Nentir Vale / Characters

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Races

Deva

Angels from the Astral Sea who became so enamored with mortal life and the world they lived in that they chose to give up their connections to the heavenly realms. Now, they reincarnate over and over, roaming the world that they grew so fascinated with. As a playable race, the devas largely replace the aasimar following the shift from 3.5e to 4e.

Alternate Company Equivalent: A variation; they're essentially this to the aasimars of earlier editions, but Wizards of the Coast owns the rights to both aasimar and to devas. They were created because WotC felt that the aasimars of old were rather lackluster in execution, being defined almost entirely by their status as the Good Counterpart to the tieflings. Ironically, their "Ecology" article in Dragon #374 brought up the theory that devas being able to have partly-angelic children with other races may make them something of a counterpart to the elementally-touched genasi.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Deva skin is two-toned, being comprised of a unique pattern of dark colors (hues of blue, violet, gray or black) and pale colors (white or pale gray), with either light or dark dominating and being offset by markings from the other. Their hair is usually either one of these colors or even two-toned, but occasionally is an entirely different color.
Born-Again Immortality: While devas are usually reborn in adult bodies, they are sometimes reincarnated as infants instead.
Face–Heel Turn: Devas are usually strongly Good-aligned, but those that fall to evil may be reincarnated as fiendish rakshasas.
Immortal Procreation Clause: Zigzagged. Devas can and do have offspring through sexual encounters with mortals. However, their own numbers are fixed; aside from redeeming rakshasas, or having other angels make the pact with the Primal Spirits, the total number of devas can never increase. The offspring of devas are instead mortals of their other parent's race with a deva heritage, granting them the power to call upon the astral splendor of their souls.
Monochromatic Eyes: Deva eyes are always a solid pale gray or white color, completely without iris or pupil.
Our Angels Are Different: For all intents and purposes, devas are angelic beings incarnated in physical, humanoid bodies.
Resurrective Immortality: Devas can be killed, but they don't stay dead. Instead, they ultimately come back in a new body at certain special spots, although this can take centuries and their past existence becomes nothing but vague memories in the back of their head. There are implications that devas can change their physical shapes, and perhaps even their genders, as a part of this process, but nothing really explicit.
Winged Humanoid: A few devas retain angelic wings.

Shadar-Kai

One of the more complex-to-explain races in D&D, the Shadar-kai initially began as an unplayable species of monster in 3rd edition, then changed into a culturally different species of playable humanoids in 4th and 5th. The 3e version are a race of fey who became trapped in the Plane of Shadow after a failed attempt to use it to enslave the mortal races, which causes it to begin eating their souls. The 4e version are a race of once-humans native to the Shadowfell who, through a combination of a pact with the Raven Queen and migration to the Shadowfell, achieved immortality at a cost. The 5e version are former elves who became bound to the Shadowfell during the great civil war between Corellon and Lolth as a result of their attempt to stay neutral and broker peace.

