App for Es Ware Einmal
Feb. 10th, 2012 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forgloryandpower[Player]
Name/Handle: Manda
Age: Over 21, younger than 1 million
AIM/YIM/MSN/Plurk/Etc: AIM: use the weave
Email: usetheweave@aim.com
Current Characters: N/A
[Character]
Character Name: Pharaun Mizzrym
Source: Forgotten Realms
Personality: Above all things is precisely where Pharaun considers himself. Pharaun is the sort of fellow who knows he's better than not only his companions, but everybody else ever. His acquaintances consistently describe him as being a “self-possessed mage of no small skill”. He's earned his arrogance, at least in his own mind. Born of incredible wit, talent, and with a fantastic sense of humor, Pharaun is most definitely a rarity among the drow (most of whom are actually said to be pretty boring in Pharaun's opinion). He enjoys cracking jokes, but mostly because he enjoys his own wit, and is rather exasperated at how his fellow drow react to him. The males usually just give him blank looks (or in Gromph's case, really, really hate him), and the females either want to fuck him into silence or kill him, or some rather twisted combination of the two. He’s often regarded as being spoiled, and places quite a bit of importance in his personal appearance. Male drow often act a bit like the human females on the surface of their world when it comes to their appearance, and wizards are more often the rule than the exception. Pharaun wears expensive but extremely well-warded clothing that grant him many bonuses and protections, and is quite particular about his hair, which he styles elegantly (think hair styles for a lady going to prom or her wedding or a fancy party). He even carries a mirror that he can use to check his personal appearance.
Aside from his extreme egotism, Pharaun is very ambitious like most drow (he is vying for Gromph's position as the (head) Master of Sorcere and the Archmage of the City), and won't hesitate to sacrifice others for personal gain, or make deals with those of lower-class than himself, such as whores. He's also condescending, even toward those of higher social rank than himself, and delights in subtly insulting and giving back-handed compliments to those he considers inferior (read: EVERYONE). When it comes to relations with the lesser races (all non-drow races), Pharaun’s the sort of drow that believes they should be used to their fullest extent (even sex) but otherwise doesn’t even notice them, just like all drow of his stature. Self-preservation is also a rather important part of Pharaun's personality. He even left behind his very best friend to escape a situation, using the excuse of, "I thought you could handle them," when Ryld confronted him about it.
Despite his considerable flaws, Pharaun is also smart as a whip, patient and disciplined to a point (one would have to be, to be a wizard), and incredibly charismatic. Being a wizard, he is incredibly secretive of his magic and his spells and will go to great lengths to guard them and gain more secrets, as evidenced by his partially-failed summoning of the demon Sarthos. He’s a very hard-working lad when he needs to be, just as capable of being deadly serious as cracking a joke. Rising in Sorcere’s ranks is no easy task, and neither is surviving the intense training all drow who go to the Academy are subjected to. Students are frequently abused in order to teach them concentration. The Masters of Sorcere will force students to cast spells under the worst of conditions (such as while burning their naked skin), and punishments are often creative and brutal. His school experiences – his whole life, really – has hardened him. Torture doesn’t really bother him even if he’s the on the receiving end, and he thinks nothing of hurting others if it’s the practical way to go. Gore and ugliness don’t bother him in the slightest. He may look soft and spoiled, but Pharaun hardly ever lets on to his true abilities or nature.
His travels and missions to the surface have left him with a decent understanding of how to speak to and interact with humans… but also how to ruin their civilizations. Pharaun has had to burn an entire town before, and he felt nothing at the loss of life. He’s learned that humans like sympathy and a listening ear, and he’s a quick study.
History/Pull Point: I’m pulling him from the end of Condemnation, after which he’s just returned from watching his goddess’s son battling her guardian.
WARNING: THIS PORTION OF THE APP MENTIONS RAPE, GANG RAPE, AND OTHER UGLY THINGS. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERY, YOU NEED TO GTFO THIS APP.
Pharaun Mizzrym was born to Matron Mother Miz'ri of House Mizzrym, Fifth House of Menzoberranzan. He is one of the younger members of his house. House Mizzrym is well-renowned for producing high quality magic users, and he is no exception to the rule! At the age of 25 Pharaun took his place at Sorcere, the school of Tier Breche (the academy all young drow nobles must attend) for wizards in Menzoberranzan. There he studied for thirty years. It is likely that he was sent on patrol groups with fighters and clerics after he graduated to get more practice and experience.
