#malsvir straight-up means 'evil' in draconic

[choccy-zefirka]

Okay fellas, the Githyanki Dragon-Blooded Sorcerer poll has closed, with the Illegal Egg backstory in the lead, followed by Por Que No Los Dos, so I have made a Legal + Illegal Egg combo!

Behold! Isk'Irthos (Secret Star in Draconic! That's important!)

Isk is the result of the forbidden love between a kith'rak and their dragon, who'd often take a smaller, Dragonborn-esque form to adventure with them. Isk's kith'rak parent obviously could not bear her egg, as this union had not been sanctioned by Vlaakith, so her dragon mother, Malsvir, laid the egg on the Material Plane instead, hiding away and awaiting the promised moment when her partner would rejoin them.

Their plans never came to be, though, as the kith'rak was executed by the Inquisition for possessing forbidden literature on Prince Orpheus. So as days of waiting turned into months, and months into years, and the skies still showed no sign of her beloved, Malsvir had no choice but to raise the child on her own.

In their secluded home, in a clearing surrounded by a thicket of brambles that a dragon would easily fly over but few wingless two-legged would trudge through unscathed, Malsvir trained little Isk in sorcery and told her stories of her past glorious battles with the kith'rak. Isk grew restless, however, leaving Malsvir at a loss: she had little frame of reference for raising children, save for the Githyanki youths she'd observed in creches. The one thing she did know was that, even with their strict upbringing, the hatchlings were always surrounded by their peers in the creche dormitories. She obviously would never allow Isk to venture out and make friends her age, so according to her dragon logic, the next best thing would be to fly to the next village over and abduct some kids for her daughter to play with.

That obviously did not end well. The horrified and distraught parents hired a band of adventurers to slay the dragon and rescue their children. The quest... appeared to be successful (Malsvir did survive, but at the moment, she was gravely wounded, and everyone assumed she was dead, not taking the time to check because there was a crowd of traumatized kids to deal with). A grief-stricken Isk lashed out at the adventurers, but the fear in the children's eyes stopped her from eviscerating them with her ever-growing sorcerer powers.

She fled into the wilderness and made do for a while, a feral thing always covered in burrs and brambles, until she was captured by a hunter, who, never having seen any creature like her, brought her to a wandering freak show. The show's legal status was as dubious as its quality, and most of the other "exhibits" were hapless Tieflings in heavy makeup masquerading as succubi, and dead animals bizarrely stitched together into vague imitations of beholders and chimeras.

Isk, though, was the real deal, and the ring master was delighted to parade her around... When she was not kicking and biting and trying to toss fire balls at him. The safest bet, he found, was to cast a simple sleep spell on her and prop her up in a chair or on a couch on the stage for people to come and gawk at.

It was from one of those spells that she awoke one day, face to face with the prettiest human boy she had ever seen. He said his name was Wyll; his father was in the Flaming Fist, and he had discovered the underground freak show (all by himself!) and tipped the Fist off, which resulted in the operation getting shut down and the ring master being arrested.

The hideous stuffed animals were disassembled, and the staff were finally free to go back home... Except Isk, who had no home. Wyll generously offered her to stay with him, and they spent a few blissful moments — like a happy dream — exploring the city together. But that did not last.

Wyll's father was an important man, rubbing shoulders with nobility, and the cream of the crop of Baldur's Gate certainly did not treat Isk like the princess Wyll insisted on seeing in her. Vile whispers abounded, exacerbating Isk's teenage angst (already bad enough, after the trauma of losing her mother and being forced into a freak show). She started to grow distant from Wyll, terrified that he'd reject her budding crush on him, and in the vacuum that formed in his absence, ominous figures were quick to step in. The cult of Tiamat recognized her as the child of a dragon, and offered what Isk, at the time, young and confused, mistook for succor and meaning.

Eventually, she stopped seeing Wyll entirely, quietly disappearing from his home; the cult groomed her to take part in some manner of grand ritual, and in just a couple of years, she was more than ready to welcome Tiamat herself, the one entity they said would understand her pain.

Then, along came Tiamat's rival Zariel, and Mizora, and the confrontation with Wyll. They briefly locked eyes as he was laying waste to the cult with his newfound powers, and it was at that moment that Isk realized what she had almost done. Once again, she stepped away from the carnage, hidden under an invisibility spell, and witnessed Wyll's father banish him. She wanted to chase after him, to explain that Wyll was telling the truth, that there really had been a cult in the city... But she was intercepted by Githyanki warriors.

By then, through the followers of her ally Tiamat, Vlaakith had learned of a curious child, half-Githyanki, half-dragon; and there was nothing she coveted more than the child's sorcery-imbued soul. She sent her scouts after her; and while Malsvir had told her daughter some stories of the Prince of the Comet, all of Isk's subsequent torment had turned them into hazy half-memories, and she was easy to persuade that with Vlaakith, at last, she'd find the truth and purpose and sense of belonging she'd failed to reach with Tiamat.

Once again, she turned away from Wyll — perhaps for the best; her heart ached too much when she thought of him — and was taken to a creche on a different planet, where she was rigorously reshaped into an obedient tool for Vlaakith. Her coming of age was somewhat delayed compared to other youths, as she was a late arrival, but after ten years of Githyanki discipline, she was deemed worthy of her rite of passage and eventual ascension... Until along came a very peculiar ghaik vessel.