Guest Party Members | Allies and Other Characters (Empire/Republic of Tal'Dorei) | Villains
Guest Party Members | Allies and Other Characters (Dwendalian Empire | Xhorhas) | Villains
A page for notable figures from the history of Exandria.
Tal'Dorei
Warren Drassig, The Iron King
- Race: Human
A former human emperor of the Drassig dynasty well know for his boundless cruelty. He rose to power by exploiting the petty squabbling of his fellow oligarchs in Emon and, upon declaring the Drassig Kingdom, promptly severed ties with the elves of Syngorn and forged an alliance against them with the dwarves of Kraghammer. He then led a campaign of conquest over the next thirty-two years that became known as the Scattered Wars, which were carried on after his death with the succession of his son Neminar the Black Fingered.
- 0% Approval Rating: Pretty much no one has anything nice to say about Warren Drassig or his dynasty outside of the Brawler's League. His rule is a particularly sore spot for the elves.
- Combat Pragmatist: Part of what made the Scattered Wars so brutal was his penchant for this; he would send spies and soldiers into settlements he planned on conquering to learn their weaknesses and would then send his armies in to hammer on those weaknesses until they broke.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The artwork of him in the Tal'Dorei sourcebook has him looking a lot like a grey-haired Matthew Mercer.
- Fatal Flaw: Pride, and it was literally fatal; as he was making a grand speech to his men about the virtues of shadows and fear in the seemingly abandoned village of Torthil he was turned into a living pincushion by the hail of arrows that stormed down upon him from the bows of human and wood elf refugees and rebels.
- Make an Example of Them: He got his point across to the elves of Syngorn by having the ambassador sent to negotiate with him (and grandson of the still-living leader of the elves Yenlara) captured, tortured, and finally executed. This was the final straw the sent Syngorn into arms against Drassig.
- No Kill like Overkill: The amount of arrows that rained down upon him and his men in Torthil was said to have blotted out the sky.
Neminar Drassig, The Black Fingered
- Race: Human
After his father was struck down at Torthil, Neminar Drassig would take his father's throne and continue the wars that his father had started nine years prior. Neminar's reign was said to be the darkest part of the Scattered Wars, for where his father had barbarous cruelty and a keen blade, Neminar consorted with power of a darker sort. His practice with necromancy even gave him his sobriquet, as one of his arms was rendered shriveled and blackened from one of his experiments gone wrong.
- Deal with the Devil: He had some level of necromantic skill when he was just a regular spellcaster, but he got up to his worst tricks after striking a deal with the Betrayer God known as the Strife Emperor.
- Lured into a Trap: How he met his end, much like his dear father before him. He went out with a contingent of his thralls to assault the Syngornian outpost known as the Shifting Keep, but given the suffusion of Feywild magic in the area the Keep vanished and left Neminar without a target. Then an assault of men and elves led by Zan Tal'Dorei fell upon Neminar, empowered by the rage of the Verdant Expanse itself to crush the necromancer and turn the tide of the war.
- Mind Rape: As he twisted his soldiers' bodies with his magic so did he twist their minds, turning them into beings with subhuman intellect who only exist to fight and slaughter in his name.
- The Necrocracy: His rule was a version of this considering the sheer amount of necromantic power he pumped into his father's armies.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Were it not for the immense cruelty and horrendous necromancy used by him, Zan Tal'Dorei would never have been able to rally the support that she did to make her play against the Drassig war machine at the Shifting Keep and during the Battle of the Umbra Hills.
- Red Right Hand: Or black and shriveled like a corpse's, but that's just semantics.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After ascending the throne his first order of business was to exact vengeance for his father's death. He found every last one of the rebels that had slain his father at Torthil and piled their bodies into a pyre so high it reduced the town to ash as it burned.
Trist Drassig
- Race: Human
The youngest of Warren Drassig's sons and the one to take the throne after Neminar's death at the hands of Zan Tal'Dorei. He held onto delusions that he could win the Scattered Wars where his father and brother had failed, but by this point his army was stretched thin and his populace had a new leader to rally to in Zan Tal'Dorei. Without his father's tactical mind and charisma or his brother's necromantic power Trist would prove to be the last of the Drassig Dynasty, but not before one final stand at the Umbra Hills.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: On a tactical level, as Zan and her alliance of humans and elves started pushing Trist's forces back inch by inch with every small victory before finally pushing him back to his stronghold in the Cliffkeep Mountains.
- Last Stand: The Battle Of The Umbra Hills, where Trist called upon demons given by the Strife Emperor in one last push against the rebellion. The battle was fierce and bloody, with the black and burnt look of the grass and flowers in the area to this day indicative of the damage the demon-blood shed there did, but ultimately Zan Tal'Dorei put an end to the Drassig bloodline once and for all by striking him down.
- Out of Focus: Compared to Warren and Neminar, the only thing Trist is notable for is losing the Battle Of The Umbra Hills and for calling demons forth to fight for him. Even in the setting guide he only gets two paragraphs of text whereas his father and brother get about five apiece.
Sovereign Zan Tal'Dorei
- Race: Human
A human woman from Syngorn who became instrumental in taking down the Drassig dynasty and establishing the political system to follow. She first distinguished herself as a mighty warrior and inspirational leader, rallying the rebel forces and masterminding the ambush that ended Neminar Drassig. She used the momentum of that victory to beat back Trist Drassig's forces and end the last Drassig in the Cliffkeep Mountains. In the political reconstruction that followed the Scattered War, she reluctantly accepted the title of Sovereign and ruled well and wisely, even in the face of an invasion from the Elemental Plane of Ice.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Zan first made her name as a war hero in the rebellion against the Drassigs.
