#akorda

Ilphaer has is with her Ex-wife, Akorda. Akorda's class is a mixed cleric-Demon binder (Which is, itself, admittedly a greyhawk specific class. But I think works well for what Warlocks would become going into 5e.). I took a lot of design cues from gyaru fashion for her Lolth worshiping era, and then simplified it down for her Eilistraee worshipping one (For reasons we will get into as we go over her backstory.) If you've ever wondered what all Ilphaer is up to doing the years enclave is spying on Sabdra as a traitor separate from her, it's dealing with this woman.

As a Lolth worshiper, she was a demon-binder - And. Alright, hold on. Before we get into the personality of it all, we gotta start with the class.

What's the gimmick with Demonbinders?

I have copied and bolded some things I'm hoping to play into with this class, of which I will elaborate on after.

By becoming a demonbinder, you sacrifice your immortal soul for the instant power granted by the Abyss. You draw demonic agencies inside yourself, triggering a vile transformation that bestows not only a sampling of a fiend’s power, but also a resemblance to that fiend. Constant exposure to these creatures leaves a stain on your soul so foul that no act of restitution will ever cleanse it. 

Demonbinders are a menace. They have no restraint. They eschew the good sense that keeps sane mortals from treating with demons. Demonbinders are too arrogant to recognize that they are the tools of the creatures they supposedly control, and the fact that they have not yet been bodily snatched into the Abyss to suffer incomprehensible tortures is only proof that these twisted individuals are immensely valuable to the demon princes.

From the very moment young drow exhibit a warlock’s unique powers, they are taken from their houses, stripped of their familial loyalties, and steeped in the dark arts of warlock magic. Few survive the arduous training and profoundly evil rites meant to usher them into their next stage of development. For most, their “education” stops when they achieve adulthood, whereupon they take their place in the priesthood as members of the church. A few go farther than this position, however. Warlocks who display a special knack for dealing with fiends and who exhibit a deeper understanding of those creatures study under the tutelage of established demonbinders, learning a different, darker path to power. Again, the casualty rate from such instruction is high, and many would-be demonbinders simply disappear, with only an echoing scream to suggest where they went and what took them.

The Daughters of the Demon receive assistance from the clerics of Lolth, who regard them as valuable tools for maintaining their status and control. In exchange for your support, the priestesses provide you with lodging, food, clothing, and all of life’s necessities. In addition, they also offer free healing, if it lies within their power, as well as discounted spellcasting services. Though the rewards are considerable, make no mistake: You are their servant.

So the essential things that I want to play into regarding this class

= First is first: Her social class is notedly odd within the narrative. She has enough individual power that she is above the average merchant family, but her position and rank comes with regards to her being subservient to whatever noble family she is doing work towards. She, due to the demonic influence that she works with, is not entirely trusted and can never be in a position where she is trusted within Lolth's clergy. However - !

= She's the walking equivalent of a nuclear missile. She's POWERFUL. She rivals Ilphaer in power just through her workings with demons. I'll post a larger reminder of what Ilphaer's story is in the next section, but as smaller for this section: She was an archmage in Sshamath for the Evocation school, and managed to get that position in her younger years.

= Third: Oooooh baby getting to the position she did HURT. Put a pin in that. We'll get into that in the Eilistraee section.

= Final: She does not actually like the fact that she's a demonbinder. This was something (as tends to happen with drow children) that was forced onto her when they saw the potential of it within her. She likes the POWER it gives her, but she (Unlike the description of the class) has a lot of foresight and concern about who the fuck is getting her soul when she dies, and what they plan to do with it. (NO ONE can torture the GREAT and POWERFUL Akorda!)

Larger reminder on Ilphaer's backstory

Okay so as a reminder, Ilphaer's general backstory is that she grew up in the slums of Sshamath, and rank climbed up to become the archmage of the Evocation school at a relatively young age. She does not have natural talent, but learned skill (much of which was brute force effort.) Her mamma was poor as shit, but took on the brunt of the labor so that she could focus on schooling.

They only got to enjoy a period of relative stability for a few years before Lolth's crusaders came and killed her mamma. Then she has a failed revenge quest (because the crusaders who killed her mother are wiped out by a rival house before she had a chance to get to them), which is what leads her to joining Vhaeraun's church (because if she can't get revenge on the specific individuals who killed her mom, why not go scorched earth on the system that enabled it in itself?)

Ilphaer is both deeply aware of both how much easier she had it as a male-born drow in the underdark, and of how much her mother sacrificed to GIVE her that. Her mother wasn't perfect - Ilphaer chooses to see her through rose-tinted glasses looking back on it because at this point in her light "fixating on her flaws seems pointless," but she was still a drow woman that (herself) was dealing with the generational trauma of The Menzo Stink.

However. She still looked at her first-boy and had the organic thought of "Oh. I don't know how anyone could chose to hurt something this small." and went out of her way to find a way out.

Okay. Now I can actually make this post about Akorda and her design and character intention.