Can't Argue with Elves: Subverted with the 3e version. Nobody feels at all sorry for them having doomed themselves to the Shadowcurse, and nobody is disinclined to point out that they brought everything on themselves. Often at swordpoint.
Casting a Shadow: Consistent to all versions of shadar-kai is an elemental affinity for darkness. The precise powers vary somewhat between editions. 3e shadar-kai also have a fondness for classes based around using shadow magic.
Chain Pain: The spiked chain, which is a length of metal chain covered in barbs and blades, is the iconic weapon associated with the shadar-kai.
Combat Sadomasochist: Because shadar-kai of all editions need stimulation, they display no fear of death and often revel in taking injury as much as they do inflicting it. Indeed, the 3e shadar-kai have a signature item called the gal-ralan, a cold iron armband with its interior lined with long spikes, requiring the shadar-kai to viciously impale its forearm in order to close it; the pain this inflicts helps keep the shadow-curse at bay. 4e shadar-kai don't normally go to that same extreme, but are huge fans of tattooing, piercing and scarification as a result of their own shadow-curse.
Dark Is Evil: 3e shadar-kai are universally evil, horrible creatures.
Dark Is Not Evil: Shadar-kai from 4th and 5th edition are more morally and culturally diverse, and evil shadar-kai are not the norm.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Consistent throughout the editions is the shadar-kai's color scheme; black hair, black eyes, and pale gray skin along with their connection to the spooky Shadowfell.
Emo: With their "edgy" appearance and living in the plane of despair, a common joke among fans is that Shadar-Kai round out the trifecta of Elven cliques, along with goth Drow and prep High Elves.
Flash Step: 4e shadar-kai can meld into shadows and use those to reappear almost instantly at another point on the battlefield.
Human Subspecies: 4e shadar-kai were originally humans, but made a pact with the Raven Queen and migrated to the Shadowfell in pursuit of immortality.
Moral Myopia: 3e shadar-kai hate all other races because of their shadow-curse, which ultimately consumes them and leaves behind nothing. They never stop to think that maybe it's their own fault for trying to merge the Plane of Shadow with the Material Plane in order to create The Night That Never Ends, which they wanted to do because they believed it would give them the power to enslave all other races.
Never My Fault: 3e shadar-kai refuse to admit that they brought the shadow-curse upon themselves and instead take out their pain and frustration on all other races as a result.
Our Elves Are Different: 5e shadar-kai are an elven subrace, born of the designer's decision to try and marry elements of their past two incarnations together.
Perky Goth: 4e shadar-kai are dark and gothicpunk-looking figures, with their propensity for garish colors, vicious-looking ornaments and extreme body modification. Personality-wise, they're a vibrant, active and passionate people with a "live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse" philosophy and a culture that considers bragging a sport. It's justified; acting with typical goth apathy or despair will actually kill Nentir Vale shadar-kai faster, so acting more "alive" does the inverse, which leads to an odd juxtaposition of gothicpunk appearances and jockish culture.
Shout-Out: They're consistently depicted in a manner very reminiscent of a more PG-rated version of the Cenobites from Hellraiser.
Your Days Are Numbered: All Shadar-kai know that death is inevitable; if not killed by violence, then they will inevitably die of ennui, fading away into nothing as the shadow energy consumes them from the inside out. 3e shadar-kai rail against this fate and lash out at other races in spite because of it. 4e shadar-kai accept it as the price they pay for their longevity and strive to live life to the fullest whilst they can.

Revenant

Originally living humanoids of any of the races native to the Nentir Vale world, revenants died and were then brought back by some eldritch entity — usually, but not always, the Raven Queen. Transfigured into white-and-black hued humanoids with raven-like limbs, revenants either are driven by a compulsion to complete a task that brought them back, or else are desperately seeking a purpose in life.

Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Many revenants awaken into unlife with no clear reason as to why they did so, and so they end up... well, desperately looking for some kind of purpose to give their new existence meaning.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Revenants almost universally have pale white to ash gray skin, black hair, and pure black eyes. The black talons and reddish-black scales on their limbs only to the monstrousness of the effect.
Mark of the Supernatural: A revenant's inhumanity is made clear by the solid black color of its eyes.
Red Right Hand: The forearms and lower legs of a revenant are covered in scales, which combined with the long, black talons that sprout from their fingers and toes makes their appendages resemble the legs of a giant raven. This trait ensures that few people could mistake a revenant for any other race.

Vryloka

Descendants of a collection of human aristocratic families who made a pact with an entity known only as The Red Witch for power, being transformed into beings with powers similar to those of vampires whilst still remaining living beings. Though the peasants they formerly ruled over rose up in revolution when they discovered the now-inhuman nature of their masters, the vryloka successfully scattered to the four winds and have since integrated themselves into cultures all over, maintaining their own secret society that strives to entertain them through the long nights of their existence.

Dhampyr: Dhampirs do exist in the Nentir Vale as the descendants of living beings and vampires, but no explicit connections between dhampirs and vryloka exist in the lore.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The rare vryloka who doesn't have red hair is invariably pale-skinned and black-haired.
Fiery Redhead: Vryloka are almost universally redheaded, with hair colors ranging from deep scarlet to strawberry blonde, and they are all characterized as highly passionate and emotion-driven by nature.
Technically-Living Vampire: They have many vampire-like abilities, and powerful vryloka can even transform humans into new vryloka, but the vryloka are living, breathing creatures who reproduce like (and with) humans, don't need blood to survive, and are completely fine with sunlight, holy symbols and garlic.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Whilst vryloka only live about 300 years "naturally", they remain strong and vital up until the end, and the downside of their highly passionate natures means that they really struggle with ennui, albeit not quite as much as the shadar-kai.

Shardmind

A race of psionic crystalline beings brought into existence when a crystalline structure/entity known as the Living Gate was shattered; many of its shards spontaneously awoke as newly sapient humanoids. They now seek to fulfill what they believe is their purpose by restoring the Living Gate, but they don't agree on how that should be done: Thought Builders strive for its reconstruction, God Shards believe that strengthening themselves will cause the Living Gate to be restored, and Shard Slayers believe that only by destroying all Shardminds and other physical remnants of the Living Gate will it be restored.

Silicon-Based Life: They're made of living crystals, and even have the ability to dismantle themselves into a spinning vortex of loose crystals and then reform.

Wilden

A race of humanoid plants from the Feywild, the Wilden are dedicated to protecting the wild places of the world from defilement.

Plant Person: They're humanoid plants with a very human-like appearance, having leaves for hair and wood for flesh.

Gods

Asmodeus

God of Sin, Lord of Devils. Originally an archangel in service to a deity now known only as "He-Who-Was", Asmodeus led his fellow angels into turning on his master and slaying him before erasing all but the barest vestiges of knowledge of him from existence. As he perished, He-Who-Was pronounced a dying curse on his betrayer, warping Asmodeus and his traitorous angels into the first devils and imprisoning them in Baator, which was similarly warped into a blasted hellscape.

Big Red Devil: Has a classic "Satanic" appearance.
Evil Makes You Monstrous: His fiendish visage is a curse for his act of treachery and deicide.
Fallen Angel: The very first Fallen Angel in the World Axis, and defined the concept; there are plenty of evil angels, because the angels serve all the gods indiscriminately, but a true fallen angel has actively rebelled against service to the deities.
The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the other gods trust or like Asmodeus, but they tolerate him because the gods who survived the Dawn War are too few to risk throwing more lives away through divine squabble.

Avandra

Goddess of Freedom, Luck and Adventure. Regarded as the racial patron of the halflings, as she adopted them after their mothers Melora and Sehanine abandoned them.

Bane

God of War and Tyranny. Originally known as Achra, Bane slew his brother Tuern because he perceived Tuern as a threat to the gods' successful defense against the primordials during the Dawn War. He claims credit for inspiring the gods to act together and use combined tactics to prevail against the individually stronger and more numerous but highly disorganized primordials. He believed that this would make the gods continue to operate under his leadership and was incensed that they turned their backs on him to go their own ways.

A Lighter Shade of Black: Despite his arrogance and tyranny, Bane is one of the evil gods most widely accepted and worshipped by mortals of all kinds and characters; in a world as dangerous and lawless as the Nentir Vale, Bane's doctrine of strength, discipline and duty is appealing as a bastion against the dark forces that lurk in the wilderness.
Bad Boss: Originally, Bane was the beloved patron deity of the bladelings, whom he created from the first mortals to serve him. However, he betrayed them by leaving them to hold the line against a massive invasion by Gruumsh's forces whilst he went off to personally subjugate the goblin god Maglubiyet and claim dominion over all goblinoids; when he returned, he cared nothing for the casualties his faithful bladelings had taken in repelling Gruumsh's army and only cared iabout his new goblinoid slaves. This offended the bladelings so much that the vast majority of the race turned against him and abandoned Chernoggar, with some going so far as to form an underground army dedicated to expelling Bane and Gruumsh both from Chernoggar and reclaiming it as their own homeland.
Evil Versus Evil: Is locked in an endless civil war against Gruumsh for dominion over his realm of Chernoggar.
Only Known by Their Nickname: According to his myths, his true name is Achra, but he came to be known simply as "Bane" due to the skill he showed in defeating and slaying primordials and their elemental followers during the Dawn War.

