Ephorus

Ephorus is a drow adventurer of the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. He first appears on the road to the town of Osterhn carrying a document that names him a free drow, allowed to travel throughout the Empire, and introduces himself as born in White City. The official who reads the paper hands it back, though not without suspicion, and the tiefling innkeeper Exalon later warns him that it will protect him only so far.^{1 2 3}

Ephorus is not his real name. He told his companions in captivity that he was born Orpheus, and that Ephorus is an anagram he uses to avoid trouble; he asked them to keep to the alias in front of others.⁴

Origins

By his own account, Ephorus was sold at an expensive auction as a baby in White City. He believes he may have been born in one of the city's costly brothels, where drow women were kept, and in a later private note he calls himself the son of a poor drow prostitute. He does not know his father. As a child he remembered the sugared buns made by the person who bought him, and he judged that, as such owners go, he had been treated fairly well.^{5 6 7}

He lived in White City for some forty years, sometimes at rich tables and sometimes on the street, and survived mostly by gambling. He left after trying to pick the pocket of someone he should not have touched. On the road he was treated badly for being a drow, until a caravan more tolerant than most took him in and pointed him towards Osterhn.^{8 9 10}

Character

Ephorus says he judges deeds rather than people, and admits that he has done both good and bad. Sunlight hurts his eyes and hampers him in daylight fighting. He keeps a diary, which he often writes on rooftops at dawn; in it he asked why he was shunned for existing and wrote that he found the gods cruel and indifferent, yet still wanted to win. He later said he hoped to publish his journals one day.^{11 12 13}

He gambles wherever he goes, practises the flute, and likes to give gifts: flowers left for the innkeeper's daughter at the Golden Ladle, the fourteen gold coins he found in the doctor's safe for Arvin of the same inn, who had treated him without contempt, gold to a widow who had lost her husband in the fighting, books and a writing set for his friends. Among humans he often asks to be presented as a servant rather than as a friend, reasoning that a drow named as an equal draws more questions than a drow who seems to belong to someone.^{14 15 16 17}

Osterhn

Ephorus offered to travel with the cousins Kemp and Sara, and the three became a company in Osterhn. His first task was to carry medicine to Gerurt, an old woman of the town, and the errand brought him to her son Finart. To obtain a remedy for Finart he went by night to the town's doctor, watched him sniff a glowing green powder from a hidden ring, and was chased through the streets as a thief, escaping by hiding in the graveyard.^{18 19 20 21}

Spoiler: Gerurt's fateRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #1 · Say what you have read

Ephorus found Gerurt dead in her bed, buried her behind her house, and brought Finart a cloth toy his mother had kept from his childhood.^{18 19}

As the company was drawn into the town's struggle against the goblins, Ephorus scouted ahead in the dark. Near Diştepe he spied out a goblin camp, killed a goblin with a hand crossbow and was struck down in the fight, but survived. He later killed a captured goblin officer after Exalon had questioned him, and led Kemp and Sara across a goblin bridge disguised as a slaver bringing human captives to sell.^{22 23 24 25}

In the den of the goblin chief Moluk, Kemp and Sara fell. Ephorus threw a barrel of oil into the fire and tried to flee, but seeing goblins at the exit he laid down his weapon and surrendered; the three were bound and kept alive as valuable prisoners.^{26 27}

Captivity and the pact

Ephorus was held apart in a cell so small that he touched the walls when he lay down, with only food, water and a bucket, for some fifty-five days. He came to despair, wished to be sold or anything else that would end the dark, and could not tell whether the voices he began to hear were real. Sara once spoke to him through the door and promised that they would not leave him.^{28 29 30}

A black silhouette whose face could not be seen appeared in the cell. It told him he would be sold to the drow below and that his friends had failed to free him, and offered him release in exchange for an irrevocable oath to serve a Lady. He accepted. Two days later, as he was being carried deeper into the caves in a sack, a tiefling shadow cut him loose among dead goblins, and he next found himself naked and weak at the gates of Osterhn, where Kemp and Sara ran to embrace him.^{31 32 33 34}