Upon returning home from Tier Breche, Pharaun was given the duty of monitoring House Mizzrym's highly illegal trade with the deep gnomes. He joined the games of intrigue and betrayal that are common among all drow, but especially amongst the members of the noble houses. Two of his elder sisters were twins, Sabal and Greyanna, and the two of them at one time had a terrible rivalry. Greyanna had managed to defeat her sister through rumor spreading and sabotaging Sabal's every effort to climb higher in rank. Pharaun saw this, evaluated the situation, and decided it would be an amusing challenge to throw his lot in with Sabal and help her climb to a higher rank.
He succeeded brilliantly, and the two of them were close; they were each other's best and most valuable allies. At one point in time, somebody (Pharaun has suspected Greyanna for years), accused him of blasphemy. In his younger days Pharaun was quite the scapegrace. Triel Baenre (Matron Mistress of the Academy back then) came with a group of priestesses to arrest him. They took him to the dungeons of House Baenre and tortured him for in an attempt to draw out a confession, using wizards to probe his mind. The wizards were not able to get through the young mage's mental defenses and the results of his torture were inconclusive since he would not blurt out guilt just to make it stop. Unfortunately for Pharaun, the priestesses decided to appeal to a higher power. They took him to the chapel, drugged him so he would not resist their attentions, and tied him to the altar. After performing a ritual in which they danced, mutilated themselves, and used Pharaun's poor body "with considerable brutality" he found himself in Lloth's domain. The Goddess took him apart body and mind piece by piece (while he was fully conscious of the pain and horror, then put him back together and sent him back to the altar (a sign that she found him acceptable).
It took Pharaun several tendays to recover from the following insanity. He became a raving, delusional lunatic, and his family was contemplating killing him. Sabal stayed by his side while he was strapped to his bed and kept him safe from the rest of House Mizzrym until her younger brother recovered.
Some time after that, Pharaun had gone out drinking. Greyanna used the opportunity to kill the weakening Sabal and then tried to use her corpse to entice Pharaun to a sexual interlude before she killed him (even though Pharaun really wasn't into incest). Pharaun spotted the trap a moment too late and was attacked by Greyanna's men. He fled, narrowly escaping from House Mizzrym and made his way up to Tier Breche where he begged Archmage Gromph Baenre for a place in Sorcere. Gromph took him in, and he was beyond Greyanna's reach.
While he was at Sorcere, Pharaun seems to have made a few friends. While he endlessly frustrates Gromph (even though Gromph sees his usefully and admits at one point that he would have prefered to have Pharaun close by for a task he was doing), Pharaun's good sense of humor and generally amiable personality have helped him make a few friends and likely helped him to murder more than one of those people and plunder their spellbooks. During this time, Pharaun befriended a Master of Melee-Magthere (the school of fighters), Ryld Argith. For the first three years of their friendship, Ryld kept a dagger on him enchanted for killing mages, which Pharaun knew about. The two became very good friends, at least as much as drow can be, and spent a good deal of time together. Pharaun and Ryld knew each other very well and had many fun adventures together, even leading patrol groups of students in the tunnels outside Menzoberranzan together.
Recently, Pharaun had an incident at Sorcere where he tried to summon the demon Sarthos in order to learn more magic-related secrets. The purpose of learning these secrets was so that he could move from one of the thirty best wizards in the city to one of the top five--perhaps even to be greater than Gromph himself. He used a circle of seven apprentices to summon the demon, and they were all killed within seconds. However, when it failed, Gromph forbade Pharaun from doing any more summonings on "pain of a particularly grotesque death" and assigned him to a mission. If Pharaun could successfully find out where all of the males were disappearing to (his task), Gromph would forgive him (at least a bit) and let him resume his teaching duties. Maybe. The real purpose of sending off was to be a decoy so Gromph could continue to investigate without being spied on by the council.
Pharaun set off to try to find the missing males with his "life-long companion" Ryld. They discovered that the vanishing drow males were being recruited to an organization led by an illithilich--an undead illithid. Along the way, he happened to figure out that Lloth was no longer answering the prayers of her priestesses.
Since they were able to find and expose the rebel group (during which time Pharaun abandoned Ryld to his death allegedly because he thought Ryld would be fine on his own), Pharaun and Ryld were chosen to be members of an expedition led by Quenthel Baenre whose purpose was to discover the cause of Lloth's Silence and obtain some merchandise co-owned by House Baenre and House Melarn in Ched Nasad. The members of the party were Pharaun Mizzrym, Ryld Argith, Faeryl Zauvirr, Valas Hune, Quenthel Baenre, and her really freakishly creepy nephew Jeggred who is a draegloth.
