History Characters / IcewindDale

%%!!Icasaracht

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Mother Egenia believed they could learn to be good, but kept them hidden and isolated from all outside contact. The misunderstanding with the villagers following her death, shattered this "morality in a bottle", as Iselore calls it, with their fiendish instincts rising to the surface

* BreedingSlave: One of the extremely unfortunate lessons they learned from the yuan-ti, who "seed" those they kidnap with half-breeds and "abominations".

* SuperBreedingProgram: The twins intend to bring the Dale under their control by, among other things, forcibly breeding their prisoners with their various monstrous allies.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: She's actually [[spoiler:a tanar'ri, a race of ChaoticEvil [invoked] fiends from the Lower Planes of the ''D&D'' multiverse. More than that, her serpent-bodied, many-armed form is that of a marilith, somewhere below the highest ranks of demons and not unique by any means. Which gives a sense of the relatively minor scale of these events on a cosmic scale.]]
* PragmaticVillainy: She intends to reward her followers wiht the kingdom her conquest will leave behind if they serve her well, yet invites you to simply take what you need should they fail her. She is neither kind or uncaring, merely... dispassionate.

* ChildByRape: The twins' mother ''Maiden'' Ilmadia Bariel [{ButICantBePregnant believed she was still a virgin]] at the time you fought her in the first game, wasn't raised by Mother Egenia until after Belhifet's death, and [[spoiler:never knew Poquelin's true identity]]. She [[DrivenToSuicide threw herself off a cliff]] upon seeing the twins for the first time.

* DisappearedDad: They were only born after Belhifet's defeat and subsequent banishment back to the Hells in the first game.

* HalfHumanHybrid: Half elf, half devil. They're the children of Maiden Ilmadia, one of Poquelin's minions from the first game... and Belhifet herself.

* WingedHumanoid: Their wings are prehensile, like a giant pair of clawed hands.

* ChildByRape: The twins' mother ''Maiden'' Ilmadia Bariel believed she was still a virgin at the time you fought her in the first game, wasn't raised by Mother Egenia until after Belhifet's death, and [[spoiler:never knew Poquelin's true identity]]. She [[DrivenToSuicide threw herself off a cliff]] upon seeing the twins for the first time.

* ReligionOfEvil: Madae is a cleric of Iyachtu Xvim, the half-demon son of the [[KillTheGod dead god]] and at the time the game was made, the then-incumbent god of tyranny, hatred, and fear in the Realms. The twins' mother Ilmadia was also a priestess of Xvim.

* CallBack: The twins' entire history is made up of nods to [=NPCs]= and major locations from the first game, including their foster mother Egenia being the head of Kuldahar's Temple of Ilmater, one of the townsfolk the player rescues from the Talonites of Dragon's Eye.

* CallBack: The twins' entire history is made up of nods to NPCs and major locations from the first game, including their foster mother Egenia being the head of Kuldahar's Temple of Ilmater, one of the NPCs the player rescues from the Talonites of Dragon's Eye.

A list of characters from ''VideoGame/IcewindDale'' I and II, and the first game's expansions ''Heart of Winter'' and ''Trials of the Luremaster''.

* BigRedDevil: Both of them have the look, as the half-fiend children of Belhifet, with horns, tails, and wings.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: He dies in the frost giant ambush and resulting avalanche avalanche that cuts you off from Easthaven, before any of you ever make it to Kuldahar.

* UncannyFamilyResemblance: Offhandedly mentions a cousin Jan -- presumably ''BGII''[='s=] Jan Jansen, also voiced by Jack Roth. Oswald came first, technically, though one imagines his expanded role in ''[=IWD2=]'', has a lot to do with the popularity of Jan. Oswald is much more absent-minded but less deliberately irritating than Master Jansen, however.

A pair of half-demon twins and the leaders of the Legion of the Chimera, a self-described organization of creatures cast out from the rest of society due to their inhuman nature. Together, they seek to make the Legion a force to be reckoned with and end the prejudice targeted towards them, even if it means going to war.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Of Icewind Dale II.
* DisproportionateRetribution: What led to Isair and Madae declaring war on the Ten-Towns? [[spoiler:A priest of Helm thought it would be clever to gift them with wine and pastries filled with holy water.]]
* RedOniBlueOni: The Red Madae is quicker to anger and often responds with threats and violence, while the Blue Isair is more level-headed and calculating, preferring to hold conversations with the player before attacking.

[[//folder]]

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%%!!Isair and Madae

-->'''Yxunomei:''' Oh, my. Hundreds of years. You must feel very proud to be able to leap out of the primordial ooze of godly creation, gasp for a moment in the air, an die on the shore in the belief that you won't die like all the other fish. All the while, elephants of stone stomp on these celestial shores and *you*, in your blindness, take no note.

