovered by
the guards twice (or so they believed), they made their way back inside to
examine their findings more thoroughly. Given the intentness of their study,
the Matron Mother decided not to flay them within an inch of their lives for
endangering their lives so haughtily, as they might come up with something
useful to the House.
They did. The magics they learned were used in the demonic struggle they
researched through the huge libraries of the House for three years before
deriving them all. Many mages of the House benefited from this hard work, and
congratulated both Deraden and Ichilandar for their persistence and
perseverance. The mistakes in their research brought forth other previously
lost works from the first and fallen city of the dark elves into the forefront,
starting a frenzy in translations. Deraden`Efrem and Ichilandar had without a
doubt earned their position in the dark elven House of Tintoreda forever - or at
least they screwed up so majorly nothing short of word from Elghinalee Herself
would stop them from perishing. Shortly after, Deraden`Efrem was sent to a
monastery in order to learn the arts of assassination, healing, and sorcery far
more in depth than he would within the House, and Ichilandar was all alone,
again - the sole male of his family within the House.
Ichilandar's first forays into the surface world were not as eventful as most
would have assumed. All he did was go into a major city on the edge of the
second continent and raid its premier library for as many of its tomes as he
possibly could. Given the fact he was using a few spells which increased his
speed, it was surprising all he took were fifteen tomes. When he brought them
down to his House, most of the volumes seemed to have no rhyme nor reason,
until he pointed out how they could be used in the translation for at least
three to five dozen scrolls, tomes, and texts placed in the archives which the
finest scholars of House Tintoreda still could not fathom. Once more,
Ichilandar had proved his worth to his family... and to his House as a whole.
As the years progressed, Ichilandar finally reached his true height of six
feet, ten inches in height. In his more common fighting boots, he could be
upwards of seven feet of pure-blooded moriel male prowess and precision. His
years spent training with weapons and working with the blacksmiths had
toughened him, making him a majestic predator in the Neverlight. His chest had
filled out impressively, and his hands could still break the stem of a silver
tine, or softly caress a flower in full bloom. With a reach able to snatch the
hairs from an umber hulk's lip at full stance, his superior skill with the
blade earned him no friends with the other male dark elves, but many admirers -
both male AND female. At first, he found all these new people interested in his
daily routine humorous, but soon did he find it tiresome and potentially
dangerous. After the third attempt on his life by House Huri-can`Lodar, he
banished all who sought his presence merely to bask in it from his side, and
redoubled his efforts to become the best swordsman any moriel had ever
witnessed in his age or before it.
One night, Ichilandar left his House on a sojourn in order to discover for
himself if he could survive without having a host of guards and assassins
defending him. Going to the surface world far from his home, he spent over
three months on the surface proving to himself he could outlast his own fears
and terrors. On the first day, all of his weapons and armor disintegrated, such
is the fate of most moriel weapons which taste the light of the sun. His eyes
and skin burned in agony and torment, and he wandered around blind within the
summer-kissed forest for eight days before finding a pond to refresh his
beleaguered body and soul within. Savoring this moment's respite, he did not
notice when the twelve bandits came across him, thinking to beat him down and
enslave him so they could fetch a great price for his midnight blue skin at the
exotic markets.
When a dark elf is disarmed, disrobed, and blinded, they are not dead. If they
had remembered that, the bandits could have stood a better chance. As it was,
they hurt Ichilandar badly - very badly indeed. Scarring his left arm and his
right leg, the blades of the bandits sunk into moriel flesh for the first time
ever... and the last. In a rage, the wounded dark elf focused solely on the
breathing of his assailants, letting his body's honed instincts take over and
do the rest. The twelve bandits had no idea what it was to face a trained
killer before they happened upon what they thought was to be their meal ticket.
None of them survived beyond the second hour... and that was because three of
them ran for their lives. Admittedly, they did get far, but not anywhere close
to far enough.
By the time Ichilandar returned home, the House had given him up for dead - all
but his brother Deraden and his Mother, the Matron of the House. Coming back
with the weapons of the surface world (as well as the heads of the dead men and
their belongings), he set out to study how the makeup of these blades were
different from those of his native caverns, and how he could make them
better... how he could make them his own. Despite the severe tongue-lashing he
received in public from his mother as well as the rest of the leading females
of the House, nothing could turn him into the traditional male most of the
Council of his House wanted him to be. That taste of independence had ruined
that dream forever, but had also brought with it a sense of maturity he had not
possessed before.
This independence was well timed, as within four months, a new arrival came
into the House by way of a series of events manipulated by the gods themselves.
This new arrival was a unique mage-assassin. From the moment he met the much
smaller human, he knew his life was going to be FAR more interesting. Barely
out of his teenage years, the human brought with him a wealth of information
about the surface world that Ichilandar had never known existed. As well this
tiny and frail creature was not quite as helpless as one would have assumed,
being in the presence of whom considered him "his betters." His skill
with languages was barely matched by others within House Tintoreda, and rarely
still surpassed. As well, his talent with short swords was also quite
impressive. Not quite as lethal as Ichilandar, but more than enough to slay the
average (and above average) foe.
Ichilandar, spent many years on missions for House Tintoreda, taking him far
across the continent of Belariath. By the time news reached him to the apparent
Final Death of the strange fighting wizard, he had almost forgotten the man.
Spending time mourning him appropriately, Ichilandar recalled the few debts he
owed the man - namely to finally make his way back to the Main House if he
should fall. However, the long road back was fraught with danger, betrayal...
and serpents. Not regular snakes, but grand scaled creatures of power,
prestige, and petty proprieties. It would be months traveling through that
strange realm alone.
Somehow during his travels, Ichilandar found himself outside of the continent
of Belariath. His memories of these days are many, but his prizes are few. He
made sure to remove what traces of his presence in the lands beyond Nanthalion
as possible, but he knows not if anyone or anything) still hunts him. He frets
about the possibility once in a while, but he sharpens his blades and those
worries go away. A man of practical and pragmatic rituals, is Ichilandar, and
definitely not a very pious one at all. This, if nothing else, may be his
downfall at long last. Of course, with the gods having undergone The Silence,
the moriel found his almost forgotten curse awakened anew. Thankfully, he was
prepared for such and has since learned to control it. (Well, for the most
part...)
Now then, one would have to wonder with all this talk about Ichilandar and his
younger brother if those were the only siblings that he had. The simple answer
is a resounding no. The more complex answer would take quite a few tales on
their own, for his has no less than six sisters. Given that he was the third
child, one must then understand why Ichilandar has no real intention to return
to the NetherGloom. To ask him yourself is to be presented with half-truths,
lies, and facts so old they may as well be fiction. That is, of course, unless
you are a personal ally of his. The best person to ask would be his mother, but
you would need brave the journey to House Tintoreda's main stronghold for that...
Not to mention dealing with The Branch House. However, such information and
tales are for another time and place.