#vizeran devir

[everybodyloveshippos]

"Gromph and Vizeran Break Up'

Featuring Vizeran DeVir, his his apprentice Grin Ousstyl, and Gromph Baenre

(posting this separately from the other always sunny redraws bcus it's specifially Out of the Abyss (and i liked it best LOL))

[rukafais]

You can tell they actually cared enough to be toxic exes because they're not immediately trying to blow each other up on sight

[lawful-evil-novelist]

Really as I finish the one-shot I realize the longfic version is really gonna be me dumping Jalynfein, Gromph, and Vizeran into a wizard thunderdome and going “fight fight fight fight”

[nemo-in-wonderland]

Sorry if you explained this elsewhere I'm catching up on your lore still, but I would love to know why you chose House DeVir for Aranea. I don't actually know that much about each of the Houses and their families myself. Also did you ever figure out who her mother was yet? Thanks in advance!

Hello Hello!!Welcome to my inbox, and thank you for your ask! :D

I am always so happy to chitchat about Aranea <3

Also, do not worry one bit about asking this, because, as much as I have dwelled into Aranea's lore, this aspect of hers is relatively new (aka it came to me only recently), and I am still very much expanding upon it, because for the longest time, Aranea was Nobody's daughter, just a drow that ended up in Zakhara somehow and was raised there.

So, in regards to your question!

While playing BG3 in this playthrough, I happened upon the House of Grief, where Viconia resides, and while I was roaming around with my TAV (who is not Aranea, in this playthrough), bubbles started bubbling in my silly brain, and I thought "mmmm. Viconia's last name is De Vir. mmmmm. Lemme just go and read more about this family".

Because tbh, one of my first idea, when I was still creating Aranea and was still learning about the Drows was to make her a Do'Urden (the daughter of either Vierna or Dinin, before he became a drider), but I wasn't sure how I would pull of the reason as to why House Do'Urden would send an infant daughter away (also admittedly, I was still in the early stages of reading about the general Lore of FR, so I was not sure and was too impatient to just wait to be done reading).

So I decided to put it into stasis for the time being, because it wasn't entirely important to Aranea's general story who her biological parents were or why they sent her away: she had a fairly adjusted childhood in Zakhara, so she never felt the need to question who her parents were (though, being one of the rare drows in Zakhara, she had questioned about the culture of her parents).

So, this brings me to last week, and to me choosing House DeVir.

The reason I approached House DeVir was Viconia, first and foremost, because even during my first playthrough, she had vibes that I kinda associated with Aranea, but it wasn't until I read about Vizeran DeVir that I was completely sold about her belonging to their House.

When I read about Vizeran, I could see so many small things that made him the most suitable candidate to be Aranea's father:

-He is an Archmage, so that means that he is one hell of a talented bookworm and spellcaster, if he managed to become one (pretty much connecting also to Aranea's own insatiable thirst for knowledge AND power);

-He was an Exiled from House De Vir, which meant that he was not restricted by Menzoberrazan's own strict norms and rules, which made it much easier for me to imagine that he could have fathered a child without having to disclose the baby girl's birth to anyone;

-His personality. One of Aranea's biggest trait is her inability to let go of grudges and her insane thirst for revenge, something that consumed her whole life and brought her to make many questionable choices coughcoughsummoningmephistocoughcough as well as her willingness to sacrifice everything in the pursuit to right the one wrong that sent her life to literal hell.

And when I read about Vizeran's personality, I was like, "yup, yup, the apple didn't fall far from the tree, apparently";

-Timeline wise, it works perfectly with my own timeline for Aranea's own birth (1217 DR), because at the time, House DeVir was still alive, and I kinda hc that he was exiled a few years prior Aranea's own birth.

-Also, because of my being also a visual artist, I loved the way Vizeran's artwork somewhat was a match to how I first drew Aranea: same headtilt, he gives me the impression of being taller than the average drow (much like Aranea herself), and he as a sour face that I can definitely see Aranea doing when things do not go her way lololol.

So, all these things brought me to choose him and House DeVir as the paternal side of Aranea's biological family!

