#🏹|| Jalen Gill

[thcdoomed]

Some companions I have been tooling with and revamping (lol) for Dronia's post-tadpole quest to get revenge on Demsasc Volkar. And also the asshole that betrayed her old adventuring party and got them killed. Not included: Dronia and Karlach (@torntruth )

Row 1: Jalen Gill (Half-elf Druid/Herbalist), Adelaide Meadowrun (Human Paladin), Rowan Meadowrun (Human Rogue). The Meadowruns are twins and Adelaide is definitely the older twin.

Row 2: Astra Colebrook (Human Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer), Sindra Onadi (Human Druid), Baz Rook (Elf Bard)

Row 3: Nalmyla Grayhand (Dwarf Fey Pact Warlock), Lord Zane Arbaga (Human Cleric), Pike Kothrack (Tiefling Fighter)

Row 4 (bonus): Alden Stoneridge (Human Rogue) and Alden Stoneridge (Vampire Spawn Rogue)

[thcdoomed]

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Send a 🙌 and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse. || accepting [🏹]

|| @starlixir

Jalen Gill, the druid, the other survivor.

Jalen Gill, childhood best friend to Caius, good friend to Dronia, and a seasoned druid and herbalist. He's a healer of sorts, always with an elixir or tea handy for whatever ails you, and unlike Auntie Ethel, his stuff usually does the trick without a hidden cost. Jalen co-founded the adventuring party with Caius and used to play with him on the streets of Baldur's Gate along with their friend Zane Arbaga. Only Jalen and Zane knew Caius' secret and kept it that way.

When Caius left the city at seventeen, Jalen went with him, the two cutting a path of adventure along the river until their travels garnered them more friends, many adventures, pockets full of coin, and eventually found themselves causing trouble for the less savory sort in the Kingdom of Cormyr. Many of them eventually found homes in the Dalelands that allowed them to move between Cormyr and the Dalelands to take jobs. Jalen met his wife, a half-elf named Jenithyr in Cormyr. Eventually, they got married and Jenithyr grew pregnant with their first child. Jalen had to step back from the adventuring, having saved enough coin to support his family for a while. He was absent from the mission that led to the tragedy.

But he was still dragged into things, when Dronia, Caius' fiance, showed up at his door one day, barely clinging to life. She muttered something about how they were all dead and then lost consciousness. Jalen sent for someone to check on Winterdale, Dronia and Caius' village while he tended to her injuries. It's then that he made the discovery, Dronia was a ticking time bomb who could become everybody's problem if he didn't find a solution soon. Her red eyes, the bites in her throat, she was becoming something dreadful. He found the right herbs and spell components, something she could easily make on her own and nursed her back to health. Two weeks later, she was able to move on her own and he instructed her how to use the elixir and how to mix it herself. He sent her to Baldur's Gate to find Lord Zane Arbaga. He'd know what to do to help her and to avenge Winterdale. He just never told her that elixir was the only thing keeping her from becoming a dhampir. She couldn't handle the heartbreak on top of everything else.

[thcdoomed]

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|| @torntruth

I'm giving you Lord Zane Arbaga since Karlach goes with Dronia when she finally goes to meet him.

Lord Zane Arbaga, one of the youngest Lords in the city, having taken over for his father upon his death, is a good-natured lord who genuinely cares about the people of Baldur's Gate. Maybe it's because his two closest friends growing up were Caius Saddlback (a bastard child of another noble and a maid in said noble's manor), and Jalen Gill, a young man from the lower city. Zane would sneak out of the manor to play with the other boys, seeing what life was like outside of his cushy home, how other people lived.

As the young man grew older, he tried to influence his father to care more for those living in the lower and outer city. His father was a caring enough man but he didn't see what good he could do, or perhaps he had too much else to focus on. Either way Zane had to find ways to help, sneaking provisions where he could, making donations, buying from shops there to support small businesses.

He had known some of the other lords in the city fairly well, including the man known as Gortash. Never much cared for him, there was something about the man he didn't trust.

When his friends decided it was time to leave Baldur's Gate, the three of them agreed to keep in touch, which they had, up until Caius' death. Jalen sent Dronia to meet with Zane to look into funding her quest for revenge, and given how much he viewed Caius as a brother, it is a task he cannot refuse.

[thcdoomed]

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Send a 🙌 and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse. || accepting [🏹]

|| @slverblood

Let's get the big one out of the way: Caius Saddleback, Dronia's recently killed fiance.

Ignoring that this is actually the Emporer who took Caius' form, Caius Saddleback was a tall, broad-shouldered sellsword with a big heart and a big sense of humor. He ran a company of adventurers with his best friend Jalen Gill. He was a noble sort, never taking jobs where innocents would get killed, only the bad guys who deserved it. He hired Dronia to help them traverse the Spiderhaunt Wood which stood between them and a job on the other side. As she guided them through, Caius fancied her strength, courage, and skills and began talking to her every night around the campfire. It turned out, she had come to admire him too, the feelings turned romantic after growing close and eventually, they were sharing a tent by the job's end. He invited her to join their party permanently. She said yes. They shared adventures, he taught her swordplay, she taught him archery, they planned for what the future would be down the road. Two years later, he proposed. Neither of them had parents anymore, so arranging the marriage would be much easier. Well, it wasn't entirely true, his real father, Lord Darian Aquiaus of Baldur's Gate was his real father. Caius simply wanted nothing to do with the man that fucked him and his mother over. Caius took one more job before their wedding, the plan was for them both to retire from adventuring, Dro carrying on the spider-hunting family business and Caius taking up work in the small town and helping her with the hunts. Eventually, they planned to have children. The job he took with the rest of the crew (sans Jalen who recently became a father himself and sat this one out) saw them stealing a precious artifact from an unknown lord outside of Cormyr, upon returning it to the guy who set them up on the job, they each returned to their homes. One night, two weeks before their wedding, Caius and Dronia awoke to the sounds of screaming and the scent of smoke, firey orange light flickering in their window. They scrambled out of bed, grabbing only their weapons and stumbled out into the cold night in only their night clothes to find vampire spawn attacking their village. Caius fought valiantly, slaying several of the spawn with his sword before being ambushed by two of them and forced to his knees as the master vampire, Lord Demasc Volkar arrived, Dronia in his grasp. He explained this is all Caius' doing and it was nothing personal, but he just wanted his artifact back. But since Caius didn't know where the guy they stole it from was now or what he did with it, they were no longer of use to him. Volkar made Caius watch as he drained Dronia in front of him, the two lovers helplessly looking to one another and Demasc watching Caius' reaction the entire time he drained the woman. When he was satisfied she was drained, he waved his hand dismissively, and the spawns snapped Caius' neck, killing him instantly as he laid across from his bride-to-be. He was a good man, only ever wanted to do what was right, even this job he was told he was keeping a dangerous artifact from a bad man, and he was. And he died for it, the entire village did. And every village the other party members lived in. Dronia and Jalen were the only assumed survivors.