The Dark Urge
Baldur's Gate

blurbCanon

My rancid blood whispers to me: kill, kill, and kill again. My ruined body yearns to reap death in this world, and when this foul Urge calls, it possesses my whole being. Injured beyond repair, I know nothing besides this: I must resist the Dark Urge, lest it consume my mind.

The path to Red Mountain is long, and filled with danger, but if you are worthy, you will find there wisdom, a firm friend, and all the power you need to set the world aright.As ever, your respectful servant and loyal friend,
Lord Voryn Dagoth, Dagoth Ur

Dagoth Voryn
The Elder Scrolls

Lord High Councilor of House Dagoth, advisor, councilor, scant lover, and personal friend to our half of Resdayn's twin kings, serjo Indoril Nerevar Mora. The Devil of Red Mountain, and the death of my House. I gave all I had and more for the sake of a united Resdayn, for the sake of Nerevar, and all I had to show for it was the ghost of my House. The Heart was a second chance, the opportunity to give back to my House all I had taken. Thus began my time as the Sharmat, the god of desperation.Canon

Iorveth
The Witcher

Woodland Fox or a "regular son of a whore," both titles fit me equally well. I became a warrior at a young age, but I grew up on a farm; Aen Seidhe did not farm, we learned that from humans. From coexistence. Why did I forsake that for hopeless bloodshed? Well, for one, dh'oine burnt the farmhouse down. I always longed to return to the agrarian life, deep down, but that wasn't my story. Perhaps I was just born to sow violence instead of seeds.Canon

Should our little chat not proceed in a spirit of mutual understanding and complete frankness, we shall copiously anoint your head with the aforementioned syrup...then we shall place you on an antill, this one here to be precise, over which these charming, hardworking insects are scurrying.

You gave yourself over to blood and terror, gave it everything you had. Then you spent fifteen years making sure it wouldn't happen again. But now it has. And this time you know where it leads. Will you do it all again? Where is that good man now?

Corvo Attano
Dishonored

Lord Protector was just a title; I had been a protector all my life. My family, the people of Karnaca, of Dunwall, Jessamine, Emily. It was all I knew how to do. Take that away from me, and I'm not sure that I like what's left over. I regret that I spilled as much blood as I did, yes, but "chaos" isn't just a tally of how many people die. I did what I had to do to survive and picked up the pieces later, to hand my daughter an empire at any cost.Canon

Garrett
Thief (1998)

I owe my life and more to Artemus, so don't think me ungrateful, but I just wouldn't have been happy as a Keeper. They didn't exactly teach me how to be a cobbler or blacksmith, though; with the skills they gave me, being a thief was the obvious choice. And I was a damn good one; too good, in fact. Wouldn't have had to deal with Pagans and Mechanists if I had just been worse at my job. That's the price of success, I guess.Canon

The essence of balance is detachment. To embrace a cause, to grow fond or spiteful, is to lose one's balance, after which, no action can be trusted. Our burden is not for the dependent of spirit.

• canon pointsArt credit: velinxiGo back

• The ash vampires were my siblings, once, of which I was fifth-born. Our parentage was a little complex; we all shared a father, but the oldest four and youngest four had different mothers. Endus was the oldest of us, then Gilvoth, Araynys, Odros, myself, the twins Tureynul and Vemyn, and then Uthol. Araynys and the twins were women; Odros and Uthol would be referred to as transgender or queer in modern terms.• I looked... like a Chimer. Nothing out of the ordinary, olive-gold skin and brown eyes. Tall for a Chimer but short for a Dagoth. I had white hair, not the typical black that I'm portrayed with, though I admit that black hair looks better on me. I dyed it black often, anyway. I wouldn't recall all the little details of my jewelry or tattoos, but I remember that I had very distinctive conch punches, large teardrop holes in the middle of my ears.• I was married. My wife was half Chimer, half Dwemer, undoubtedly a... controversial choice in spouse. I met her after the formation of the First Council, when she and her mother came to officially join her father in our House. If I wanted to marry for political gain, I would have married another House Chimer, a Redoran or an Indoril. I never cared about tradition, though. I believe we had children, at least two.• I became Lord High Councilor of my House around the same time that Nerevar put together his First Council, perhaps a decade or two later at the most. I thought him a fool at first, a guttersnipe trying to unite Resdayn through the power of friendship. But we had a camaraderie of sorts, both being new leaders, and quickly became good friends. Truthfully I was in love with him, but I don't believe those feelings were ever reciprocated in more than a physical fashion. I helped guide his hands for the good of Resdayn, and also for the good of my own House where I could. One can never truly escape House politics, but I'd like to think I did well. I believed in a united Resdayn, I believed in him.• don't mind me i'm having some canon-breaking memories i'll get back to this when they make sense again xoxo• I don't know the logistics of my reincarnations. I know that I slept for a very long time, and when next I woke, the Tribunal still recognized me. But they slew me, and I slept again, and I would come back later to repeat the cycle. A picture-perfect rendition of my corpse at first, but after so many bodies I began to make mistakes. Small changes at first; the wrong eye color, a missing piercing, a strange lilt in my walk. But those mistakes started to pile up. The body was no longer me, just a vessel for what remained, the emotions I felt most strongly as I died. Grief and rage, but in a strange way I would say that I felt love more than anything else. Love for my forgotten House, my slighted king, for the Dunmer people; I loved them, but that love became a twisted thing through the kaleidoscope of divinity. I would compare it to a Daedric prince and their sphere, in a way. I was Dagoth-Ur. I was Red Mountain.• Corprus was not a pathogen. A doctor could take a microscope to the infected and find nothing there. Rather, it was my "gift," as I put it. The tiniest sliver of godhood. As it turns out, the average person has no clue what to do with divinity, and so when they are released from the mortal framework, they simply lose it, struggle to hold their bodies together. Those that were more gifted, or those with my particular interest, could mold themselves as they saw fit. Some returned to their humanoid forms. Some found bodies that fit them better. Araynys had some theme going on with mantids, I think. The most fitting analogy I have come up with to-date is that Corprus grants you access to the Spore creature creator.• My Nerevarine was female, half Bosmer, half Dunmer, a spellsword or battlemage or something of that stock. Very straightforward, very blunt, but not one to think with her sword. We had a very long talk. I think she sympathized with me to some level, but obviously didn't condone my actions. Was she really Nerevar reborn? I don't know. She didn't know, either, and she really didn't care. For what it's worth, I respect her autonomy. I'm proud of her, in a way.Art credit: cherrymoya (account deactivated)Go back

• Like I said, I grew up on a farm, in a little village in Cintra. I was an only child. I lost my father to bandits when I was maybe ten, not an uncommon occurrence, and lost both my mother and the farm as a young adult. Though we got along with our human neighbors well enough in the past, it seemed that Lara Dorren was just too much for them. I came home one dawn to ash and smoke staining the sky grey. I knew what that meant. I turned around and never came back.• The Scoia'tael were relatively modern, not being known as such until the Nilfgaardian wars. Aen Seidhe freedom fighters, however, were far from new. I moved from unit to unit, going where I was needed. Not like I had any home or family left to bind me to one place. I did my best to stay near Riordain, though. We grew up in that same little Cintran village, so in a way we were all we had left of each others' pasts.• I was part of Isengrim's unit for a very long time, until I had a unit of my own to lead. I loved him dearly, perhaps more than anyone else. Finding moments of intimacy could be difficult for those living like us, and I often fretted about our relationship undermining his authority, but he never cared. Favoritism didn't win wars, he would tell me, and if any of his units thought him that weak then they were free to leave. I assume he died shortly after the Peace of Cintra. Or maybe I tell myself that to feel better; if he loved me as much as I loved him, I would have hoped he'd at least send word to me that he was alright.• I lost my eye as the commanders of the Vrihedd Brigade were being rounded up. It wasn't the blow that felled me- that was a leg wound. The eye was plain human cruelty; the scar was long and intentional, and the man that captured me picked my right eye, my dominant eye. It took months to learn to shoot as well with a left-hand bow and one eye, and years later I still preferred the sword due to my lack of depth perception. I don't know how I escaped the Peace of Cintra, and I think I am happier for that. It's quite terribly ironic to me that the nation where I was born was nearly the place that I died, despite all the land I traversed in between.• Our best commanders were all in the Brigade. With everyone else gone, all that responsibility fell to me. It worked wonders for my infamy, most certainly, but bringing the Scoia'tael back from the brink of extinction was no small feat. Getting shafted by one kingdom after another just proved to me the need to rebuild, though, and others clearly felt the same. It took some years skittering around the bushes, but with time we grew and divided into new units. I met both Cedric and Ciaran around this time. Had a brief thing with Cedric, but our paths diverged in time.• I... don't think I loved Saskia as much as the games suggested I did. I honestly might have been gay, for one. For another, I think I loved the idea of Vergen more than I loved her. That's not to say I didn't like her, but I think I idealized her more than anything.• I think Geralt sided with me during the events of TW2. Honestly, I seem to struggle with recalling anything actually canon, which is strange. I don't know why he would choose to do that, but I suppose all I can say is that I am grateful for his decision. I also believe he chose to help me save Saskia, but moreso to prevent a loose Golden dragon than anything.• [tbd]Art credit: ana_godisGo back

• I never knew my parents, just flitted between shelters for orphans as they opened and closed for about as long as I can remember. Some of the older kids took on caretaker roles; I had a sister-like figure, presumably she took care of me before I was old enough to remember that, but I don't recall where she went. Maybe we got separated somewhere along the way. I ran messages for a coin here or there, but I quickly found that thievery was far more profitable, kept me fed for less effort. And so began my career.• I remember... basically nothing of the Keeper compound. I suppose that befits them. But still, they taught me everything. How to read and write the common tongue, for starters. From there, Glyphs, at least the ones we acolytes were permitted to know about. Stealth and speechcraft and all those tools I would find oh-so useful later on. I didn't hate it there, genuinely. I had friends, and though I would never have said it to his face, I really did view Artemus as my father. I respected him, loved him in my own way. But while I enjoyed the life of an acolyte, I just knew in some way that I couldn't stay there.• You don't abandon the Keepers. If they truly didn't want me to leave, they could have easily stopped me. I don't know what told them to stay their hands, but hey, I suppose I should be grateful. If I held on for just a few more years, I'd be a Keeper. And I didn't want that. So despite the threats of Enforcers coming to take me back in the dead of night, I mustered up the courage one day to just leave. They followed me, of course. The Keepers followed me very closely. But they left me alone, mostly. Asking for any more than that would be asking too much from them.• I started my career as a thief around age twenty, physically in my prime but with little more to my name than whatever I had taken with me from the compound. I relied pretty heavily on people like Basso to throw me petty thievery jobs just to stay afloat until I had the reputation to do anything more profitable. Bless him.• Most of my memories follow the games pretty well. The only major discrepancy I can think of is that Artemus pulled me out Constantine's mansion. I was pretty temperamental about it at the time, but I really don't think I would have been able to escape on my own with my injuries. You have to re-learn how to do everything without depth perception, you know, and I had to make do without my mechanical eye for quite a few months.• I had built up a reputation as the One-Eyed Thief before Karras thought to gift me a new one. I was wary of it at first. It's generally wise to be wary of Hammerites and any of their splinter groups. But I had too many near-death experiences in those few months without depth perception, and missed my bow quite dearly. I figured that I'd be certainly dead without the eye, and possibly dead with it, so I might as well take the risk. Plus, Artemus suggested I take it, and I did value his input despite my bluffs.• By the way, getting a new eye installed is painful, to say the least. I don't want to know where those wires go or how they even work.• I don't know how to feel about Viktoria. She took my eye, for one. I trusted Pagans no more than Hammerites, for another. But still, I ended up getting attached. To grow fond or spiteful, is to lose one's balance. Ha. We respected each others' trades in some strange way. Maybe we could have been something more, if we were different people, if we lived in a different time.• The girl at the end of the third game, I don't recall her name, but I know that I took her in. I suppose I felt some sort of obligation to repay what Artemus did for me as a child. I probably didn't make for a great father figure, but hopefully I was alright. I had Artemus's example to follow, if nothing else.• Did I mention that I was 5'0"? People assume that infamous, imposing figures should be tall or something, but a tall thief has a hard time hiding. Small and thin, I could fit into places people wouldn't even bother checking.Art credit: doubleleaf*Go back

