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

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Hrothgar

"But it wasn't for gold that I fought and bled all those years. It was for something grander, more powerful than mere riches. Adventuring is something that is in your blood, not your purse."

Voiced By: Jim Cummings

A well-traveled but aging adventurer and the closest thing Easthaven has to a mayor. Finding a table of fledgling adventurers in the Winter's Cradle Tavern, he invites them to join his expedition to Kuldahar, where he hopes to root out a mysterious evil rising in the Dale.

Old Soldier: Semi-retired after having adventured far and wide across Faerun, he's still acting as Easthaven's de facto mayor and sheriff, and game for leading an expedition across the frozen passes to investigate rumors of gathering evil outside of Kuldahar.
Trophy Room: His home in Easthaven is full of monster hides and heads.
We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies in the frost giant ambush and resulting avalanche that cuts off the pass back to Easthaven, before anyone in the initial expedition ever makes it to Kuldahar.

Everard

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."

Voiced By: Gregg Berger

The high priest of Easthaven's shrine to Tempus, Lord of Battles, and a member of the Order of the Broken Blade, battlepriests wounded in battle, who now serve Tempus far away from the front lines.

Character Development: 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. Everard, of all people, has an arc which spans from the prologue of the game to its final battle.
Chekhov's Gunman: While his injuries prevent him from accompanying you on Hrothgar's expedition, this means he's spared by the avalanche, and able to aid the party upon your return to Easthaven — where he finally comes to understand Jerrod's sacrifice, going so far as to take his place, sacrificing himself to seal the portal mere moments after Brother Poquelin has reopened it.
Handicapped Badass: As a priest of the Order of the Broken Blade, his war wounds prevent him from serving Tempus on the battlefield. He's been assigned, reluctantly and somewhat ironically, to a temple containing the tomb of the ancient barbarian hero Jerrod, whose Heroic Sacrifice Everard finds to be a pointless waste.
Heroic Sacrifice: As seen in the quote above, he doesn't really believe in the idea — a sacrifice, if necessary, renders the actions leading up to it less heroic, less glorious.
Mr. Exposition: His dialogue tree is by far the largest out of anyone in the first game's starting town of Easthaven, most of which is entirely optional, in keeping with the devs' design philosophy of making the game as lore-heavy or story-lite as the player preferred. As the high priest of Tempus and caretaker of Jerrod's tomb, he can recite the history of the ancient battle in further detail than what the player already saw in the intro cutscene. And he's not above editorializing a little.
Redemption Equals Death: Unlike most examples, Everard isn't malicious or evil, but he viciously berates the notion of sacrificing oneself for others instead of fighting to the death like a warrior, as evidenced when you press his opinion on the retelling of Jerrod's Stone. However, by the end of the game, he realizes that he has been wrong in this mindset when he finds he must make the same sacrifice Jerrod did in order to stop Belhifet from bringing more demons through the portal, redeeming himself as one who now understands the cause being greater than one life's glory and allowing the party to finish off Belhifet and save the Dale.
Senseless Sacrifice: How he views Jerrod's death — he provides the current page quote for the trope. 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. 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.
War God: A priest of Tempus, the god of glorious battle.

Arundel

Archdruid Arundel

"Serve the balance. Protect Kuldahar from this evil."

Voiced By: Jim Cummings

The Archdruid of Kuldahar, leader of the town which has sprung up among the Great Oak's roots, and the party's patron and staunchest ally.

Almost Dead Guy: When you return to his home in Kuldahar after defeating Yxunomei, you find him bleeding out upstairs, but you're still just in time for him to give you one last quest: to take the Heartstone Gem to the Tower of the Severed Hand.
Big Good: A druid instead of a wizard, but very much filling the Gandalf role for the first game.
Druid: The leader of the druids of Kuldahar.
Mentor Occupational Hazard: Dies at the hands of Brother Poquelin, impersonating Arundel himself.
Mr. Exposition: Source of much of the lore for the early portion of the game, and giver of your major quests up until his death, and even then, with his last breath he points the party toward the Severed Hand.
Sacrificial Lion: Dies upon your return from Dragon's Eye to show that the main villain has little to fear from the player party. Or so Poquelin thinks.

Oswald

Oswald Fiddlebender

"It really was a magnificent view! The billowing clouds, the snow-capped peaks that shimmered like diamonds in the sunlight... I guess I was so enamored by the beauty of it all that I didn't notice the outcropping of rock until it was too late."

Voiced By: Jack Roth [IWD2]

An alchemist running a potions shop out of his crashed airship in Kuldahar. You can find him in the sequel, where he's crash-landed yet again in Bremen — just in time for a goblin invasion.

Absent-Minded Professor: He's a brilliant inventor, but lives in his own little world. Conversations with him tend to go off on sudden tangents and run in circles as Oswald forgets what he has or hasn't said to a given person.
Alchemy Is Magic: He sells magic potions of all sorts.
Ascended Extra: From a minor albeit exceptionally quirky shopkeeper in the first game to fully-voiced sidekick NPC in the second.
Bungling Inventor: His alchemy experiments tend to explode, and his airship ends every flight in a crash landing — possibly not unrelated to his alchemical lab in the ship's hold. it's enough that he's gone so far as to invent a specialized spell, Oswald's Mending, to help him with the repairs.
Captain Crash: Every voyage his airship undertakes seems to end in a crash, which is often used as a means of cutting off the player party from previous areas.
Cool Airship: Of the Teddy Ruxpin balloon-on-top, propellers-underneath variety. He built it himself, and crews it single-handedly, which is both impressive and a major reason for why it crashed in Kuldahar, since he couldn't convince anyone in Caer Dineval to come along on its inaugural voyage.
Gadgeteer Genius: An alchemist and inventor with a working (sort of) airship of his own design.
Giver of Lame Names:
Oswald: I call it an *air* *ship*. Isn't that wonderful? Airship... as in a ship that floats upon the air. Get it? It's really quite clever when you think about it.
Intrepid Merchant: Still selling you potions after crashing in the middle of the wilderness.
Luke Nounverber: Oswald Fiddlebender. One might assume there was a bard somewhere in his family history. It's still appropriate given the amount of bending, tinkering, and fiddling he does with his inventions.
Metaphorgotten:
Oswald: Can't see this airship crashing in the near future. Sturdy as a rock.
Player Character: Rocks can't fly, Oswald.
Oswald: Well, of course they can. Just get a giant to throw them, and even the largest stone will fly like a bird. A very heavy bird, mind you, and no wings, but the principle is the same.
Nephewism: Has a niece, Maralie. She goes on to become Iselore's apprentice at some point after the events of the second game, which her grown-up self narrates.
Our Gnomes Are Weirder: An absent-minded alchemist-inventor who lives in a flying ship stocked full of volatile chemicals — and that's just belowdecks.
Plucky Comic Relief: Contractually obligated, as a gnome in a Forgotten Realms story in the late '90s/early 2000s.
Uncanny Family Resemblance: Offhandedly mentions a cousin Jan — presumably BG2'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.

Jermsy

A young boy the party of adventurers rescue in the first game. Thirty years later, your other party of adventurers meet him in the sequel working in Kuldahar in the militia.

Parental Abandonment: Orcs and goblins killed Jermsy's parents. You can't save them in time no matter what — they're dead by the time you reach the outskirts of Kuldahar.
Sole Survivor: The lone survivor of his family. While he was hiding in the closet, orcs and goblins cut down his parents and sister. He would've been next in line, but your party of adventurers bursts in and slays the raiders just in the nick of time.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When you meet Jermsy in the sequel, the intervening years and death of his family have turned him into an angry, bitter man. The indifferent care he received from the local temple of Ilmater probably didn't help him deal with his lingering PTSD.

Larrel

The founder of the Severed Hand, an ancient elven fortress. When the Hand was invaded by an army of orcs, they resorted to casting a mythal over the fortress but it went arry, trapping all within, elf and orc alike, in a state of perpetual undeath.

The Atoner: In the end he resolves to remain in the Severed Hand trying to do what he can to help the trapped spirits of the other elves move on.
Ax-Crazy: Insanity is a dangerous trait in an archmage. The first time the party encounters his sending, it unleashes a fireball upon a squirrel it'd mistaken for a dwarf. (Although the squirrel deftly evades the blast.)
Cloudcuckoolander: The failed casting of the mythal and his transformation into a baelnorn has driven him mad. Restoring the astrolabe also restores his sanity.
Fantastic Racism: He hates the dwarfs, as he believes they betrayed the elves by supplying the orcs with their weapons and killed his daughter.
I Did What I Had to Do: His view on the miscast mythal, even after its disastrous result.
Larrel: Some say believing we had the power to bestow such magic was arrogance. Others would say using the mythal in such a way was blasphemous. I stand by my decision. I did what I had to do to protect my people.
Our Liches Are Different: He's actually a baelnorn, a "good" lich. He was cursed with such a form by Labelas Enoreth for his awful decisions leading the Hand.
Tragic Keepsake: If you find his daughter's journal in Dorn's Deep, telling how she befriended the dwarves and died fighting alongside them, Larrel is stunned and goes off to contemplate this revelation.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Downplayed. All that remains of Larrel in Icewind Dale 2 are his bones, whose item description confirms that he was forgiven by Labelas and that his mortal form crumpled to dust and bone when his spirit departed the mortal plane for Arvandor. That said, neither Orrick (who took over his tower) nor anyone else with an interest in the Severed Hand or its Mythal offer much, if any commentary on his fate.