Pharaun has a volatile relationship with Quenthel because he simply cannot respect her. She is brash, stubborn, stupid, and unreasonable, and nearly leads the party to death and to dead ends on more than one occasion, despite the alternate solutions and advice given to her by the males of the party--namely Pharaun. They drive each other mad; Pharaun is too independent to bow to a female, and she is too used to getting her way to know how to deal with it. He is disrespectful of her until she gets to the point of wanting to kill him, and his magical abilities are typically the only thing that stops her from killing him as they are desperately needed. As he is the only mage in the small expedition, that left Pharaun with the most power, and the group depends on him for survival, with many members wondering who is really in charge.
Throughout the journey to Ched Nasad, Pharaun went out of his way to antagonize Quenthel and took every opportunity to shove in her face that his magic still worked while hers did not. In a way it served to reinforce his usefulness, but it also did a lot of damage to any potential working relationship they could have ever had upon returning home. Quenthel will listen to his advice, however, which is a little odd for a such a brash priestess. Pharaun persuades her that they should enter the city incognito and try not to draw too much attention to themselves so that they can investigate without the Matron Mothers of that city hovering over them and limiting their information.
Upon arriving in the City of Shimmering Webs, the party finds it to be utter chaos. They are nearly killed by masses of lesser beings upon entering and find safely only when they find an inn at which they can lay low. With the city in turmoil, it's only a matter of time before the party gets caught up in the press of events. Quenthel, Faeryl, and Jeggred go to retrieve the merchandise from the Black Claw storehouse and are captured, lured into a trap by Faeryl and her family. Later on that day, Pharaun, Ryld, and Valas are brought to House Melarn where Quenthel is being held to be executed. They resist, of course, and escape. In the process they meet Halisstra Melarn and Danifae Yauntyrr. Halisstra was a daughter of House Melarn which was also implicated in Quenthel's treachery. The two females guide the males down to where Quenthel and Jeggred are imprisoned and free them (pausing long enough for Jeggred to eat Faeryl alive). As House Melarn is about to be destroyed and fall to the cavern floor far below, the drow escape and narrowly make it out of the city as the rest of Ched Nasad suffers the same fate.
After Ched Nasad was destroyed, the group escaped to the surface. They ended up in a large desert. Pharaun used a spell to allow them to shadow walk to the Underdark where they attempted to find a priest of Vhaeraun (a God who is Lloth's son) in hope that he could tell them what's happened to Lloth. To make a long story short, they end up back on the surface looking for these followers, and manage to convince Valas's friend Tzirik to take them to the Demonweb Pitts in the Abyss so that Quenthel, Halisstra, and Danifae can try to commune with Lloth. However, they are tricked. Tzirik betrays them by summoning his own god, Vhaeraun, who tries to kill Lloth (who is non-responsive). Quenthel tries to order them all to fight the god, but Pharaun decides to save them instead. He instead uses magic to send a message to Jeggred, telling him to kill Tzirik's body. The murder pulls them all back into the Prime Material Plane and they flee House Jaelre before they can be killed. Pharaun teleports them back to the cavern they found themselves in after leaving the Labyrinth.
Abilities/Special Powers/Non average skills: Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, I can't find any sort of NPC guide that goes into all of Pharaun's abilities in detail, so this is largely guess work based off of his class levels and what is seen in the books.
Pharaun class is a 14th level wizard, and he has a prestige class of a level 3 archmage. To learn more about prestige classes, I recommending going to the system resource document and clicking the link for "Prestige Class" on the left hand side. Every morning Pharaun has to study his spell books (after several hours of rest) to replace any spells that he cast during the day. He can only cast the spells that he has memorized from his spellbooks. As a wizard, the base amount of spells he can cast (before bonus and all that jazz are added on) is 28. You can see the level by level breakdown . As an Archmage class 3, Pharaun gets new abilities and three more spell slots per day. The list of spells he can pick from and cast is here.
After careful consideration, I'm fairly sure the abilities listed below are the ones seen in the books. A brief explanation of each has been included. These include two of the high arcana abilities from the archmage class.
Pharaun also has many magical items. On his hand he wears his Sorcere ring which marks him as a Master of Sorcere. It also aids in his natural resistance to magic and he has used the power to detect magic that it carries. Another ring Pharaun wears holds a rapier, and he can will it to attack and defend as he sees fit. At his belt Pharaun carries many wands. One shoots lightening (and it is implied he made it himself), one is fire based, and one is divination. As for the others, I don't think they were really used.
Small items are not the only magical things Pharaun carries. His piwafwi has many extradimensional pockets that respond to his will and hold all of his spell components and foci. The boots he wears are enchanted and he can run super fast and jump a bit higher. His vest and shirts seem to all be enchanted as well with protective spells and other things.