LOLTH ERA

Akorda is purposefully written to be A Personality. On one hand, she embodies a lot of those Lolth traits that are generally depicted in a pretty negative way by canon. She’s hot-headed, self-serving, explosive, and is inherently pretty pleasure seeking. She has this very theatrical personality that gives big “would announce herself as, “The great and powerful Akorda!” vibes.

She’s deeply frivolous and theatric, and I want her to be portrayed as being like. Decorative and kitchy. The actual price of the Jewelry doesn’t matter, in as much as it being big and tacky. She wears her hair in inconvenient styles, and goes out of her way to find a swath of colors even in the underdark.

On the other hand, (as mentioned in the points above) she both is someone with foresight, and does not act without reason. Her response to Ilphaer getting into her business (Of which Ilphaer does, plenty) is almost a bemused excitement. Though she’d never say it outloud, there’s almost this vibe of “Ah-ha! Someone who can rival my wit and power!” that forces her brain into action. Truthfully, I think in a lot of way's Ilphaer is more arrogant than Akorda is.

Finally, and the most endearing charm point to me. Is that I think Akorda is a little pathetic. But I think that one is best shown rather than told, and so I will work to portray that in the later future.

The Dynamic.

Okay. let's establish something at this point. This isn't a rivals to lovers situation, this one is wholly enemies to lovers. Akorda is absolutely torturing and killing people, and the two of them are not only willing and capable, but DO hurt eachother. Akorda, though she did not participate in the murder of Ilphaer's mother directly has connections to one of the main houses that helped lead to it, and tends to be bounced around between the houses Ilphaer is causing issues in.

Comparatively, it quickly gets to the point that Akorda kind of doesn’t want to actually kill Ilphaer specifically, in as much as she wants to catch her and keep her. Like a prize. A thing she could do, theoretically.

Even near the tail end of this phrase, when Ilphaer fully flips from annoyance towards her to this irritated acceptance of fondness, Ilphaer is under the impression that she's never going to be able to actually get Akorda to convert to something like Vhaeraun's religion. But from the start, Akorda is DEEPLY under the impression that she can Get Ilphaer and Keep Her. Of which Ilphaer is aware of, and, truthfully, a little into. "I don't know," 's "Hard not to find that a little bit flattering."

But you know. Ilphaer is soo smart and so sexy and so powerful. She'll never let herself get into that situation.

So anyway. Are you surprised at all to learn that Ilphaer let's herself get into that situation.

I’m still working out the specifics of this part, but eventually they have a confrontation that leads Ilphaer into realizing that there’s a limit to her own capabilities, and this isn’t reaaaaally something she should be messing with. And she just like. Completely disappears on Akorda. Not her responsibility anymore! Bye! And Akorda is like. "Where the fuck. Did that freak go. My freak??? ):"

Alas. This is not the point in their life where it's meant to be.

EILISTRAEE ERA

So anyway. Time passes. Eventually (The pieces from point a to point b on this need to better fall into place) Akorda comes around to join Eilistraee's church, for what she would say is self-admitted completely self-serving means. Matter is: She doesn't Love Lolth, and the Eilistraee priestesses she’s working with agree to help her get the situation with her soul sorted from whatever pact she was forced into doing as a youth that offered her the powers and capabilities of a demon binder. So by the time Ilphaer joins the church during the Masked Lady era, Akorda’s already established a presence in it and is working on Taking Care Of That. They both kind of. "!" about the other being there. I know that one. That's MY freak.

And so the two of them encounter eachother on more even ground, and basically Jump Eachother about it. First? We attempt to kill eachother. Then we fuck eachother. Then we become obsessed with eachother in a deeply unhealthy way, to the concern and discomfort of all the priestesses around us.

To an outside eye, it looks like they have kind of a whirl-wind romance, especially by drow standards, but they’ve kinda already had eachother figured out and had a mild fascination with one another long before they were on the “same team.” This is DECADES of frustration built up and then let out.

And it's kinda exciting, isn't it..?

(This is also kind of meant to say a little bit of something about Ilphaer and what she views as right and wrong. The priestess who killed her mom deserved to die for killing her mamma, but Akorda, who has undeniable done just as much harm, does not. Because Ilphaer is charmed by her, and because none of what she did directly resulted in the kind of damage Ilphaer couldn't fix, it's fine. Ilphaer has a bias. She likes her bias. Don’t question her bias.)

So these two become incredibly close within Eilistraee's church. And likeee. The relationship isn't The Most Healthy, for reasons that you can probably figure. Baby are there screaming matches when the two of them argue, because they're both stubborn hotheads. But they respect eachother more than most of the priestesses there respect either of them, because they've both seen and fully understand what the other is capable of. And above all else, they enjoy eachothers company.

The motivation.

So. To finally pull a pin out of that second point all the way from section one of this mega-post.

Akorda has really bad PTSD. NOW. I feel like that goes without saying for most drow, the majority of drow are operating in crisis and trauma mode. But most drow, if I can phrase it in a very crass way, kinda tend to have the larger, explicit reactions beaten out of them. Hers is comparatively not subtle in the slightest and rather debilitating - It's the waking up in screaming fits and the panic attacks and the lashing out of it all. And when you're a Lolth-worshiping drow, you can hide those big responses behind the idea that you're just one of those priestesses that fall into "unreasonable, shrieking rages."