As for her mother, not going to lie, I am not entirely sure yet, because I need to find a suitable candidate that would actually go and look for Vizeran for whatever reason, and would agree to generate an heir with him (I wholeheartedly believe that Vizeran would never consider a child of his as such, but rather as an extension of himself or someone that reflects into his glory somehow - narcissim and self-sense of grandeur being the biggest player in the game, in this case).

So, because of this, I am still very much looking into someone else that could be Aranea's birth mother.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK <3

I truly appreciated it! <3

[bijouly]

just a courtesan who got tangled up in the rage of demons ten years ago and the wizard boyfriend she MIGHT JUST keep alive this time

[lesbianjfitzjames]

Cant get enough of vizeran devir. Old man drow. Lives in a revenge tower. Obsession with gromph. Gay.

[venushorned]

A significant part of Out of the Abyss is the decision to destroy or spare Menzoberranzan. The archmage Vizeran DeVir approaches the players midway through the campaign and positions himself as someone who knows why the Demon Lords have been unleashed upon the Underdark and how to stop them, both of which are true. He's working on a ritual that will summon them all to a single location, which will inevitably provoke them into fighting one another. The goal is that the Demon Lords do the heavy lifting of defeating the Demon Lords, and the party is left to handle the one left standing at the end.

Vizeran also insists that Menzoberranzan is the only suitable location for this ritual because it is so faerzress-rich, and also because no one Demon Lord would necessarily be granted a terrain advantage over the others (i.e., Demogorgon and Juiblex would take advantage of water near the Dark Lake; Zuggtmoy would take advantage of too much fungal growth). Vizeran is also still pissy about his exile and just wants to watch the city burn, which is obvious if you spend .02 seconds sussing out his vibe.

Naturally, Gossamer immediately rejected this plan. The ritual, sure, sounds like a blast, but no way was she going to participate in sending a bunch of Demon Lords to level the city she was born and raised in. It's home, even if she can never go back. There are good and bad people there, just like anywhere. She will always consider Menzoberranzan her home; a part of her is always going to love it as much as she resents it.

The answer she settled on was pretty simple in the end: Vizeran was a cunning, vengeful bastard, and he didn't like to leave loose ends hanging. She assessed that after all was said and done, her party was likely to be another loose end he would cut. So, what's a girl to do?

Drop the ritual on his tower.

[venushorned-a]

the vast oblivium and the eye tyrant

Deep within the Underdark, in a section famously known as the Wormwrithings, a beholder called Karazikar was fashioning itself as a god. Using its disintegration eye ray, it constructed a horrible lair and called it the Vast Oblivium: consisting of ten 30' wide, 100' deep, vertical shafts surrounding a central, 500'+ deep chasm known as "Karazikar's Maw," the Oblivium was, indeed, vast.

The Saints of the Eye were not the Saints of the Eye yet when they descended into that pit. The party was hot off their meeting with Menzoberranzan's exiled archmage who had hatched a plan to end the Rage of Demons, and this mage (Vizeran DeVir, probably Viconia's distant uncle) sent them on a hunt for a central Beholder eye. It was necessary for the ritual that would finally stop the Demon Lords.

They knew that they had to kill it. There would be no other way to take its central eye, but that begged the question of how, exactly, the party was expected to descend into a cult pit, kill their god, desecrate and steal pieces of its flesh, and then make it back out alive. It would be dishonest to say that they had a plan when they began their descent. They most certainly did not.

Now, Karazikar had discovered through a captured modron that the Maze Engine—the reality-warping machine that powers Baphomet's Labyrinth—was in the Underdark, and it was searching. It wanted to use the Engine to make itself into a God, properly, so the party was in luck. They knew where the Engine was, and so talking their way to Karazikar was as simple as a few of Gossamer's bullshit +15 persuasion checks.

There was not, at least that the Saints ever saw, a bottom to the Vast Oblivium. The battle with Karazikar occurred deep, deep within the chasm depths, but there was nothing but black void beneath them still. Karazikar floated; the party fought from rickety rope bridges and Floating Disks. It was a wonder no one died.

When Karazikar and its circle of priests fell, the other Saints harvested the eye while Gossamer devised a plan to get them out. No one could teleport, and Vizeran wasn't responding to sending requests to grab them, so it was going to have to be on foot. There would be no hiding the slaughter. They had to either stealth or lie, and they had a fully-armored paladin and cleric clanking around in their ranks.

