Age: 244
Height: 160 cm
Weight: 45 kg
Eyes: blue
Hair: blondwhite
Deity: Corellon Larethian
Base Class: Bard
Languages: Common, Elven, Sylvan, Draconic
Weapon of Choice: Rapier
Aelthiriel, Daughter of the Moonlit Song
Aelthiriel was born beneath the silver light of Evermeet, among the ancient beauty of the elven court. She grew up surrounded by music, poetry, old magic, and stories of a world her people had long since left behind. Her family was neither among the most powerful nobles nor among the common folk. They belonged to that peculiar place between the two: an old moon elven house whose prestige came not from armies or riches, but from memory. For generations, Aelthiriel’s family had served as keepers of songs. Not ordinary songs. They preserved fragments of ancient melodies dating back to the earliest days of the elves, songs said to contain memories of places, people, and events that had vanished from the world. Most were little more than beautiful pieces of history. One song, however, was never performed. It was called The Lament of the Silver Bough. Aelthiriel first heard it when she was still a child. Her grandmother had been singing it quietly to herself, believing she was alone. When she realized Aelthiriel was listening, she immediately stopped. “That song is not for the living,” she told her. Aelthiriel never forgot those words.
The Path of the Bard
As Aelthiriel grew older, she became fascinated by the power hidden within music. She studied the harp, flute, and eventually the lute, but it was the rapier that became her other great passion. At court, swordplay was considered a refinement rather than a necessity. Aelthiriel discovered that she preferred a blade that moved like music: quick, precise, graceful, and deceptive. Her fencing instructor often told her: “Aelthiriel, you fight like you sing. You never strike where your opponent expects the melody to go.” She embraced the life of a bard. She performed at moonlit gatherings, noble celebrations, and private salons. She learned the old histories of Evermeet and became particularly skilled at stories concerning the elves who had remained in Faerûn. Yet something about those stories troubled her. Again and again, she encountered references Dharasha, an elven settlement hidden within the Misty Forest. The name appeared in old songs. In incomplete maps. In half-remembered poems. And, occasionally, in stories that contradicted one another. Some claimed the settlement was founded by elves who had refused to abandon Faerûn. Others spoke of it as a sanctuary. One particularly strange account described it as a place where “the trees remember those who have forgotten themselves.” Aelthiriel became obsessed.
The Dream
The turning point came shortly after her twohundred and fourtyfourth birthday. Aelthiriel began having the same dream. Every night. She stood in an ancient forest beneath a moon that seemed far too large for the sky. There was a path before her. At the end of it stood a woman with silver hair, dressed in clothing from an age Aelthiriel did not recognize. The woman never spoke. Instead, she played a melody. The Lament of the Silver Bough. Aelthiriel knew the song immediately, but there was something wrong. The song her family had preserved was incomplete. The woman in the dream played the missing verses and every time Aelthiriel awoke, she could remember a little more. On the seventh night, the woman finally spoke. “You have inherited what they buried.” Then she placed a silver ring beneath an ancient tree. “Find En Dharasha Everae.” Aelthiriel woke with the melody still in her head and a strange thing had happened. Her lute, which had been sitting across the room, was playing a single note.
The Secret of Her Family
Aelthiriel confronted her grandmother. At first, the old elf refused to answer. Eventually, however, she revealed a secret that had been deliberately erased from the family’s history. Many centuries ago, one of Aelthiriel’s ancestors had travelled from Evermeet to Faerûn. She had gone to the place now known as Dharasha and she had never returned. Officially, the woman had died. Unofficially, nobody knew what had happened to her. The family had been ordered never to speak of her again. Her name had even been removed from certain genealogical records. But her grandmother possessed one final piece of evidence: A small silver pendant bearing an unfamiliar elven symbol. The same symbol appeared in Aelthiriel’s dream. Her grandmother begged her to forget the entire matter. Aelthiriel refused. Then her grandmother said something that frightened her more than anything else: “Your ancestor did not go there looking for something. She went there to hide something.”
Why Baldur’s Gate?
Aelthiriel could have sailed directly toward the Misty Forest. Instead, she chose Baldur’s Gate. Partly because it was one of the few places where an elven traveller could disappear into the crowds without immediately attracting attention, but there was another reason. An old journal belonging to her ancestor contained one surviving line: “When the Silver Bough calls again, seek the city where every road has a price.” Her grandmother believed this meant Baldur’s Gate. There, Aelthiriel is convinced she will find someone who knows how to reach Dharasha or perhaps someone who has already been there. She has heard rumors of merchants who disappear into the Misty Forest. Rangers who refuse to speak about what they saw among its trees. Travelers who return with memories they cannot explain. And, most intriguingly, whispers of an old elven relic that occasionally appears in the hands of smugglers and collectors in Baldur’s Gate. Aelthiriel suspects that relic may be connected to her ancestor.
The Rapier
Before leaving Evermeet, Aelthiriel received a final gift from her fencing master: an elegant moon-silver rapier. Its guard bears the same symbol as the pendant. She was told it had belonged to an elf who disappeared in Faerûn many generations ago. Aelthiriel has never been able to determine whether that elf was her ancestor. There is something stranger still. When Aelthiriel dreams of the silver-haired woman, she always sees the woman holding the same rapier.
The Mystery
Aelthiriel believes she is travelling to Faerûn to uncover her family’s forgotten history. She is wrong. Or, at least, that is what she fears. The more she investigates, the more evidence she finds that her ancestor’s disappearance was not an isolated event. Something happened in Dharasha. Something the elves of Evermeet deliberately chose to forget and whatever it was may be beginning to happen again. Aelthiriel does not yet know whether En Dharasha Everae is a refuge, a prison, or something far older. She only knows that someone, or something, is calling to her through the ancient song. And the final verse of the song contains her name.
Aelthiriel’s Personal Secret
There is one thing Aelthiriel has told nobody. She has begun remembering places she has never visited. Sometimes, while playing her lute, her fingers move through a melody she does not consciously know. Sometimes she wakes with dirt beneath her fingernails. And once, after falling asleep in an inn in Baldur’s Gate, she awoke to find herself standing at the window. On the glass, written from the inside in a language she had never learned, were four words:
“You came back too late.”