But now that she's on the surface, and now that she's in a group where that's less acceptable... well. It's suddenly a lot harder to try and pretend like there's Not Something Wrong, and that the things that were done to her in the path to becoming a demonbinder DIDN'T leave a mark on her.

She doesn't like this, or have a larger understanding of why it happens. When she's in Lolth's church, she just kind of assumes that it's a result of the literal demons. But when she's on the surface and no longer in contact with or binding them, it's harder to ignore that the dissociative spells might mean there's something wrong with HER. There can't be something wrong with HER. She's the great Akorda!

(Ilphaer wakes up to her with her head in her hands and in a sobbing fit that she doesn't have the words to articulate the cause of.)

Oh. Okay.

Next part. I don't have a funny title this time.

So (as has been mentioned in the past) Ilphaer first transitions when she undergoes the changedance during the masked lady era. Akorda, on the otherhand. undergoes the sin-eating ritual willingly (A few decades after Ilphaer does the changedance, so she's around for all that.)

It's been a while since I've spoken about it publically, so I will also be taking the chance to re-brush over how I've decided to handle the sin-eating ritual (Because I, as a person, fundamentally refuse to canonize the biblical concept of sin as like, a thing that actually exists and has tangible weight within the forgotten realms.) For the most part, I think that the sin-eating ritual is just kind of ritual that fucks with peoples memories. I base it more-so on one of the canon elven concept's introduced in the big book of elves.

In a very real way, the reverie accounts for the elven desire to lead happy, joyous lives. Who would look forward to reliving unpleasant memories every night? Very few, though there are some truly noble elves who take on the pain and suffering of others so that they relive the memories with each reverie instead . These elves have accepted this sacrifice for the good of their people, taking upon themselves the burden that could not (or should not) descend to the lives of other, more innocent elves. They perform the unpleasant task of drawing into themselves the suffering of their people.

However, there is one (1) thing I want to play with when it comes to the sin eating ritual, that I think could be interesting to incorporate due to it's magical nature. While I refuse to play with the concept of sin, one of the things that I DO think is very real within the forgotten realms is higher beings (Such as Gods, Celestials, demons, ect) putting ""marks"" on a mortals soul. I think other entities can probably see that, and that's what's being played into with the idea introduced in the demonbinders first paragraph; Constant exposure to these creatures leaves a stain on your soul so foul that no act of restitution will ever cleanse it. 

So Akorda undergoes the sin-eating ritual. On one hand, it works to achieve what she wanted. The claims that the demonic forces of the abyss once held on her is wiped clean, and she no longer carries the memories that led to the trauma she had and the worst of the mental wounds that were inflicted on her, and she no longer has to personally deal with the weight of the horrors she personally helped to commit.

On the other hand, this foundationally changes her as a person. So much of her personality was built up around both the good and bad memories that she had, and her personality was a direct result of the environment that she grew up in. Because there is no one individual trait that makes a person ""Bad."" The loud, self-serving side of Akorda that developed to help defend herself against the larger societal structures of the underdark is also what fed into her becoming such a passionate, playful personality. Ilphaer didn't love her even in spite of the worst parts of her personality, but because of them.

So. Ilphaer loses the person she fell in love with.

Part of the reason that Ilphaer's so pissed with Eilistraee's church when she's leaving it is that no one within it really seems to sympathize or understand why she's so upset. To a lot of the Eilistraee worshipers, Akorda became a kinder, calmer, more trusting, and more generous person after she underwent the sin eating ritual. She so clearly sleeps easier at night, she spends more time with The Community, she's more tepid and careful (all traits they consider to be good and beneficial!)

But Ilphaer looks at Akorda, and see's a ghost where her wife used to be. She see's echo's of who her wife was in who she is now, but the passion and the large personality that drew her in originally is gone. So much of the foundations of their relationship were built not only on the shared memories they had together, and Akorda can no longer really understand or relate to the kinds of experiences that Ilphaer had in the underdark, because the memories of her own were taken from her. Ilphaer overwhelms her a bit now. She doesn't know how to play against Ilphaer's harsher edges anymore, because the things that used to be playful banter between them feels more like acts of cruelty. And it's not, of course. But there's just a new barrier there that makes them foundationally incompatible.

A lot of the Eilistraee worshipers Ilphaer was with think she's kind of a shitty person who did the emotional equivalent of divorcing her wife for having cancer, but like. She couldn't do it! She could not stay with her after that. That's Not Her Wife.

Soooooo. She's an Ex-Wife and not a dead wife. Akorda is still very much alive by the time 5e rolls around, and part of Ilphaer's insistence on staying so close to Waterdeep (amongst other things) is to keep an eye on the Eilistraee worshiping sect there because her ex-wife is in the area. Akorda’s not doing anything notable or particularly badass. She can’t really fight anymore on account of the everything of the situation, so she occupies herself with just like the daily labors that every settlement needs to do to keep things moving. You know. Raising food and the like.