Drizzt Do'urden

Homeland

Menzoberranzan: Houses of Intrigue

Menzoberranzan

Amid all the planning and scheming is House Do'urden, the tenth house and a noble house struggling its way up the ladder of Menzoberranzan's power structure. Lolth's statutes decree that one house may attack another, but the destruction must take place within a single night, and the rival house must be utterly destroyed. As long as the first condition is met, no other houses may interfere in the war. The second condition must be met, for if any member of the besieged family lives to the next morning, they may demand retribution from the city's Ruling Council. So, bargains must be made.

Dinin Do'Urden

House Do'urden makes such a bargain with one of the city's most skilled wizards, the Faceless One. Dinin Do'urden, secondboy of House Do'urden confirms the payment of his family's matron, Malice Do'urden, in exchange for the death of one Alton DeVir, a low level wizard living outside his House in The Academy school of Sorcere. Gaining this confirmation, Dinin returns home to the throne room of his mother who is pregnant yet again.

Matron Malice

House Do'urden launches its attack on DeVir, pressing every advantage it possesses, both physically in terms of warriors, and psychically in terms of prayers to Lolth. The battle is a virtual stalemate until Lolth grants the prayers of Do'urden over those of DeVir, allowing the psychic defenses of the rival house to fall. In the middle of the carnage can be found Zaknafein, Weapons Master and First Husband of House Do'urden. Zak is the finest swordsman in Menzoberranzan, possibly the best that has ever lived in all of Faerun. He cuts a swath through the DeVir warriors and enters the chapel of House DeVir and slays Matron Ginafae and all her daughters.

Purple Eyes

Zaknafein

In Sorcere, Alton DeVir arrives at the chambers of the Faceless One, and is immediately attacked. He runs, but cannot get away from the more powerful wizard, and is near his end. Just before the killing blow, the Faceless One informs Alton that he is the last of his family, his house has fallen. Raising his hand to complete his end of the deal, the Faceless One is suddenly killed by a crossbow quarrel through the back of his neck. He has been killed by his own brother, Masoj Hun'ett, in revenge for years of subservience to the Faceless One. Masoj has spared Alton, concocting a plan to allow the final member of the DeVir family to take the place of the Faceless One, and eventually enact his revenge on Do'urden. In return, Masoj will no longer be subservient, and immediately gains access to a myriad of powerful magical items, the most desirable of which is a Guenhwyvar's Figurine of a black panther.

House Do'urden: Growing Up Drow

Young Drizzt

Rather than being sent directly to Melee-Magthere, Drizzt is entrusted to Zak for his weapons training. He is taken to spartan quarters, and instructed that all his time, whether eating, sleeping, or training will be spent in that single room. Other than a bed, weapons and a training dummy, the room is broad and empty. Zak leaves him to investigate the armaments, judging which best suit his hands. Zak, for his part, returns to his own quarters haunted by the faces of the children he has been forced to kill, and wonders if his own son's soul will become dark and tainted like every other drow in the Underdark.

Alton DeVir

a yolchol

Drizzt's training with Zak commences, and continues in urgency. One day while sparring, Zaknafein inadvertently reveals that Drizzt had once had two brothers, and explains the true nature of the older brother's death. Drizzt is shocked to learn that Nalfein died on the night of his birth, not from the axe of a dwarf or the pick of a gnome, but the blade of a drow warrior. (Zak does not reveal at this time that it was his other brother, Dinin, that did the nefarious deed.) Drizzt becomes absorbed in his training for three more years, spending nearly every waking moment with Zaknafein, honing his already considerable skills.

Matron Baenre

Sinafey Hun'ett

In Malice's throne room, Zaknafein protests Drizzt's being sent to the Academy, saying the instructors there will ruin him. Secretly, he knows they will further attempt to indoctrinate the boy into the philosophy of the drow, making him a cold-blooded murderer. Zak begs for two more years to mold him into the finest swordsman in all of Menzoberranzan, for his skills already surpass those of half of the Academy's student body. Malice insists that he must attend, because there is more to being a drow warrior than weapons mastery. Zak insists that Drizzt will only be taught treachery and deceit, tools which Malice believes will do the young one well and make him strong. Zak is warned to further keep his blasphemy to himself and not to interfere further in the life of their son, otherwise she will offer up Zak's heart as a sacrifice to the Spider Queen.