As a drow, Pharaun has several innate abilities such as his ability to see in the infrared spectrum (as well as visible light), the power to summon a globe of darkness, and a powerful resistance to magic. Drow nobles such as Pharaun have the ability to levitate, which is granted to them by their House brooches.
Of course, as a rational being, Pharaun has some non-magical abilities as well. For a drow he is incredibly charismatic and finds talking to people and charming them to be a typically easy task. If he's not immediately annoying to a person, it is likely he'll get along well with them. Pharaun is also incredibly smart and observant.
[Game Specific]
Character class: Wizard
Why your character would be that class: Born a male into a house full of talented wizards, it was only natural that Pharaun would have been sent there to study. He’s grown into a powerful, self-assured wizard, and magic is his job, hobby, and passion (aside from wine!). Pharaun is powerful, talented, and a pretty good strategist.
Powers/skills to be gained by being that class: I think he’s good using his own powers!
[Samples]
Log sample: Pharaun had fallen into a deep, human-like slumber with his arms wrapped tight around the magical haversack his head rested upon. The cave floor was damp and dirty, and the wetness sank through his clothing, but it hadn’t bothered him while he slept. He woke before the others for a change, with the dim light of the winter skies of The World Above filtering down into the cave. Quietly, so as not to disturb the others, Pharaun adjusted his haversack so it was sitting in his lap and he was resting against the cavern wall before he opened it, and reached in for one of his spell books so he could being studying the day’s spells. Usually, whichever book he wished for would be on top, but for some reason, a book he had never seen was sitting right on top.
Puzzled, the wizard placed it on top of the haversack and reach into his belt for a wand. He waved it at the book and studied it carefully before putting the wand back in his belt. There appeared to be nothing off about it at all. Hesitantly, as he wasn’t at all sure where it had come from (had a Jaelre slipped it into his pack?), the curious wizard opened it to a page roughly in the middle. There was a drawing there, art that looked to him like it had been done by a human. A drow priestess was depicted there, but none that he could recognize. Her clothing was as elegant as the insignia of her house brooch, looking to Pharaun’s eyes as though she might be a princess from one of the noble Houses of a drow city, such as his own.
There seemed to be some kind of writing behind the female, and as Pharaun leaned forward to examine the page, his hand wrapped around the strap of his pack to move it off his legs…
…and then suddenly the cave and his traveling companions were gone, the book had slammed shut, and there was nothing but white around him and the haversack clutched tightly in one ebony fist. Pharaun had time to curse his fool’s curiosity before he blacked out.
His first thought upon waking was a continuation of the thought he’d been having when he blacked out: he should have taken more precautions before opening that damn book. Pharaun’s eyes opened and closed instantly shut again as he swore aloud at the brightness of the room. It was just as bright in there as the blasted surface realms and his eyes, though perfectly used to the light of candles used to read scrolls, could not easily adjust to the light. He heard rather than saw the people in his room.
“Where am I?” he asked, and hoped they understood.
Orb sample: [This new magic is fascinating to him. The orb is a thing of interest, something he’s thoroughly examined with his own divination spells. It intrigues him, and he wonders why nobody in his own world has come up with such an amazing thing. Once he’s sure it won’t hurt him, Pharaun wastes no time in using it.
He smiles in a manner he knows will come across as friendly and approachable to other races. You will likely notice the bright red eyes that glow slightly in the dimness of his present location, the way his perfect white teeth gleam brightly in his dark, ebony face, and his silky white hair, pulled elegantly back from his face. What you might not notice, at least not right away, is the expensive cut of the drow’s clothes, the jewelry he wears, and the fancy brooch that holds shut his cloak.]
Felicitations, fellow citizens. You have the most excellent of fortunes to be stuck here along with me. I, Pharaun, am here should you need something. I am a wizard of some skill, and I am sure many of you will find me quite easy to live with. I do look forward to meeting the rest of you. If there are any other drow here, I hope that you will not hesitate to make yourselves known. If any of you have seen any others with an appearance such as mine, I encourage you to pass along the information. I would hate to miss the opportunity to recover any of my brave companions.