Bahamut

God of Honor and Justice. One of the two gods created when the dragon god Io was split in half by the primordial Erek-Huss, Bahamut embodies all that is noble and pure about his progenitor.

Chrome Champion: He is known as "The Platinum Dragon" because his scales are always a brilliant metallic platinum in color. Even when he takes on the form of a humanoid, he still typically has hair and/or eyes of platinum.

Corellon

God of Fae, Art, Beauty and Magic.

The Fair Folk: He's the racial patron god of the elves and eladrin, and many other fey races respect him as a patron deity as well.

Erathis

Goddess of Civilization and Law.

Exotic Extended Marriage: The Dragon article on Hestavar, the realm shared by Pelor, Erathis and Ioun, implies that the three of them may be married.
Order Is Not Good: Erathis may represent Law, Order, Craft and Civilization, but she is by no means a benevolent deity. As far as Erathis is concerned, civilization and law are paramount, and she will happily sponsor a brutal tyranny if the alternative is anarchy.

Gruumsh

God of Destruction.

The Brute: Characterized as a raving, bloodthirsty, impulsive savage.

Ioun

Goddess of Knowledge and Creation.

Exotic Extended Marriage: The Dragon article on Hestavar, the realm shared by Pelor, Erathis and Ioun, implies that the three of them may be married.
Order Is Not Good: More like "Knowledge Is Not Good". Ioun only cares that things are known, and doesn't care so much for the morality behind them. In particular, her "Great Game of Making", a project to rebuild the shattered Lattice of Heaven, involves secretly ordering her exalted followers to study some pretty morally dubious things that she knows would repulse Pelor.

Kord

God of Strength.

Lolth

Goddess of Treachery.

Melora

Goddess of the Wilderness.

Moradin

God of Craft and Metalwork.

Pelor

God of the Sun and Hope.

Exotic Extended Marriage: The Dragon article on Hestavar, the realm shared by Pelor, Erathis and Ioun, implies that the three of them may be married.

The Raven Queen

Goddess of Death, Fate and Winter. Originally a mortal sorceress-queen who died and ended up in the domain of Pluton, realm of the god Nerull, God of Death and the Dead. With an indeterminate amount of aid from other deities who disliked Nerull, she seduced and then murdered Nerull before taking his place. However, the gods refused to let her claim both of Nerull's domain, afraid that she would become as tyrannical as he, and instead only permitted her to claim dominion over death — something that rankles her. She later claimed the domain of winter after its former owner, Khala, was slain in a godly civil war, and likewise snatched up dominion over fate after its former owner, Lolth, was ousted from the ranks of the gods.

Dark Is Not Evil: Despite her very gothic motif and her connection to the divine portfolios of Death and Fate, she's not so much evil as amoral and selfish.
Evil Is Deathly Cold: As the goddess of Death and Winter, she very easily falls into the motif of "evil goddess of cold and darkness".
Not So Stoic:
- She is furious that the gods denied her the status of Goddess of the Dead held by her precursor to limit their power, and is constantly scheming to increase her own deific might. She even forsook her original name in hopes of circumventing their curse.
- She has a secret crush on the archfey known as the Prince of Winter, and privately wants to make him her consort.

Tharizdun

God of Madness and Annihilation.

