Parzal the Outrageous was a powerful arcanist and cleric of ancient Netheril who owned the QM III business in Eileanar and narrowly avoided its destruction in 3520 NY (−339 DR).[1]
Description[]
Parzal had piercing blue eyes and black hair that he kept in the latest fashionable styles. He kept a youthful appearance and was 6'2" (1.88 meters) tall and weighed 170‑pound (77‑kilogram).[1]
Relationships[]
Parzal's father was a ranger who had traveled from another world, and his mother was a spellcaster from the far east of Faerûn. He had a younger brother, Lampris. Parzal never took a partner or had children of his own.[1]
His closest friends were Archmeagan and Mortimar, though only Archmeagan proved a reliable friend.[1]
History[]
When Parzal was only five years old, his family home was attacked by a sohei from the Monastery of the West Wind. The sohei slew his parents, robbed and burned the home, and kidnapped the two children. Feeling that Parzal was too strong-willed to be controlled, the sohei abandoned him in the Dunes of Death and eventually sold Lampris into slavery.[1]
Parzal wandered the desert for seven months before being found by monks who rescued him and adopted him into their monastery. He became a full brother of the monastery by age 25, and on his 30th birthday the monks revealed that many years ago they had gotten word of a young child with great mystical potential and power. They had sent their sohei to recover the boy and test his ability by leaving him in the desert, where he would be eventually found and adopted. In payment, the sohei was granted the rights to everything he could find within Parzal's home.[1]
Shocked and horrified by the revelation, Parzal fled the monastery, swore to avenge his family, and searched the world for his lost brother, though Lampris was never found again. Crushed by disillusionment, Parzal eventually made his way to Netheril and took up the art of magic. He also wrote his autobiographical book, Parzal's Perils, and set up an initial transcription of 1,000 books for sale. They rapidly sold out, and one reader, Mortimar, offered to help him set up a business together that could sell more of the books as well as magical reagents and spell components. Such was the strength of demand for Parzal's Perils, the pair opened up a total of seven stores within a year, with QM III in Eileanar being the third.[1]
As the business matured, Parzal turned to writing his books and researching spells full-time, leaving the management of the businesses entirely to Mortimar. This arrangement was interrupted by a special request that Parzal received—a bespoke curse to be delivered to a man who had acted immorally with a married woman. The payment of 100,000 platinum pieces was more than enough to secure Parzal's interest, and after a search of Netheril he laid the horrific curse upon the target. The victim turned out to be an official of the Eileanar government, and this capital crime led to Parzal being sought-after by law enforcement across Netheril.[1]
After fleeing to QM III Parzal, explained the situation to Mortimar, who came up with a plan to fake Parzal's death via an ambiguous magical accident. The constabulary were successfully misled by Mortimar's discovery of a body with a broken amulet of life protection, and the business ownership was transferred from Parzal to his surviving partner. Only then did Mortimar gloat in Parzal's face about how he had set the whole situation up, stolen the business, and made Parzal a fugitive. Parzal fled in secrecy and began work on the fearsome Parzal's revenge curse, labeling the finished scroll a "Promotion to Vitality and Stamina."[1]
He returned to QM III in the guise of a poor magically illiterate fighter who sought to sell the loot he found. Mortimar eagerly bought the scroll for 50 gp, but found that, rather than improving his constitution, it withered him to a shadow of his former self. While Mortimar was incapacitated, Parzal's close friend Archmeagan took over the business for a time. Wracked by the torment of his existence, Mortimar falsely confessed to the cursing of the Karsus Enclave official and earned a quick execution. With his name cleared, Parzal revealed himself and was sentenced to a much milder 60 days in prison for faking his death.[1]
Swearing to never let another person control his business, Parzal first took a long vacation somewhere south of Netheril. Unlike so many of his fellow arcanists, Parzal escaped Karsus's Folly by sheer chance.[1]
Appendix[]
See Also[]
- Prismal the Outrageous, another wizard-cleric with a suspiciously similar life story.
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 slade, Jim Butler (October 1996). “The Winds of Netheril”. In Jim Butler ed. Netheril: Empire of Magic (TSR, Inc.), p. 104. ISBN 0-7869-0437-2.