> [!infobox|right] > #### DIO ELDWYNAIR > ![[5e_dioeldwynairpostwaterdeep.png]] > > ##### Basic Information > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - bookmark-etch-solid-full.svg]] **Title(s)**: | None | > | ![[ICON - feather-sharp-solid-full.svg]] **Name**: | Dio Eldwynair | > | ![[ICON - handshake-angle-solid-full.svg]] **Faction(s)**: | [[Yang Gang]],<br>[[Order of the Lucky Blades]] (*Formerly*) | > | ![[ICON - house-chimney-window-solid-full.svg]] **Home**: | [[Silvercross]],<br>[[Cormyr]] | > | ![[ICON - person-limbs-wide-solid-full.svg]] **Species**: | Human<br>Male | > | ![[ICON - pot-food-solid-full.svg]] **Fav. Meal**: | Ironpot Stew | > | ![[ICON - beer-mug-empty-solid-full.svg]] **Fav. Drink**: | Firewine | > | ![[ICON - face-smile-wink-sharp-solid-full.svg]] **Passion(s)**: | Fishing,<br>Swimming | > | ![[ICON - face-scream-solid-full.svg]] **Fear(s)**: | Returning to the<br>[[Cathedral of Lathander]] | > > #### Dates > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - question-solid-full.svg]] **Status**: | Alive | > | ![[ICON - heart-sharp-solid-full.svg]] **Born**: | 27th of Flamerule,<br>1466 DR | > | ![[ICON - coffin-solid-full.svg]] **Died**: | Multiple Times,<br>1489-1496 DR | > | ![[ICON - head-side-brain-solid-full.svg]] **Age**: | 26 Years<br>143 Years Total | > > #### Family > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - rings-wedding-solid-full.svg]] **Spouse**: | N/A | > | ![[ICON - hands-holding-child-solid-full.svg]] **Children**: | N/A | > | ![[ICON - family-solid-full.svg]] **Parent(s)**: | [[Rowan Eldwynair]]<br>[[Therona Eldwynair]] | > | ![[ICON - children-solid-full.svg]] **Sibling(s)**: | None | > > #### Class Info > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - eclipse-solid-full.svg]] **Alignment**: | Chaotic Good | > | ![[ICON - crystal-ball-solid-full.svg]] **Deity**: | [[Tymora]] | > | ![[ICON - sparkle-solid-full.svg]] **Class**: | Paladin | > | ![[ICON - sparkles-solid-full.svg]] **Subclass**: | Oathbreaker<br>(*Formerly Devotion*) | > | ![[ICON - sparkle-solid-full.svg]] **Multi Class**: | Sorcerer | > | ![[ICON - sparkles-solid-full.svg]] **Subclass**: | Divine Soul | > > #### Appearance > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - mustache-solid-full.svg]] **Hair**: | White<br>(*Formerly Black*) | > | ![[ICON - head-side-solid-full.svg]] **Skin**: | Pale | > | ![[ICON - eye-solid-full.svg]] **Eyes**: | Amber | > | ![[ICON - ruler-duotone-regular-full.svg]] **Height**: | 6'1" | > | ![[ICON - weight-hanging-solid-full.svg]] **Weight**: | ~180 lbs | <a href="https://dioctionary.net/THE+DIOCTIONARY/HOME/Home" class="dioctionary-ribbon-2"> HOME </a> <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">A Brief History</div> - My name is Diomeades Eldwynair, and I have been alive nearly one and a half centuries. - I was raised in [[Silvercross]], where home meant the rooms above [[The Silver Flagon]], the familiar streets outside it, and the [[Order of the Lucky Blades]] never being very far away. My father, [[Rowan Eldwynair]], my mother [[Therona Eldwynair]], [[Kaelen Droswynn]], [[Lira Morningvale]], and later [[Olivia Halcrest]] made up the center of that life. I had my place in the Order, my faith in [[Tymora]], and a future that felt steady enough that I never thought to question it. Back then, losing any of it felt impossible. - Of everyone in that life, Olivia became the person I leaned on most. Somewhere along the way, she stopped feeling like simply my mentor and became someone I trusted without really thinking about it. She knew when I was pretending, when I was afraid, and when I was trying to hide one behind the other. Looking back, those years were probably the closest I ever came to having exactly the life I wanted, though at the time I was too comfortable in it to realize how much it meant. - For a while, I thought those years might last forever. Then, in the summer of 1486, we went to [[Eveningstar]]. What was supposed to be a quiet visit to the [[Cathedral of Lathander]] turned into a fight for our lives... - When the fighting began to thin, [[Beshaba]] took Olivia from me without actually taking her anywhere. Her eyes turned black and she began throwing magic at me while I tried to stay out of her reach and talk her down. I did not want to hurt her. Then I stumbled over a body, one of her spells struck me in the face, and suddenly I could not see. I heard someone rushing toward me, thought it was another cultist, and thrust my sword forward. When my sight began to return, Olivia was standing in front of me with my blade through her and her eyes already changing back to green... I have had more than a century to think about that moment. It has never become any easier. - I spent the year after [[Eveningstar]] trying to convince myself I could still be the person I had been before it, while half the people around me seemed to have already decided what I was. To them, Olivia was dead and I was the one who had snuffed out one of the brightest lights in Silvercross. Some avoided me, some whispered, and others barely bothered hiding the blame. Even members of [[House Blackfen]] who had known me my whole life began treating me like a stain they would rather not acknowledge. Eventually, I just stopped pretending I still