Iselore

Archdruid Iselore

"I can see there is no reasoning with you, Madae. You and your brother are lost. Bring on your worst. I will not stray from this circle until you throw my corpse into the depths of the valley below!"

The Archdruid of Kuldahar during the events of Icewind Dale II, a half-elf originally from Deepingdale. After evacuating the villagers in the wake of the war against the Legion of the Chimera, he stays behind to protect the Heartstone Gem and the great oak.

Big Good: Not as prominent as Arundel, but as his successor, he is by far the strongest example in the second game, directing you the rest of the way towards the Severed Hand after you arrive in Kuldahar.
Druid: His class, as the leader of one of the regional druidic circles in the Ten-Towns. He even has a Celtic accent to boot.
Mr. Exposition: He's known Isair and Madae since their birth and will tell you their entire life story if you ask. In his words, he knows too much. He also fills you in on a number of other events that occurred between the events of the first game and the second.
"Not So Different" Remark: He tried to reason with Madae by bringing up the fact that they're both half-breeds, with the exception that he ignores any bigoted remarks directed at him and that he doesn't force people to accept him. Madae simply laughs in his face in response.
One-Man Army: His close proximity to the Heartstone Gem and the great oak bolsters his power significantly and evidently makes him immortal, and when Madae marches her armies to Kuldahar in an attempt to take it, he is capable of taking on every last wave of troops she throws at him with or without your help.
True Neutral: His in-universe alignment. Encouraging the people of Kuldahar to leave the yuan-ti of Dragon's Eye in peace despite their history as enemies is a good example of this. However, he does have an allegiance to Kuldahar, and when someone poses an immediate threat to his village he's more than willing to fight back.

Neutral characters

Nym

A drow merchant that encounters both adventuring parties. He doesn't care who he deals with as long as he gets paid.

Affably Evil: Unfailingly polite to his "honored customers," even "darthiir."
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: As long as his customers pay him, he'll sell anything, including information, to anyone. In the second game, he helps your party evade the Legion of the Chimera, sells you out to the Legion and gives them your location, then warns you to depart in haste because your enemies have somehow picked up your trail.
Even Evil Has Standards: On one hand, he's an exemplar of his race's propensity for treachery and deceit. On the other, he considers himself a businessman first and foremost and couldn't care less about the race of his honoured customers.
PC: How did a dark elf wind up in a village of deep gnomes? Deep gnomes hate drow, don't they?
Nym: Dire need overcomes simple hatred in periods of duress. I am a businessman. Petty racial differences are irrelevant in my dealings.
Karma Houdini: In the first game it's possible to kill him once you learn what he's done, but canonically he lived to the sequel. While it's possible to kill him before he teleports away, presumably by its nature this too is non-canon and Nym escaped any form of justice.
Only in It for the Money: For the good of Nym's wallet, all causes give way.
Small Role, Big Impact: He's the one who sold dwarf weapons to the orcs besieging the Severed Hand, after he stole them from Dorn's Deep. This led to the elves believing the dwarves had betrayed them and their alliance fracturing. If not for Nym, the Severed Hand and Dorn's Deep probably wouldn't have fallen and the elves and dwarves would still be fighting the orcs, making him responsible for a lot of the chaos in the Spine of the World.
Species Loyalty: Downplayed, as he'd assuredly screw over a drow as readily as a darthiir if there was profit to be made in the screwing, but it's implied that there was an element of this in his decision to sell the horde his stolen elven weapons, as one "angle" he considered was that the dwarves were gearing up to attack the drow before this incident thrust them into war with the surface elves.

Orrick the Gray

A mage living in the tower overlooking Kuldahar. He is purely concerned with his own magical research, indifferent to the troubles facing the Dale. His only real contact with the outside world is selling a few magical trinkets, which the locals can't use or understand, to passing adventurers.

The Apprentice: Orrick keeps a goblin named Weenog as a housekeeper and (in theory) apprentice. In the sequel, the goblin is now a fully trained wizard and is off on his own, and his son Weenagoo has become Orrick's new apprentice.
Living with the Villain: In the sequel, you find Orrick in the Severed Hand, the elven citadel which has converted into the Legion of the Chimera's base of operations. True to his name, he's not exactly cooperating with them, but as long as he can continue studying the mythal undisturbed, he doesn't care about the Legion's denizens, politics, religion, wars or atrocities.
Mage Tower: His first home was a tower in Kuldahar. In the sequel, after the Heroes of the Ten-Towns clear out the haunted Severed Hand, he abandons his tower and resettles in the Severed Hand's library to continue his research close-up. His — formerly Larrel's — Mage Tower is all that remains after the Hand's corrupted Mythal forcibly shifts the rest of the citadel to limbo.
Meaningful Name: Orrick The Gray remains neutral at every turn. He doesn't take sides in conflicts between good and evil, or order against chaos.
Neutral No Longer: Downplayed. His interests aren't aligned with Isair and Madae's, but by the time you meet him in the second game he feels like he's missed his chance to act against them. He does, however, view conflict with them as inevitable and thus offers discreet aid to the adventuring party.
Permanently Missable Content: Beware, his items for sale will change every time you begin a new chapter.
The Rival: To Vese Nejj, a Red Wizard of Thay, who seeks to oust Orrick from the Mage Tower. Orrick is so many steps ahead of the guy that he doesn't even care if you betrayed the tower's defences to him, because he'd already replaced the exploitable components with shadow copies.
True Neutral: His in-universe alignment, and the reason he's "the Gray": Orrick refuses to take sides in any conflict, and is only concerned with the knowledge he can gather.

Kresselack

Kresselack the Black Wolf

Voiced By: Tony Jay

The spirit of an ancient warlord now haunting the Vale of Shadows.

24-Hour Armor: Being a spirit, he's being wearing the same armor non-stop for centuries.
Affably Evil: Even with all the evils deeds Kresselack committed in his previous life, he's very well-mannered, polite and even allow you to loot his tomb after you help him.
Alas, Poor Villain: He proves to be surprisingly reasonable once you've battled your way to the heart of his tomb — pitiable, even, in that he has come to see his life of bloody conquest as wasted, and the immortality he once sought as a curse. All the more so now that he will have to spend undeath alone in his tomb, since you've destroyed his companions. When he asks that you stop the Aurilites from breaking the remaining enchantments on his tomb so that he is also forced to spend eternity in cold and darkness as well.
Arc Villain: For the Vale of Shadows and, naturally, Kresselack's Tomb.
Barred from the Afterlife: After he sacrificed his life to his god, he found himself bound to his tomb and is unable to leave the Material plane.
BFS: His favored weapon is a greatsword, which he allows you to loot after you complete a quest for him.
Black Knight: An undead warrior. Technically a barbarian in life, he was buried in his ceremonial armor and very much looks the part.
Evil Overlord: In life he was this, but in death he discovered that no matter how hard he tried — burying himself with his entire army — you really can't take it with you.
Evil Sounds Deep: Intoned by the great Tony Jay.
I Lied: Kresselack promised your party to reveal who's responsible for the evil plaguing Kuldahar in exchange for slaying an Aurilite cultist. After you've done the deed, he admits not knowing who's behind the troubles in Kuldahar.
Laser-Guided Karma: Kresselack was a warlord and a conqueror. For all the evil deeds he had done, including slaying his most loyal followers, he was rewarded with eternal un-life bound to his tomb.
Night of the Living Mooks: He was buried with his army, all of which you must fight on your way to Kresselack himself... only to find out that they were telling the truth, and genuinely had nothing to do with the current troubles in the region.
Not Me This Time: After killing your way to the end of Kresselack's tomb and destroying all his undead guardians... it turns out Kresselack really wasn't behind the theft of the Heartstone Gem or the kidnappings in Kuldahar. You have, however, left his crypt undefended and thus vulnerable to a different threat namely the Aurilites, devotees of the evil goddess of cold.
Really Gets Around: A description of a magical bastard sword in the sequel revealed that Kresselack has sired many children with different women.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Kresselack believed he did in life, but since then he's discovered that neverending undeath is a curse, but perhaps a fitting punishment for the life he led.

The Gloomfrost Seer

"A woman knows a woman's heart, and a strange, beautiful, and cruel thing it is. But the cruellest of all is a heart of winter, for it beats not with love, but with loss, and *nothing* may comfort it."

A barbarian prophetess once of the Tribe of the Elk, gifted with shamanistic Sight so powerful legends claim it turned her eyes to dust. In self-imposed exile the Gloomfrost Seer now resides in the eponymous glacier, hiding herself from her own foretold end.

