#dirge singing to himself is my favorite cute detail of his

[majorasnightmare]

not sure if you've already explained it or gotten this question before, but does "Dirge" mean anything? or is it just a play on "Durge"?

did Dirge just shorten "The Dark Urge" because it was too weird/concerning or was he always called that? did he ever have a different name beforehand?

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS QUESTION FOR SOOOOOOOO LONG U DONT EVEN KNOW

its hands down one of my FAVORITE trivia pieces for him!!!

Out of character, I rly struggle with naming player characters, so i wanted to make a durge named dirge because thats funny. but now its a whole THING

So! When Dirge was a freshly sculpted gore baby, he gets adopted by a refugee drow couple who had fled Menzoberranzan. They do give him a name, but seeing as how he killed them when he was VERY young (think 6-8), hes long since forgotten that name. And ever since entering the temple of Bhaal, he almost exclusively was referred to by a series of titles, or familial nicknames like bloodkin, slaughterkin, etc. He never renamed himself, and upon taking leadership of the cult, purposefully chose not to so as to better subsume himself into his role as living vessel of Bhaal's will made flesh.

HOWEVER! Despite attempting to completely deperson himself, he still had a few identifying habits. Gortash was the only person Dirge had regular interaction with outside the cult interested in viewing the man beneath the titles, and made a point of trying to uncover that individual as often as possible. In part it was because it gave Gortash a personal little thrill, to have that kind of power over Bhaal's Chosen by Knowing Him, and because he sensed a core truth Dirge himself refused to acknowledge: like is attracted to like, and Gortash knows an angry powerless traumatized child hungry for the world when he sees one.

So Gortash ended up being privy to a LOT of Dirge's private moments, and shamelessly encouraged them, and always strove to try and pull Dirge-the-Person out from the shell of The Religious Idol. Which meant that he was actually the only person before Dirge's lobotomy to notice a particular quirk he has: when Dirge is by himself, and comfortable, when his mind is at rest and calm, and when his attention is occupied by something engaging, he sings. Quietly, and to himself, but he sings nonetheless. (hes a tenor btw)

Gortash just so happened to be present when Dirge was thus engaged, cleaning up after a particularly satisfying kill, and affectionately joked that the man was "his personal funeral dirge", which of course IMMEDIATELY made Dirge stop and threaten to slaughter Gortash right then and there.

A lifetime later, on the beach waking up Shadowheart, when she properly introduces herself to him and asks for his name in turn, there is absolutely nothing in his skull that serves to identify him, to himself or to others, he catches a single fragment of an interaction, the barest fraction of a memory, of someone calling him Dirge. So that's how he introduces himself, and it sticks.