Haer'Dalis

Haer'Dalis was a tiefling actor and planewalker, and a member of the planar faction known as the Doomguard, in the mid–14 century DR.

Home
He didn't live anywhere permanently, but most frequently returned to Sigil.

History
He belonged to Raelis Shai's theater troupe at one point, and by 1369 DR, he had been staying on Toril for some time.

In that year, Gorion's Ward and party could've accepted a task to find him from Raelis Shai after witnessing the awful performance that Biff the Understudy gave in his place in her play. This involved going down into the sewers of Athkatla and from there entering the abode of a wizard holding Haer'Dalis captive and under magical compulsion, which was lifted once the wizard was slain. They would also be required to acquire from the wizard's hiding place an item capable of opening dimensional conduits; Raelis Shai first claimed it was stolen from her by the wizard, but it turned out that it had belonged to him and Haer'Dalis was captured while trying to steal it.

Haer'Dalis could've joined the party right away or gone to Raelis Shai by himself. If the adventuring party stayed with them to help them fight creatures emerging from the different conduits they opened in an effort to get back home, they would witness the whole group of actors being kidnapped by bounty hunters. They could then follow them to the Planar Prison, where they would have to defeat the cambion controlling the prison before escaping. At the end, Raelis Shai and the rest of her troupe would continue their travels elsewhere, except for Haer'Dalis who would return to the Prime Material Plane along with Gorion's Ward's party.

Description
For a tiefling, he was not physically very different from a human or elf. From humans, he differed in having pointed ears, bluish hair, and some stripes on the skin of his face. He also had an unsettling aura that made Primes nervous.

Personality
Mentally, however, he was, as both a tiefling and Doomguard (and actor), quite alien. He seemed quite unconcerned about anything that happened around him or to him other than to appreciate it as an experience. He liked to speak in flowery metaphors, calling himself "this Sparrow" and others with such names as "my Raven". The Doomguard believed that the entropic decay and annihilation of everything was not only inevitable but downright desirable, and Haer'Dalis not merely believed in this philosophy, but thought and felt it fully. He was also capable of intense emotion, much as he portrayed it on the stage, and felt that such things were important, but ultimately he didn't care about anything with the kind of urgency "normal" people did, and accepted with little sadness that everything would pass and yield to entropy. Thus, for example, he was willing to fight to the death over a love he in no way believed would last.

Abilities
Besides being an actor, Haer'Dalis as a blade was an unusually skilled fighter for a bard, capable of going into an effective offensive or defensive dance with his weapons, but at the expense of the effectiveness of his bard song. He had his own two personal short swords, called Chaos and Entropy.

Gameplay
Haer'Dalis is one of the party NPCs that can be recruited in the game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and its expansion Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, and is one of the more difficult ones to find in the first. Haer'Dalis is voiced by Michael Bell.

If Aerie is in the party at the same time as Haer'Dalis, he will start to teach her to act, recognising an unsuspected hidden talent in her. If she is not already romantically committed to a male player character, the two will eventually fall for each other. If both romances develop simultaneously, Aerie will have difficulty choosing, until finally Haer'Dalis will challenge the player character to a duel over her, whereupon she will choose the PC if he ultimately refuses to fight. If Haer'Dalis and Aerie do end up together, she will eventually leave him because of conflict between their respective personalities.

Appearances

 * Games:
 * Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
 * Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal