The Lightbringer family is the collective name for the family of Shar, Mordred and their descendants. The name was originally a title given to the greatest crusader of light and justice. Early on in the Age of Walls it was awarded to Mordred for his service during the tail end of the Age of Cataclysm. Due to Mordreds fall to darkness and later ascension to godhood forced the retirement of the ritual due to its dishonored nature and the inability to kill Mordred and reclaim the title.
Shar[]
The godess of death and pain, Shar is one of the oldest gods in the realms, and also one of the most powerful. While the Feryman and the judge are the gods that guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife, Shar rules over the very aspect of death itself and is the personal overseer of all souls judged and found wanting. Many of these souls are doled out across the realms of the Byzou to the demon lords with whom the mortals had promised their soul to, but most are directly consumed by Shar and her family to feed their power. To all that see her, she appears differently, looking like the perfect beauty of their dreams, both dark and light.
She is cold and distant from everything except family, distantly commanding her Angels of Reaping while enjoying her private life with her husband and children. Shar is warm and motherly to her children in moments of their triumph, spoiling them and giving them entire kingdoms to play with. When her children fail however, it is said there is not a pain and terror that can match it anywhere in the realms, be they past, present or future. To her husband she is dutiful and loving, and enjoys how he dotes on her every request much like how he did when he was mortal.
Mordred[]
Once a mighty paladin of Alos, now fallen to darkness, Mordred is the god of Murder. He is a giant in his black platemail, his face obscured under his helm. The only feature visible through the two eye slots other than pure shadow are two orbs of green fire bleeding forth, casting his baleful gaze forth and judging those before him. Over his back is his mighty greatsowrd 'Tanelorn' (roughly translates from elvish as "When Sorrow Sings"), never once has he found a foe worthy of drawing it now he has ascended.
He is the opposite of his wife in regard to public image, giving booming orations to crowds of warriors following him, cutting down his foes in personal combat, and directly speaking to his generals and advisers before making his decisions. He is obsessive about his family however, to a degree that many would find unhealthy. He works constantly to make his children and grandchildren as strong as possible, keeping them on a tight leash and under his direct command. He finds the highest joy in the world in keeping his wife happy, and is still madly in love with her. His wife finds his doting endearing and she gives him plenty of gifts, attention and love back, thanking him for getting rid of her loneliness and replacing it with joy. His children and grandchildren obey his every word with complete loyalty, seeing him as a mix of commanding officer, trainer and a perfect father.
The History of Mordred, by Elanor and Cedric[]
The following is a transcript written directly by Mordreds two favored servants, and later shared with many Drow religious leaders upon his marriage with Shar and their protests about having to worship a male god.
"No one knows where the church of Alos found him, those documents were sealed and lost long long ago. The only thing we and our other comrades know for sure is a group of paladins and priests went out into the northern Utgar wilderness, and a single paladin returned with a twelve-year-old boy whom the paladin had named Mordred. What this name means and what happened to the rest of the party was never discussed outside of the high chambers of the Mountain. What was apparent was that even in this young age he would routinely knock out and severely wound his trainers.
The Mountain is a very secure fortress of course, so we don’t have much from there, but we do have many records of his dozens of crusades he led, but that is not important really. What is important was his last crusade. After a brave and decisive raid on Mezazeth, Capital of the Drow Kingdoms, he was rewarded with the symbolic last name of ‘Lightbringer’, given only to the most prestigious of mortal champions. But unfortunately it was not the deathblow of the Drow Kingdom, and shortly after his return to the Lightbringer manor in Fortunes Landing a dozen assassins visited him and his noble knights in their sleep. They butchered their way through the town, slaughtered his brethren knights, but all 12 of them were brutally slain by this mighty champion of light.