Spoiler: The Lady and her termsRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #8; Sürgün Günlükleri #12 · Say what you have read

Exalon, himself bound by a pact, told Ephorus that it was dangerous to accept such a bargain unseen, that the queen he served watched promising people from the shadows and made her offer when they were desperate, and that sleep would leave him. He advised him not to fall in love.^{35 36 37}

Later, in a darkened corridor that replaced his room at the inn, Ephorus met the Lady: a very pale woman in a black aristocratic gown with sharp, golden fingertips. She named Exalon as the friend who had vouched for him. She said the pact demanded unquestioning loyalty and would not end with death, for his soul would come to her realm rather than to the halls of the gods or to the Spider Queen; that he could never work with those who return from the grave; and that he could not have a family. When he kissed her hand she cut his cheek with a golden nail, leaving a mark of ownership that would not heal. Afterwards he laughed for a long time and hurled a chair against the wall with a burst of black energy.^{38 39 40 41 42}

Exalon told him that such pacts can be broken and promised to explain how one day, and taught him the recipe of a sleeping draught for the long sleep the pact would eventually demand.^{43 44}

After his return Ephorus found he could draw a longbow that had once been too heavy for him. He went back to the doctor's emptied mansion with the kobold Pitt, found a cellar of cages, strapped chairs and surgical tools, was wounded by a trap, and set the house on fire.^{45 46 47}

The war for Osterhn

Ephorus fought through the rest of the goblin war: he opened the battle at a parley in the hills by killing a hobgoblin with a hidden arrow, helped rescue the captive soldier Kerbor from a hobgoblin cave, and recovered from a bugbear den the enchanted short sword Exalon had given him, lost during his capture. He argued that the town's poor mattered more to him than its powerful men, but stayed at his friends' side.^{48 49 50 51}

He also had to deceive the witch hunters who came to Osterhn. He volunteered for a truth-seeking questioning by the witch hunter Gordon, hoping his oath would shield him; when the newest hunter was shot by Gordon during the questioning, Ephorus helped Gordon's companion Varis bury the body and burned the severed head. To Gordon he blamed the illegal magic he knew of on Finart's mother, who was already dead.^{52 53 54}

With Gordon, Kemp and Sara he joined the small team that struck at the goblin leader Borgar. Before they went, he and Sara promised on a rooftop to protect each other; in his diary he had already written that he was falling in love with her. In the town square he killed one of the doctor's creatures by shooting into the beating organ inside its opened ribcage, and his arrows helped bring down Borgar.^{55 56 57 58}

In an old well he dived for a sunken chest. The ghost of a noblewoman called Isabel took him for Exalon and seized his body until Kemp tied him to a pillar. When she calmed and accepted that he was not Exalon, Ephorus struck her down by surprise; he explained that his oath forbade him to deal with those who return from the dead, and that he feared being destroyed. He carried away the chest's warm crystal heart, later gave it to Exalon, and passed on the ghost's last message that she forgave him.^{59 60 61 62}

Spoiler: The assault on the castleRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #15; Sürgün Günlükleri #16 · Say what you have read

When Exalon's townsfolk rose against Jasper, who held Osterhn's castle, the three friends forced their way in. Ephorus fought Jasper with his short sword and was thrown back down the stairs; when Sara fell, he drew back towards the way out. Jasper left, and Sara died of her wounds. Only after her death did Ephorus say that he loved her.^{63 64 65}

In the same fight he shot the wounded houndmaster Alistar dead from hiding as he came out of a door with his dogs, and took a gold ingot and an enchanted cloak from Jasper's locked chambers. Sara's farewell letter left him broken; that night, drunk, he collapsed while trying to tie a rope somewhere above. He later said he did not regret killing Alistar.^{66 67 68 69 70}