Fortunately, delusions of godhood created a relatively elegant solution. The entire cult knew that the party had talked their way inside claiming knowledge of the Maze Engine and the Abyssal Lords, and so when they began their ascent out of the maw, the story came together easily.

Karazikar the Eye Tyrant was dead, willingly martyred by the enemies of Baphomet, so that He might ascend to lay claim to the Maze Engine. We were His Chosen, Gossamer insisted, He honored us with the glory of spilling His godly blood, His eye must remain with us as a Holy symbol on our travels into the Engine. We must plant the eye in the heart of the Engine so He can Watch everything.

These people were mostly refugees, exiled drow and lost souls from the surface. Anyone who stood a chance against Gossamer's +15 Deception died with their god.

They called her High Priestess. They called the party Saints.

[red-thorns]

Vizeran DeVir at the Council of Spiders meeting. (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/eat-hot-chip-and-lie)

[nexis-heartstone]

When you look up "hubris" in the dictionary, there's an illustration of Archmage Vizeran DeVir, the man who thought he could make himself more appealing to follow than the fucking Demon Queen of Spiders.

The man has Nice Guy energy out the wazoo.

[wanderingcotabussurgetank]

Vizeran DeVir by BryanSyme

[ssimpatico]

[rukafais]

Clearly they reformed...just like an ooze....coincidence? I think NOT

(in all seriousness i'd be inclined to think it's just a few stray people who are super attached to their surnames still, like how Vizeran and Viconia are still bopping around in OoTA/extra material despite House DeVir being very dead, but it's also really funny to think of them having Masq'il'yr as a shell house or something. Or they're like, hosing out the compound because someone else wants to move in. It's free real estate!)

I love people just going completely conspiracy theorist about THE AUTHOR OF THE DRIZZT BOOKS MAKES THOSE POOR WOTC WRITERS CONSULT HIM EVERY TIME THEY NEED TO MAKE DROW CHANGES because 1) I have never seen anything, ever, that suggests that is happening, in fact across editions the sourcebooks have usually just been Writers Doing Their Own Shit, and 2) the guy can't even get his parent company to stop spoiling plot points in his own fucking books. He can't even get them to hire him for more than three books at a time and it's not, as far as I can tell, a renewing contract, he just has to wait and see if they'll let him write a couple more drizzt books with the characters he literally made and popularized. He's not even a regular fucking employee?? Hello???

[lawful-evil-novelist]

So @thespacelizard said they’d love to get a solid list of the Despana kids in order so I figured I’d give you a rundown of them.

The Despana kids are Malavon Despana’s children by various mothers, there are actually eleven in total by 1372 DR, but during the events of A Lesson Well Learned and A Dangerous Conjuration (1368 DR), Viconia’s youngest sibling, Vizeran, hadn’t been born yet.

All eleven of the siblings share a few common traits:

They all inherited their father’s white-blond hair, though it’s not super distinctive they are all blond-haired.

They all have either blue or red eyes.  Malavon has blue eyes himself.

Malavon named all of them after drow he hated, with a general preference for wizards and priestesses.  If he didn’t want to use or didn’t know the target’s name he usually just used one of their family members.

Malavon crafted special hair ornaments for each of them.  The ornaments are wrought from white gold in the shape of an unsleeping eye–Malavon’s personal symbol–and the eye is inset with a stone that matches his child’s eye color.  The ornaments are enchanted to help the wearer focus when casting, and fortifies the caster’s hold over the spell.  I actually do have stats on these items they’re insanely powerful with the caveat that Malavon crafted them to only attune to the child he made it for.

All eleven were born on a full moon or new moon, often one of some significance.

Malavon experimented on his children, so all eleven have latent magic he has trained them to master.  The elder eight have all been formally trained and trained in their latent magic, meaning they’re all multiclassed.  Yasraena, his ninth, has only been trained in her latent magic.  The other two aren’t old enough to be trained.

So, in order, here are the Despana children as of 21 Eleint, 1372 DR (which, if my math is right, is roughly the date Dissolution begins):

Nym Despana

Namesake: Nym of the Frozenfar, a drow merchant Malavon worked with regularly.