belonged there. I threw the coin I had sworn my oath upon into the [[Immerflow River]], turned away from [[Tymora]] and left [[Silvercross]] behind. My hair turned white that same night in my sleep, and before long I "died" for the first time. I really thought that would have been the end of it, but instead I woke again at the [[Cathedral of Lathander]], alive, and carrying every memory with me. Then it happened again, and again and again... Death only sent me back, and surviving was no escape either; if I lived long enough, [[Beshaba]] simply reset me anyway. - So I wandered. Sometimes I searched for answers, sometimes I ran, and sometimes I lived under other names because being [[Ronan Blackfen]] for a few years was easier than being Dio Eldwynair for another day. I spent more than a century trying to get away from Beshaba and everything tied to that Cathedral. During one life, she finally stopped making me guess why. She wants me to become her "Chosen". Apparently every death, every return, every year spent carrying lives no one else remembers has been shaping me toward whatever she thinks that means. I still do not know why she chose me or what she expects me to become, but I know my answer. - That however did not change the way that life ended. At the climax of that reality, [[Kaelen Droswynn]] and I killed each other, and once again I woke at the cathedral with the world set back as though none of it had ever happened. This time, though, I made sure Dio Eldwynair stayed dead. I never returned to [[Silvercross]] from [[Eveningstar]], never gave anyone the chance to see that I had survived, and simply disappeared. As far as everyone knows, I never came home. I.. I would imagine life there eventually settled back into something resembling normal without me, with the likelihood a gravestone resting somewhere in Silvercross with my name on it. I have never gone back to see if I was right. It seemed easier to let them believe they had already lost me than to return and risk the obvious. - ...So, years later, I was back in the same second-floor room at [[The Yawning Portal]] that I had rented across more than one lifetime under the name Ronan, when [[Durnan]] handed me a letter. It was addressed to "Diomeades Eldwynair"; a name I had gone through a lot of effort to make disappear. The letter came from [[Yang Pahlavan]] and told me to travel to [[Dragon's Rest]] on [[Stormwreck Isle]]. How he knew who I was, or where to find me, I still have no idea. I followed it anyway, and somewhere along the way I was joined by [[Marcel Voltaire]], [[Kalis Mikhailson]], [[Constantine]] and [[Drougma Tarak]] on a quest for the very salvation of [[Faerûn]]. <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">Relationships</div> - **[[Olivia Halcrest]]** I loved Olivia. It took me considerably longer than it should have to admit that, and by the time I learned she had felt the same way there was nobody left to tell. She was my mentor first, then my closest confidant, and eventually something neither of us ever managed to say aloud. I still wear her hat and carry her sword. I do not carry them because I think she would want me trapped in the past. I carry them because there are some people you do not put down simply because they are gone. - **[[Rowan Eldwynair]]** There are probably more complicated ways to describe what he means to me, but none of them are better. He taught me most of the things about being a decent person that had nothing to do with an oath or a sword. I have spent years wondering what I would say if I walked back into [[The Silver Flagon]]. I still have no answer that gets me through the door. - **[[Therona Eldwynair]]** My mother spent my childhood pushing me toward the person she believed I could become. For a long time I mistook that expectation for disappointment waiting to happen. After Olivia died, I convinced myself that going home meant standing in front of her and proving every fear I had about myself correct. I have lived long enough now to realize that I may have been judging myself in her voice more often than she ever actually judged me. - **[[Kaelen Droswynn]]** Kaelen was my brother before he was ever my enemy. We trained together, argued constantly, made each other better, and trusted one another with our lives. Then Olivia died and something between us broke badly enough that neither of us ever figured out how to repair it. He has killed me. I have killed him. Beshaba eventually turned him into a weapon meant for me. I still cannot hate him cleanly enough to make any of that simple. - **[[Lira Morningvale]]** Lira is the little sister I never had and probably would have denied needing if anyone asked when we were younger. She could make me laugh when I was determined not to, and after Olivia died she was one of the few people who never looked at me like I had become something else. She has watched me die and still does not know I came back. Of everyone in Silvercross, she may be the person I am most afraid to see again. - **[[Marcel Voltaire]]** Marcel is the person in this group I trust the most. Somewhere between fighting beside each other, dragging one another back onto our feet, and watching her repeatedly deny being hopelessly in love with [[Anya Valebright]], it simply became true. She can be