The company tracked Jasper to a cave and took him alive; Ephorus kept him alive even when Jasper tried to provoke him into killing him. After the court's verdict Ephorus asked to carry out the execution himself, told Kemp he loved him as Kemp did him, and beheaded Jasper with a single stroke of a borrowed woodcutter's axe. He laid daisies on Sara's body and took back the necklace he had once given her.^{71 72 73 74}

Before leaving he showed Kemp his new power, a wave of black and violet energy, and told him of the oath he had sworn to escape the cell. He also told Pitt to gather up the traps the boy had set around town, so that no children would be hurt in peacetime. When the boat finally left Osterhn he tried to play the flute.^{75 76 77}

In the service of House Corvus

Ephorus travelled on with Kemp, whose family name is Corvus, and the young mage Katherine. Having lost his freedom document, he asked Kemp to present him as a servant. His pact now let him take on other appearances: a fair-skinned elf, or even Kemp himself, an illusion that he could renew at will but that touch could betray. He showed it to Katherine and apologised for his earlier coldness towards her, and she kept his secret. In elven guise he gambled and gathered rumours along the river.^{78 79 80}

At Riverguard, where the crown prince's guard was quartered, he went back to his own drow face. A guard humiliated him by following him to the latrine and making him clean up after himself; he did not protest. Questioned for the prince's security, he said he was the son of a drow sex worker born on the surface and had served Kemp since Osterhn. A counsellor warned him that the impression he left on the future emperor could affect how drow are seen.^{81 82 83}

Escorting the household of Baron Vermont, Ephorus stood guard rather than sit at their table. Baroness Ramona met him secretly at night and told him that her husband had backed a political opposition that had turned into armed rebellion, and that she feared their daughter had been taken; he promised to look for a way out, and passed her words to Kemp and Katherine in a written note in case the house was listening. He read the hidden letter that exposed the household knight Kleber as an informer, was wounded twice by the sorcerer Hermann's blasts in the battle with the Bloody Coin mercenaries, and questioned Kleber on the road.^{84 85 86 87}

In the march against the rebel Rainer he guarded the Baron in person after a poisoner was caught among the legionaries, and spoke by night with Rainer's envoy Marcus Boldvar, telling him he fought for his friends rather than for imperial glory. He told a priest that having to sell even himself to survive in human lands had worn away his faith, and that he would risk himself for Kemp out of friendship, not rank.^{88 89 90}

In the city he let himself be taken, hooded, to Rainer, urged him to come to terms for the sake of those he loved, and argued about the Empire, heroes and race; Rainer refused, and had him released unharmed. Before the duel that the Empire arranged against Rainer, Ephorus met him again, speaking not as an official but as the drow Orpheus, and accepted Rainer's condition that his men be allowed to leave the city.^{91 92 93 94}

Spoiler: The duelRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #23; Sürgün Günlükleri #24 · Say what you have read

The intelligence agent Foltest had left a potion to weaken Rainer in the duel. Ephorus, made invisible by Katherine, slipped into the champion's room and mixed it into the oils used to tend the sword. Rainer was poisoned by the blade and died.^{95 96}

Afterwards Foltest called Ephorus aside, ordered him to report two or three times a year on Kemp and Katherine, and took a vial of his blood; Ephorus said the choice was an illusion, and admitted that he had poisoned the oil himself.^{97 98 99}

After the rising, the Baron had papers drawn up showing that Ephorus served Kemp as a free and paid man, and the prince gave him the wooden token once given to arena fighters who won their freedom, as a reminder rather than a release, for he was already free.^{100 101}

From a carpenter's back room Katherine bought him elven boots that soften his steps; he said it was the first gift he had ever received. He bought a book on the life of a knight called the Grey Eagle for himself, and a military history of Riverguard.^{102 103 104}

His diary records his wonder that the road from fleeing to Osterhn at the price of servitude had led to tea with the heir to the throne. In a dream he saw himself wanting to kill the prince he had guarded in battle, to please the Spider Queen, and woke unsure whether the thought was his own. At the Corvus house he received a black dagger inlaid with a petrified spider, taken as plunder in the war beneath the earth, and soon learned that he could send it away and call it back.^{105 106 107 108}

