Waterdeep: City of Splendors

Posted: **Mon Nov 04, 2024 8:23 am**

Narrator's Note:

For the origin of Tuldar bar-Khaine, please read his background.

Tuldar bar-Khaine: Unenviable Arbiter of Hoar
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Winter, several years ago
Tuldar bar-Khaine, the lean-built tiefling with a gaze sharp as cut glass, unenviable arbiter of Hoar, strolls into the the Hidden Hand of Fate like he owns the place, eyes scanning that which he’d never before seen. Fresh from fleeing Unther’s brutal politics, he seeks the cold comfort of the quiet in these halls, a place where justice and retribution ruled supreme. The temple’s carvings of swords and scales watch him with silent judgment as he moved, symbols of Hoar’s creed that never need raise a voice.

As Tuldar heads to the rectory, his good eye spies a circle of robed acolytes murmuring anxiously, huddling around the crumpled body of an elder layman sprawled on the cold stone. The temple’s hierophant—a towering figure in a crimson cloak, holding the rank of Fateful Hand of Doom—points a bony finger his way.

"You, stranger! Tuldar bar-Khaine! Hoar has brought you here for a reason. You will uncover who did this.”

His right eyebrow crept above his feline eye, but his face quickly hardenes. He slowly sighs, folding hands behind his back as he strolls over to the body with a lazy, practiced calm.

“Aye,” he mutters. “Time to be a highbrow, aybtep?”

His fingers adjust the eyepatch over his unsighted left eye, a habit he could never shake.

He scans the scene, cataloging every detail like a ledger of debt: the single overturned chalice, the parchment clenched in the dead man’s fingers, the faint scuff marks leading to his feet. He doesn’t waste a beat before snapping questions at the acolytes around him, his voice like a blade through smoke.

“You, bahati,” he barks, eyeing one trembling acolyte. “Why are you quaking as a leaf?” Then, turning to another, “And you, hatori! Last one to see him alive, eh? Spill it—wigwag your jaw in a snap!”

One by one, Tuldar’s questions peel back their secrets, his voice pressing with a steady, relentless rhythm that pulls the truth from them. Finally, he turns to the abbot-general in grim triumph.

“The one you seek, Lord of Thunderous Vengeance,” he grates, “is not an outsider. The culprit is one of our own—a soul overlooked, a lying sod who thought he tilts the scales in his favor.”

The justice is swift. The guilty acolyte is drug outside to face the punishment—a javelin, hurled from ten meters away.

As the crowd disperses, Tuldar’s lips curl into a cold smile . . .

Posted: **Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:14 am**

Spring, a few years later
The City of Swords, Melvaunt, never slept, and neither did its secrets. Beneath the constant clang of hammers and hiss of smelting iron, the real business of the city brewed in alleys and backrooms. Tuldar bar-Khaine knew this game well. As a tiefling arbiter of Hoar—the god of vengeance—he’d dealt with all manner of debts, divine and otherwise. But when the summons to Bruilhaven came, he knew he’d be wading into a mess.

The lord of the house, Lord Bruil, looked about as trustworthy as a viper in a silk cravat. Pale, sweating, and as shifty as they came. He led Tuldar through halls stuffed with tapestries and the looming portraits of dead ancestors, faces that seemed to scowl at every step. At last, they stopped, and Lord Bruil leaned in, his voice a low, nervous murmur.

“We’ve got an… incident in the basement,” he confessed, like a man giving up a secret under torture.

“Incident?” Tuldar repeated, his brows lifting.

Bruil swallowed and muttered something about wizards.

"A jerul—a death devil, one of those things that hunts the faithless."

Tuldar’s eyes narrowed. Jeruls didn’t just pop up for no reason, not unless someone had double-crossed a god. Someone had lied, cheated, or reneged on a deal. And now, vengeance was knocking.

Tuldar’s expression went cold. “You got something you’re not telling me, sayyed?”

