| Jayanirah was born on 1st Hammer, 1100 DR (Dalereckoning), the Year of Bloodrose. Ust Natha ('The First') is her birthplace.
She was a low-ranked member of an actually disappeared Qu'Ellar, and since her birth, she was trained in the fighting diciplines: stealth, swordplay, deceit, and killing.
In 1235 (Year of the Black Horde) her Qu'Ellar got erased from the Underdark. In attempt to save her own life, Jayanirah fled to the surface and got involved in orc's invasion of Tethyr. She fought with hit-and-run tactic to keep her small hideout unknown to orcish troops, claimed her Qu'Ellar reborn and named herself Ilharess.
On 1241 DR (Year of the Lost Lady), Lady Serisa Khiilart, a well-respected Tethyrian noble-woman, was captured and slain by orcs. In her memory, orcs were wiped out throughout the South in a genocidal slaughter. Jayanirah took advantage of the event, and set up her own revenge against small band of orcs, or aiding rivvillen parties who were going to be overwhelmed by the orcs. Stories of a 'hooded avenger' started to born among Amnian troops, but nobody ever knew that that avenger, or 'saviour', as someone were calling him, was a young female Drow.
When the Amnian armies, back from the great war against orcish forces, brought additional orc slaves to the labor camps near Purskul, Jayanirah took a long journey to the North, until she arrived on Illusk's whereabouts. She got her living as hunter and bounty hunter, and learned the Illuskan language.
After two years, in 1243 (the Year of the Blue Dragon), the orcs of Bloody Tusk Tribe assaulted Illusk's human fortress. Jayanirah started again her own underground war to keep safe her new 'home'.
On 1244 DR (Year of the Defiant Keep), after a year of bloody fights, the fortress of Illusk falls, and the orcs gain the control of it. From the ruined Illusk, they subsequently raided nearby human settlements. Since the place has become too risky to live in, Jayanirah moved back to the South, setting her new home in Amn, on Westgate's shire.
Was on 1248 (Year of the Cockatrice) that a company of adventurers led by Endruth Immister, a paladin of Tyr known as the "Unicorn Knight" of Westgate, retrieved the 'Leaves of Green', a prayer tome of Silvanus, and a huge sword whose blade is a leafy spar of living oak, from the Ghost Holds of Battledale. Endruth delivered both items to the druid Raevarl and his Circle (who dwell in the woods southwest of the city, that later vanished under the axes of woodcutters). Jayanirah was around to see Endruth passing the relics to Raevarl the Druid, but still kept herself hidden due to the natural hostility of humans toward her race.
Jayanirah kept Westgate as home for about eleven years, up to 1255 DR (the Year of the Raging Flame), when some ambitious priests of Bhaal, god of Murder, launched the 'Crusade of Slaughter', which sweeped bloodily from eastern Amn along the trade-routes up to the very walls of Westgate itself, before being broken in late autumn by hastily hired mercenary armies. Jayanirah joined these mercenaries, working only by night, and keeping herself always concealed in the same black garments she already used years ago during the orcs hunting in Thetyr.
Anyway, despite the mercenary success over Bhaal's armies, Raevarl and the druids of his Circle were slaughtered during the fray, and the Leaves of Green were lost once again.
After these facts, Jayanirah, now aged 155, judged these lands too perilous, and moved North again. This time she lived roaming between Yartar and Everlund, without taking a permanent dwelling.
Just one year later, on 1256 DR (the Year of the Dusty Throne), an orc horde erupted out of the Evermoors, and destroyed many settlements bordering the north-western fringes of the High Forest, including Everlund and the famed Selunite temple that standed there. So Jayanirah had to fight once again against the hatred orcs for her own survival.
Tired of having to fight her life throghout orcs' ranks while still roaming the lands, she decided to move North again, on her old shelter near Illusk. She reinforced and hid it even better than it was twelve years before, and started bloody raids against the orcish caravans getting back into the fortress of Illusk after their raids. In this way, she accomplished at the same time three tasks: retrieving suppiles for herself (food, weapons and equipment) from the spoils of the caravans, slaying the orcs who seemed to haunt her life everywhere since she fled from the Underdark, and indirectly avenging the rivvillen, thus showing the military supremacy of just one Drow compared to whole villages of humans.
