User:StarSword/Esmerelle Patten

Esmerelle Patten was a Paladin of the Lanceboard, wife of Valen Shadowbreath, and mother of Kalir Patten.

Early Life
Esmerelle Patten was born in West Harbor, but ran away from home at age fifteen and ended up in Waterdeep. She briefly made a decent living as a thief, but stole from the wrong person and had to leave town rather abruptly. She found her way to Nehr'bak, where then-Grandmaster Falcar Greycastle took her in. He taught her to access the innate divinity in her soul, awakening her dormant paladin abilities.

Adventures in the North
At age 17, Esmerelle was sent to Icewind Dale to cross-train under the dwarf wizard Drogan, and was present when kobolds under the red dragon Tymofarrar attacked Icewind Dale and stole four Netherese artifacts from the wizard's home. She recovered the artifacts with the aid of the rogue Dorna Trapspringer, traveled into the Anauroch to have one of them scryed, defeated a Bedine lich, was petrified by a medusa in the ruins of Undrentide, was restored to life by an Asabi merchant named Ashtara, and finally killed the medusa atop Undrentide. She survived Undrentide's destruction by escaping into the Plane of Shadow, and found her way back out to the Prime via the realm of the Reaper a year and a half later.

Following these adventures, Esmerelle was made a full paladin of the Lanceboard, with the rank of Lieutenant.

Undermountain and Underdark
Six months later, Waterdeep was assaulted by the armies of the drow Valsharess. Esmerelle led a troupe of adventurers into Undermountain to stem the tide by locating Halaster Blackcloak. She fought the drow back all the way to the bottom of Undermountain, where she freed Blackcloak. He "rewarded" her by casting a geas on her that forced her to travel into the Underdark and destroy the Valsharess to avenge the mad Blackcloak's wounded ego.

In the drow city of Lith My'athar, Esmerelle met the tiefling flail master Valen Shadowbreath. At first distrustful of the young paladin, Valen told her to prove herself worthy of his respect. At the behest of the Seer of Eilistraee, went with him and the former assassin Nathyrra to sabotage the tenuous alliances holding the Valsharess' army together. They eliminated a hive of beholders, caused a slave rebellion in an illithid city, and in a set of unconnected instances, liberated a slave city from their vampiric overlords, returned a lost tribe of avariel to the surface, and freed an astral deva from a necromantic trap.

As the Valsharess' army approached Lith My'athar, Esmerelle used all her expertise to plan the defenses. For the enemy, the ensuing assault was a fiasco not worth mentioning in detail, and left the drow queen's fortress vulnerable to attack. Esmerelle led the defenders on the offensive and infiltrated the fortress, where she discovered the source of the Valsharess' power: the bound archdevil Mephistopheles. The Valsharess proved no match for her, but when she fell back before Esmerelle, she ordered Mephistopheles to kill the paladin. This proved too much for the bonds on the devil, and the fiend broke free and snuffed out the drow's life like a candle. He then explained about the Reaper, that he was a servant bound to Mephistopheles, and killed Esmerelle.

Into Cania and Out
When Esmerelle awoke in the realm of the Reaper, she discovered she was now trapped, and could move only forward into the frozen wastes of Cania. Not one to give up easily, she entered Hell, gathering to her the fallen Valen and Nathyrra, dead by the hand of Mephistopheles, who now sought to conquer the Prime. In Cania she discovered the frozen soul of the ex-paladin Aribeth de Tylmarande. After she surrendering to the Hero of Neverwinter, Lord Nasher had had Aribeth's execution faked to placate the masses, and exiled her instead; she died in the wilds near Icewind Dale. Aribeth had lost all will to live, but Esmerelle convinced her to let Tyr decide her final fate. Aribeth prayed to Tyr and to her surprise, was granted a second chance.

With these three companions at her back, she followed a trail of clues across the glaciers to the Knower of Names, whom she tricked into giving up the True Names of the Reaper and Mephistopheles. She then ordered the Reaper to open a gateway back to Waterdeep, where she used the archdevil's True Name to banish him to Cania for eternity. The humiliated Mephistopheles swore vengeance on her, but never got to take it.

The Godswar
During the course of their adventure in Cania, Esmerelle and Valen fell deeply in love. They married in the temple of Sune in Waterdeep, then traveled to Nehr'bak, where Esmerelle was promoted to the Order's rank of Commander, and was placed in charge of the new Suzail garrison.

A year later, in 1358 DR, the Godswar broke out. While the Red Knight possessed Lady Kaitlin Bloodhawk in Tethyr, and Tempus himself arrived in Mistledale, an orc horde gathered in the Western Heartlands under the command of the avatar of Ilneval, the orc god of strategy. The horde's vanguard, comprised mainly of a tribe of tanarukks, scored a decisive victory against the small force of militia and Purple Dragons sent to stop them. King Azoun IV asked Esmerelle to lead his men to fight the Ilnevallic Horde; she accepted, and marshaled village militias, sellswords, and Order soldiers from all across the Western Heartlands into a formidable army. Her force opened their campaign with a surprise attack against the tanarukk vanguard, slaughtering the planetouched orcs; only one escaped.

Ilneval's camp, however, would not fall as easily, she realized. Risking the loss of her powers, she contracted a small group of assassins to help in the assault. After the killers neutralized the orc sentries, a full-on night attack smashed the orc encampment. Though Ilneval escaped, most of the tribes lost the majority of their warriors, including many chieftains. The survivors fled to the mountains with the Purple Dragons hard on their heels; by the time the hunt was called off, only a few hundred ragged survivors remained of a horde that at its height had stood four thousand strong. Ilneval lost much face among the orc gods, and to this day considers the Order an enemy.

For her tactical brilliance - not to mention her outwitting the shrewdest of the orc gods - Grandmaster Jordan Frost promoted Esmerelle to the rank of Knight-Commander. King Azoun rewarded the Order with a donation of fifty thousand gold crowns, and granted Esmerelle the right to ask any future boon from him that she wished (within reason).

Retirement and Final Death
In the same year she demolished the Ilnevallic Horde, Esmerelle conceived and gave birth to Kalir Patten, and in early 1359, she was made the Grandmaster of the Order of the Lanceboard, after Grandmaster Frost was fatally wounded by a Cyricist Zhent assassin. She served in that post for two years, during which time she trained Saladin Dyferras, a future Grandmaster. But when her beloved Valen died in combat against the Eyegouger Horde a year and a half after Kalir's birth (devoured by a summoned balor, making it impossible to resurrect him), Esmerelle was overcome with grief and left the Order to raise their child in her hometown of West Harbor. Her hope was for Kalir to live out her life as a simple village woman, but all that changed when the King of Shadows returned and Ammon Jerro led the armies of Neverwinter to the Mere of Dead Men to challenge him. In the fighting, the Silver Sword of Gith was broken. Esmerelle instinctively dove on top of the two-year-old Kalir to protect her from the blast; a shard passed through her body and embedded itself in Kalir's chest, killing her mother instantly.