UNSUNG HEROES AND HEROINES OF THE REALMS

Everybody needs a hero.

Most of the time, everyone WANTS a hero.

And all too often, we get the heroes we deserve.

But what if Drizzt is busy? Elminster is temporarily turned into a giant amoeba fighting the dark germs of Bane in bloodstreams all over the Realms?

And you and your fellow heroic adventurers are triple-booked and out of sleep and desperately need some bathroom time with some good comic books to read?

Well, then it’s time for the second-rankers, the UNKNOWN heroes. And I just happen to have a few of them here…

Years of published Realmslore have given us many well-known individuals of the Realms, including rulers and adventurers whose exploits would lead some to deem them heroes.

But there are other, lesser-known or “unsung” heroes and heroines of the Realms, and here are three of them one may encounter in the Realms right now.

Taressra Vaunth, “the Lady Ghost,” is a female wizard and superb archer who for years has worked with her mother Velarra (and since her mother’s death, continued alone) to devise arrows that deliver arcane spells to whatever or whoever they hit. She can also cast spells in the conventional manner, and recently discovered some ancient Netherese “mantle” spells that she can ‘wear’ (as invisible wards, moving with her) as defenses in battle; most reflect or absorb particular sorts of spells or magical effects.

Many consider her a hero because she has appeared unexpectedly (sometimes alone and sometimes with oft-varying adventuring companions; she seems to have many such folk up and down the Sword Coast and along the Heartlands trade routes linking the Sword coast with the Sea of Fallen Stars) to aid travelers beset by brigands or by orc, goblin, hobgoblin, and gnoll raiders. She sometimes forms intense friendships with females (of all races) she aids, and may drop in on them, or spy on them, years later to see if they need more aid—and provide it, from her fighting skills to wealth to putting folk in touch with skilled others they need (or all of these for the same friend).

Taressra is known as “the Lady Ghost” for her habit of traveling in enhanced wraithform, which makes her translucent, ghostly, and faintly glowing.

Enhanced Wraithform

7th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Components: V

Duration: Up to 7 hours

Available to: Wizards and Sorcerers (if Taressra teaches it to them)

The caster becomes partly incorporeal, taking on wraith-like form, and is resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons that lack blades coated with silver (and can use their reaction to momentarily become wholly incorporeal and gain immunity to the damage of that attack). The caster is also resistant to damage from spells.

The caster can use an action to become fully incorporeal until the end of their turn, so they can move through solid objects (as difficult terrain) and avoid all opportunity attacks. If their turn ends “within” solid matter, the caster is ejected “back” in the direction they arrived from to the closest open volume of space, and suffers 3d4 hp force damage.

While in enhanced wraithform, a caster cannot make any weapon attacks or cast any spells (including cantrips) that require verbal, somatic, or material components. Their unarmed attack alters (from their norm) to dealing 5d4 force damage.

Argoth Hallowhand, a Calishite human male ranger of very dark, almost gray skin, jet-black hair, steel-gray eyes, and tall, lanky build. He has three parallel deep-furrowed scars on his right bicep, thanks to a dragon’s talons, and a family “good luck” tattoo shaped like a dark teardrop-ended vertical spindle around his right eye.

A wanderer active up and down the Sword Coast and increasingly all around the Sea of Fallen Stars, Argoth has slain many monsters and slavers; he harbors an intense dislike for humans who enslave or coerce others. Slaves he’s freed, and potential slaves he’s defended, revere him as “the Hero Unlooked-For,” and tales of his kind deeds have made the rounds of the trade routes and ports, growing in the telling.

Argoth is a loner, seeking a life partner he can trust and adventure with, so he’s increasingly working with adventurers he encounters in hopes of finding such a lifemate. He doesn’t care what race or gender such a partner may be, only that he can trust them and that they share his adventuring interests and skills.

Born in northeasternmost rural Calimshan, Argoth has always been a good climber, and as a youth hunted wyverns and perytons, graduating to blue dragons when spawnings to the east of Calimshan caused young wyrmlings to invade Argoth’s home region in search of lairs of their own. He took part in five successful dragonslaying hunts before the mother dragon came seeking vengeance—and he was one of only two survivors among the hunters in the epic battle that followed, with the mother dragon dead and a battered Argoth dragging a sorely-wounded comrade down out of the foothills, to healing. Argoth detests dragons, two decades later.

In recent years, an attempt by Zhentarim agents to frame him for their own smuggling in Sea of Fallen Stars ports led Argoth to begin hunting Zhent spies and smugglers, which in turn made Zhentarim mages hunt him; thus far, he’s slain almost two dozen Zhent wizards and more than thrice that many of their warrior bodyguards, and forced senior Zhent mages to issue orders that he’s to be avoided, as too expensive to the faction to take down. Instead, the Zhents are turning to local pirates to handle the “last stage” (shore to ship or vice versa) of their smuggling for them.

Lurscrag Thult, a kobold male of the usual mottled red reptilian appearance. He is agile and has superb balance, and so can climb, jump, and cling far better than many adversaries. He’s also fearless, but not foolhardy, avoiding fights to the death in favor of relocating to fight another day. Like most of his kind, Lurscrag doesn’t fight fair, makes frequent use of traps (especially along a planned escape route), and will flee without hesitation to avoid being cornered.

Lurscrag began his career among human-dominated society as a stealth spy for hire by wealthy mer chants (and later, smuggling gangs) in Athkatla. He later became a bandit preying on rich former clients, and made a huge fortune in 1482 DR with a swift series of successful gem heists. “Set” for life, he made many covert investments to give himself a stable income, and abruptly relocated to the Sword Coast North, the Dales, and Sembia (managing to maraud in all of those areas because he’d discovered ancient gates or portals allowing swift travel across the continent of Faerûn).

Lurscrag is considered a hero by many because he harasses wealthy merchants and nobles who use their power to cheat, dominate, or coerce others (he dislikes anyone becoming too powerful without also officially ruling; he considers official rulers to have assumed the role of official targets, and so are potentially “paying the price” for their power), and for his defense of many coerced and beset Sembians and Cormyreans when the mercenary armies of Thultanthar (“returned Netheril”) were marauding across those realms.

Lurscrag spied on mercenaries and slaughtered all he saw who mistreated women, children, prisoners, and non-combatants—striking by night and when he could catch them alone if he was too late to remedy their fell deads, but swooping in to defend the helpless whenever he could. He was dubbed “The Scaly Red Hope” by someone in Sembia during these years when he tirelessly roved and fought, slaying even Netherese arcanists when they unleashed cruel spells on laborers, or sought to enslave.

These days, Lurscrag still swoops to the aid of the beset, more often in Dales (Daggerdale in particular) than elsewhere, and reserves his special attention for Zhentarim and Red Wizards. He has begun to amass magic items he can wear and carry that heal him, so he can now survive attacks that would formerly have laid him low.