Thalagyrt

Thalagyrt was a very old male mist dragon living in a series of caverns north of Port Llast.

Description
He was always damp, but not bothered by that.

Personality
Thalagyrt was pedantic, fearless, grumpy, and often bored, though possibly a romantic at heart. His hobby was collecting lore from the sentient races of the North, especially pertaining to singular items of note. He enjoyed watching sentient peoples and recording their deeds. He never seemed to forget anything, though his recall could be slow. People could trade knowledge with him, though he never gave out extensive information. Such a trade usually cost a large amount of gold, and he often viewed it as a last resort. He was very good at riddles and contests of wit, but found such things tiresome. Even though he easily could, he would never maliciously deceive another person. He viewed all peoples with humor and compassion, and plausibly understood their natures better than most of them did. He was loyal and helpful to his friends, who could be of any race. He was known to have come to the rescue of particularly close friends. He was hostile to those who intended to steal, destroy, or kill. He was contemptuous of bullies and blackmailers, and could not be intimidated.

He despised aggressive dragons and believed that dragons lost their previous mastery over Faerûn because of their arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness. He avoided fighting other dragons and ignored the concept of dragon territories.

His favorite meal was buttered fried snails and Chultan jungle tree slugs (which could reach or more in length). He considered any slug or turtle—including dragon turtles—a delicacy. He often subsisted on mist and washed-up algae, those these did not excite him. He enjoyed sweets and liquors gifted by visitors, but disliked being bribed with food, and such attempts could backfire. He was rumored to have an amazing constitution and could consume anything, even saltwater, poisons, or mist-dragon flesh. He ate large meals about twice a month.

Relationships
Thalagyrt was friendly enough with the Chosen, the Heralds, Malchor Harpell, and others to be able to call on them for aid if he needed it. He used his wealth to hire people to discover small pieces of information, often seemingly insignificant, and preferably from eyewitness accounts. He used this information to fill in the small gaps in his extensive knowledge of the Realms. He would occasionally hire adventurers to bribe or deal with anyone pestering or attacking him. He was happy enough to provide mundane information to local peoples who could pay, but had less patience for those seeking magical information, or information he had recently given out to someone else.

Thalagyrt rebuffed several mages and Cult of the Dragon emissaries, though his worst tensions were with the Arcane Brotherhood. He gave two Arcane Brotherhood underlings the locations of archmage tombs they were seeking to plunder, but did not mention the deadly traps therein, which proved fatal for the mages. A more powerful Arcane Brotherhood mage died in the dragon's lair when he opened a trapped chest and was met with Thalagyrt's butler ghost wielding a wand of fire.

Within Thalagyrt's lair was Norlatha Saundshauloe, a watchghost, who in life was a wizard who had lived in Baldur's Gate. She was Thalagyrt's friend, butler, trap-setter, and overseer of maintenance and repairs. She was invisible and insubstantial most of the time, a disembodied sarcastic voice that Thalagyrt bantered with.

He never mated or consorted with another dragon to anyone's knowledge.

Abilities
Thalagyrt could project three-dimensional scenes he recalled from his memory, which was very extensive. He had many memories of peoples' intimate and private moments, such as their last words before dying, as well as many memories from historically significant events.

He knew the identities of the Lords of Waterdeep, and which noble Waterdhavian families met secretly with the Arcane Brotherhood or the Cult of the Dragon. He also knew the fate of Gondegal, the Lost King of Cormyr. His knowledge was more accurate the older it was and always stopped a year before the current date.

He knew almost all known human wizard spells of low and moderate levels, and a good number of the very highest levels. His known spells included gemfire, mistclaw, and Muritho's randomscatter.

Lair
Thalagyrt laired in a cliffside network of cold, wet caverns on the coast that were protected by a kind of ward-mist that was put in place by an unknown previous owner. He could control these mists to hide himself and change the lighting and temperature of the affected caves, creating effects equivalent to spells such as cloudkill, dancing lights, dispel magic, shadow monsters, solid fog, telekinesis, wall of fog, wall of force, and wraithform (gaseous form). This magical protection also provided resistance to mind-affecting magic, psionics, and enchantment/charm magic, as well as some intermittent protection against sight-based divinations.

His cavernous lair contained long curving tunnels that he himself could barely fit through. Its easternmost parts were a circle of natural caverns that contained his food, treasure, books, lore-tablets from old realms, and stone markers from lands lost to the ocean. Some of these caves were connected to a central sleeping-cavern large enough for several dragons, which contained a glowing mound of mosses studded with phosphorescent mushrooms.

Activities
He would watch and listen to sentient races all over Faerûn, but especially the humans and elves of the Sword Coast North.

History
At some point, the Most Learned Archprelate of Candlekeep, Rheldryn Uoulimpurt, offered a large reward for kidnapping Thalagyrt and bringing him alive to Candlekeep. Many adventurers tried and failed until Dove Falconhand grew tired of this and asked her sister the Simbul for help. The Simbul persuaded the upper prelate to rescind his offer and recognize the foolishness of attempting to coerce the dragon.

Sometime during the 14 century DR, word of Thalagyrt's existence spread through Waterdeep.

He was one of the dragons who, during the Rage of Dragons of 1373 DR, assaulted the Host Tower of the Arcane in Luskan. After the tower's west arm fell, he took many tomes from the rubble and carried them back to his lair.

Appearances

 * Dragons of Faerûn