Name/Handle: Manda
Age: Over 21, younger than 1 million
AIM/YIM/MSN/Plurk/Etc: AIM: use the weave
Email: usetheweave@aim.com
Current Characters: N/A
[Character]
Character Name: Pharaun Mizzrym
Source: Forgotten Realms
Personality: Above all things is precisely where Pharaun considers himself. Pharaun is the sort of fellow who knows he's better than not only his companions, but everybody else ever. His acquaintances consistently describe him as being a “self-possessed mage of no small skill”. He's earned his arrogance, at least in his own mind. Born of incredible wit, talent, and with a fantastic sense of humor, Pharaun is most definitely a rarity among the drow (most of whom are actually said to be pretty boring in Pharaun's opinion). He enjoys cracking jokes, but mostly because he enjoys his own wit, and is rather exasperated at how his fellow drow react to him. The males usually just give him blank looks (or in Gromph's case, really, really hate him), and the females either want to fuck him into silence or kill him, or some rather twisted combination of the two. He’s often regarded as being spoiled, and places quite a bit of importance in his personal appearance. Male drow often act a bit like the human females on the surface of their world when it comes to their appearance, and wizards are more often the rule than the exception. Pharaun wears expensive but extremely well-warded clothing that grant him many bonuses and protections, and is quite particular about his hair, which he styles elegantly (think hair styles for a lady going to prom or her wedding or a fancy party). He even carries a mirror that he can use to check his personal appearance.
Aside from his extreme egotism, Pharaun is very ambitious like most drow (he is vying for Gromph's position as the (head) Master of Sorcere and the Archmage of the City), and won't hesitate to sacrifice others for personal gain, or make deals with those of lower-class than himself, such as whores. He's also condescending, even toward those of higher social rank than himself, and delights in subtly insulting and giving back-handed compliments to those he considers inferior (read: EVERYONE). When it comes to relations with the lesser races (all non-drow races), Pharaun’s the sort of drow that believes they should be used to their fullest extent (even sex) but otherwise doesn’t even notice them, just like all drow of his stature. Self-preservation is also a rather important part of Pharaun's personality. He even left behind his very best friend to escape a situation, using the excuse of, "I thought you could handle them," when Ryld confronted him about it.
Despite his considerable flaws, Pharaun is also smart as a whip, patient and disciplined to a point (one would have to be, to be a wizard), and incredibly charismatic. Being a wizard, he is incredibly secretive of his magic and his spells and will go to great lengths to guard them and gain more secrets, as evidenced by his partially-failed summoning of the demon Sarthos. He’s a very hard-working lad when he needs to be, just as capable of being deadly serious as cracking a joke. Rising in Sorcere’s ranks is no easy task, and neither is surviving the intense training all drow who go to the Academy are subjected to. Students are frequently abused in order to teach them concentration. The Masters of Sorcere will force students to cast spells under the worst of conditions (such as while burning their naked skin), and punishments are often creative and brutal. His school experiences – his whole life, really – has hardened him. Torture doesn’t really bother him even if he’s the on the receiving end, and he thinks nothing of hurting others if it’s the practical way to go. Gore and ugliness don’t bother him in the slightest. He may look soft and spoiled, but Pharaun hardly ever lets on to his true abilities or nature.
His travels and missions to the surface have left him with a decent understanding of how to speak to and interact with humans… but also how to ruin their civilizations. Pharaun has had to burn an entire town before, and he felt nothing at the loss of life. He’s learned that humans like sympathy and a listening ear, and he’s a quick study.
History/Pull Point: I’m pulling him from the end of Condemnation, after which he’s just returned from watching his goddess’s son battling her guardian.
WARNING: THIS PORTION OF THE APP MENTIONS RAPE, GANG RAPE, AND OTHER UGLY THINGS. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERY, YOU NEED TO GTFO THIS APP.
Pharaun Mizzrym was born to Matron Mother Miz'ri of House Mizzrym, Fifth House of Menzoberranzan. He is one of the younger members of his house. House Mizzrym is well-renowned for producing high quality magic users, and he is no exception to the rule! At the age of 25 Pharaun took his place at Sorcere, the school of Tier Breche (the academy all young drow nobles must attend) for wizards in Menzoberranzan. There he studied for thirty years. It is likely that he was sent on patrol groups with fighters and clerics after he graduated to get more practice and experience.
Upon returning home from Tier Breche, Pharaun was given the duty of monitoring House Mizzrym's highly illegal trade with the deep gnomes. He joined the games of intrigue and betrayal that are common among all drow, but especially amongst the members of the noble houses. Two of his elder sisters were twins, Sabal and Greyanna, and the two of them at one time had a terrible rivalry. Greyanna had managed to defeat her sister through rumor spreading and sabotaging Sabal's every effort to climb higher in rank. Pharaun saw this, evaluated the situation, and decided it would be an amusing challenge to throw his lot in with Sabal and help her climb to a higher rank.