Blind Seer: A seer whose visions were so intense as to apparently turn her eyes to dust.
Cowardice Callout: With high enough intelligence or wisdom, you can shame her into confronting Icasaracht-possessed Wylfdene.
Cryptic Conversation: She's seen much of your future, and hones in on four significant women whose fates you're destined to either cross, learn of, or make in your travels. However, she leaves you to relate the imagery to the ladies in question without the benefit of their names.
Seer: One woman clutches a heart like a drowning man clutches a stone and knows not that it drags her down. Her dreams are watchfires, signalling to her of war and victory that can never be.^note
Seer: One dwells beneath a mirror of the sky and has a heart like an ocean, too big for her will to contain. She once knew love, then loved again, and her love is what has damned the North.^note
Seer: Another woman builds great ships upon molten seas, all the while dreaming of beasts of purity and how they might be corrupted... as she once was. I see her die, and her dreams become ash.^note
Seer: And the last... oh, the last. The elder races... their passions burn so *brightly* when fuelled with justice and hope. One, but a child, loved so much she abandoned her own father to die beneath the earth for a people she had never met.^note
Do Not Go Gentle: Downplayed. She doesn't have the power to avert her death, whether at your hands or Icasaracht's, but even knowing that, she'll not hasten the dreaded moment.
Seer: Reason and fear are not brothers, and while I yet live, I shall not run to face my death *this* day or any other.
Disproportionate Retribution: When the dwarf smith Tiernon happened upon the Gloomfrost in his racial calling, which specified ice as his forge's material, the seer stabbed his eyes out with a dagger, so terrified was she that he'd alert his clan in the Sunset Mountains to her haven. The player can cite this as justification enough to kill her, but Tiernon has gotten over it and now serves as the old woman's guardian and caretaker, and will try to kill you if you insist on doing her harm.
Face Your Fears: Death is her greatest fear, and she knows it "walks in your shadow," which she's spent a decade fleeing from. But she reflects that fear has frayed her spirit once you face her, and invites you to kill her. If you refuse to do so, and galvanise her into facing Icasaracht directly, she'll meet her death having truly conquered her fear of it.
Foreseeing My Death: And now, forestalling it.
The Narrator: Heart of Winter's. Unlike the main game, the expansion's narrator is not its Big Bad.
Mythology Gag: Makes an interesting comment that strongly suggests she's one of Ravel Puzzlewell's avatars.
Seer: I have seen visions of the past, of death, of spiralling cities and a black-brambled garden, of creatures both spirit and stone. In all these things... I was not myself... yet always I see through a woman's eyes.
Neutral No Longer: Her desire to protect the Dale's people — not least of all her own — from Icasaracht's conquest ultimately prevails over the fear that kept her aloof in the conflict, and she departs the Gloomfrost to help you expose your villain.
Only Known by Their Nickname: The Gloomfrost Seer is the only moniker she goes by now.
Seers: A legendary one; she's known by no other name.
Title Drop: See her character quote.

Foes

Yxunomei

"I am a soldier by day, a farmer by night. The harvest of dead souls provides nutrition for my nation's war."

Voiced By: Tara Strong

An ancient and powerful entity which has taken the volcano of Dragon's Eye for her fortress and the yuan-ti and lizardfolk within for her followers. The heroes must seek her out after she steals the Heartstone Gem.

Arc Villain: Worshipped as a god by the yuan-ti of Dragon's Eye and the final opponent fought in the area.
Badass Boast: Though as she sees it, she's only speaking the unvarnished truth.
Benevolent Boss: Zigzagged. She intends to honor her commitment to her yuan-ti followers by leaving behind the kingdom she intends to create on Toril, and she's annoyed when the PC refers to them as Snake People. She's quite blunt about how she feels about failure, however — if they can't prevent the party from stealing back the Heartstone Gem, then they've earned their deaths. That doesn't stop her from joining in the final fight against the heroes in Dragon's Eye.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Vanquished on the Prime, Yxunomei, like Belhifet, presumably reformed in the Abyssal plane — the two "old friends" have apparently played out this drama, to one or the other's defeat, many times across their long acquaintance. By Icewind Dale II, her rival had been restored to power in the Hells and there ran into his half-devil children, the Big Bad Duumvirate of the sequel. He even reprised his role as the Big Bad of Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. Unlike the Old Enemy, however, Yxunomei's character was never revisited.
Cincinnatus: Surprisingly, yes. She doesn't care to remain in this world to rule it, and would rather leave the kingdom she would conquer to her yuan-ti followers. This is because she's a high-ranking soldier in the multiverse-spanning army of the tanar'ri, and her business on Faerun is mainly to prevent the Old Enemy — Belhifet — from gaining a foothold for his own people.
Cold Ham: Remains cold and remote at all times, while delivering some of the game's most over-the-top, Lovecraftian dialogue... only to cap it off with the occasional understatement which does more to reveal how far removed she is from earthly concerns than anything else.
Odd Little Girl: Quite.
Creepy Child: She appears to the party in the guise of a decidedly odd little girl.
Cryptic Conversation: She starts out this way, perhaps before finding a level the party will understand.
Odd Little Girl: Your moon is eclipsed. There are no more shadows, only a corona that illuminates forgotten promises to the black devotees.
Eldritch Abomination: Much of her dialogue and trappings (her yuan-ti cult, for instance) would be right at home in a Cosmic Horror story. She's actually a marilith, which isn't even the highest rank of tanar'ri, D&D's stock Chaotic Evil race of demons.
Evil Redhead: Both her human avatar and her true form have red hair. Lampshaded with this humorous response to her quote under Cryptic Conversation.
PC: Enough, red-headed step-child of Acheron!
Evil Versus Evil: She's locked in a millennia-long conflict with the Old Enemy, which has only found its way to Toril and the Dale in the past few hundred years. Specifically, she's a demon, aligned with chaos and evil in the neverending conflict of the Blood War. Her enemy, Belhifet, is one of the Lawful Evil devils.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: Inverted with her Odd Little Girl guise. She's well aware that it creeps people out, but more importantly, most people hesitate to attack her when she looks like an innocent child. Even if they know the truth, there's an emotional cost to it.
Go Mad from the Revelation:
Odd Little Girl: The forces at work here are factories of truth so foreign to your understanding that if you attempted to observe the machine in its entirety, it would burn your fragile mind to vapor.
It's Personal: Towards you, by the time you fight her. If you attempt to cut off dialogue with her and excuse yourself, she's having none of it, claiming that she's going to take some pleasure in making you pay for the havoc you've caused.
Just the First Citizen: She's a ancient demonic entity who is literally worshipped as a god in Dragon's Eye. What does she say when you ask her who or what she is? A soldier.
Lady of War: Her more zealous followers refer to her as "Sseth's princess," but she rather more prosaically describes herself as a "soldier."
The Man in Front of the Man: She styles herself as the handmaiden of the yuan-ti's god, Sseth.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: In her true form. As a marilith, she looks like a woman with a snake's body in place of legs, and six arms, wielding a weapon in each hand.
Order vs. Chaos: Played with. Despite her cold, rational way of thinking, Yxunomei is a creature who embodies chaos and evil on a primal level. By way of contrast, Belhifet is far more petty, personal, and emotional despite being a creature of law.
Our Demons Are Different: She's actually a tanar'ri, a race of Chaotic Evil 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.
Pragmatic Villainy: She intends to reward her followers with 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.
Screw You, Elves!: Something of a backhanded example, since Odd Little Girl only gets away with this by virtue of exaggerating most of elves' insufferable traits.
Odd Little Girl: 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 lie 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.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: At first.^note Her rival and opposite in the Blood War laments that he's had to endure centuries of "laboriously worded speeches and delusions of grandeur" from her.
Odd Little Girl: Sidereal translations spell out chaotic events in your future. Beware.
PC: Uh, that's great, little girl...
Snake People: Her favored servants are the snake-like yuan-ti, though she'll take offense if you actually call them snake people, as opposed to their proper name. She herself has the lower body of a huge serpent in her true form.
Sore Loser: Her nemesis claims she's guilty of this, but she's banished from the plane without a Villainous Breakdown. He, on the other hand, is very much this.
The Strategist: Several of her minions accord her royal, even divine gravitas, but she conducts herself more like a soldier plotting a war. On balance, this is an indicator of her species: marilith demons are predominantly Abyssal tacticians famous for averting their alignment's inclination to Stupid Evil with cold, rational thinking and a talent for strategic warfare.
The Stoic: Part of the reason her Odd Little Girl form is so creepy: she's utterly emotionless.
Time Abyss: She's old.
PC: You're right, oh mighty one. But... aren't we all really just motes of dust, floating in a sea of time?
Odd Little Girl: 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.
Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Yes, all the above quotes are delivered by a little girl standing shoulder to shoulder with an army of serpent cultists who kidnap, torture, and eat their victims.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Exploited Trope. She doesn't really understand why beings on this plane are generally hesitant to attack children, but she's nonetheless identified this as a weakness to be exploited and thus uses a child as her avatar. Where Yxunomei comes from, there's no concept of man, woman, or child; all are fair game to be reaped in the harvest of souls.
Ye Goode Olde Days: Her yuan-ti followers want a return the world to the good old days when, as Yxunomei can personally recall, the Dale was still humid, tropical jungle swampland.

Revered Brother Poquelin

"Who am I? I am but a simple priest, spreading the gospel of suffering to the masses. Soon, you will all know the litany of our faith... I'd start praying now, if I were you."

Voiced By: John Kassir

A high-ranking priest of Ilmater from the far-off land of Cormyr.