- Enemy Mine: The dwarves of Kraghammer were allies of the Drassigs during the Scattered War, but Zan reached out to them and allied with them to fight Errevon the Rimelord just two years later.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: All official artwork depicts her as having a small scar on her right cheek, possibly obtained at the Battle of the Umbra Hills where she ended the evil Drassig dynasty.
- The High Sovereign: But not a Queen.
- Humble Hero: When offered the throne, Zan humbly accepted the responsibility but refused the title of "King" or "Queen", instead choosing to be addressed as "Sovereign", if anything. She was also very much against renaming the entire country "Tal'Dorei" in her honor, but she was overruled by a unanimous vote by the Council.
- Rebel Leader: By the Ambush of the Verdant Expanse, she was recognized as the official leader of the rebellion against the Drassigs.
Vasselheim
Vespin Chloras
Played by: Brennan Lee Mulligan
- Race: HumanClass: Malconvoker
A powerful and wealthy archmage who, inspired by the ascension of the Raven Queen, sought a similar means to power, and opened the gates to the prisons of the Betrayer Gods, triggering the world-shattering events of the Calamity.
- Ambition Is Evil: Sought power and ascension to godhood, and released the Betrayer Gods to achieve his ends. Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, clarified that while he certainly was ambitious, the evil aspect had been exaggerated by history. His reasoning behind trying to usurp the position of a Betrayer God was because he acknowledged that the Prime Deities were generally benevolent, so godhood should instead be taken from the enemies of mortalkind. He never intended to set the Betrayers loose on the world, and is filled with regret for his part in it during his moment of lucidity.
- Apocalypse How: Triggers a Class 2 through his actions, as the Calamity wipes out all civilizations except for Vasselheim.
- Bad Powers, Good People: While not necessarily good, he identifies himself as a Malconvoker when Zerxus temporarily restores him; Malconvokers were a prestige class in 3.5 centered around summoning and binding infernals. One of the prerequisites of which was a non-evil alignment. He demonstrates these abilities when he manipulates Zerxus' unfinished contract to buy him time to save his friends and stop Asmodeus.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: A classic case, as he told Asmodeus he wished to be remembered forever. He is, as the villain who single-handedly doomed the world for selfish reasons even though he was really more of a patsy than anything.
- Fate Worse than Death: Vespin's domination by Asmodeus turned him into a decrepit fiend that can't vocalize much more than tortured screams. Cerrit's HDYWTDT against him in the final episode of Calamity just sends him back to the Nine Hells, implying he has the same Resurrective Immortality other Devils do, so even death can't end his suffering.
- Final Boss: Serves this role in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity.
- Godhood Seeker: Was inspired by the example of the Raven Queen and sought something similar.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: In-universe: Releasing the Betrayer Gods was never the goal of Vespin's ritual. Rather, he specifically sought to replace the Lord of the Hells, in the same way that the Raven Queen replaced the tyrannical previous god of death. He failed, ending up as a mindless puppet to Asmodeus. When cleansed of that influence by Zerxus, he expresses true regret that his actions played a part in releasing the Betrayers, and that he will bear the blame for it. Ultimately, Vespin's ambition played only a small part in the cavalcade of bad decisions which lead to the Calamity.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After releasing the Betrayer Gods, he was the first being they dominated and turned into their thrall.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Played for drama. Vespin is sure the Lord of the Hells will never let anyone forget he kick-started the Calamity, and if present-day Exandria is any indication, he was right.
- Spanner in the Works: Zerxus temporarily restores his form and sanity, and he uses his brief moments to stall Zerxus' Deal with the Devil until sunrise and cast a Time Stop spell that enables the revival of Nydas, Loquatius and Patia, enabling the Ring of Brass to make a final stand and banish two of the Primordials.
Purvan Suul
The Champion of the Raven Queen during the Age of Arcanum and Calamity. Original wearer of the Vestige Deathwalker's Ward.
- Canine Companion: Always accompanied by his wolf Galdric, even in death.
- The Cassandra: His appearance in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity is to try to warn the magocracy of Avalir about the dangers posed by Vespin Chloras, but none of them really listen to him, deriding him for his devotion to a god.
- The Champion: Of the Raven Queen. He believes her ascension to godhood makes her able to understand mortal struggles the best, and thus is the god most worth serving.
- Hero of Another Story: Twice: once as a historical figure and once as a supporting character.
- In Campaign 1, he is discussed as a hero of the Calamity, and his legacy is present in both his animal companion Galdric and his armor the Deathwalker's Ward, which is worn by Vax, his eventual successor as the Raven Queen's champion.
- In Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, he appears as Lycretia Hollow's guest at Patia's party, where he briefly interacts with the Ring of Brass while conducting his own investigation into Vespin Chloras.
- Unfortunate Names: Apparently the name is normal where he comes from.
Marquet
Opash
- Class: Wizard (Necromancer)
A necromancer exiled from Marquet during the late stages of the Age of Arcanum for violating the limits on necromantic experimentation. He subsequently established his lair on the island of Viscan to continue his experiments. His downfall came when a half-dead ancient red dragon washed ashore and he began experimenting on it before ultimately being killed by Thordak.
- The Exile: Thanks to his political connections he managed to avoid execution for violating laws on necromancy and instead was simply exiled from Marquet.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After years of torturing and experimenting on Thordak, the red dragon broke free and killed Opash as he was closing in on lichdom.
- Necromancer: One of the most powerful necromancers in the history of Exandria.
- Our Liches Are Different: Aspired to become a lich, intending to use Thordak's body and soul to strengthen the creation of his phylactery.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: His grimoire contains of lot of horrific lore and is dangerous for anyone who tries to read it.