Birthdate: 1 Flamerule, 1218 DR

Age: 154

Height: 5’3”

Class: Cleric (Trickery Domain)/Bard (College of Whispers)

Deity: Vhaeraun

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Dallnothax

Sabanna “Anna” Despana

Namesake: Tsabanor Oblodra, Patron of House Oblodra and the only Oblodra Malabon thought he could get away with naming a child after.

Birthdate: 2 Hammer, 1236 DR

Age: 136

Height: 5’1”

Class: Cleric (Light Domain)/Sorcerer (Divine Soul)

Deity: Eilistraee

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Waterdeep

Rai’gy “Rai” Despana

Namesake: Rai’gy Bondalek, who Malavon hates because honestly he hates most other mages that aren’t related to him and also Priest of Lolth.

Birthdate: 6 Marpenoth, 1281 DR

Age: 90

Height: 5’4”

Class: Sorcerer (Lunar)/Wizard (Conjuration)

Deity: Eilistraee/Vhaeraun (both, literally he worships both and pisses off both churches in kind)

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Ust Natha

Bael’baste “Baela” Despana

Namesake: Baeloth Barrityl, AKA Baeloth the Entertainer, a sorcerer Malavon has a particular beef with and Baeloth doesn’t actually know what that beef is, all he knows is that Baela is his daughter now too.

Birthdate: Midwinter, 1297 DR

Age: 75

Height: 5’0”

Class: Sorcerer (Wild)/Wizard (Evocation)

Deity: Malyk

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Baldur’s Gate

Zarafae “Zara” Despana

Namesake: Zaknafein Do’Urden, Malavon has beef with the Do’Urdens I haven’t actually figured out what it is.  He just has beef.

Birthdate: 10 Eleint, 1312 DR

Age: 60

Height: 5’5”

Class: Rogue (Assassin)/Wizard (Bladesinger/Necromancy)

Deity: Vhaeraun

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Ust Natha

Viconia “Nia” Despana

Namesake: Viconia DeVir, probably actually an offshoot of Malavon’s beef with Vizeran DeVir and has nothing to do with Viconia herself.

Birthdate: 17 Uktar, 1318 DR

Age: 53

Height: 5’1”

Class: Sorcerer (Draconic-Deep)/Wizard (Illusion)

Deity: Vhaeraun

Birthplace: Rilauven

Residence: Menzoberranzan

Nalfein “Nal” Despana

Namesake: Nalfein Do’Urden, just more Do’Urden Beef.

Birthdate: 17 Nightal, 1345 DR

Age: 26

Height: 4’11”

Class: Sorcerer (Wild)/Wizard (Enchantment)

Deity: Vhaeraun

Birthplace: Ust Natha

Residence: Menzoberranzan

Maya Despana

Namesake: Maya Do’Urden, Do’Urden Beef part 3

Birthdate: 17 Nightal, 1345 DR

Age: 26

Height: 4’10”

Class: Rogue (Assassin)/Sorcerer (Shadow)

Deity: Vhaeraun

Birthplace: Ust Natha

Residence: Minauthkeep

Yasraena Despana

Namesake: One of Lichdrow Dyrr’s daughters because Malavon’s too chickenshit to call Dyrr out directly.

Birthdate: 27 Ches, 1357 DR

Age: 15

Height: 5’0”

Class: Sorcerer (Aberrant Mind)

Birthplace: Ust Natha

Residence: Ust Natha

Phaera Despana

Namesake: Yes, this is Pharaun, one of Malavon’s daughters is named after Pharaun. Did you think anyone was safe?

Birthdate: 22 Marpenoth, 1361 DR

Age: 10

Birthplace: Ust Natha

Residence: Ust Natha

Vizeran Despana

Namesake: Vizeran DeVir, Malavon really hates this guy, it’s surprising it took him this long to express it.

Birthdate: Midsummer, 1370 DR

Age: 2

Birthplace: Ust Natha

Residence: Ust Natha

If there’s interest I might make an updated list that notates their status as of 1492 DR but this is what it looks like as of the War of the Spider Queen.  Feel free to ask questions as well.

[lesbianjfitzjames]

Vizeran DeVir: please get me Gromphs spellbook?? I promise i'll be so normal about it please?? (Lying)

[rukafais]

are they, you know [mimes stabbing motion]

out of the abyss is a super fun read!! anon if you’re out there...know that you have great tastes in shady grandpas