Maya Do'urden

In his anger and determination to never allow Drizzt to become what he fears, Zak marches directly to his son's room and begins attacking him. He confronts the boy with his recent killing, challenging him to see if any remorse remains in Drizzt's soul. During the battle, Zak looses himself in his own memories, telegraphing the guilt and pain he feels for his own sins onto Drizzt. This laspe of attention allows him to give himself over to his rage, and Drizzt takes advantage, but not before Zak plays dirty and blinds his boy to regain the upper hand. When Drizzt asks, "Do you so hate to lose?", Zak's response is "Do you not understand? To lose is to die!" In the end, Zak sees that Drizzt is still truly an innocent, and fears for him all the more, knowing he will not learn of the treachery around him until it is possibly too late. He walks away, telling Drizzt to "go and learn who you truly are." Drizzt dons his full armor for the first time, and is escorted by his brother (and instructor) Dinin to Melee-Magthere.

The Academy: The Heart of the Drow

The Academy

Lore Master Hatch'net

"Menzoberranzan was not always our home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once we walked the surface of the world. Do you know of the surface? An awful place. Each day a great ball of fire rises into the open skies above...bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of the priestesses of Lolth! Once our people walked the surface of the world...we walked beside the pale-skinned elves, the faeries! We thought the faeries our friends, we called them kin! We could not know, in our innocence, that they were the embodiment of deceit and evil!

We could not know that they would turn on us so suddenly—slaughtering our children and the eldest of our race. Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the surface of the world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows. Then we found the goddess. It was the Spider Queen who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was Lolth who guided us to the paradise of the Underdark. And it is she who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies.

You are the drow! Never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!"

Hatch'net's tirade went on and on, disparaging every other race that stood for goodness, or considered the drow a natural enemy. Light elves, deep gnomes, duergar dwarves, any intelligent surface creature, or any one who worshiped ought but Lolth were all labeled evil and therefore worthy of destruction. Thus began the indoctrination of the drow youth, but Drizzt was only left further appalled.

Kelnozz Kenafen

Kelnozz convinces Drizzt to form a team to better take on the other students. When Drizzt reminds him that in the end there can be only one (yes, I said it), Kelnozz replies, "let us defeat the others and then we can decide the matter between ourselves." Drizzt agrees, and the pair cut a swath through the singular warriors roaming the vast Grand Melee cavern. Drizzt is clearly the dominant fighter of the pair, impressing even Hatch'net and the other instructors. Near the end of the melee, Kelnozz is trapped and about to take a "killing" blow. Drizzt rushes in to save his partner, only to find himself struck in the back of the head by that same partner. Kelnozz wins the Grand Melee through treachery rather than skill, a lesson Drizzt would not soon forget.

While Masoj shares plans with Alton about Sinafey's designs for the downfall of House Do'urden, Drizzt is subjected to more and more of the hysterical ravings of Hatch'net. Drizzt remarks to himself that, though he is constantly barraged with so-called evidence of the evil and treacherous "lesser races," the only deceit he has ever actually witnessed (or been the recipient of) has been that of his own people. He bore the psychological training so that he could get to the physical. At this he excelled, quickly and easily surpassing his comrades.

When it came time for the second Grand Melee, Drizzt's skills were so finely honed, that none could match him, and the lessons he had learned of treachery he never forgot again. Where his peers would use lies and mistrust to advance themselves, Drizzt used logic and misdirection in addition to his superior skill, winning the day and taking first in the Grand Melee. Drizzt placed his trust in the only stable thing in his life, his skill and his scimitars, never again letting anyone under his guard again for many, many years. He practiced every waking hour, well beyond the requirements of the Melee-Magthere instructors. His work pays great dividend, winning him the Grand Melee for the next two years. His teachers are so impressed they move him up in the next Grand Melee with student three years ahead of him in their training, and he still wins nearly effortlessly.

Hook Horror

Drizzt Under Pressure

This is the first that Drizzt has heard of DeVir, and ask who they are. Dinin answers "House DeVir. On the very night you were born, they ceased to exist. An excellent attack, thank you." Drizzt is appalled that his family was responsible for the murder of an entire family, and is warned by Vierna, "Watch your words secondboy, the deed was perfectly executed. In the eyes of Menzoberranzan it never happened." Drizzt also learns that not only was Zaknafein involved in the attack, but that it was his duty to slay the matron and priestesses of DeVir, along with any other children who might have been in hiding. Drizzt is further informed that, as the third-born son of the house, he was to have been sacrificed to Lolth as tradition demanded, but for the blade of Dinin through Nalfein's heart. Vierna tells Drizzt, "You should thank him for that kindness." Dinin and Vierna leave Drizzt alone in his remorse.