Artifact of Doom: Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, an object of great malevolence and power. Poquelin wears it on a chain around his neck. And he avoids its influence, not by any force of will or arcane power, but simply because its plans and those of Belhifet happen to coincide.
Badass Boast:
Revered Brother Poquelin: I am the beginning and the end of this story. I, and only I, will determine how it plays out. Goodbye.
Black-and-White Morality: "When will you learn that there *is* no black and white?" He considers the destruction he's wrought upon the Dale no more "depraved" than any other conquest found in the annals of mortal warfare, itself unjustly legitimized under the banner of war, and insists that the mortals in his service were corrupted of their own free will. As Brother Perdiem and the other fallen Ilmatari enthralled to Poquelin's idol can attest, the latter isn't entirely true, but the PC doesn't argue with the first bit.
The Corrupter: His specialty, and raison d'être.
Poquelin: I exist solely for corrupting the corruptible. To me, this world is nothing but a fertile field, a vast crop of temptable souls.
Deadpan Snarker: Unlike Yxunomei, the Old Enemy isn't above snide wordplay and petty jibes while gloating over having gotten the best of the heroes all this time.
Brother Poquelin: I'm sorry, but war and charades are the only two games I know how to play.
Evil Sorcerer: Despite being a priest, his magical powers amount to this. Since as a devil, of course, he in no way has the support of a god of good such as Ilmater.
Flunky Boss: Summons huge numbers of Elite Mooks to swarm the party during when you finally manage to track him down.
Friend to All Living Things: Invoked with the imagery of Poquelin flocked by a variety of high level monsters glamoured to appear as harmless animals.
Hidden Villain: Your first true meeting with Poquelin happens a good 4/5ths of the way through the game. The first time you meet him, he's in disguise as Arundel. And with the heroes distracting themselves dealing with Kresselack and Yxunomei while he built up his forces elsewhere, he really couldn't have planned it better himself.
Just Between You and Me: Gloats over having acquired Crenshinibon, assembled the various lieutenants you've already confronted and killed, freezing the passes and having his frost giant servants cause the avalanche which killed most of the expedition out of Easthaven, and killing Arundel personally.
Meaningful Name: Poquelin is the family name of Molière, famous French comedian and playwright. Fitting for someone who is simply playing a role.
Obviously Evil: By the time you meet him, he's dropped any pretense and does all his gloating in sneering, self-amused manner. He's also got pale, bluish skin, "hands of blood," and robes dipped in blood. 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. One of the Ilmaterans who survived his exodus claims Poquelin hypnotised their entire congregation, and reflects on the revered brother's deeply disturbing airs once restored to his senses.
Brother Perdiem: There is something cold and unnatural about his eyes. His skin, his hair... everything about him rings false. The way he walks, the way he holds himself... it is as though he is a stranger in his own body.
Smug Snake: In his true form as Belhifet, the closest thing Poquelin has to a friend is his demonic Arch-Enemy Yxonumei. Of course, given how old they both are, maybe it's not surprising that he views everyone else as fleeting and expendable.
Sinister Minister: A revered brother of Ilmater, the god of suffering but also mercy. Poquelin is really a (literal) Devil in Disguise, however, and Poquelin in all likelihood never existed, formed wholesale out of Brother Perdiem's memories.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Speaks in a high, breathy stage whisper as he mocks your accomplishments, assuming you don't simply cut straight to the fight with him. Of course, given that they got the Cryptkeeper himself to voice him, it couldn't have been any other way.
Teleport Spam: A major part of the fight against him is managing to catch him before he teleports away again, hiding behind his many mooks.

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.

Arch-Enemy: The demoness Yxunomei, his opposite in number in the Blood War.
Big Bad: The ultimate villain of the original Icewind Dale, pulling the strings around the events around Kuldahar through his disguise as Brother Poquelin. Also the Final Boss of Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, after Caelar reveals that the true purpose of the entire Crusade was to rescue her uncle from Belhifet's clutches.
Big Red Devil: Played very straight. Although he spends most of the first game disguised as the kindly Brother Poquelin.
Circles of Hell: D&D's Nine Hells are based, in part, on Dante's Inferno. Belhifet's domain is a citadel of iron and chains on the first layer, Avernus, which is where your pursuit of Caelar Argent ultimately takes you in Siege of Dragonspear.
Collapsing Lair: The crystal tower in Easthaven crumbles once Belhifet is finally vanquished.
Demon Lords and Archdevils: Not quite an archdevil in the intricate hierarchy of the baatezu, but a powerful and high-ranking unique devil in his own right.
Devil in Disguise: A devil in disguise. He spends most of the game Hidden in Plain Sight as Revered Brother Poquelin, a priest of Ilmater, the Lawful Good god of suffering.
Dual Wielding: Wields a pair of enormous machete-like blades.
Even Evil Has Standards: Even his fellow devils thought his grudge with Yxunomei was excessive. Interestingly, despite being tanar'ri, Yxunomei takes a far more measured approach to their conflict, and seems to have kept the favor of her own superiors.
Evil Sounds Deep: While in disguise as Brother Poquelin, he has a high, sibilant voice, his actual voice is impressively deep and suitably ferocious, provided as it is by mighty-voiced actor David Ogden Stiers, who executes a deft turn from kindly scholar to snarling devil in the span of a few lines.
The Exile: He was exiled from his home plane when certain of his "superiors" deemed his vendetta with Yxunomei out of control.
Hijacked by Ganon: Fans of The Legend of Drizzt would probably expect this around the time Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, appears in the game. While Poquelin/Belhifet retains center-stage, the crystal's power does allow him to create the Very Definitely Final Dungeon. In a straighter example of the trope, Belhifet goes on to become the Final Boss of Siege of Dragonspear, with Big Bad 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.
Killed Off for Real: He is slain in the mortal plane and banished back to Avernus for a century at the end, but In Siege of Dragonspear? He is killed in his fortress in Avernus. He's gone forever now.
Narrator All Along: Played With. Like Kevin Michael Richardson in Baldur's Gate, 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 Bait-and-Switch, 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". Perhaps even more surprisingly, the only thing the narrator seems to mislead you about is his true identity.
Order vs. Chaos: Belhifet would have had to have taken action against the ancient demon Yxunomei if the player party hadn't beaten him to it.
Our Demons Are Different: In D&D lore, Lawful Evil devils come from Baator, the Nine Hells, while the Chaotic Evil 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".)
Retcon: The first game keep referring Belhifet as a demon. This was changed to devil in the sequel.
Third-Person Person: Continues to refer to himself in the third person as he finishes narrating the book of the player's adventures, breaking character as the narrator and revealing himself as a banished devil who will have his revenge.
This Cannot Be!: Once you slay him, he'll utter these words before dying.
Time Abyss: Inevitably, as a contemporary of Yxunomei's. He doesn't play it up as much, however.
We Will Meet Again: As a fiend, death is not the end for him, and he promises to return one day for his revenge. He says this in-character as the narrator, making it seem as if he's addressing the player directly. 16 years after Icewind Dale's initial release, he makes good on his promise in, of all places, Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, where he is the final villain yet again.
Villainous Breakdown:
- During the end cinematic, the kindly narrator's voice turns to anger before laughing evilly as the now-revealed Belhifet swears his revenge against all Faerun.
Belhifet: As for the vanquished demon, Belhifet, defeated on the Prime... he was banished back to the depths of Hell, where he languished for a period of a hundred years, tormented by the memory of his mistakes, and waiting for the day he would return to Faerun, and exact his revenge.
- And then a shorter one when permenantly killed in Siege of Dragonspear.
Belhifet: After all this time...this cannot be the end. This Cannot Be!
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Like many more powerful fiends in Dungeons & Dragons, Belhifet can take a variety of different shapes. He spends most of the game disguised as Brother Poquelin.

Wylfdene

"I awoke that day. I am neither Wylfdene nor Jerrod, but both joined as one. It is through me that the tribes have come together. And through me, my people shall rule the North once more."

Voiced By: Ron Perlman

A barbarian warlord of the Uthgardt who perished a season past, only to now rise again to lead his people — touched, it is said, by the spirit of the legendary hero Jerrod, and now possessing the spirits of both men. The united tribes now threaten the Ten Towns, to drive out the outlanders and reclaim the lands of his people.

Back from the Dead: The great warlord Wylfdene, returned from the dead a season after his passing, having received a vision from the hero Jerrod.
Barbarian Hero: The barbarian's barbarian, and a hero among heroes, made up of both their greatest living warrior and a legend of their ancient past.
Big Bad: Of the Heart of Winter expansion pack. The leader of the barbarian army arrayed outside the gates of Lonelywood, calling for war to take back the Dale from the settlers of the Ten-Towns. Then it turns out "Wylfdene" really was Dead All Along, his corpse hijacked by Iscasaracht, an ancient undead dragon with a vendetta against the whole of the Dale and all the settlers within, Uthgardt and settler alike. After The Reveal, she becomes the Big Bad proper.
Came Back Strong: Returned from the dead as an immensely powerful (albeit undead) warrior.
End of an Age: Represents the last hurrah of the Uthgardt, and their bid to avoid losing any more of their land and nomadic culture to the southern settlers.
Fusion Dance: The souls of both Wylfdene and Jerrod, united in death to raise his body and lead the tribes into a new age. Actually a convenient lie — the risen Wylfdene is neither man, but instead possessed by the spirit of the ancient dracolich Icasaracht who seeks her revenge on all humans in the Dale.
Hero Antagonist: Unlike the card-carrying villains of the original campaign, everything about Wylfdene is written as though he truly believes in his cause, and sees himself as the great hero his people need. Which is as Icasaracht intended, and, in her own way, she too sees herself as entirely justified.
Possessing a Dead Body: Wylfdene's corpse, reanimated by the fused spirits of Wylfdene and the Uthgardt's ancient hero Jerrod. Actually Icasaracht.
The Reveal: The story of the expansion is all about finding a way to stave off war with the Uthgardt. That means discrediting Wylfene, whose claims of being the reincarnation of Jerrod himself seem suspect. Undead barbarian warlord? No, undead barbarian warlord's dead boy possessed by the spirit of an ancient undead dragon matron. The real Wylfene is truly dead, and Jerrod had nothing to do with it except as a way of manipulating the tribes into following Iscasaracht-as-Wylfdene.
Villain Has a Point: He's not wrong about what has been taken from the tribes already, and the possibility that the expansion of the outlanders will continue is real enough. He believes the only way to stop this from happening is to draw a line in the sand with the Ten Towns, however, and whether or not the player can convince him otherwise is an open question. Until it's revealed that "Wylfdene" is actually Icasaracht, manipulating the two sides into an open war that will bring ruin to them both.