In the aftermath of the attack Mordred went out into the destroyed town and scavenged among the burnt wreckage for survivors. He spent 3 days without food, water or sleep digging through the town, only finding four of his knights still alive, and a single child of 6 years. Mordred adopted this child as his own, and with his 4 knights he began to re-build, but Mordred never forgot what the Drow did to him. Once his child was 16 and of age, he declared her his full and total heir before marching off to war. We cannot tell you the true name of his heir I’m afraid, we’ve sworn an oath not to, but we can tell you that she changed her name to Melissa to better fit in with the modern world later, while Mordred stayed true to his old ways.
The four knights and Mordred had trained and worked for years to get revenge. They ignored all other distractions, except for Mordred who spent every spare waking moment taking care of the only family member he ever had. They stormed though the underdark like a hot knife through butter, ending all threats before them and tearing down entire cities. Eventually they made their way to the heart of Shars worshipers, the high temple of Narkerza. While Mordreds companions held off hordes of undead and demonic foes, Mordred slew the High Priestess of Shar in single combat.
It is here again where we must delve into the realm of speculation, for what exactly happened here is private between our old master and his wife. What we do know is that Shar herself noticed this great champion, and how he had ended more lives in his short attack than her own high priestess herself had in her life. The temple sealed itself utterly and completely, and it is said that Shar manifested her full power and might into a single form before him for 24 hours. We know this because not a single soul was reaped, no holy warriors of Shar had access to any powers, and no prayers were answered. When Mordred left the temple he had indeed changed though, empowered by Shar he brutally slew his former companions and took the heads of the remaining Drow nobles to proclaim himself ruler of all darkness.
We were his favored servants for a few short days, before he sent us back to take care of his child Melissa and educate her on his new faith while he settled his new kingdom. One year to the day after his ascension, he began his war once more, but this time against the deluded and weak worshipers of the light, but to his great distress Alos still held some power over him, and in return for his betrayal Mordred was cursed never to return from the West. Separated from his beloved daughter, and desperately in love with Shar, Modred spent the next few millennia empowering himself to the level of a god while never spending a drop of it, and helping his daughter and wooing Shar with more and more impressive feats of murder. This leads directly to the battle of Deaths Day as I assume you are familiar with? Or do they call it the War of Ascension here
With a sacred amulet and an amassed army large to create a storm of murder, he used his war to empower his ascension, and he ascended to godhood as Lord of Murder. But due to the recent murder of his daughter (much to our eternal shame, were were not there to defend her) his performance during his final duel was, sub-par. Shar put off their wedding, for a good few millennia. But that wasn’t the end of the story, for Melissa had a child as well, despite spending a good few years in the high courts of the west, east, underdark and even the Byzou without finding anyone that met her standards. For with an ingenious ritual we helped design she created a spirit, imbued with all her knowledge and a great deal of her personality. Not exactly her, not exactly separate. Her name is Sybil.
Mordred spent five millennia chasing his goal of his true love and achieved it at the cost of countless genocides and extinction level events. Melissa spent a comparable amount of time working towards her goal of a perfect heir. Now the family is truly complete with the dark marriage, and you best learn to worship a male, especially as Shar is with child."
Sybil[]
An outlier in the family, who is technically Mordreds granddaughter but is not blood related. She was created via a ritual by her mother Melissa, whose very soul was consumed to give her life. She started life by possessing a stillborn child in the Wild Sea, bringing it back to life and growing up in an orphanage. With a large amount of knowledge and power of her mother, at a young age Sybil showed many signs of psychopathy and sociopathy. She allowed herself to be kidnapped by pirates at the age of 10. She killed each of them overnight, and used their blood to re-ignite the vampire clans of old by chaining up and binding the Angel of Blood Loss. She took up residence in a great ziggurat on the cursed island of Micolash, a former part of the golden city of Xanadu, and found in it the materials necessary to build her army of the damned. Sybil ignited the wild sea war, and used it to attract the attention of her grandfather Mordred to notice her and take her away from the mortal plane.