Masoj Hun'ett

Guenhwyvar

His six months in Sorcere over, Drizzt makes his way into Arach-Tinith and spends his last months of training among the priestesses of Lolth. As enjoyable his time in Sorcere had been, his time in Arach-Tinith was full of ten times the drudgery. Forced to listen to sermon after sermon of the glory and wisdom and goodness and power of the Spider Queen, Drizzt came to regard the dark goddesses worshipers more like slaves. He suffers it all until graduation day, where he and all the other male warriors who are graduating are offered one of the things that is most denied them, the bodies of the priestesses of Lolth. To graduate, the warriors and priestesses are to pair off and procreate as an act of worship to Lolth. Drizzt, when he is approached by one of the beautiful priestesses, is able to throw off his drug induced stupor and refuse her advances. He flees into the surrounding tunnels.

Vierna Do'urden

Driders

House Do'urden: Tidings of War

Miraculously, Drizzt awakens in a bed a while later, his mother standing over him. She has saved him for her own designs, and will no longer tolerate his "blasphemy" of Lolth any longer. What Vierna meant as mercy, leaving him to die as a meal for the driders, will not be done to him again. If Malice hears him ever disparage the Spider Goddess again, she will take him back to that place, not to kill him, but to turn him into a drider himself. Drizzt returns to Melee-Magthere, and graduates with the highest honors in his class. He returns home and acts like the subservient secondboy they expect him to be, but Zaknafein, hiding in the shadows, hears his son and believes that he has truly been turned to Lolth's side.

Zak believes he has failed his son, and that he should have just killed the boy so that he would not have become corrupt. Drizzt fears to face Zak again, now believing his mentor little more than a cold-blooded killer after hearing of his exploits on the night of his birth. Most confusing to Drizzt though, was the fact that he knew his mother and sisters for exactly what they were, but Zaknafein now seemed to be false, saying things to Drizzt and training him to be something that he himself was not.

Malice gathers he entire household together and proclaims to them the truth to the rumors of war against them. They still do not know who it could be, for none of the the houses below them could possibly contest their power, and even very few of those above them could either. Matron Malice welcomes the coming battle, telling her house to prepare for any and every attack, and when that attack comes, they would rise victorious. Once triumphant, Malice would take her place among the eight matrons on the Ruling Council as matron of the eighth house of Menzoberranzan.

Drizzt & Guenhwyvar

Sinafey does make a move, but not the exact one that Masoj was wishing for. She calls the ruling council of the city together, and calls for the punishment of House Do'urden for a failed attack. She reveals that Alton DeVir has survived, and has been posing as her son the Faceless One for all these years. Matron Baenre states that the council cannot enact punishment for a crime so long past, but Sinafey argues that they need not undertake punishment, but rather turn a blind eye as vengeance is taken. Baenre concurs and adjourns the meeting by saying, "This matter is settled, my sisters. It is good that we never met this day." Sinafey puts her plan in motion.

Surface Elves: "Faeries"

Drizzt Saves a Life

First Sunrise

The Underdark: Danger in Every Shadow

Sinafey Hun'ett learns from the lower planes that House Do'urden has lost the favor of Lolth. She does not know the details, but there is something one of the sons has done to displease the goddess, thereby giving House Hun'ett opportunity to crush the upstart Do'urdens. Though Hun'ett is higher in the hierarchy than Do'urden, Sinafey knows that Malice has been ascending in the stature of Menzoberranzan's society, and would one day soon attack the upper Houses. If Malice were to regain Lolth's blessings, then Hun'ett would be doomed. Sinafey tells her son, Masoj that "Drizzt Do'urden must die within ten days."

Drizzt sees Zak after he returns from the surface, and though his father is pleasant to him, Drizzt gives him something of the cold shoulder. They agree to meet one another in the gym in a week after Drizzt returns from another patrol of the surrounding Underdark. Going their own ways, both are still determined that the other must die. Drizzt still believes his father a cold-blooded murderer, and Zak believes that Drizzt is on his way to becoming the same.

Svirfnebli crew leader

Communion

Fight to the Death

Guen Tracks Drizzt

Cave Fisher

Malice summons Zak and tells him of her knowledge of their conversation, and that she plans to have Drizzt killed for sparing the elf. Zak tells her she would not dare to do it since they are about to go to war with Hun'ett, but Malice says that appeasing the Spider Queen is of higher importance. Zak literally gets down on his hands and knees and begs Malice to take him instead. She accepts, but warns him not to disrupt the ceremony that will mark his own death, otherwise she will kill him and have Drizzt tortured and killed as well. Zak responds, "I have offered myself, Malice. Have your fun while you may. In the end, Zaknafein will be at peace—Matron Malice will ever be at war!"

Malice Goes to Sacrifice