He succeeded brilliantly, and the two of them were close; they were each other's best and most valuable allies. At one point in time, somebody (Pharaun has suspected Greyanna for years), accused him of blasphemy. In his younger days Pharaun was quite the scapegrace. Triel Baenre (Matron Mistress of the Academy back then) came with a group of priestesses to arrest him. They took him to the dungeons of House Baenre and tortured him for in an attempt to draw out a confession, using wizards to probe his mind. The wizards were not able to get through the young mage's mental defenses and the results of his torture were inconclusive since he would not blurt out guilt just to make it stop. Unfortunately for Pharaun, the priestesses decided to appeal to a higher power. They took him to the chapel, drugged him so he would not resist their attentions, and tied him to the altar. After performing a ritual in which they danced, mutilated themselves, and used Pharaun's poor body "with considerable brutality" he found himself in Lloth's domain. The Goddess took him apart body and mind piece by piece (while he was fully conscious of the pain and horror, then put him back together and sent him back to the altar (a sign that she found him acceptable).
It took Pharaun several tendays to recover from the following insanity. He became a raving, delusional lunatic, and his family was contemplating killing him. Sabal stayed by his side while he was strapped to his bed and kept him safe from the rest of House Mizzrym until her younger brother recovered.
Some time after that, Pharaun had gone out drinking. Greyanna used the opportunity to kill the weakening Sabal and then tried to use her corpse to entice Pharaun to a sexual interlude before she killed him (even though Pharaun really wasn't into incest). Pharaun spotted the trap a moment too late and was attacked by Greyanna's men. He fled, narrowly escaping from House Mizzrym and made his way up to Tier Breche where he begged Archmage Gromph Baenre for a place in Sorcere. Gromph took him in, and he was beyond Greyanna's reach.
While he was at Sorcere, Pharaun seems to have made a few friends. While he endlessly frustrates Gromph (even though Gromph sees his usefully and admits at one point that he would have prefered to have Pharaun close by for a task he was doing), Pharaun's good sense of humor and generally amiable personality have helped him make a few friends and likely helped him to murder more than one of those people and plunder their spellbooks. During this time, Pharaun befriended a Master of Melee-Magthere (the school of fighters), Ryld Argith. For the first three years of their friendship, Ryld kept a dagger on him enchanted for killing mages, which Pharaun knew about. The two became very good friends, at least as much as drow can be, and spent a good deal of time together. Pharaun and Ryld knew each other very well and had many fun adventures together, even leading patrol groups of students in the tunnels outside Menzoberranzan together.
Recently, Pharaun had an incident at Sorcere where he tried to summon the demon Sarthos in order to learn more magic-related secrets. The purpose of learning these secrets was so that he could move from one of the thirty best wizards in the city to one of the top five--perhaps even to be greater than Gromph himself. He used a circle of seven apprentices to summon the demon, and they were all killed within seconds. However, when it failed, Gromph forbade Pharaun from doing any more summonings on "pain of a particularly grotesque death" and assigned him to a mission. If Pharaun could successfully find out where all of the males were disappearing to (his task), Gromph would forgive him (at least a bit) and let him resume his teaching duties. Maybe. The real purpose of sending off was to be a decoy so Gromph could continue to investigate without being spied on by the council.
Pharaun set off to try to find the missing males with his "life-long companion" Ryld. They discovered that the vanishing drow males were being recruited to an organization led by an illithilich--an undead illithid. Along the way, he happened to figure out that Lloth was no longer answering the prayers of her priestesses.
Since they were able to find and expose the rebel group (during which time Pharaun abandoned Ryld to his death allegedly because he thought Ryld would be fine on his own), Pharaun and Ryld were chosen to be members of an expedition led by Quenthel Baenre whose purpose was to discover the cause of Lloth's Silence and obtain some merchandise co-owned by House Baenre and House Melarn in Ched Nasad. The members of the party were Pharaun Mizzrym, Ryld Argith, Faeryl Zauvirr, Valas Hune, Quenthel Baenre, and her really freakishly creepy nephew Jeggred who is a draegloth.
Pharaun has a volatile relationship with Quenthel because he simply cannot respect her. She is brash, stubborn, stupid, and unreasonable, and nearly leads the party to death and to dead ends on more than one occasion, despite the alternate solutions and advice given to her by the males of the party--namely Pharaun. They drive each other mad; Pharaun is too independent to bow to a female, and she is too used to getting her way to know how to deal with it. He is disrespectful of her until she gets to the point of wanting to kill him, and his magical abilities are typically the only thing that stops her from killing him as they are desperately needed. As he is the only mage in the small expedition, that left Pharaun with the most power, and the group depends on him for survival, with many members wondering who is really in charge.