* SacrificialLion: dies to show that the main villain has little to fear from the player party. [[spoiler:Or so Poquelin thinks.]]

-->'''Poquelin:''' I am the beginning and the end of this story. I, and ''only'' I, will determine how it plays out. Goodbye.

* CollapsingLair: The crystal tower [[spoiler:in [[WhereItAllBegan Easthaven]]]] crumbles once Belhifet is finally vanquished.

* EvilSoundsDeep: While Brother Poquelin has a high, sibilant voice, [[spoiler:Belhifet's actual voice is provided by mighty-voiced actor Creator/DavidOgdenStiers, the narrator of the first game.]]

%%!!Wylfdene
%%-->'''Voiced By:''' Creator/RonPerlman

%%!!Hrothgar
%%-->'''Voiced By:''' Creator/JimCummings

%%!!Archdruid Arundel

->''"I'm sorry, but war and charades are the only two games I know how to play."''

* SinisterMinister: A revered brother of Ilmater a god of suffering [[DarkIsNotEvil mercy]]. [[spoiler:Poquelin is really a (literal) DevilInDisguise, however, and Poquelin in all likelihood never existed, formed wholesale out of Brother Perdiem's memories.]]

* ObviouslyEvil: By the time you meet him, he's dropped any pretense and does all his gloating in sibilant, self-amused manner. He's also got pale, bluish skin, and [[RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver red and black robes]]. One assumes he made more of an effort to maintain his disguise previously, but he already knows you've found him out by the time you confront him.

* TeleportSpam: A major part of the fight against him is managing to catch him before he teleports away again, behind his many mooks.

%%!!Iscaracht

* AscendedExtra: From quirky shopkeeper in the first game to fully-voiced sidekick NPC in the second.

* CharacterDevelopment: Somewhat surprisingly, given that he's just the priest of the town where the game starts. Since the game limits the amount of characterization the player characters can have, it gets passed onto [=NPCs=], who have short arcs of their own. [[spoiler:Everard, of all people, has an arc which spans the whole game.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: As seen in the quote above, he doesn't really believe in the idea.

-->'''Voiced By:''' Jack Roth

* CoolAirship: Of his own invention. Of the ''[[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTeddyRuxpin Teddy Ruxpin]]'' balloon-on-top, propellers-underneath variety.

* CreepyChild: She appears to the party in the guise of an Odd Little Girl.

'''PC:''' Uh, that's great little girl...

'''Yxunomei:''' No. You are one of many fireflies dancing for a moment in the night, feeling at your brightest that you can illuminate the universe at will. *I* am a star. I came into existence when your world took form. I am as persistent as time. Where I move, infernal tides crush foreign shores and nations of thought are drowned in blood.
* YeGoodeOldeDays: Her yuan-ti followers want a return the world to the good old days when, as Yxunomei can personally recall, the Dale was a a primordial jungle swamp.

* MacGuffin: The source of much of his power is[[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard]].

%%!!Archdruid Iselore

%%!!Yxunomei
%%!!Revered Brother Poquelin

[[folder:Belhifet]]
!!Belhifet
->''"And as the first rays of dawn glittered off the scattered fragments of the crystalline tower, a light snow began to fall over the once-again peaceful town of Easthaven. And so ends the final chapter in my tale, with the forces of good triumphant over the forces of evil."''
-->'''-- Narrator'''

Hailing from Baator, the Nine Hells, the devil Belhifet seeks to conquer the whole of the Realms, beginning with Icewind Dale.