Icasaracht

"My heart was shattered long ago, and all mercy bled from the wound."

A white dragon matron, said to be the last of her kind. At one point, dragonkind unquestionably ruled over Faerun, until humanoid settlers encroached upon their lands. Now, she seeks to reclaim her territory by any means possible.

Badass Boast: She has a lot of these. Like most dragons, Icasaracht has quite a high opinion of herself.
Icasaracht: [still in the body of Wylfdene] I held the north in my claws! When I spread my wings, I shadowed the face of the world! I WAS A GODDESS!
Best Served Cold: Engineers the circumstances of her revenge on the upstart humans such that it takes thousand of years to pay off. Her initial plot involves pitting the barbarians and settlers of the region against one another, posing as Wylfdene over the course of several months.
Big Bad: The Greater-Scope Villain of Heart of Winter, as opposed to Wylfdene's Hero Antagonist. Subverted in that the two are, not unlike Poquelin and Belhifet, actually one and the same.
Breath Weapon: Breathes ice, as a white dragon.
Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning of the base game in Easthaven, the sea spirit Elisia returns the shattered Blade of Aihonen to the dragonslayer's lookalike descendant Jhonen. The blade being removed from Icasaracht's heart, sunk to the depths of Lac Dinneshere, is what allows the dragon to be reborn.
Crazy-Prepared: She's a lich. A dragon lich, but still — this comes with the territory. Which means that before she was slain by Aihonen, she prepared special wards that would preserve her body and spirit, and sacrificed the spirits of her unborn children to ensure her resurrection.
Cycle of Revenge: A major theme of the expansion is how this corrupts and destroys from within. Justice is without purpose if you destroy yourself and lose everything you care about along the way. Having killed her own mate and sacrificed her brood to live long enough to take her revenge on the humans, Icasaracht literally has nothing else left.
Death by Woman Scorned: She slew her mate after even he came to believe that she had gone too far by turning their unborn hatchlings into phylacteries as part of her scheme for revenge against the humans of the Dale. She then blames the humans for turning him against her.
Dracolich: Less skeletal than most, because the particular means of resurrection involves infusing her eggs with necromantic power, sacrificing the souls of her own unborn hatchlings so that she can possess them and be reborn.
End of an Age: A key theme: she seeks vengeance for the end of the age of draconic dominance across Faerun. She shares this in common with Wylfdene, and for that matter the Ten-Towns, which, it is implied, will eventually lose their freedom and independence, the way of all frontiers.
Evil Sounds Deep: Especially for a female dragon. And especially when still in the body of Wylfdene, meaning her lines are being voiced in the low voice of Ron Perlman.
Greater-Scope Villain: An ancient dragon defeated by the controversial hero Aihonen — controversial because while he saved the settlers from Iscasaracht, he also fought against the Uthgardt. Much of the events of HOW stem from the battle between the two. Icasaracht graduates to Big Bad (or rather is revealed to have been the true Big Bad all along) when it turns out Iscasaracht is back and has been manipulating the Uthgardt into a war with the Ten-Towns which will inevitably destroy them both as part of her age-long revenge plot.
An Ice Person: She's a white dragon, meaning she breathes cold and her natural habit is a glacier cave. The eponymous Heart of Winter is hers.
The Man Behind the Man: Or rather, the dragon. It was her spirit possessing the body of Wylfdene in an attempt to lead the barbarian tribes to war against the Ten-Towns.
My Death Is Just the Beginning: Though her mortal body was slain by the hero Aihonen, she had turned her own eggs into necromantic repositories into which she would be reborn in the event of her death, thus ensuring she could continue to enact her revenge in secret.
Never My Fault: She killed her own mate, but she blames the humans for that, too. He turned on her after she extracted the souls of their own unhatched eggs as part of a ploy to ensure she would survive long enough to avenge the dragons on the humans of Icewind Dale.
Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons in the Realms come in all different colors, with the non-metallic, chromatic dragons being naturally evil by default. Icasaracht is a white dragon, known for being smaller and less intelligent than most other dragons — which she subverts — and for having a bony, skeletal-looking head shape, even when they're not undead.
Pride: Icasaracht's pride as a dragon is her defining trait. In fact, she's so proud that when the Seer shows her her reflection while she's still possessing Wylfdene's body, she's so disgusted by what she sees that she drops the ruse and kills her in a fit of rage.
Icasaracht: [still as Wylfdene] What have I done? This hideous form defiles the majesty of my being!
Revenge: Served very cold indeed.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Remains trapped at the bottom of Lac Dinneshere for as long as the shattered pieces of Aihonen's blade pierce her frozen heart. Guess what turns up in a minor sidequest in the very First Town of the base game?
Walking Spoiler: Naturally, since she's been dead and gone for over a thousand years. The increased hostilities between the barbarian tribes and the Ten-Towns is ultimately her doing.

The Luremaster

A strange ghost haunting the abandoned and cursed Castle Maluradek.

An Arm and a Leg: Maluradek had his hands cut off as a punishment for writing a poem which showcased Maluradek's cowardice.
The Bard: The Luremaster was once a bard.
From Nobody to Nightmare: He was originally just a random bard that followed Maluradek and the Watchknights of Helm so he could chronicle their battle against the dragon. However, when he saw the knights slay the dragon while Maluradek fled, the Luremaster decided to tell the story as it really happened and not do what Maluradek wanted by making him seem more heroic than he truly was. Maluradek had his hands cut off and had him thrown in the dungeon, but the Luremaster then began to sing his poem, so Maluradek murdered him. Then the Luremaster came back as a restless spirit which made it impossible to escape the tower, condemning everyone there. And once everyone in the castle was dead, he sent out Hobart to lure in more adventurers for the purpose of subjecting them to his dangerous trials so he could see if there were any true heroes among them.
Murder Into Malevolence: The Luremaster's persecution and murder by Maluradek resulted in him becoming a monstrous ghost which condemned the castle's inhabitants, as well as anyone else who visited it, to suffering and death.
Riddle Me This: Most of his challenges to the party are in the form of bizarre riddles.

Maiden Ilmadia

An elven maiden and one of Poquelin's top lieutenants.

Back from the Dead: After IWD, Ilmadia is resurrected by mother Egenia only to die months later. Some things were best left untouched.
Birth-Death Juxtaposition: In the interim between the IWD and IWD2, she gave birth to demonic twins. She was so horrified that she threw herself off a cliff.
But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Between the two games, Ilmadia was resurrected by mother Egenia and found herself mysteriously pregnant with twins. Being a virgin, she couldn't understand how that could have happen. Mother Egenia told her it must have been a miracle from Ilmater. The truth however, was far more sinister.
Driven to Suicide: Giving birth to half-demonic twins did no do any good to her mental state and she took her life away.
Mister Big: Ilmadia is in charge of leading fire salamanders and fire giants who tower her many times her height.
Never Found the Body: After her suicide in the sequel, they never found her corpse.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: She always believed herself to be a virgin until her resurrection. The realization that a devil lord raped her and she bore his children drove her to madness and death.
The Smurfette Principle: The only woman among Poquelin's six lieutenants.
Retcon: Ilmadia has stolen artifacts and magical tomes from the ruins of the Severed Hand. When confronting her, she says she doesn't give a rat's arse about her kind and their ways. In the sequel, she's revealed to have joined Poquelin out desperation to restore the Severed Hand, her ancestral home, to its former glory.
Unicorn: The unicorn is her badge's symbol. She exploits this trope for her own benefit.
Unicorns Are Sacred: As part of her master's plan, Ilmadia take advantage of her virginity to attract and corrupt unicorns.
Virgin Power: As part of Poqulein's master plan, she intents to corrupt unicorns and turn them into black unicorns. Being a elf and a virgin means she can easily lure unicorns who shunned away everyone else.
Wicked Cultured: She claims to be cultured compared to Poquelin's other generals and her fire-related army.

Limha

"Filthy lies from a filthy creature! Why, I have no idea of who this dirty child is or how it came to be here."

A witch who lives on the edge of the Fell Wood. Although she presents herself as a sweet, motherly woman, she's actually responsible for kidnapping the children from the Wandering Village, and must be killed in order to progress.