She brought on her personal, bloody, victorious campaign against these small bands of orcs for about fifty years, until in 1301 (the Year of the Trumpet), the mercenary general Gulgathas, sponsored by merchant interests in Waterdeep and Neverwinter, recruited an army of hireswords in Port Llast, and leaded them north to retake Illusk from the orcs of the Bloody Tusks tribe. Obviously, this army didn't passed unobserved on the lands Jayanirah considered almost her own, so when the mercenary army approached the now orcish fortress, she offered again her services to the newcomers: hidden again in her black hooded cape, she stated her will to fight against the orcs. But not for free.
The 'war' for the fortress of Illusk went on for a year. Finally, in 1302 (the Year of the Broken Helm), Illusk was conquered and retaken from the orcs, who were all slain. Those who were smart enough to flee, ran for their lives toward north, into the Spine of the World. The isolated Duergar of Clan Thuldark, who settled under the ruined Illusk into 1276 (Year of Crumbling Keep), retreated too into the Underdark. A council of merchants led by Urbaloss of Neverwinter assumed the control of the city, and undertook the swift rebuilding of Illusk's walls and port facilities. The city was renamed as 'Luskan' to dissociate it from the city's less than savory past. But this is another story.
In fact, since after the rebuild of Luskan the land fell into human hands, Jayanirah decided to pursue the fleeing orcs toward North, into Icewind Dale.
She spent ten years roaming the Spine of the World, hunting down the small, disbanded orc patrols fled from Illusk. She upheld her economy pillaging their bodies and trading with the barbarians and the citizens of the Ten Towns. While with the barbarians she was able to trade showing herself fully, getting the respect of the tribes due to her hunting and fighting abilities, with the more 'civilized' humans she was forced to trade mostly on their blackmarket, using her abilities to intimidate and deceive the poor idiots who were hoping to scam someone who looked just like a lonely hunter.
In 1312 DR, the Year of the Griffon, the Cambion twins Isair and Madae, hunted for their blood heritage, ammassed a huge army of orcs, goblins, Xvim disciples and others evil or renegade creatures to get revenge over the racism of people of the Dales. On these troubled times, was no surprise in the fact that the Ten Towns accepted almost everyone in their ranks. Jayanirah joined Targos' militia ranks, perpetrating her revenge against the orcish kin under the human flag of 'justice'.
The war brought mercenaries of any kind in defense of the city, and even if the city of Luskan fell in the hands of Nelanthian pirates (self-elected to the rank of 'High Captains') just in 1310 (the Year of the Storm), that city, through the Sea of Moving Ice, was the main source of manpower for the incoming conflict.
Many clerics conjured on the Ten Towns, and Jayanirah had the chance to know, among the others, the cult of Tempus, god of War, Lathander, god of Dawn and Healing, Torm, god of Defense and Protection, and Tyr, god of Justice. She spent a lot of time with a cleric of Tyr, a figure completely different from the one of Endruth Immister, the Tyr's Paladin she has seen sixty-four years ago at Westgate. This cleric seemed extraordinary 'peaceful' and comprehensive for being a rivvil. Them both exchanged experiences and viewpoints, and she finally asked to get re-baptized as Tyrean, since her faith in Lolth was severed and dissolved with her Qu'Ellar fall and her flee from the Underdark.
The war with the greenkins ended a few months later, in Flamerule, when a party of Luskan adventurers made a wild rampage throughout the orc's ranks first, their fortress later, and then went up along the Spine of the World just to never be seen again. The summer had come, the war was ended, so Jayanirah decided that that was not her place anymore: she gathered her belongings, now mainly composed by a couple of mastersmith longswords, a beautiful chainmail hauberk, and a ironwood longbow, and travelled South.
Her life as mercenary and bounty hunter led to Neverwinter city, where Jayanirah was able to dwell thaks to her ability in stealth and deception. Nobody suspected abut her being a Drow, and who was fool enough to do that, usually was up to disappear shortly. The years she spent in the City of the North were many, until twelve years after her arrival, in 1324 (the Year of the Grimoire), she had the chance to assist to a skyborn duel between two dragons: The White Dragon Arauthator and the Red Dragon Rathalylaug. They clashed over the rooftops of Neverwinter and, after a long fight, the White Dragon won the battle. Having the chance of seeing such a magnificent duel is a rare thing indeed.
<to be continued...>
Edited by Jayanirah - 17/3/2012, 00:53
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