Throughout the journey to Ched Nasad, Pharaun went out of his way to antagonize Quenthel and took every opportunity to shove in her face that his magic still worked while hers did not. In a way it served to reinforce his usefulness, but it also did a lot of damage to any potential working relationship they could have ever had upon returning home. Quenthel will listen to his advice, however, which is a little odd for a such a brash priestess. Pharaun persuades her that they should enter the city incognito and try not to draw too much attention to themselves so that they can investigate without the Matron Mothers of that city hovering over them and limiting their information.
Upon arriving in the City of Shimmering Webs, the party finds it to be utter chaos. They are nearly killed by masses of lesser beings upon entering and find safely only when they find an inn at which they can lay low. With the city in turmoil, it's only a matter of time before the party gets caught up in the press of events. Quenthel, Faeryl, and Jeggred go to retrieve the merchandise from the Black Claw storehouse and are captured, lured into a trap by Faeryl and her family. Later on that day, Pharaun, Ryld, and Valas are brought to House Melarn where Quenthel is being held to be executed. They resist, of course, and escape. In the process they meet Halisstra Melarn and Danifae Yauntyrr. Halisstra was a daughter of House Melarn which was also implicated in Quenthel's treachery. The two females guide the males down to where Quenthel and Jeggred are imprisoned and free them (pausing long enough for Jeggred to eat Faeryl alive). As House Melarn is about to be destroyed and fall to the cavern floor far below, the drow escape and narrowly make it out of the city as the rest of Ched Nasad suffers the same fate.
After Ched Nasad was destroyed, the group escaped to the surface. They ended up in a large desert. Pharaun used a spell to allow them to shadow walk to the Underdark where they attempted to find a priest of Vhaeraun (a God who is Lloth's son) in hope that he could tell them what's happened to Lloth. To make a long story short, they end up back on the surface looking for these followers, and manage to convince Valas's friend Tzirik to take them to the Demonweb Pitts in the Abyss so that Quenthel, Halisstra, and Danifae can try to commune with Lloth. However, they are tricked. Tzirik betrays them by summoning his own god, Vhaeraun, who tries to kill Lloth (who is non-responsive). Quenthel tries to order them all to fight the god, but Pharaun decides to save them instead. He instead uses magic to send a message to Jeggred, telling him to kill Tzirik's body. The murder pulls them all back into the Prime Material Plane and they flee House Jaelre before they can be killed. Pharaun teleports them back to the cavern they found themselves in after leaving the Labyrinth.
Abilities/Special Powers/Non average skills: Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, I can't find any sort of NPC guide that goes into all of Pharaun's abilities in detail, so this is largely guess work based off of his class levels and what is seen in the books.
Pharaun class is a 14th level wizard, and he has a prestige class of a level 3 archmage. To learn more about prestige classes, I recommending going to the system resource document and clicking the link for "Prestige Class" on the left hand side. Every morning Pharaun has to study his spell books (after several hours of rest) to replace any spells that he cast during the day. He can only cast the spells that he has memorized from his spellbooks. As a wizard, the base amount of spells he can cast (before bonus and all that jazz are added on) is 28. You can see the level by level breakdown . As an Archmage class 3, Pharaun gets new abilities and three more spell slots per day. The list of spells he can pick from and cast is here.
After careful consideration, I'm fairly sure the abilities listed below are the ones seen in the books. A brief explanation of each has been included. These include two of the high arcana abilities from the archmage class.
- Magic in the Blood: uses innate abilities 3 times a day (innate abilities describe more below)
- Empower Spell: increase spell's effectiveness by 50%
- Item Creational-Craft Wand: 4th level or lower spell takes one day per item and base price is 1000, new wand has 50 charges
- Enlarge Spell: range is doubled
- Extend Spell: makes spell last twice as long
- Heightened Spell: increases spells effect up to a 9th level spell
- Maximize Spell: cast spells to maximum effect, deals max amount of damage, effects max number of targets
- Quicken Spell: cast a spell just by thinking
- Silent Spell: cast with no somatic component (no words where words should be)
- Spell Penetration: penetrates armor, skin, walls, what have you.
- Mastery of Shaping: The archmage can alter area and effect spells that use one of the following shapes: burst, cone, cylinder, emanation, or spread. The alteration consists of creating spaces within the spell's area or effect that are not subject to the spell.
- Spell-Like Ability: An archmage who selects this type of high arcana can use one of her arcane spell slots (other than a slot expended to learn this or any other type of high arcana) to permanently prepare one of her arcane spells as a spell-like ability that can be used twice per day.