Bruil's face contorted, but he stammered, “The Bruils are honorable… or at least… well, mostly…” but his words faded, overtaken by a long silence.

Tuldar had heard enough. He led Bruil down into the estate’s basement, a place where shadows lurked like bad memories. The air grew colder with every step, carrying a bitterness that tasted like old blood and cold iron. Then he saw it—a looming figure wreathed in shadow, its eyes two smoldering coals.

A voice like broken glass spilled out of its maw. “Faithless… false…”

Tuldar felt the jerul’s accusation like a punch to the gut.

“This isn’t a mistake, Sayyed Bruil,” he growled. “Who did your family cross?”

Bruil’s face went ghost-white.

“It was my grandfather,” he admitted, voice barely a whisper. “He made a deal with Hoar for victory… but thought he could skip out on the price.”

“Wrong answer,” Tuldar replied, his tone sharper than any sword. “Hoar doesn’t forget. That debt’s come due, Bruil. And there’s only one way to settle it.”

Bruil’s eyes widened, but he saw there was no way out. With a last, resigned nod, he shuffled back down the steps, his shadow trailing him like a noose. Tuldar watched from above as the jerul’s eyes flared, its hunger for justice finally sated.

Bruilhaven fell silent, but Tuldar knew that debts, like dark secrets, never stayed buried for long.

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Note: The Jerul is featured in “Volo's Guide: Outsiders of the Forgotten Realms”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #353 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), pp. 69–70.

Posted: **Tue Nov 05, 2024 4:18 am**

A few months before the current time, 1380
Tuldar bar-Khaine slips through Athkatla’s grimy streets like a blade in the dark—sharp, smooth, and intense. Bronzed skin, horns, and lurid blond hair mark him as a tiefling, but it is the cold burn in his good right eye—and the crimson eyepatch on his left eye—that forces aside merchant and slave alike. In Athkatla, the City of Coin, everyone is on the take or ready to take you down, but Tuldar? He is here on different business.

In this city, where trust is cheap and loyalty lasts as long as the next payday, Tuldar feels the poison under its skin. Gold rules here, and everyone knows it. You could sell your soul for a handful of coin if you are careless. But Tuldar is not here to sell anything; he was here to weigh something else. As he moved through Waukeen's Promenade, he caught sight of the Shadow Thieves lurking, their faces as crooked as their trade. It reminded him of the lowlifes who’d left his parents in the dust. But today wasn’t about vengeance—he’d learned that revenge is best served in Hoar's timing.

He cuts into the Pride of Athkatla, a merchant den of spice and smoke where deals were struck as fast as the lies that held them together. Right eye sharp, he scans for a caravan heading to Waterdeep. Around him, voices murmur on the city’s latest church feud: Lathander’s flock versus Talos’s wild bunch. The Order of the Radiant Heart? Trying to keep this city from ripping itself apart? Tuldar respects the fight, but he’d seen halos tarnish quick in a place like this.

A Cowled Wizard blocks his way, offering “protection” with that smarmy grin these gray hatori all wear. Tuldar’s glare shocks him into giving ground, and the wizard slithers away. Wizards, thieves, “saviors”—they were all parasites feeding off Athkatla.

Eventually, Tuldar finds his man—a caravan boss who could lie with a straight face. The deal is quick. Standing in the shadows, he took one last look at Athkatla, watching its people claw after coin like rats in a sinking ship.

Tuldar is not here to save them. One day, their sins would demand recompense, and Hoar’s justice would clear the debt, down to the last tarnished coin!

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Narrator's Note:

Look for more of the story of Tuldar bar-Khaine, uneviable arbiter of Hoar, Untherite tiefling, favored soul and ranger, in his journal.

Records of Recompense

Waterdeep: City of Splendors

[Stories] Riven Hands of Justice

[Stories] Riven Hands of Justice

Re: [Stories] Riven Hands of Justice

Re: [Stories] Riven Hands of Justice