Glaramir Rorna

(3rd August 2004 - 3rd November 2004)
Initial Sheet

A Jezharrain sorcerer, son of a renegade survivor of Milas elite, Glaramir was an embittered solitary exile cursed with the secret of the terrible Tenth Art of magic when he wandered into the dungeons under Murnar's Manse in Myrid and was trapped by the sorcerer Olodor.

Freed by an adventuring party, he remained with them largely out of self-interest, only gradually realizing that their objectives and his were more in tune than he'd expected. While Jezharrain have not traditionally got on very well with other elves, the main core of Glaramir's hatred was for the humans of Vaslavii's Skorryn empire, the principal architects of the downfall of Milas and the Jezharrain.

It was in Olodor's workshop that Glaramir found the staff Alamir, one of the items that were to change his life, and with it mastered the Tenth Art for the first time, channelling his very life-stuff into greater magical power than should have been possible. Shortly afterwards, he made his choice of arcane specialty - demonolgy - and gained possession of Balek's Bane, a mighty artifact sought across this part of Greyhawk.

Also while in the dungeons, they encountered a greater Devil masquerading as a priest of Hofgar - in fact the priest of the village Velsin and his comrades had defended so staunchly - and at the time thought this merely an isolated abberation. They pressed on and prevented the awakening of the snake god, in the course of which Vance Dexton captured and became entwined with the snake dagger Beladran, and Agrias discovered the lost Hand of Ishtar.

The all-elven group's attitude to humans hardened as time went on, and they were delighted on their emergence from the underworld to discover the Khulandir and other militant elves preparing an internecine war on the humans, led by the Godchild of Andurien Willowstar and Demarak. All were tempted to join this crusade, but Agrias the Assault Cleric was instructed to seek the Iron River instead, and they headed west.

Crossing Talkhand, they made enemies of the local people with scarcely any effort, and were pursued by mighty magi, unleashed devils, and eventually entire armies. In another pivotal move, Glaramir tried his hand at summoning for the first time. The magic was skewed by Balek's Bane, and the demon that arrived was vastly more powerful than Glaramir had banked on; only barely was he able to bind it, first to a blood-red ruby and then to the staff Alamir. The latter inspired pairing produced a fearsome magical item, dubbed Slayer by Glaramir in the absence of a real name for the monster he'd brought from the Abyss.

Using Slayer, Beladran, the Hand of Ishtar and a mixture of bloody violence and low cunning, .the group managed to escape Talkhand and meet up with the Marraq Gellavar Narrakan, who led them to a pool/gateway which he said Hofgar wanted them to unlock. Suspicious, but not suspicious enough, Glaramir used Balek's Bane to break the imprisoning magic laid on the pool, and free... Hofgar!

Apparently, Willowstar had imprisoned the Earth God for some reason, Fulsomely grateful, the god, in His aspect of a wise, kindly old man proceeded to ask another service of the elven companions; that they disobey and decieve Willowstar, and steal the Godchild from the elves and take him to Jezharrain. Hofgar said persuasively that the elves couldn't possibly win as things were; only if another army were raised in the south could the war succeed. He claimed that Balance must be served.

The temptation was like a flaming sword inside Glarmir. Without the dillemma of whether to break faith with Willowstar faced by Agrias, he could see before him the victorious armies of an arisen Jezharrain marching north to crush the Shortlives, with himself and the Godchild at their head. Only a tiny cynical doubt remained. He asked Hofgar if, seeing the God valued balance over all, he could be comfortable with an overwhelming Elven victory; if he sought balance, was He setting them up to fail? Hofgar's answer was rather weak and evasive, and the red mist began to fade into distrust for the demonologist.

All this time Agrias had been mulling this over, his ambitions for the elven people warring with his faith in Willowstar. Finally, without any warning, he launched an all-out attack on Hofgar, joined in an instant by his comrades.

In a flash, the scene changed, and they were deep in Hell, surrounded by diabolic-looking goats. The creature they faced changed, and they saw him for what he was; the Lord of Hell himself. At first they thought that the ArchDevil had been masquerading as Hofgar as an imposter, but then the awful truth dawned. There was no Hofgar. All this time, the kindly, quirky Earth God of Balance and Goats had been a front for the Powers of Darkness.

Instantly, the elves realized that there would be no mercy. Now they knew the great secret, 'Hofgar' would have to kill them all to keep them from escaping and unmasking him to the world. With renewed vigour, they assailed the devil-god, at first to little effect, but once they realized his goat familiars were soaking up his wounds, they attacked those instead and made headway.

'Hofgar' attempted to banish them back the Greyhawk, but the furious anti-heroes resisted; two were flung out, leaving only Glaramir, Vance Dexton and Agrias the Assault Cleric to face the false God of the Balance. The battle raged, with all the companions (including the banished two, returned through the power of Willowstar's high priest) brought to the end of their reserves and the edge of death.

Confronted with defeat, Glaramir was offered the chance to gain aid from the Bane of Balek - at the price of  Slayer's destruction. Desperate, he broke the staff, feeding Slayer's essence to the rapacious ring, and felt his powers refreshed, his spells restored as if he'd never fought. Returning to the fray, he wove ever more destructive magic to slaughter the daemon-goats that 'Hofgar' had scattered his essence into, allowing Agrius to deal the final blow and slay the imposter.

Hastily, Glaramir spelled a Pentacle into being, transporting the survivors to the Abyss, and another to return them to Greyhawk, to Murnaar's Manse.

From there, the party proceeded to meet Demarak and Willowstar's Godchild Aliandir, and headed north towards Athalius to face a new threat. The last remnant two hundred of  the Asharoki race had blended themselves with demonkind in a last desparate attempt at conquering the rest of the world, and their leader, Ulgor Blackspear, had summoned Axarthur, a terrible demon of plague to achieve this.

Glaramir and his comrades ambushed and slaughtered twenty of the two hundred immediately, allowing Balek's Bane to read the dying mind of an Asharoki warrior-mage, then managed to bypass the rest where they waited in ambush in order to strike directly at Axarthur.

Their first assault was beaten off with discouraging ease, and Glaramir resorted to one of two Words of Power provided to him by Balek's Bane, summoning Saradar, described by the ring as a demon so dangerous as to be suicide to attempt binding. Saradar duly appeared, charged at Axarthur, attacked him, and promptly dropped dead from having forgotten not to breathe Axarthur's poisonous exudate.

Fire had been recommended as the best counter to Axarthur, so Glaramir decided to summon a powerful demon from the abyssal Plane of Fire to bolster the attack. Unfortunately, it got away from his control, and dragged him onto the the Plane in revenge. Facing death or worse, all Glaramir could do was to use the second Word of Power, one which would compel Willowstar herself to come to his aid. Furious beyond belief, the goddess did so, returning him scorched, naked, and clutching Mlorgul to his comrades. He was clearly in no condition to fight, so Agrius returned them to a Willowstar temple in the Elenorian forest.

Here the priests reacted with hostility to Glaramir, and he was unable to keep Agrius from learning what had happened. Confronted with such a violation of his deity, Agrius instantly attacked Glaramir. The Jezharrain put up a pretty good fight considering what he'd already been through, and was aided by Hazdan Grarvin, but Vance Dexton sided with Agrius (shooting Hazdan dead with a magical arrow created from Gravin's first and only magical item), and Glaramir was killed.