Sybil is unique in the family in that she does not have a drop of god-blood in her veins, and despite her ability to posses new bodies upon death is technically mortal. She chooses her bodies with predictable choices and after possession modifications and infection of vamparism. She chooses to look like a thin and shapely woman just under average height, with hair and lips the color of red wine, and warm green eyes. Often seen wearing thick black robes that cling tightly to her body, she tempts far too many mortals to try and woo her, who all end up playthings and toys to be bled out and killed. She is a consistent and constant sadist, and has elevated torture and feeding to a high art, drawing a maximum amount of pain for the subject and pleasure for her, with the smallest amount of effort.
She is also unique in how the rest of the family does not directly associate with her, as Sybil chose to leave the family long ago to strike out on her own. She did not get her wish exactly, as Mordred enforced a number of rules she must follow. She is distant family really, but when Mordred or Shar command her she has no choice but to obey.
Melissa[]
Her true name is known to only a select few, but as most know Morgause as Melissa that is the name we shall use here. She was the first child of Mordred, adopted a few years before his fall, and still holds a special place in his heart. She was a master of ritual magic and by her end had amassed enough political power to be treated like a queen across all of the realms. She never found anyone she could relate to properly other than her father and two personal servants, and as such was was cold and distant to everyone around her. She was assassinated by Mad Thief before his ascension, and her soul was later consumed in the ritual she had prepared earlier in order to create her daughter Sybil. Mordred still gets rather upset when she is mentioned however.
Lamaroth[]
Lamaroth is the first child birthed to Shar and Mordred after their marriage. He is the god of Domination and Conquest, and a warrior nearly a match for his father in size and skill. His armor is shining silver plate over black knightly robes, he keeps his hood up while in public, showing nothing of his face but his two yellow reptilian eyes staring out of the darkness. He wields a great-maul in one hand which booms like a thunderclap with each blow, and a battleaxe in the other that can cut through stone, flesh and metal the same way a regular blade passes through water. He takes after his father in many ways in personality as well, but instead of obsessive need
Decurion[]
The second child of Shar and Mordred, he is the god of Forbidden Knowledge and Undeath, patron of Liches and Vampire Lords. He is far more learned than his older brother but much less impressive physically, a lord of the undead and king of evil hexes and incantations. Every spell he teaches to his mortal servants has a great power behind them, and a terrible cost to those innocents around them. His favorite spell to teach is one that extracts the mana from captive foes, aging them into dust over day by agonizing day, and empowering their captor with it. He wears long and flowing dark green robes over his taut flesh with muscles like steel wire. His head is completely bald, with empty eye-sockets filled with great burning green fires and a twisted black metal crown of thorns. Decurion is always near his trusty Nightmare steed Galerider, and wielding his spear Mindstealer, whose vicious barbs drain his victims minds and leave them husks. He is sure of himself in every action he takes and bold, but only because he has considered his options and weighed the odds far before he acts
Guinevere[]
Third and last child of Shar and Mordred, she is the god of Vile Hunting and Assassination. She takes more after her mother in many regards, like her changing of shape to become a dreamlike beauty to all that see her. Her favored servants and worshipers are varying and can be found across the world, be they men and women who find the act of hunting for sport and pleasure enjoyable as they slowly track an innocent down and torture it to death over many days of tracking and hunting, hired assassins trying to get paid, or even lords and ladies killing off their family for power. If you are to kill something with stealth and guile it is always a good idea to offer your target as a sacrifice, unless of course your action is for the good of the realms. She is currently in a strange relationship/marriage/kinship/friendship with Irah (god of Darkness and Malevolent Trickery) and Cassur (Godess of Spiders and Dark Prophecy) and have through some means produced a child named Baela. While Cassur and Irah are not considered a part of the Lightbringer family, Baela is considered a full member.
Baela[]
Product of Guinevere, Irah and Cassur, they are a complete mystery. Every time someone meets them they have a different form, gender, personality and powers. What their true feelings on anything are or even if this is an act is unknown, perhaps even to their parents.