#elmenore

Seasonal eladrin weren't even a concept that existed yet. All we knew of Lady Elmenore the Unforgiving, high warqueen and matriarch, was a single line listing her titles in the original Tal'Dorei Guide. There was no canon. My DM and I played around in the space however we liked.

She was 'Unforgiving', said the book. Fey have many sides: We decided Elmenore was a wise ruler, loving and kind to her loyal courtiers, but ruthless to all who went against her. House Wydion, we decided, was a family that had been under the warqueen's thumb since time immemorial; an order of knights serving her every will and whim. On a long-forgotten day eons ago, the House had struck a bargain -- one that left every Wydion bound to Elmenore's service forever. Each Wydion youth who grew up to join her knights swore an oath to uphold her law. None could leave on pain of death.

Altaire was born to Gienah Wydion, commander of the house's knights and first in Lady Elmenore's heart. As heir to Gienah's legacy, he idolized his mother and wished from early youth to follow in her footsteps. He was kind of heart, a little mischievous, prone to gentle pranks; endlessly talkative, silver-tongued, and in later years would take quite a few happy acquaintances to his bed; but more than all this he held his mission as a knight above everything. The Seelie Court was locked in eternal battle with the Unseelie, with vicious tactics often called for to beat back the enemy. Though many of the acts the young squire Altaire was asked to commit against the Court's enemies left him uneasy about his Lady's law, still he did his best to uphold her commands.

Altaire was half-eladrin, half-high elf. A mortal elven man. Upon his 100th birthday he was recognized as adult, sworn in as a full knight of the Court, and sent to the Material Plane to patrol as an enforcer against fey who fled the Lady's justice. While there he met his father, the Syngornian soldier who his mother had once invited to her bed while stationed with other Syngorn troops in the Feywild. Altaire grew to love his Syngornian family, and traveled wide and far across the Material Plane, growing to love it and its people too.

After decades of traveling, learning to love this realm from the distance of a guest, he met new friends. They formed an adventuring company called Draak Vir, doing good works far and wide across Tal'Dorei for profit and acclaim. Across many adventures they worked often alongside a delegation from Ank'Harel, friends of J'mon sa Ord themself, one a drow named Kenath -- a paladin of redemption with whom Altaire shared a special bond.

And through all their travels Lady Elmenore delivered edicts to her knight: Execute this fey, apprehend that fey. Though troubled about some of those orders, Altaire did as he was told, fulfilled his oath. But sometimes his friends would ask him. Sometimes Kenath, alone at night, would ask him.

Is this who you want to be? Are you happy with the path you've been made to walk?

Another order came one day: Bring your companions to my great festival, that I might see their skills. Draak Vir traveled to the Lady's festival in the Feywild, along with some of the other friends they'd made. In victory they earned a great boon: One wish, anything within an archfey's power, and Elmenore would grant it to them.

Meanwhile, one of their friends decided to amuse his own liege lord, Artagan. He took advantage of the Lady's distraction and stole her royal crown, absconding all the way back to the Material Plane with it. The outcome of that action was inevitable.

Return to your post, and execute your traitorous friend. Retrieve my crown. I see how your loyalty wavers. Prove yourself a true knight of my court.

Meanwhile still, they received word that trouble was brewing in the Material Plane. An undead horde might be released upon the world unless they took extraordinary magical means to stop it. Altaire's paladin, Kenath, was directly in the crosshairs of the worst danger of all.

And meanwhile still. The boon they'd earned could do nearly anything. The freedom of House Wydion, impossibly, was somehow within reach.

So many choices to make. Would they save the Material Plane, and one singular drow, but leave one singular family to its eternal, miserable fate? Would they secure a new life for the Wydions but leave the mortal world to face Orcus's armies unprotected, one singular drow perhaps lost forever? No matter what they chose, could Altaire raise his sword to take back that crown, to cut down a friend, simply to uphold the oath he'd planned to live and die for?

There are many stories of mortals stumbling into the Feywild, falling in love with a faerie that they meet. There is one story of a faerie who ventured to the realm of mortals, fell in love there, and died there. I like to imagine that the memory of Loquatious lived on in the Feywild's histories, a cautionary tale taught to young Seelie, about one of the children Elmenore had loved best.

Stay here. Our land is chaos and serenity, beauty and rot, sorrow and ecstasy, everything you need already. Stay home. Stay safe. The world of order is grey and cruel.

But well over 800 years later -- just a generation or three of elves after the Calamity -- there came a young knight who never was much for book learning. Who never quite listened to all the cautionary tales that his elders might have liked him to.

Altaire left his burdened family behind to rescue the Material Plane, to rescue one particular drow. Altaire delivered his queen her stolen crown, looked her in the face, and told her that he could not cut down a friend over so petty a slight. For the first time in untold millennia, a Wydion broke their oath.

He fled to the Material Plane. His home. He was pursued by the Seelie Court. His knight-captain, his mother, cut him down to fulfill her own oath. As he lay with blood draining from his cooling corpse, in secret, his mother pressed a Revivify to his chest.

Never return to the Feywild. Never speak to us again. Stay here, Altaire. I'm proud of you.

He fled to the arms of that paladin of redemption, the drow who had asked him, Is this who you want to be? He stood with his friends against the hordes of the Abyss to secure Exandria's future once again.

There are two stories of a faerie who ventured to the realm of mortals, fell in love there, and died there. I never imagined I would watch the tale of Exandria's apocalypse and find a story I had told looking back at me.