Saldar Es'Viladrae

Saldar is an NPC used briefly during the Mists of Cormyr campaign; he has subsequently made a return in The Path of the Tome.

Description
Saldar is roughly 5'2", with a compact and wiry frame that seems to disappear effortlessly. His skin, like all of his race, is jet black; his eyes are the customary red. A short shock of white hair can sometimes be seen peeking out from underneath a skullcap.

Despite his race, Saldar manages to appear nondescript; the eyes slide right off of him. This mastery of camoflauge has helped him on more than one occasion.

Personality
Saldar is best described as grim. While he does not wish to be on the surface, and the sunlight still hurts him terribly, he has accepted his situation and is doing his best to lead his people into the formation of a settlement which can interact with the civilized world. Saldar is, on occasion, very bitter, because so very few accept his mission.

The Destruction of Ched Nased
The Underdark is understood to be a violent place: a land of predators and prey, with traps that would slaughter surface-dwellers faster than imagination could conjure them. It is in this environment that the drow have developed.

Their social rules are not understood to be forgiving.

The dark deities of the drow play the great Houses off of one another for their own amusement, and the drow dance to the tune quite readily: theirs is an unthinking and unblinking slaughter of kith and kin.

For the longest time, those born with consciences were exterminated or survived only in secrecy, for fear of a quick and efficient death. Eventually, though, the Servants of Eilistraee rose up, in the great city of Ched Nased, and did battle with the followers of Vhaeraun.

At the end of the chaos, the Eilistraeem disappeared into the darkness ... only to surface in the hallowed woods of Cormanthor.

Cormanthor and Jezz the Lame
Saldar was such a one. He was not a leader, when he first left the Underdark; time and many deaths have unwittingly elevated him to that level. His scouting led large packs of the fallen drow around the great arcane magics of the woods.

His groups were not the only to surface.

Some drow of Ched Nased, hearing rumors of the treasures buried within Myth Drannor and the woods of Cormanthor, had left the city long before its destruction and invaded the great forest in order to plunder it. Vhaeraun's charge was led by Jezz the Lame, a treacherous rogue who has dogged Saldar's settlers at every turn ... moreso because they believe the Eilistraeem to be responsible for the firebombing.

Xanaphia, Oryn and Ulfgar
In the months before the Battle at the Citadel of the Raven, Saldar was approached by a monk of Lathander, an elven woman named Xanaphia. Their dealings were wary at first, but the two were oddly attracted to one another. Things proceeded as one might expect ... and would have gone farther, had the Cirque de Suzail not arrived.

Xanaphia had sent instructions to a cohort, Ulfgar Ironwill, to have him deliver materials to the Eilistraeem camp. At the same time, Xanaphia's arrogant older brother, Oryn Silverrain, arrived: he had located the last of the Mages' Regal, a drow named Anchir Baenrae, and he was to see this creature dead ... for he had murdered the father of the Silverrains.

Saldar assisted them as best he could, but the climactic battle left Xanaphia dead at the hand of Oryn, and Anchir dead at the hand of the Cirque. Distrusting one another, but together in their bereavement, they went off in search of a place to commune with Xanaphia's spirit ...

The Path of the Tome
Saldar was, at Oryn's request, brought along with the Chosen recruited by Valen Retoran, and is working with them for a time, before he returns to his own people ... and the battles that await them.

Current Whereabouts
Deceased: Greengrass, 1378 DR Saldar was killed defending Tangled Trees from Oryn's Crimson Celebration. The details surrounding his death have not yet surfaced.