* BigBad: The ultimate villain of the original ''Icewind Dale''. [[spoiler:Also the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/BaldursGateSiegeOfDragonspear'', after Caelar reveals that the true purpose of the entire Crusade was to rescue her uncle from Belhifet's clutches.]]
* BigRedDevil: Played very straight. [[spoiler:Although he spends most of the first game disguised as the kindly Brother Poquelin.]]
* CirclesOfHell: ''D&D''[='s=] Nine Hells are based, in part, on [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante's]] ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]''. Belhifet's domain is [[spoiler:a citadel of iron and chains on the first layer, [[FireAndBrimstoneHell Avernus]], which is where your pursuit of Caelar Argent ultimately takes you in ''Siege of Dragonspear''.]]
* CollapsingLair: The crystal tower [[spoiler:in [[WhereItAllBegan Easthaven]]]] crumbles once Belhifet is finally vanquished.
* DemonLordsAndArchdevils: Not quite an archdevil in the intricate hierarchy of the baatezu, but a powerful and high-ranking unique devil in his own right.
* DevilInDisguise: ''A'' devil in disguise. [[spoiler:He spends most of the game HiddenInPlainSight as [[SinisterMinister Revered Brother]] [[DevilInDisguise Poquelin]], a priest of Ilmater, the LawfulGood god of suffering.]]
* DualWielding: Wields a pair of enormous machete-like blades.
* EvilSoundsDeep: While Brother Poquelin has a high, sibilant voice, [[spoiler:Belhifet's actual voice is provided by mighty-voiced actor Creator/DavidOgdenStiers, the narrator of the first game.]]
* HijackedByGanon: Fans of ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' would probably expect this around the time Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, appears in the game. [[spoiler:While Poquelin/Belhifet retains center-stage, the crystal's power does allow him to create the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. In a straighter example of the trope, Belhifet goes on to become the FinalBoss of ''Siege of Dragonspear'', with BigBad apparent Caelar Argent either joining forces with Charname to defeat him once and for all, or else falling fully and becoming a blackguard in service to Belhifet.]]
* HornyDevils: As a shapeshifter and cunning manipulator, he [[spoiler:impregnated the elf Ilmadia, whose children would be Isair and Madae, the BigBadDuumvirate of the second game.]]
* NarratorAllAlong: PlayedWith. [[spoiler:Like Creator/KevinMichaelRichardson in ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', David Ogden Stiers provides the voice for both the game's main villain and the kindly narrator. In ''Icewind Dale'', however, the two characters are explicitly one and the same. In a clever bit of BaitAndSwitch, you don't actually hear Belhifet's real voice during the game itself, only in the final credits, when the pleasant, grandfatherly tones shift into hateful, bestial snarling as he swears to return some day, practically spitting out the word when he speaks of the triumph of the forces of "good".]]
* OrderVsChaos: Belhifet would have had to have taken action against the ancient demon Yxunomei if the player party hadn't beaten him to it.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: In ''D&D'' lore, LawfulEvil devils come from Baator, the Nine Hells, while the ChaoticEvil demons come from the Abyss. The two fight a neverending, bloody war which frequently spills over into the "real" world of the Prime, where they collect the souls of the living and draft them into their battles. (When referring to both races collectively, the preferred in-universe nomenclature is "fiends".)
* ThirdPersonPerson: Continues to refer to himself in the third person [[spoiler:as he finishes narrating the book of the player's adventures, breaking character as the narrator and revealing himself as a banished devil who [[WeWillMeetAgain will have his revenge]].]]
* WeWillMeetAgain: As a fiend, death is not the end for him, and he promises to return one day for his revenge. [[spoiler:He says this in-character as the [[NarratorAllAlong narrator]], making it seem as if he's directing the player directly. Twelve years later, he makes good on his promise in, of all places, ''VideoGame/BaldursGateSiegeOfDragonspear'', where he is the [[HijackedByGanon final villain]] yet again.]]
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Like many more powerful [[OurDemonsAreDifferent fiends]] in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', Belhifet can take a variety of different shapes. [[spoiler:He spends most of the game [[DevilInDisguise disguised]] as Brother Poquelin.]]

* StupidSacrifice: How he views Jerrod's death. he does ''not'' approve of how Jerrod ended the battle by throwing himself into the portal, feeling that the glory of the battle would have been greater if they fought to the last man, and that Jerrod's place was to remain with his men -- to win the battle instead of merely ending it. [[spoiler:By the end of the game, Everard has reversed his opinion, saying that it has taken him far too long to realize the nobility of giving one's life so that others might live -- even as he makes the same sacrifice as Jerrod.]]

%%!!Battlelord Everard
%%->''"Sacrifice? Let me say this of "sacrifice", *young* one. Sacrifice is a death that has meaning. When it is in vain, it is not sacrifice. It is a *waste*. *That* is the lesson of Jerrod's Stone."''

%%!!Archdruid Iselore

[[folder:Oswald Fiddlebender]]

* LukeNounverber: Oswald Fiddlebender. One might assume there was a bard somewhere in his family history, but it's appropriate given the amount of bending, tinkering, and fiddling he does with his inventions.

* {{Nephewism}}: Has a niece, Maralie. She later becomes Iselore's apprentice, and is the narrator of the second game.

* CollapsingLair: The crystal tower in [[spoiler:[[WhereItAllBegan Easthaven]]]] crumbles once Belhifet is finally vanquished.

* HijackedByGanon: Fans of ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' would probably expect this around the time Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, appears in the game. [[spoiler:He goes on to become the FinalBoss of ''Siege of Dragonspear'', with BigBad apparent Caelar Argent either joining forces with Charname to defeat him, once and for all, or else falling fully and becoming a blackguard whom you must fight alongside Belhifet and his henchdevils in his citadel on Avernus, first of the Nine Hells.]]

* HijackedByGanon: Fans of ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' would probably expect this around the time Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, appears in the game. [[spoiler: