Bareris Anskuld

Bareris Anskuld was a human bard of Thay in the 14 century DR. During the War of the Zulkirs, he was transformed into an undead being.

Description
Though Bareris was truly Thayan, he'd stopped shaving the wheat-blond hair from his head. He could move with a duelist's catlike grace. During the war of Thay, Bareris began to neglect himself and his personal hygiene and wore a gaunt face and a cold stare.

During the encounter with Szass Tam's dream vestige, Bareris absorbed some of the energies of undeath that bound the entity. He acquired most of the abilities of a sentient undead being. His skin and hair turned chalky white and his eyes turned midnight-black.

Possessions
Bareris's weapon of choice was the sword that he wore at his hip in a worn leather scabbard. He also possessed a silver-stringed yarting slung across his back. and carried a small dagger. Bareris later gave his yarting to a band of gnolls as fee for their help in his pursuit of Tammith's captors.

Abilities
He was capable of bardic magic. By singing a quick phrase and sketching an arcane figure in the air with a free hand, Bareris could call forth a plume of noxious vapor to cloud an opponent. He could also sing a floating orb of light into being to light his way.

Bareris had mastered a variety of bardic songs or spells, such as:
 * A battle-cry infused with the magic of his voice. It could send revitalizing surges through his body, calming and clearing his mind.
 * A song that could transport a single person several yards in a random direction.
 * An enchantment of speed.
 * A charm to augment his force of personality, letting him appear slightly taller and handsomer, and thus more likable and trustworthy.
 * A battle cry with thunderous boom, capable of bruising flesh and cracking bone.
 * A song forming an empathic bond between him and an animal, such as his horse.
 * A song of universal tongue, enabling him to understand and speak any human or beastly language.

During the war of the zulkirs, Bareris found out that his music could reanimate dead bodies.

Personality
Bareris was gentle and compassionate, which were very un-Thayan traits. This showed in his desperate journey to find and rescue his love, Tammith Iltazyarra. His effort to help a child in the streets of Bezantur almost got him killed by the undead child-thing and his partner warrior. However, he was not above manipulating his own allies for what he perceived to be the greater good, such as when he used a suggestion spell to keep Aoth Fezim in the Thayan army, despite the latter clearly expressing how tired he was of the long period of war.

After the transformation and loss of Tammith, Bareris developed an obsessive nature revealed in his cold stare, gaunt face, somber dress, and indifference to personal hygiene. Charms of healing and solace did not come as naturally as they once had.

As a bard, he worshiped Oghma and Milil.

Early Years
Bareris was of Mulan descent. He spent six years abroad, working as a mercenary, fighting dragon worshipers, hobgoblins, and reavers of every stripe. During his wanderings, Bareris evolved his knack for bardic magic into a genuinely formidable talent. He became a powerful bard and a strong swordsman, his reflexes honed from countless battles and skirmishes.

Bareris had loved Tammith Iltazyarra since his childhood.

Return
After his traveling years, Bareris returned to Bezantur in the, only to find his love Tammith had sold herself into slavery. He found Tammith in the captivity of the Red Wizards Muthoth and So-Kehur, moving towards Delhumide. His first attempt at freeing Tammith failed. When he tried to flee from the Red Wizards, gnolls found and hid him. Bareris convinced the gnolls to help him get into Delhumide, where he hoped to find and rescue Tammith. They found a portal in one of the buildings through which Bareris reached an underground fortress. The bard located Tammith in a chamber, already transformed into a vampire by the undead creature Xingax, and almost got bitten by her. Xingax caught the two and forced Tammith to drink from her former lover. Bareris escaped by injuring Tammith and her master, fleeing into the mountains.

There, he encountered a ghost named Mirror and the gravecrawler Quickstrike, who helped him hide from his pursuers. Mirror became his guide through the mountains. At the Pass of Kazahr, they encountered the warmage Aoth Fezim and followed him to the camp of the armies of Nymia Focar and Milsantos Daramos, whom Bareris told of his findings at Xingax's fortress. He uncovered that the order of necromancy was behind the undead invasion.

When it came to a fight between the southerner's armies and the undead horde at the Keep of Thazar, Bareris met Tammith again, obviously recovered from her injuries. The vampire attacked and tried to bite him again but Bareris incapacitated her, this time hacking her to pieces in an attempt to release her from her undead nature. Bareris felt responsible for Tammith's demise and became a bitter man, swearing vengeance upon Xingax.

War of the Zulkirs
By the, the War of the Zulkirs had been taking a toll on the land and its inhabitants. The people were split into those supporting Szass Tam and his necromancers and another faction opposing them with all their might. Among them were the legions accompanied by Aoth and Bareris. After years of war, Aoth confided in Bareris his thoughts of abandoning the cause and leaving Thay altogether, but Bareris, in his strive for vengeance, realized Aoth's important role as captain of the Griffon Legion and used his bardic magic to persuade his friend to stay and fight. When Aoth was affected by the Spellplague, he saw an illusory image of Bareris dangling a marionette, twitching its strings to make it dance—a marionette resembling Aoth himself. The mage later realized the meaning of that illusion and confronted Bareris with the truth about his decision for not leaving Thay. Aoth was so disappointed and hurt that from now on he shunned his former friend.

During a meeting of the zulkirs after the Spellplague hit, Aoth rejoined with Bareris, the two tentatively renewing their friendship from then on.

The council of zulkirs decided to exploit the magic-crippling aftermath of the Spellplague and attack Xingax's fortress in the Thaymount, with Bareris's griffon riders and the Burning Braziers at the front. But Szass used the powers bestowed upon him by Bane and, through summoning a dream vestige, turned the events to his favor, chasing the zulkirs and their legions all the way to Bezantur until the zulkirs' only chance to survive was to flee onboard ships. Szass did not give up the chase though, summoning all kinds of undead aquatic creatures to defeat the zulkirs. When that proved quite hard, he finally summoned the dream vestige again. Tammith's nemesis Tsagoth also joined in the marine fight, seeking out and finally facing up with the vampire again, determined to kill her. After a short fight, the fiend had her heavily injured and incapacitated. Then Bareris, Mirror, and Bareris's griffon Winddancer joined the fight to defend Tammith and almost killed Tsagoth. In a desperate move, Tsagoth grabbed Tammith and together they broke through the railing of the ship and plummeted into the sea. Due to her vampire nature, the water immobilized Tammith completely, slowly dissolving her body like acid. Bareris and Winddancer followed them into the water, resuming their attack on Tsagoth until the fiend was forced to teleport himself to safety. Though Bareris hurried to get his love out of the water, he didn't make it in time and Tammith perished, dissolved into nothingness the sea. After Tammith's death, Bareris no longer cared about his own well-being. When Aoth told him of his findings about the nature of the dream vestige, Bareris set out in a dinghy to confront the entity. He began to sing of his love for Tamith and the pain of losing her over and over again. The dream vestige grabbed him with one of its tentacle-like arms and engulfed the singing bard. Bareris's song had an effect though, inflaming the dream vestige's wrath and self-hatred until it was strong enough to burst any constraining force and dissolve the fog-like entity.

Aoth later found Bareris floating in the sea face down. He retrieved his friend, believing him drowned, but it turned out Bareris survived the encounter with the dream vestige. But it had cost him his life: he'd been transformed by the energies of undeath that bound the dream vestige. After that battle was won, the zulkirs and their forces fled into exile at the Wizard's Reach. Bareris and Mirror decided to return to Thay and resume opposing Szass Tam's reign.

15 century DR
In 1478 DR, a temporary alliance of Bareris, Mirror, Aoth (with his familiar Jet), the remaining zulkirs of the Wizard's Reach (Nevron, Samas Kul, Lallara Mediocros, Lauzoril), and Szass Tam defeated the Thayan zulkir Malark Springhill, who was intent on unmaking all existence. Minutes afterward, Bareris was destroyed when the temporary alliance had a final confrontation with Szass Tam himself.

Relations
At Bareris's request, Aoth assigned him to the Griffon Legion, providing him a riderless griffon to make his familiar. Over the course of the war, Bareris was the master of Vengeance, who died in 1385 DR fighting an undead skeletal serpent. His second steed, Murder, died in a fight with one of Xingax's undead creatures. His last steed was Winddancer.

When Aoth was hit by the Spellplague, rendering him blind, he proclaimed Bareris captain of the Griffon Legion for the duration of his blindness. Aoth resumed his position as captain after his eyes were healed by Mirror.