• My father was a carpenter. He died in a lumber accident when I was young, so I don't remember much about him other than the fact that I loved him. My mother was a musician and a weaver.• I always liked collecting whale bones along the beach, when nobody was looking. They called to me for some reason. I preferred not to think about those implications later on in life.• I joined the Serkonan Guard at fifteen to bring home more money. Little guttersnipe as I had been, it was probably the only legal job I would have been any good at. Beatrici left when I was sixteen. For a few years, it was just my mother and I. I hated to leave her all alone, but the money I would earn in Dunwall would be enough for the both of us for once. She urged me to go, and promised she would be fine, so long as I remembered to write her from time to time.• My mother died soon after I arrived in Dunwall. Terribly ironic.• I had spent a lot of time near Euhorn and Beatrix, who took particular interest in me as I was a gift from Theodanis. I was a good guard, but I learned much of court life from them. How to act and talk like a high-born Gristolian and not some backwater Serkonan boy. They liked me, as Beatrix told me, and the more refined of an air I could put on, the closer I could be to the royal family.• Euhorn was the one who suggested I vie for the role of Lord Protector, so I did. And I won. I suppose Jessamine got her defiance of tradition from her parents.• While I was seen as the out-of-place foreigner, I think Jessamine picked me because I was so unique compared to the other candidates, mostly stuck-up grey-haired Gristolians. I also think we got along well because of that. I was her friend and protector for decades, and I suppose falling in love was inevitable, given that I spent nearly every waking moment with her. We would've gotten married, eventually; Jessamine was never the type to respect tradition, like I said, and the social ramifications could never have stopped her. But, well, someone got in the way.• Honestly, I was scared half to death when I learned Jessamine was pregnant. I figured they'd find a way to ship me back to Serkonos. But she could be as fierce as she was defiant, and anyone who dared talk too loudly about Emily's Serkonan features and mysterious lack of a father was promptly silenced.• I was somewhere in the medium to high chaos region. Sometimes, violence is the safest option. And "chaos" isn't a clean tally of how many people you kill; a few high-profile figures can be plenty to tear a nation apart. I killed all my targets save for Lady Boyle and the Pendleton twins, whom I found easier to get rid of non-lethally. No moral choices, simply a calculation of which path was least likely to get me killed. I don't recall if Martin and Pendleton were already dead when I got to them, but if they weren't then I didn't bother to chase them down.• I respect my Outsider. Without his Mark, I wouldn't have gotten through the events of the game. That doesn't mean I have to like him.• I don't recall much of Dishonored 2, having been a statue, but Emily was low chaos and accepted the mark. She also brought home the mementos from my home in Serkonos. She mentioned Billie to me; while Emily didn't forgive her for her hand in Jessamine's death, she made no move to harm her. For all the blood I spilled in my own course, I'm glad Emily came out of it stronger than me.• The Outsider did offer me the Mark back, once I was sapient again. I didn't take it. I won't say I'm grateful to Delilah for removing it, but I think I was happier without it, albeit weaker. Emily could take care of herself by then, so I didn't need it.• Emily and Wyman did marry pretty quickly after the games ended. Perhaps they figured they shouldn't be a repeat of Jessamine and I. Lovely human being, Wyman. They've had my blessing since the start, but just like Jessamine, not even her own father could really stop Emily from doing what she wanted.• Death of the Outsider wouldn't have been canon for me since I had killed Daud. I didn't ask him about the events of Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches, as the Outsider so readily told me off for, but I suppose I would have spared him if I had known. It does elevate him in my mind to know that he did so much to help Emily, and didn't even try to use it to bargain for his life.Art credit: wehavekookiesGo back