He dreamt too of a spider cradle, of a lullaby of obedience to a mother, and of a man with an amethyst ring giving money and weapons to hobgoblins. He told Exalon that his power was growing, that he could turn invisible and step from place to place, and that he was afraid.^{109 110}

Spoiler: The town of ghostsRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #26; Sürgün Günlükleri #27 · Say what you have read

In a town of ghosts Ephorus was the first to see Sara's spirit by a lake. Sara later rose again in a new young body, through a rite that left Gordon grey and withering. Ephorus, bound by his oath against dealing with those who return from death, drew back and wounded himself until he fell unconscious.^{111 112 113}

The road alone

Ephorus then left his friends with a long note, to hunt on their behalf the man with the amethyst ring. He learned that black amethyst comes mainly from the mines of the dwarven kingdom of DağAltı and is traded through the house of Demirkapı.^{114 115 116}

Spoiler: A new patronRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #28.5 · Say what you have read

At a roadside inn a young tiefling envoy visited him, said he was Exalon's son, and gave him a diamond necklace left by his late mother. When Ephorus gave his blood willingly, the pact with the Lady ended; his powers faded and his need for sleep returned.^{117 118}

Six dwarves then seized him and for about a week tortured him about the drow tunnels, but he held to the truth that he was born on the surface. When drow raided the outpost, a noble priestess of the house of De'nafrin, Deava, had him kiss the spider sign on her boot; his dagger vanished, his wound closed and his powers came back. She told him that his body and soul had belonged to the Spider Queen from the start, ordered him to kill a dwarf prisoner and to burn the outpost, and left him on the surface to come when called. His enchanted cloak was taken and another drow cloak given in its place. When the drow had gone he came back and buried what dwarven remains he could reach.^{119 120 121 122 123}

Afterwards he sought out a young priest of Amarath and asked how to save his soul after a life of bad deeds and pacts. The priest said some sins can be atoned for in life through penance, but that giving one's soul to fiendish powers is a special obstacle, and sent him to a more learned priest of Rakash. On a rooftop he wrote that surviving alone was no longer enough after friendship and love, and that he wanted to free his soul and be remembered as a free and good man.^{124 125 126}

Gromkar and the drow

Months later he met Kemp and Sara again at a crossroads camp outside the dwarven city of Gromkar, still in elven guise. He first claimed his journey had gone well, then told them everything; he believes his powers were restored by a drow house and the Great Spider it serves, and that this time he swore no open oath. His friends saw him sleep for the first time.^{127 128 129}

Fearing that a disguise would one day be taken for spying, he revealed himself to the city's baron, the dwarf lord Balgur Demirkapı and their dwarf companions, showing the prince's papers and wooden token. Balgur accepted him only on condition that he walk the city with his own face; the baron proclaimed an exception for him to the order to kill drow on sight. In the streets people fled and cursed him, and he said it hurt that only his race was ever seen.^{130 131 132 133}

There Foltest found him again and pressed for reports; Ephorus gave him only spoken news, and kept back some of what he knew about his friends. A wounded drow messenger asked him to steal letters from a gnome mage; he took them but refused to kill the mage, warning him instead with a message on his wall, and kept for himself an older letter inviting the gnome to a secret imperial project nearby.^{134 135 136 137}

Spoiler: The messenger's secretRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #31.5; Sürgün Günlükleri #32 · Say what you have read

The messenger told him that Deava is his aunt and that his mother had once been noble, though his rights were uncertain because of her lost rank and his common father. Ephorus shared the secret with his friends, said he feared being used as a tool, and told them they could leave him; they would not.^{138 139 140 141}

Ephorus told his friends that bloodstone is hard to find even on the black market of White City, because the Empire pays well to buy it up.¹⁴²

