#drow ocs

Drow name table strikes again!

Div- dream, fantasy | ⁠yrr- protector, rival, wielder

I thought it was the perfect name for him. His mother was an Eilistraeean living as a commoner in Menzoberrenzan. She wasn’t a priestess or a cleric by any means, but she believed in Eilistraee’s word and tried to raise Div’yrr as such. This idea of protecting a dream, keeping it alive, felt right. Because that’s what she wanted for her son! She wanted him to be someone better, to strive for something better. She couldn’t change their lot in life overnight, but she could dream, and so could her baby boy.

(I only recently learned there was someone on here who ALSO has a drow with the same name albeit without the apostrophe… Divyrr Coincidence. Their little guy is so cute though. I love you drow ocs.)

Nervous ticks or tself soothing habits?

Div gets nervous about a lot of seemingly inconsequential things at the drop of a hat, because (like me) he has the ‘everything is suddenly overwhelming and wrong for no good reason’ disorder (ocd). He’s always got some sort of instrument on him though, and tuning it, cleaning it and playing it soothes him. He’s been known to ‘clean’ instruments that are like. Already clean. The motion just comforts him. He also fidgets with his necklace or the cover on his compass sometimes.

He also finds a lot of comfort in just watching his friends go about their day. He likes pulling open his tent flap in their shared camp, listening to them chat and watching them go about their mundane day to day business. Makes him feel grounded, a part of something bigger.

Let's say your OC got kidnapped, what would save them?

You see this is funny because it wasn’t exactly kidnapping, but his ex-weaponsmaster-eventually-boyfriend did try to hunt him down and kill him. He’s just… really, really fucking hard to catch, especially without magical means. That’s a Thing about his character. Trickster cleric. Disguise self. Pass without trace. Mirror image. Blink. Blessing of the Trickster. Channel divinity: invoke duplicity.

This isn’t to say he couldn’t be caught or kidnapped- just that it would be really hard to do so and keep him from escaping and I find it really funny. There’s not a lot of things he’s good at but that’s one of them. Drawing/painting, Music, and Getting Away From You. I do think if he got kidnapped his Eilistraeean buddies would be on finding him very quickly. He’s… kind of a pushover and is really bad at being his own mature person, and the leader of his little group babies him just a bit for it. Would be very concerned about him not being able to get out of the situation on his own, or that he’d cough up confidential information about their cause. If Nal’zt was there when this happened he’d stop at nothing to find him too. He didn’t spend 200 years guarding him and his wife in menzoberrenzan to let him get snatched up by some surfacers,

If your OC has a love interest, are they opposite or rather similar?

They're fairly opposite, but have been through a lot together so they Share A Vibe when they're together. if you will.

Div'yrr spent almost 200 years as patron to a rather immature and underqualified matron mother who scooped him up when he was like freshly 18, who then treated him like a pet. Nal'zt (my boyfriend’s guy) was her weaponsmaster who she in turn treated like her knight in shining armor. She was living her little princess fantasy. They were both like. little touys for her.

When said matron was killed by her sister, Div'yrr escaped to the surface... and 26 years later, Nal'zt was sent off to hunt him down and kill him. But he kind of like, fell in love with him a little bit? Decided he didn't want to kill him. His faith in Lolth wavered. He hated that it did.

Ways they are different:

Nal'zt is still going through Lolthite Deconditioning and is really uncomfortable around the Eilistreaans, whereas Div'yrr is very happy being an Eilistraeean.

Nal'zt is an expert swordsman, top of his class and his house. Div can't fight for shit.

Div'yrr is a creative with a ton of hobbies to pass the time! Nal'zt doesn't know what to do with himself now that he's not working in his house as weaponsmaster.

But..

They both miss their terrible matron mother so, so much lol. This is the biggest thing they have in common, and the weird trauma-bond they have from their time there colors their personal lives and their relationship a lot. Their matron did treat them far nicer than most in a lot of ways! She was very affectionate with them, said all the right things to make them feel secure and appreciated. Actually kept Div'yrr around instead of killing him and picking another guy every 10 years. He was utterly obsessed with her in turn.

But it was all very unhealthy and abusive at it's core still- she owned him in practice, as her patron. She was also like, very often locking Div'yrr away in their room to just. Do his little art and music. Make something interesting for her to come home to. Didn't let him have any interpersonal relationships or be his own person outside of his relationship to her and the house. He existed for her satisfaction, for entertaining her party guests- play your little music bard boy! Like I said. They were her Touys. Div does not have an identity of his own when he gets to the surface, and it’s really fucked up. Everything he was was for her, and now everyone expects him to be something different. Yeah. A big theme of Div’yrr and Nalzt’s stories independently and as a relationship is finding your identity.

Is there a story behind making your OC? What inspired you?

So it's funny. He exists because Runa needed a dad- the idea was "Eilistraeean guy from Menzoberrenzan who had a one-night stand with Runa's mom", because parts of Runa's story kind of relied on them not knowing their dad and not knowing he was a drow. My original direction was "Cool Eilistraeean adventurer guy Runa will bump into on their adventure and it will be cool". He was SUPPOSED to be a badass. But the more I rotated him in my head and ran him against Eilistraee’s church, the less put together he got, and I liked it so I ran it to the extreme. What if he not only didn’t have a strong identity and purpose, but had next to no identity? How does that happen to someone? How do you bounce back from that? Yeah. I like my clueless little guy.