Blatant Lies: As demonstrated by the above quote, she's almost comically bad at lying once you've gotten her angry.
Faux Affably Evil: She'll sell the party mid-level spells and provide them a safe place to rest, and she seems to genuinely care about her "son" Agog, but once she's been exposed her true nature becomes all too evident. Also, not unlike a certain other Wicked Witch, she lures children in with promises of sweet treats before locking them up with the intent to use them for her own purposes.
Hair-Trigger Temper: She immediately flies off the handle if you accuse her of kidnapping, transitioning from calling the party "precious" to "worm" and "insect".
It's All About Me: Her justification for kidnapping children for their souls amounts to this. She believes that protecting the villagers from the barbarian tribes is sufficient payment for the children she takes, despite that fact that they obviously didn't give her permission to steal them. However, it's very clear that she ultimately only cares about her own prowess.
Lone Wolf Boss: One of only a few antagonists in Icewind Dale II completely unrelated to the Legion of the Chimera.
Number of the Beast: Every 66 years, she drains 6 children of their life essence to maintain her youth.
Vain Sorceress: Steals children and partially consumes their life essence in order to preserve her youth. And according to her, she's been doing this for centuries.
Villain Has a Point: Despite everything, she's probably right when she claims her prowess is the only reason the Black Raven barbarians haven't wiped out the villagers yet. The barbarians are very dangerous opponents, vastly outnumber the Wandering Village, and the woods — clogged with Limha's abominations — provide the only buffer between them.
Wicked Witch: Lives alone in a haunted forest? Check. Uses her magic to create hideous monsters? Also check. Steals children for her own purposes and turns them into animals? Triple check. It's a wonder the villagers didn't catch on sooner.

Aurilites

General tropes

Servants of the Cold Goddess, Auril the Frostmaiden. Minor antagonists in the first game and major ones in the second.

An Ice Person: Obviously. Even undercover, Lysan isn't all that subtle about her affinity for the cold.
Avenging the Villain: Lysan, who fell in the first game after trying to quench all warmth within the Vale of Shadows, has been martyred by her fellow Aurilites in the second.
Dragon Their Feet: Thvara, a cleric Cathin dispatched to rally the local barbarians to the cause — and to serve as sacrifices should the clerics run out of enemies to bleed — was still on this mission when the glacier fell and is encountered only after the high priestesses are dead.
Endless Winter: Their goddess's goal, and thus their own.
Enemy Mine: They have little stake in the Legion's politics, but are happy to take them as allies, fulfilling their part of a mutually beneficial pact that will see them armed with Kuldahar's Heartstone Gem.
Human Sacrifice: The source of their ice temple's perpetual reformation, carried out by Lysara, who's a bit disquieted at (what she presumes to be) Auril's bloodlust.
Ice Palace: Technically a temple, but they've constructed an impressive one in the second game, and the triplets lord over it like royalty.
Not Me This Time: When confronted about the wintry storm that crashed Oswald's airship, Lysara insists it was neither her nor her sisters' doing, but a congregation of their Aurilite brothers who were simply practising a ritual. She lightly mocks Oswald for lacking the competence to navigate said storm and you're given the option to spare the repentant men responsible.
Religion of Evil: Auril is a cruel goddess and her minions perform her work with ruthless zeal.

Lysan

An Aurilite priestess doing her goddess' good work in the region of Kuldahar.

Badass Cape: Owner of the Mantle of the Coming Storm, a beautiful and powerful cloak of the Aurilite faith. Unusually, you don't loot it from her corpse, but claim it along with her other possessions from her former employer back at Kuldahar, either through diplomacy or blackmail.
The Chosen One: Claims that Auril herself blessed and empowered the curse she cast upon the Vale of Shadows, and concluded that this confirmed her as the goddess' chosen. The PC can call her delusional, but to her credit, another Aurilite called Kontik shows up near the game's end to kill you for slaying "Auril's chosen."
Early-Bird Cameo: Makes her first appearance in the guise of an unassuming barmaid in Kuldahar, but this encounter is optional and easily missable. She's actually surprised if you expose her with its remembrance, so brief was your acquaintance.
Foreshadowing: If you meet her in Kuldahar's Root Cellar Tavern and pick her mind about the town, she'll idly betray her discomfort with its warmth-giving tree. Whitcomb the barman will also lament that attractive as she is, Lysan has too much of "winter's chill" in her for his liking.
Historical Hero Upgrade: The triplets believe their beloved Lysan was unjustly murdered for her faith. While it was the party who initiated battle with her, it was to prevent her unleashing an Endless Winter upon Kuldahar, not religious persecution.
No Sympathy: For Kresselack, whom her scheme will condemn to an eternity in the cold dark.
Starter Villain: Of the first game, after the Bait-and-Switch with Kresselack.
Unwitting Pawn: She's in alliance with Yxunomei's servitors, who also seek Kuldahar's downfall, but the Talonite necromancer Presio dismisses Lysan as a gulled twit who'd never have allied with them were she aware of their true plot: to restore the dale to a tropical paradise at primal odds with Auril's desired Endless Winter.

Oria, Cathin, and Lysara

Conjoined triplets who serve the Frostmaiden as high priestesses. They've joined the Legion of the Chimera in alliance and overseen the magical construction of a majestic ice temple to buffer the Western Pass.

Alas, Poor Villain: Lysara gives a brief, sad soliloquy when she's brought to death's door, befitting her status as the Token Good Teammate.
A Mother to Her Men: Cathin, the most overtly martial sister, will call for a timeout when encountered and insist that your quarrel is with her, not her clerics.
Climax Boss: Lysara, oddly enough, despite likely being the first high priestess you'll encounter. Unlike her sisters, she's fully voiced, engages you with an ice golem in addition to her Aurilite cohort, and gets her own battle theme. Oria's is the trickier fight, but she's fought with less fanfare.
Damager, Healer, Tank: They all wield a measure of ice magic, and are high priestesses of Auril besides, but Oria is a mage, Lysara is an offensive cleric, and Lady of War Cathin leans more into the fighter fantasy.
Kneel Before Zod: Lysara demands the player kneel before her (although she'll think less of you if you actually do it), and Cathin permits you to address her as your "queen."
Start of Darkness: Lysara is a fundamentally kind person, and Nickademus claims Oria was once an innocent seduced by Auril's power, but Lysan's death marked this for all three sisters.
Token Good Teammate: Lysara, the least maniacal sister, through whom most of the temple's workings and dealings are gleaned. Your character can even voice their observation that a kind person lurks under the surface, which she'll halfway concede, but your appeals to her better nature fail to thaw her icy heart.
Twin Telepathy: Triplet Telepathy, but still. Each of the sisters hears the others' voices in her head and will know if any have been killed.

The Yuan-ti

General tropes

A cruel and merciless race of Snake People in service to Sseth, the Sibilant Death. Entrenched in the mountain complex of Dragon's Eye, they seek the downfall of Kuldahar.

Always Chaotic Evil: They're notable in that across both games, the yuan-ti don't produce so much as a Token Good Teammate. High Sorceress Izbelah probably comes the closest, for all Violence is the Only Option if you try to reason with her, and only then because she's busy dealing with an Evil Versus Oblivion subplot.
Boss in Mook's Clothing: Inverted with the oft-mentioned Cedra, who brokered the yuan-ti's alliance with the Legion of the Chimera in II, but who's not much more remarkable than any other yuan-ti sorceress in combat and gets zero dialogue. Madae speaks on her behalf during her one in-person appearance and she doesn't outlive the subsequent battle.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Masters of cruel poisons and purveyors of all manner of torture devices, including the classic racks and iron maidens.
Create Your Own Villain: The yuan-ti were always a hostile element, but the monsters at the top of the pyramid swelled their ranks with exiles from Kuldahar whose crimes were being or birthing yuan-ti children by rape. Which was admittedly the least courtesy owed, what with "seeding" Kuldahar's captured villagers in the first place.
Foil: To the Aurilites, especially in the second game. They're nominal allies through their alliance with the Legion of the Chimera, but they thrive in tropical climes the Icedawn would love nothing more than to freeze.
Freudian Excuse: The new generation of yuan-ti halfbloods, at least, have good reason to resent Kuldahar, whose frenzied menfolk tried to kill them and their mothers when what they were became apparent.
Human Sacrifice: Big fans of this, and they take more pleasure in it than their Aurilite counterparts.
Religion of Evil: Adherents of Sseth, a Chaotic Evil deity personified as a great winged serpent.
Snake People: Well, they are. Amusingly, Sseth's "princess," despite not being yuan-ti herself, will call you an "ignorant pig" if you actually use this appellation in conversation with her.
Sssssnake Talk: Several have the tic, chiefly the abominations at the top of their hierarchy.
Villainous Valor: The yuan-ti pureblood High Commander Grishum, who welcomes a departure from the deceptive tactics of Yxunomei's reign in favour of worthy battles with defiant enemies.

Thorasskus

"When all is sssaid and done, it alwaysss comesss down to thisss, isss it not ssso... ? Good against evil - order against chaosss - fire against ice - life against death - flesh against sssteel."

The yuan-ti high priest in Icewind Dale II, encountered in the form of an odd little boy.

Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Yxunomei, the first game's yuan-ti leader. He takes the guise of an odd little boy instead of an odd little girl, is a yuan-ti priest rather than a demon anointed yuan-ti royalty, and masquerades as a child not to distress his enemies but to hide his identity.
Creepy Child: His mortal disguise. Unlike Yxunomei, who exploited this trope for the psychological effect but otherwise made no effort to hide her true nature, Thorasskus actually tries to pass himself off as a lost little boy.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Ambiguously. He never actually gives his name in dialogue, but his child disguise's model still wears by it (rather than Yxunomei's "Odd Little Girl" nameplate) and the player will leave their first conversation having gleaned it nonetheless.
The Magnificent: Nheero can learn that he's known as "One-Of-Many," and can apparently only be seen by his fellow yuan-ti, and only after a ritual cleansing beneath "Sseth's eye" at that. It's unclear whether that last part is a sham, but it is required to pass beneath an enchanted archway called Sseth's Eye to meet him.
Saying Too Much: Makes the rookie error of not bothering to contrive an alias; Nheero, if pointed in the direction of the library, can figure out his identity with only the clue of his (very conspicuous) name. He even identifies his fake mother by the name of his high sorceress, which the player can point out to poke another hole in his deception.
Obviously Evil: He's first encountered under inexplicable attack by a raid of efreeti in a secret, lavish chamber of Dragon's Eye, vacillates between dissonant perkiness and perfunctory distress, and bears a peculiar name for a human child.
Paper-Thin Disguise: Somehow comes off as an even less convincing child than Yxunomei, and she wasn't even trying.
Villain Respect: Concedes that your speaking character is a Worthy Opponent for their wisdom and hopes to absorb that quality when he eats you.

The Legion of the Chimera

Guthma

A fearsome bugbear chieftain overseeing the orc and goblin horde's attack on Targos.

The Brute: Far from stupid, but really only in it for the carnage and glory.
Glory Hound: Exceptionally proud of his horde and unwilling to cede any power to Sherincal.
The Starscream: Bristles at Sherincal micromanaging his army and plots to send her and her Legion Targos's way after its fall.
Starter Villain: A beefy pawn with a wicked morning star, but a pawn nonetheless.

Sherincal

"To the shores of war, then, shall we travel, with valor as our greatest guide."

A half-dragon warrior commanding the Legion of the Chimera's forces on the western front.

Bad Boss: Has very little tolerance for failure, insulting her underling Guthma for his own at some length, and kills an Andoran druid just to punish her mate for deviating from a command.
BFS: Wields Winged Blight, a massive and repulsive two-handed sword, reinforced with human bones and wrapped in tanned human flesh.
The Dragon: Half of one, literally and figuratively. She's the half-dragon general of the Legion's western armies and, depending on how the ice temple is approached, can be fought as a Disc-One Final Boss.
Fair-Play Villain: Ruthless as she is, she does possess a sense of honor, at least insofar as battlefield etiquette is concerned. If told about Captain Yurst's fate, falling from the clutches of her soarsmen to bleed and freeze to death on the icy hills below, she'll the lament the injustice of a noble foe meeting such an end.
Villainous Valor: She actually holds to the concept of valor as one of her guiding tenets.
You Are What You Hate: Despises her human blood and has a cabal of necromancers on hand to try and purge it. For contrast, she lauds her dragon heritage, but laments how little she's gained from it.

Saablic Tan

A Red Wizard of Thay, he was one of Poquelin's lieutenants, until Malavon betrayed him and turned him into an umber hulk.

Dramatic Irony: The adventuring party in the first game didn't stick a sword in Tan's back to take his badge because Malavon had betrayed him, turned him into an umber hulk, and gave his badge to his neo-orogs. By betraying him, Malavon inadvertently saved Tan's life.
Face–Heel Turn: He wasn't really a "face" in the first game, but he was a neutral character who gave your party information and provided a quest or two. In the sequel he's human again and allied with the Legion of the Chimera.
Hulk Speak: He talks in short, inarticulate sentences. Justified by his transformation into a umber hulk, which has caused his mental faculties to decline to the point that talking at all is difficult.
The Man Behind the Monsters: In the first game he created neo-orogs for Poquelin, and in the second game creates driders for the Legion of the Chimera.
Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: He wants you to kill the other lieutenants as punishment for his state.
Small Role, Big Impact: In the second game, he's killed outside the Severed Hand, but his influence is felt throughout the final chapter and the player gets some extensive interactions with his conclave.

Isair and Madae

"At this point, I think we're supposed to say something to the effect of... 'You're too late to stop us!' Isn't that the way it works in the storybooks, sister?"
"Come now, Isair. You know I don't like to read."

Voiced By: Peter Stormare (Isair), Mari Weiss (Madae)

A pair of half-fiend 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.

Affably Evil: Isair is still going to kill you, but that's no reason you can't exchange some pleasant banter first, is it? Madae finally decides she's had enough of this in the final battle.
All of the Other Reindeer: More or less their entire lives, thanks to their half-fiendish heritage, has been spent rejected and ostracized — first by humans, then by devils.
Big Bad Duumvirate: As the leaders of the Legion of the Chimera in Icewind Dale II, you spend most of the game fighting through their minions on your way to the final confrontation with the twins. Madae speaks less than her brother, but while Isair sometimes makes decisions for both of them, he never acts without asking Madae's opinion. This constant back-and-forth makes up the majority of their dialogue.
Big Red Devil: Both of them have the look, with crimson skin, horns, tails, and wings, as the half-fiend children of Belhifet.
Call-Back: 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.
Child by Rape: Their 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 never knew Poquelin's true identity. She threw herself off a cliff upon seeing the twins for the first time.
Create Your Own Villain: On two counts. The people of Kuldahar refused to see them as anything other than fiends, and mistook the (natural) death of their foster mother for murder at the twins' hands; and the Ten-Towns' refusal to recognize the legitimacy of their nation is what spurred them to war.
Iselore: 'They are forged from evil, and nothing but evil can come from them!' I remember telling her that. Did we make it so? I cannot help but wonder now. Egenia believed with all her heart that the cambions could be good and virtuous creatures.
Creepy Twins: As twin Big Red Devils at the head of an army of hybrid beings.
Dead Guy Junior: Iselore named them after his parents on Egenia's request, which he would later come to regret.
Deadpan Snarker: Constantly. They treat the player party as one big joke.
Madae: Isair, I'm getting tired of these grandstanding mercenaries.
Isair: Really? That's fascinating, because I was just thinking of killing them. Would that be alright with you, sister?
Madae: It sounds perfect to me, brother. Farewell, mercenaries.
The Dividual: Fraternal twins with contrasting personalities, yet they're rarely seen apart and are almost always mentioned in the same breath.
Disappeared Dad: They were only born after Belhifet's defeat and subsequent banishment back to the Hells. When they eventually catch up with him again in the Hells, he treats them as no better than any other Blood War mercenaries, disposable pawns to be manipulated and discarded.
Driven to Villainy: Facing constant rejection at every turn, Isair and Madae are determined to carve out a place for other half-breed outcasts like themselves, whatever the cost. See Trauma Conga Line.
Dual Boss: You fight both of them at the same time, along with their flunkies.
Even Evil Has Standards: Before the Final Battle, Isair asks your speaking character their motive. If you choose gold or war, he'll profess to be Disappointed by the Motive.
Isair: So, you just wander from battlefield to battlefield, profiting from conflict? While my sister and I do not profess to be saintly, our war is fought for a cause.
Evil Orphan: Rejected by everyone but Mother Egenia, after she died they were chased out of Kuldahar, and began a downward spiral after that.
Faux Affably Evil: Madae, who's only really playing nice to indulge her brother for as long as her patience holds out.
Full-Circle Revolution: Madae, as usual, makes no bones about it, saying that all the "dispossessed freaks" of the Legion are simply going to enslave those who previously oppressed them in revenge for their previous suffering.
Half-Human Hybrid: Cambions, the children of a fiend and a mortal, in this case half elf, half devil. They're the children of Maiden Ilmadia, one of Poquelin's minions from the first game... and Belhifet himself.
Happily Adopted: Raised with love by the Ilmatari priestess Mother Egenia until her death, at which point the villagers of Kuldahar assumed they murdered her. The twins did not take this well.
Hired Guns: First as catspaws of Luskan's Hosttower of the Arcane, then as mercenaries in the Blood War, the neverending interdimensional war between demons and devils.
Horned Humanoid: Another gift from their fiendish sire Belhifet.
Might Makes Right:
Madae: The reality of this world is that strength rules. Those who aren't willing to push are simply going to get run over.
Missing Mom: Ilmadia threw herself off a cliff when she saw the evidence of her children's fiendish heritage. They were fostered by Mother Egenia, a priestess of Ilmater, until her death.
Not What It Looks Like: When villagers of Kuldahar came upon the twins burying Egenia, they immediately leapt to the conclusion that the twins had killed her. The villagers attacked, but were no match for the two cambions. This led to the twins fleeing the town for fear of further reprisals.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Madae (red) is quicker to anger and often responds with threats and violence, while Isair (blue) is more level-headed and calculating, preferring to hold conversations with the player before attacking.
Religion of Evil: Madae is a cleric of Iyachtu Xvim, the half-demon son of the dead god (at the time) Bane and the then-incumbent (again, at the time) god of tyranny, hatred, and fear in the Realms. The twins' mother Ilmadia was also a priestess of Xvim.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Isair is clever, cool-headed, learned, creative in his villainy, and likes using five dollar words. Madae is bloodthirsty, quick to anger, dislikes reading, and solves most of her problems with murder. Interestingly, Lysara considers Madae to be the better half of the Legion of the Chimera's leadership.
Super Breeding Program: One of the more unfortunate lessons to learn from the yuan-ti. The twins intend to bring the Dale under their control by, among other things, forcibly breeding their prisoners with their various monstrous allies.
Then Let Me Be Evil: 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... or possibly they were just two frightened kids who were attacked without cause, and fled in fear for their lives.
Trauma Conga Line: Starting from before they were even born. Their father was baatezu general who sought to conquer the Prime and was killed before they were born, their mother one of his lieutenants who killed herself when the moment she saw her children, Archdruid Iselore couldn't bring himself to kill them but bore them no love, and when their guardian, the Ilmatari priestess Mother Egenia, died, they were driven from their hometown of Kuldahar as their infernal instincts began to surface, eventually finding their way to the streets of Wretched Hive of Luskan. When they finally found a way to cross planes to find their father on a battlefield in the Abyss, they found that their half-mortal heritage meant they were no more accepted among devils than anywhere else — so they returned to Icewind Dale, ventured to the ruined citadel and attempted to make it a haven for half-breeds like themselves. They attempted to open negotiations with nearby Bryn Shander, received "gifts" laced with holy water, and so turned their original plans for settlement into a campaign of conquest. Which brings us to the beginning of the second game.
Utopia Justifies the Means: Equality for all... through open war and a Super Breeding Program.
Isair: Even you must agree that such a true and noble goal surely justifies whatever means necessary to bring it about — and with that being said, it's time for your meddling to end.
Unexplained Accent: Peter Stormare uses his distinctive, gravelly-voiced natural Swedish accent for Isair, for which he has been cast as all manner of vaguely European characters across multiple works. Madae doesn't share the accent. Neither do any of the other Kuldahar voice actors. As long as it sounds cool, of course, nobody really cares what accent the actors have in any of the Infinity Engine games.
Villain Has a Point: Discrimination and prejudice against half-breed races and the like is very prominent in the Forgotten Realms setting, and it was only due to how the Ten-Towns received their attempts at diplomacy that the twins responded with force.
Villain Teleportation: Their preferred method of travel. They even port out of the Final Battle once the tide turns against them to recuperate at their radiant pool.
Winged Humanoid: Their wings appear prehensile, like giant clawed hands.

Historical figures

The Barbed Kingdom & the Lost Followers

From the moment Ehld left the throne room in search of the Lost Followers, the weeping of the queen ended, and she never wept again.

Once known as the Silver Court, the Barbed Kingdom was profaned and annihilated by the Lost Followers, six servitors of Bane as mighty as they were depraved. The six, though empowered at the height of their tyrannical god's influence on Faerûn, were cast down in battle by an unlikely opponent: the fallen kingdom's nearly eighty-year-old duke, Kholsa Ehld, fulfilling a promise made to the atrocity's Sole Survivor: the Barbed Kingdom's five-year-old queen, mockingly spared. The six villains' individual downfalls are chronicled in the pommel-turned-amulet of his holy avenger, Cera Sumat ("Six, now Silenced"), and the tale's remainder is related in the blade's in-game blurb.

A Child Shall Lead Them: The Barbed Kingdom's princess became queen upon the death of her father — and everyone else in the kingdom — at age five.
And I Must Scream: The Lost Followers' fates as of the current era, locked in "screaming prisons" upon the Ethereal Plane. Hierpherus, the Baneite priest tasked with freeing them, frets that they'll be as likely to attack him as their enemies if unleashed in their frenzy.
All There in the Manual: For some of the series' most memorable lore, its history is confined entirely to item blurbs and its relevance to the plot is minimal.
Blood Knight: The Lost Followers "revelled in strife and tyranny; and for all the blood they shed, it was never enough."
Body Horror: Atalaclys the Lost, beset by a "rotting disease," was hunted to the great sands of Anarouch. After days of battle, Atalaclys's rotted throat cracked in the desert heat and left him unable to cast a getaway spell.
Cool Old Guy: Kholsa Ehld, who undertook his plane-spanning quest of six years pushing 80, outlived the Weeping Queen and died in his bed at 107.
Cruel Mercy: The Barbed Kingdom had exactly one survivor: its five-year-old princess, spared in an act of malice. The Lost Followers cast wards to confine her to her ruined kingdom and abandoned her there to starve.
Desecrating the Dead: The Silver Court's beheaded king was raised into undeath by his murderers and sent out to butcher his people.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Lost Followers were a diverse coterie of villains: male and female, vampire and barbarian, dwarf and half-storm giant, half-demon...
Gameplay and Story Integration: Reading the Lost Followers' backstories is the key to their defeat, as their weaknesses are revealed therein.
Guile Hero: Kholsa prevailed over the Lost Followers as much due to his cunning as his might.
Hero of Another Story: Lampshaded in Cera Sumat's item summary.
But the story of Ehld and Sumat were a story for another time, and of the adventures of another hero. This is now your time, and your epic. If your band counts a paladin among its number, then this ancient blade is yours to wield against the forces of evil... and perhaps, if your heart is true, save a land from destruction once again.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: Inhein-Who-Was-Taken recklessly raised the dead of the Battle of the Bones in her battle against Kholsa, who took shelter in the aura of his holy avenger. The undead, who couldn't touch him, turned their wrath on their summoner instead. Broken Khree and Veddion Kairne also ran afoul of this trope; Kholsa goaded the former into collapsing his own temple, which crushed him, and Kairne collapsed into the very cairn he tried to bury Kholsa beneath.
Humble Hero: The epitaph of Duke Kholsa Ehld, a legendary warrior and nobleman whose crowning victories were nearly Beyond the Impossible, instead describes "Old Kholsa" as "traveller and farmer." It's probable that "Old Kholsa" never revealed his true identity after retiring north.
Infinity +1 Sword: Cera Sumat, Holy Avenger, Kholsa Ehld's blade and probably the best sword in the game. Better hope you've got a paladin in the party who can wield it, though.
Last-Second Chance: Kholsa offered each of them the chance to return to the Barbed Kingdom with him to answer for their crimes; none took it. In later life, he lamented his inability to redeem them.
No-Nonsense Nemesis: Kholsa and Broken Khree initiated their battle without a word exchanged, as Ehld was aware that his foe was Made of Iron.
Our Vampires Are Different: Inhein-Who-Was-Taken, a Necromancer and Evil Sorceress Kholsa found sleeping beneath the Battle of the Bones. The sun burned what was left of her at daybreak.
The Paladin: Duke Kholsa Ehld, of course.
The Redeemer: Kholsa's vow wasn't necessarily to kill the Lost Followers, but to see them answer for their crimes. Unfortunately, Violence is the Only Option when a redeemer's foes are Beyond Redemption.
Redemption Rejection: All six Lost Followers. Ehld hoped to return them to the Barbed Kingdom to face judgement, but his offer was invariably met with scoffing.
Set the World on Fire: What befell the Barbed Kingdom and its surrounding lands; all was reduced to a scorched, barren wasteland.
Showdown at High Noon: Ehld's battle with Atalaclys the Lost is framed like this, with the pair duelling within the "sandy square of a dead town."
The Smurfette Principle: The vampire Inhein-Who-Was-Taken is the only lady Lost Follower. She's incidentally the only one Ehld didn't fell personally, or even cross blades with, although it was more due to pragmatism than chivalry: she taunted him to clash with her Blade Barrier, which he knew would be a bad idea, so he took refuge from her dark magics in the sanctuary of his holy avenger; Inhein's undead minions tore her apart instead when they couldn't pierce Kholsa's defences.
Villain Respect: The duregar servants of the defeated Kaervas Death's Head permitted Kholsa to depart their subterranean empire unmolested. Kaervas himself is implied to have felt this.
While Rome Burns: Invoked in the imagery of the Lost Followers' decadent feast while the Silver Court burned and its people screamed their dying breaths.
Worthy Opponent: The black rock king Kaervas Death's Head, amused by Kholsa's audacity, granted him an audience, accepted his challenge, and found their strength matched.

Characters / Icewind Dale

Allies

Hrothgar

Battlelord Everard

Archdruid Arundel

Oswald Fiddlebender

Jermsy

Larrel

Archdruid Iselore

Neutral characters

Orrick the Gray

Kresselack the Black Wolf

The Gloomfrost Seer

Foes

Yxunomei

Revered Brother Poquelin

Belhifet

Wylfdene

Icasaracht

The Luremaster

Maiden Ilmadia

Limha

Aurilites

Lysan

Oria, Cathin, and Lysara

The Yuan-ti

Thorasskus

The Legion of the Chimera

Guthma

Sherincal

Isair and Madae

Historical figures

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Index

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Characters / Icewind Dale

Edit Locked

Allies

Hrothgar

Battlelord Everard

Archdruid Arundel

Oswald Fiddlebender

Jermsy

Larrel

Archdruid Iselore

Neutral characters

Orrick the Gray

Kresselack the Black Wolf

The Gloomfrost Seer

Foes

Yxunomei

Revered Brother Poquelin

Belhifet

Wylfdene

Icasaracht

The Luremaster

Maiden Ilmadia

Limha

Aurilites

Lysan

Oria, Cathin, and Lysara

The Yuan-ti

Thorasskus

The Legion of the Chimera

Guthma

Sherincal

Isair and Madae

Historical figures

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Index

Next