Pharaun also has many magical items. On his hand he wears his Sorcere ring which marks him as a Master of Sorcere. It also aids in his natural resistance to magic and he has used the power to detect magic that it carries. Another ring Pharaun wears holds a rapier, and he can will it to attack and defend as he sees fit. At his belt Pharaun carries many wands. One shoots lightening (and it is implied he made it himself), one is fire based, and one is divination. As for the others, I don't think they were really used.
Small items are not the only magical things Pharaun carries. His piwafwi has many extradimensional pockets that respond to his will and hold all of his spell components and foci. The boots he wears are enchanted and he can run super fast and jump a bit higher. His vest and shirts seem to all be enchanted as well with protective spells and other things.
As a drow, Pharaun has several innate abilities such as his ability to see in the infrared spectrum (as well as visible light), the power to summon a globe of darkness, and a powerful resistance to magic. Drow nobles such as Pharaun have the ability to levitate, which is granted to them by their House brooches.
Of course, as a rational being, Pharaun has some non-magical abilities as well. For a drow he is incredibly charismatic and finds talking to people and charming them to be a typically easy task. If he's not immediately annoying to a person, it is likely he'll get along well with them. Pharaun is also incredibly smart and observant.
[Game Specific]
Character class: Wizard
Why your character would be that class: Born a male into a house full of talented wizards, it was only natural that Pharaun would have been sent there to study. He’s grown into a powerful, self-assured wizard, and magic is his job, hobby, and passion (aside from wine!). Pharaun is powerful, talented, and a pretty good strategist.
Powers/skills to be gained by being that class: I think he’s good using his own powers!
[Samples]
Log sample: Pharaun had fallen into a deep, human-like slumber with his arms wrapped tight around the magical haversack his head rested upon. The cave floor was damp and dirty, and the wetness sank through his clothing, but it hadn’t bothered him while he slept. He woke before the others for a change, with the dim light of the winter skies of The World Above filtering down into the cave. Quietly, so as not to disturb the others, Pharaun adjusted his haversack so it was sitting in his lap and he was resting against the cavern wall before he opened it, and reached in for one of his spell books so he could being studying the day’s spells. Usually, whichever book he wished for would be on top, but for some reason, a book he had never seen was sitting right on top.
Puzzled, the wizard placed it on top of the haversack and reach into his belt for a wand. He waved it at the book and studied it carefully before putting the wand back in his belt. There appeared to be nothing off about it at all. Hesitantly, as he wasn’t at all sure where it had come from (had a Jaelre slipped it into his pack?), the curious wizard opened it to a page roughly in the middle. There was a drawing there, art that looked to him like it had been done by a human. A drow priestess was depicted there, but none that he could recognize. Her clothing was as elegant as the insignia of her house brooch, looking to Pharaun’s eyes as though she might be a princess from one of the noble Houses of a drow city, such as his own.
There seemed to be some kind of writing behind the female, and as Pharaun leaned forward to examine the page, his hand wrapped around the strap of his pack to move it off his legs…
…and then suddenly the cave and his traveling companions were gone, the book had slammed shut, and there was nothing but white around him and the haversack clutched tightly in one ebony fist. Pharaun had time to curse his fool’s curiosity before he blacked out.
His first thought upon waking was a continuation of the thought he’d been having when he blacked out: he should have taken more precautions before opening that damn book. Pharaun’s eyes opened and closed instantly shut again as he swore aloud at the brightness of the room. It was just as bright in there as the blasted surface realms and his eyes, though perfectly used to the light of candles used to read scrolls, could not easily adjust to the light. He heard rather than saw the people in his room.
“Where am I?” he asked, and hoped they understood.
Orb sample: [This new magic is fascinating to him. The orb is a thing of interest, something he’s thoroughly examined with his own divination spells. It intrigues him, and he wonders why nobody in his own world has come up with such an amazing thing. Once he’s sure it won’t hurt him, Pharaun wastes no time in using it.
He smiles in a manner he knows will come across as friendly and approachable to other races. You will likely notice the bright red eyes that glow slightly in the dimness of his present location, the way his perfect white teeth gleam brightly in his dark, ebony face, and his silky white hair, pulled elegantly back from his face. What you might not notice, at least not right away, is the expensive cut of the drow’s clothes, the jewelry he wears, and the fancy brooch that holds shut his cloak.]
Felicitations, fellow citizens. You have the most excellent of fortunes to be stuck here along with me. I, Pharaun, am here should you need something. I am a wizard of some skill, and I am sure many of you will find me quite easy to live with. I do look forward to meeting the rest of you. If there are any other drow here, I hope that you will not hesitate to make yourselves known. If any of you have seen any others with an appearance such as mine, I encourage you to pass along the information. I would hate to miss the opportunity to recover any of my brave companions.
