Devros dur Ailindel

From Zok

Devros is the second son of a lord of a minor noble house in Eltrin. While Devros’s elder brother, Engin, was sent to Tein-Larion to be educated, Lord Ailindel dar Havva decided his younger son would be better suited to learn the art of combat in order that Devros could be his elder brother’s shield when it came time for Engin to rule. This was how Devros just before his thirty-fifth birthday found himself at Black Mountain studying the Truth Found in Blood at the Diamond's Edge under the renowned master swordsman Teleis dar Thurva.

Devros proved himself to be one of Teleis’s most talented students, and when Devros sought Teleis’s leave to finish his studies in the wider world where he might hone his skills, Teleis granted his request, though the master swordsman asked that his pupil return to Black Mountain when Devros felt his training to be complete. However, Devros was never again seen at Black Mountain, and whatever reason Teleis had for wanting his student to return was never revealed, as Teleis was found dead with a dagger wound in his chest on one of the plateaus of Black Mountain nearly ten years to the day after Devros left on his travels.

Devros returned to elven civilization about a year after his former master’s death, making an appearance in the city of Saltur and joining the guard in the northern sector mere days after his arrival. Elves who had known him from Black Mountain found him to be almost completely unrecognizable; his hair had gone completely white when before it had been as black as coal, and where once there had been unending optimism and good humor was a void as if such things had been carved out of him with a jagged knife. However, despite the unexplained shift in personality, Devros rose quickly through the ranks of the city guard and came to attain the position of captain. He currently commands all the guards in Saltur’s northern sector.

No one is sure where Devros spent the missing eleven years or what happened to cause him to change so greatly. It is unlikely anyone will ever know; after the first few discouraging (to say the least) attempts to get Devros to open up about his long absence from elven society, it was widely decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to stop the inquiries, no matter how well-intentioned they might be.

Description

Devros is a young elf barely into adulthood, though he looks older than his years would indicate. He also stands about half a head shorter than the average elf and is on the thin side to the point that ‘wiry’ is putting it nicely, though no one has ever had cause to notice the latter as Devros is always attired in clothing—usually his captain’s uniform over a mail shirt—that gives him the illusion of the bulk he lacks, leaving none of his body uncovered except his face. No one can even remember seeing him take his gloves off since his arrival in Saltur.

His hair is pure white, though he keeps it shorn short, and his eyes are an emerald green normally only seen in the deepest parts of a forest where the light doesn’t reach. His skin is darker than most elves because of Burnt Elf ancestry, though his accent is close to those who live in Saltur due to leaving Eltrin to train in Black Mountain at so young an age.

Devros is one of the more uncompromising members of Saltur’s guard, only giving criminals he pursues one warning to surrender before cutting them down, and not giving those who turn themselves in to Saltur’s justice much more compassion than those he leaves dead in the street. His subordinates respect his fervor and refusal to compromise, seeing him as someone who enforces his standards as harshly on himself as he does on others, though it is occasionally wearing for them to work under someone who never smiles and never makes allowances for anything.

Abilities

Devros is a skilled young swordsage who has been trained in three of the four styles of combat that are taught at Black Mountain, though some say he was given personal instruction by Teleis in yet another martial discipline, and no one is exactly sure what he learned during the lost eleven years. His collection of weaponry reflects this diversity of knowledge, as Devros is never seen with fewer than four blades on his person at a time, making him something of a walking armory.