Big Bad: Tharizdun may be the single most evil deity in the Dawn War pantheon, being responsible for literally creating the Abyss and being the secret mastermind (well, sort of) behind the Primordial cult known as the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye.
Mad God: He is the god of Madness and Annihilation. He was driven absolutely insane by exposure to the Shard of Primordial Evil, the crystalized remains of a universe utterly devoured by elemental manifestations of evil and corruption, and now he wants to destroy everything himself.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Is so crazy and dangerous that, despite the divine truce that causes the gods to tolerate deities like Asmodeus, Bane, Gruumsh, Lolth and Tiamat, they all agreed to seal Tharizdun away in a planar oubliette.

Tiamat

Goddess of Greed and Wrath. The patron of the Chromatic Dragons, Tiamat was born when the primordial Erek-hus split the ur-dragon god of Io in half in battle. Dark twin to Bahamut, she embodies all of Io's basest urges and darkest impulses.

Breath Weapon: She has five of them; acid, fire, frost, lightning and venom.
Dark Feminine: She's a powerful goddess, but also an avaricious, tyrannical, fury-fueled tyrant.
God of Evil: She's the lord of the Chromatic Dragons who urges her followers to indulge in their basest desires.
Multiple Head Case: She has five heads corresponding to the five primary Chromatic Dragon breeds; Black, Blue, Green, Red and White.

Torog

God of Suffering and Imprisonment.

Body Horror: His body is a mangled mass of never-healing, ever-bleeding wounds, with his legs in particular being so damaged he cannot walk, only crawl.
The Wound That Never Heals: As part of his curse, his injuries never recover.

Vecna

God of Necromancy, Secrets and Black Magic.

Zehir

God of Serpents and Assassins.

Primordials

Balcoth

The Groaning Lord.

Cryonax

Prince of Ice.

Imix

Prince of Fire.

Mual-Tar

The Thunder Serpent.

Olhydra

Princess of Water.

Ogremoch

Prince of Earth.

Yan-C-Bin

Prince of Air.

Archfey

Baba Yaga

The Hag of Hags, the Mother of All Witches, a mysterious and powerful witch-queen in the form of an old, ugly woman with teeth of iron. Detailed in Dungeon Magazine #196.

The Carrion King

A mysterious archfey in the form of a sapient giant mushroom. Has a vague and uncertain connection to Psiolfyr, the mushroom archfey who created the myconids. A strange thing even by fey standards, the Carrion King's mind is many-splintered, scattered in different individual personalities and memory traits across his many bodies, which all flow through the Feydark. However, he is one of the most friendly of all archfey, and welcomes adventurers with open arms - unless they try to destroy him. Detailed in Dragon #420.

Cerunnos

Master of the Wild Hunt. A firbolg raised as the adoptive son of Lord Oran, King of the Green Fae, but cursed by both the Prince of Frost and the Summer Queen, condemning him to lead the Wild Hunt. Detailed in Dragon #428

Hyrsam

Prince of Satyrs and son of Lord Oran, the King of the Green Fae, this merry minstrel hides a dark secret in the forms of dreams of anarchy, and his seemingly innocuous visits tend to bring wrack and ruin upon those who play host to him. Detailed in Dragon #422.

The Prince of Frost

Rule of the Winter Court and once a beloved son of the Summer Queen, the Prince of Frost found his heart hardened forever when his beloved ran off with a mortal. Detailed in Dragon #374.

Selephra

The Bramble Queen was once the beautiful and merciful daughter of Lord Oran of the Green Fae, but has been twisted by bitterness and spite into a hideous, vengeful monster that yearns for the blood of all mortals, and men in particular. Detailed in Dungeon Magazine #185.

Thrumbolg

First Lord of Mag Tureah, the most powerful and wicked of all the many fomorian kings who infest the Feydark and eye the other realms with avarice. Detailed in Dragon #420.

Tuxil

The Trinket Lord, a former gnome refugee who discovered a mysterious place in the Feywild where all that is lost ends up, and who became an archfey by claiming dominion over it. Detailed in Dungeon Magazine #205.

Characters / Nentir Vale

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