Legendary Characters of the Realms (Patreon)

Who Is Ioulaum?

One of the foremost arcanists of Netheril (41st level!), who was a leading crafter of spells and magical processes when High Netheril was at its height. He created the first mythallar, and the first flying enclave. The people looked to him; when he abandoned Netheril to escape phaerimm life draining in −339 DR, panic spread at the news of his disappearance. Ioulaum went to a refuge he’d secretly prepared over thirty years earlier in the Northdark near the now-abandoned (aside from undead former servants of the mind flayers, and ghosts of the illithids themselves) illithid city of Ellyn’taal. When completing this lair in -371 DR, Ioulaum became a lich.

When he moved to his lair, Ioulaum took apprentices, known as the Alhoon (the first illithiliches), in part to gain a supply of brains with which he made an undead elder brain, that he then took over, merging his own mind with it. This is his current form: an undead elder brain, “the Oracle of Ellyn’taal,” in a brine-filled lake at the heart of the sanity-leeching, undead-populated subterranean illithid city.

What is Ioulaum up to now?

That’s up to every DM, of course, but I’m thinking something along the lines of this:

Ioulaum is creating new spells, and experimenting with new processes and uses of magic, as he’s always done. To what aims?

He wants to create a new kingdom, a society of magic explored the way he wants it. He has nothing but contempt for what Szass Tam has wrought in Thay, or how Larloch and the Srinshee and the elves on Evermeet have “wasted” their power, or how the Dragon-Kings of Murghôm laze away their days, and he thinks the Halruaans chose the weakest, most indolent road of all. He’s going to do it right. But what does that mean?

Ioulaum doesn’t know, yet. Which is why he’s staying so quiet: he’s building an ever-larger arsenal of new spells and items, and exploring ways of linking them like strings of firecrackers, so setting off one then triggers another, and another—not just strings of “blast them!” battle-spells, but sequences of spells that blast this, awaken that, open a vault here to leave something discoverable, activate this being in stasis, blow up a tower yonder to goad a local ruler into action, and so on: chains of events large and small, not just boom-boom-Boom-Boom-Boom effects. But those, too.

Ioulaum is beginning to feel melancholy, and miss the sensual feelings of being alive: flavours of food and wine, the smell of fresh spring breezes, and so on. So he hungers to take over the minds of living humans, and share their experiences (so he wants humans captured and brought to him).

He’s also heard of the rare aberrations known as elder brain dragons, and wonders about how to become one—and so, be mobile again!—and what the drawbacks might be. He requires human agents, mind-controlled or hired, to go and find out and report back to him.

Who is The Eldest?

“The Eldest” many not be the oldest mortal in the Forgotten Realms, but is a strong contender. It is an aboleth of great size that was already flourishing when the Abolethic Sovereignty was established (over thirty thousand years ago). The Eldest dwells in Xxiphu, the Soaring City, a flying obelisk-shaped aboleth city that’s usually hovering above the Sea of Fallen Stars not far northwest of Akanûl.

What is The Eldest up to now?

For many years, The Eldest has been lying sprawled and almost unmoving, “melting” and absorbing food delivered to its underside, as it devotes itself to constant dream-traveling.

In its dreams, by magical means of its own devising, The Eldest becomes a living wizard eye that drifts around the planes, observing—but spying on what or whom, and why?

He’s learning what the gods do, what their hobbies and hidden aims are, and the nature of their power and where they keep their stored magics. As he very slowly and patiently prepares to steal some of that magic, to wrest some divine power away, killing gods to boost his own power and abilities, and win himself a new life, no longer ‘forgotten’ and now known and feared and influential and powerful. Why should HE not be the Overgod of the Realms, supplanting Ao or even subsuming his powers?

Perhaps he’s begun already. If you’ve read a Realms sourcebook or adventure and thought that a deity behaved or ordered their clergy to do something that was a bit odd, that didn’t fit your conception of that deity’s wisdom, alignment, portfolios, aims, or competence—perhaps it wasn’t the deity. Perhaps the Eldest is now posing as that deity, or manipulating that deity, for his own schemes.

Who is Xurpaeraghar?

Xurpaeraghar (“Zur-PAIR-rag-har”) is a beholder of gigantic size (main body a sphere sixteen feet across, eyestalks retractile but at least twelve feet when fully extended), that has been mentally controlling the Xanathar (no matter which beholder holds the office; during this control there have been three incumbents) by enchantments placed by Xurpaeraghar in most of the magic items used by the Xanathar, such as its scrying orbs, its weapons, and its various rods, wands, and rings.

Xurpaeraghar long ago began transforming itself, to gain wraithform at will on various of its eyestalks, and its central body, to “make them immaterial” so attacks can pass through them harmlessly, ere it turns solid again.

It can also send itself, in wraithform, inside certain enchanted items it’s prepared as hosts, and hide there indefinitely.

So it’s been dubbed “the Ghost Beholder” by those who’ve spotted it hiding in its preferred places: the disused attics and “preserved as they were in life” bedchambers of now-dead family members in the oldest, largest, haughtiest noble mansions in Waterdeep (it also has another lair in Undermountain, a hideout in Mirt’s Mansion, and a “safehold” cavern deep in Mount Waterdeep).

What is Xurpaeraghar up to now?

With the aid of certain fell wizards, Xurpaeraghar secretly experiments with new arcane spells, most of them variants of existing ones, to give itself new abilities. One of these is regeneration, and another is a “swallow whole” power: Xurpaeraghar can choose to “chomp” foes (usually biting off vital limbs, and taking away weapons or magic items with them), but if it can manage to get all that’s left of an opponent’s body into its mouth, it activates a teleport without error ability to translocate that foe into a prepared prison area elsewhere, for later torture and experimentation. Or, more rarely, into the midst of other foes that Xurpaeraghar wants stirred up and harmed, as the teleported being fights them.

Xurpaeraghar doesn’t want more power, or any public profile at all. It controls the Xanathar to gain itself a “kingpin” that in turn controls many agents in and beneath Waterdeep, “hands” that will do its bidding. It views the lives of humans and other Waterdhavians as endless entertainment, and that’s what it craves and why it lives in the city. It will see adventurers as tools to spur the best entertainment for itself, and “use” them accordingly.