Shendraut, Dancer with the Dead

(24th May 2001 - 17th April 2002)

Shendraut was a Minos, a mountain race exhibiting parts of human, elf and orc ancestry, and was trained as an assassin at the mysterious Monastary of the Shadow in the Drenai mountains. Coupling the deadly skills of the assassin with a powerful and compelling personality, he evolved a whole raft of fake identites into whch he could slip with ease; noble fop, self-pitying half-orc drunk, hard-bitten merchant, elf forester, Darim swordsman.

His adventures took him into the company of the noble explorer Count Mastarn, and into contact with his supposedly dead and possibly dæmonic mother, the beautiful woman known only as Suwelar, with whom Shendraut spent an exhausting night. With Mastarn and several others, he was drawn into the search for a collection of linked magical items of great significance. Pursued across Greyhawk by vampires, sorcerers and the agents of Fermat, Shendraut was responsible for single-handedly stopping a full orc regiment in its' tracks by assassinating the commander, from whom he captured a belt which increased his strength and endurance many-fold; this was to save his life several times.

After the waking of a vast dragon, the group went on to slay an Elvenking, talk with a God, and blow up an entire mountain, before discovering the vast network of orc tunnels honeycombing Fermat's realm. Shendraut was one of the first humans to enter Aldegarde since its' capture by Fermat, and successfuly stole the great Spear Azhadan that Fermat had guarded there so carefully. Confronted by the Orc-God himself, Shendraut was blasted out of the window of the tower, but amazingly survived; it turned out that the holder of the spear could not die while he was touching it.

Finally, Shendraut and his companions went up against Fermat himself, luring him to a parlay between two armies and then attacking him in an attempt to end the war. The Orc-God proved too much for them, however, and Shendraut, Mastarn and their companions were killed.