serious when she needs to be and an absolute goof when she does not. Occasionally she has ideas nearly as questionable as Constantine's. - **[[Kalis Mikhailson]]** Kalis is difficult to read, which I suspect is exactly how he prefers it. He keeps pieces of himself hidden and has a habit of giving you enough information to answer one question while creating three more. Still, when things become dangerous, he stays. I trust that more than I trust explanations. His connection to [[The Raven Queen]] interests me more than I have told him. When you have died as many times as I have, traveling beside someone increasingly devoted to a goddess concerned with death is difficult not to notice. - **[[Constantine]]** Constantine is exhausting. He is poor, nineteen, frequently unable to drink legally wherever we happen to stop, and has somehow been knocked unconscious by every other member of the group. We remind him of all of these things regularly. Beneath the jokes, I am worried about him. His hair changed, one eye changed, his magic changed, and now [[Constatius|Shadowtine]] occasionally appears with considerably more understanding of the situation than Constantine has. I do not know whether he is cursed, being changed by [[Mask]], or involved in something stranger. I mostly hope he gets enough time to become the person he keeps trying so hard to prove he can be. - **[[Drougma Tarak]]** Drougma is considerably easier to understand than most of us. He gets angry, something usually deserves it, and then the problem becomes whoever is unfortunate enough to be standing in front of him. There is something refreshing about that. He has stood beside me through enough fights that I trust him when things become violent, and he is usually considerably less complicated than whatever disaster the rest of us have managed to create. <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">The Deaths...</div> - [[01 - The Alleyway]], 1466-1490 DR, bled out from a piercing wound in [[Suzail]], aged 24 (24) - [[02 - Gravity]], 1486-1489 DR, died from a fall in the [[Storm Horn Mountains]], aged 23 (27) - [[03 - The Apple]], 1486-1489 DR, poisoned near the [[Dragon Coast]], aged 23 (30) - [[04 - The Howls]], 1486-1490 DR, ripped apart by beasts in the [[Dalelands]], aged 24 (34) - [[05 - The Festival of the Moon]], 1486-1495 DR, executed in [[Baldur’s Gate]], aged 29 (43) - [[06 - Rumors]], 1486-1492 DR, frozen to death in [[Icewind Dale]], aged 26 (49) - [[07 - The Duel]], 1486-1491 DR, slain by [[Kaelen Droswynn]] outside [[Waterdeep]], aged 25 (54) - [[08 - Dancing in the Dark]], 1486-1494 DR, pulverized in the [[Underdark]], aged 28 (62) - [[09 - The Peel of Destiny]], 1486-1492 DR, died within [[Candlekeep]], aged 26 (68) - [[10 - Happy Birthday to me]], 1486-1496 DR, taken by [[Beshaba]]'s curse upon reaching 30 (78) - [[11 - Burning for Water]], 1486-1493 DR, drowned outside [[Waterdeep]], aged 27 (85) - [[12 - A Brief Respite]], 1486-1496 DR, taken by [[Beshaba]]'s curse upon reaching 30 (95) - [[13 - All along the Watchtower]], 1486-1496 DR, taken by [[Beshaba]]'s curse upon reaching 30 (105) - [[14 - The Golden Bell]], 1486-1496 DR, crushed at the [[Cathedral of Lathander]], aged 30 (115) - [[15 - The Horizon's Edge]], 1486-1496 DR, taken by [[Beshaba]]'s curse upon reaching 30 (125) - [[16 - The Burning Building]], 1486-1491 DR, crushed and burned in [[Sembia]], aged 25 (130) - [[17 - The Hollow Cloister]], 1486-1492 DR, bled out from a slashing wound, aged 26 (136) - [[18 - The Lie That Held]], 1486-Present, currently alive, physically 26 (143) <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">Before Tyranny</div> - **1466 DR - Birth** - Born on the 27th of Flamerule in [[Silvercross]] to [[Rowan Eldwynair]] and [[Therona Eldwynair]]. - **1480 DR - The Second Sundering Begins** - Began formal training with the [[Order of the Lucky Blades]]. - Grew especially close with [[Kaelen Droswynn]] and [[Lira Morningvale]]. - Began training beneath [[Olivia Halcrest]]. - **1486 DR - The [[Cathedral of Lathander]]** - Olivia brought Dio and Lira to [[Eveningstar]] for an informal visit to learn about the Cathedral and its faith. - Kaelen accompanied them despite belonging to another wing of the Order. - Cultists attacked during the visit. - Dio and Olivia fought back-to-back near the altar until [[Beshaba]] possessed Olivia. - Dio attempted to avoid Olivia's attacks and talk her down until one of her spells blinded him. - Believing another cultist was rushing toward him, Dio blindly thrust his sword forward. - As his sight returned, he realized he had struck Olivia just as Beshaba's possession released her. - **1487 DR - The Breaking of an Oath** - Dio abandoned his oath, cast his Tymoran coin into the [[Immerflow River]], and left the Order and [[Silvercross]] behind. - His hair turned white shortly afterward. - Beshaba's cycle of death and rebirth began. - **1492 DR - The 18th Cycle** - After years living quietly in [[Waterdeep]] as [[Ronan Blackfen]], Dio received a letter from [[Yang Pahlavan]] addressed to his real name. - The letter summoned him to [[Dragon's Rest]] on [[Stormwreck Isle]]. - That journey eventually brought together the group now known as the [[Yang Gang]]. - **To continue his story, read onwards into:** - **[[PAGE 01]]**