To learn the drow's plans for Gromkar, Ephorus and Sara let themselves be jailed as thieves beside a drow prisoner called Hançer, Ephorus playing the dominant partner and Sara the dependent one. The cover became real pain: he was beaten, a nail was torn out, and he was burned and cut about the ear before he gave up the false hiding place of his loot. They learned that an attack was coming and escaped with Hançer, who was killed outside. Afterwards Ephorus was troubled that the harsh part he had played resembled the man he once was.^{143 144 145 146}

Spoiler: His motherRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #32 part 2 · Say what you have read

At the end of that mission it was suggested that Hançer was the one who had killed Ephorus's mother.¹⁴⁷

In a dwarven tomb he faced a young green dragon that called itself Green Claw, gave his name as Orpheus and said he had grown up on the surface; in the fight he cut Sara free of strangling vines before the dragon's poison breath overcame him. He asked Balgur for a small piece of mithril set into the sun tattoo on his arm as a mark of dwarven friendship that no one could steal, and the old gnome engineer Milp built him a folding arm-shield with a blade made from his enchanted short sword.^{148 149 150 151}

He raised a young pet, Kısmet, teaching it to fetch a ball, and when the Inquisition was expected he recalled being cornered by zealots on a caravan. Searching invisibly through the house of the smuggler Cole and an old mill, he found a thieves'-cant warning, blood and a broken sacred symbol. He kept his word to a captive who had given information, asking that the man not be killed before his return.^{152 153 154 155}

Beneath the mountains

The company went underground to ambush a drow priestess. Ephorus trailed the enemy's scouts unseen for days and warned that more were coming; after the fight he took the priestess's snake whip as a keepsake of vengeance and of the war. He feared, as he had once feared a losing night at the gaming tables of White City, that a much greater calamity was gathering, and his dreams showed a man moving the rebellion's armies like cards.^{156 157 158 159}

The dwarf priest who had once questioned him in captivity helped him break open the black stone left by a devil with a mithril hammer; inside was a white powder that an alchemist later named as dust from celestial wings. He wondered aloud that he had kept his powers after killing a drow priestess, and suspected that his new patron was someone other than he thought.^{160 161 162}

In an old mine the company found a cursed blade that served as a key. Ephorus's hand was cut off at the wrist and the blade scraped free of it. He fought on one-handed, and raged that he could no longer do the small things he had once done, not even open his make-up case.^{163 164 165}

At DağAltı, Ephorus entered the mountain without hindrance. The High King charged him in particular with carrying to safety a necklace taken long ago from the neck of a drow matron, which only drow could carry. In a vision, a woman he later named as his grandmother and the matron of his house showed him the spider necklace and its victims, claimed she had saved his soul, offered power and an end to the war for it, and then threatened him, his friends and their families.^{166 167 168}

He told his friends that he had once cared only for survival and winning, that their journey had changed that, and that even if he could not be saved he wanted them to be. He found the necklace in a plundered vault and carried it unharmed; drow ambushers cried his drow name.^{169 170 171}

Waiting before the king, he asked to have his hands cuffed as the necklace's pressure grew; it wanted the dwarves to kill him so that it could go free. In the aftermath a black plated glove was fitted over his lost hand, in return for a fallen dwarf's promise of mithril.^{172 173 174}

Spoiler: The matron's templeRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #44; Sürgün Günlükleri #45 · Say what you have read

Carried by wings of light, the company arrived in the very temple of his vision, where the wounded matron and a giant spider waited. The spider fell upon Ephorus too; the matron was killed, and the gravely wounded company was brought back to safety.^{175 176 177}

The last stand

In the end Ephorus asked a fellow traveller who had once tried to win back his own soul who now held his. He said he no longer fought only for gain but because he believed it right, and that Kemp and his friends had changed him. Disguising his face, he returned to Osterhn, the town where it had all begun, to stand against the Puppeteer.^{178 179}

Spoiler: After the battleRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #50 · Say what you have read

The companions fought the Puppeteer and survived, though friends and allies died around them. Afterwards the old intelligence officer released them from the work and ties he had laid on them, saying he would call on them again if needed.^{180 181}