Jarlaxle Baenre

❦ IC Information
Character name: Jarlaxle Baenre
Canon name: Forgotten Realms

Age: Five hundred
Species: Drow


History: Here


Personality: Jarlaxle is a complete and total wild card. With a canon alignment of chaotic neutral, there is nothing outside the scope of what he might do. Manipulating and causing chaos where ever he may go, he is an agent of it himself, and revels in causing trouble, shaking up the status quo, reconfiguring ideas and ideologies, and best of all, playing everything directly into his hand. The drow enjoys leading people on, using others to his own greater benefit, and outwitting those who claim to be in control or command great amounts of power.

He’s as charming as a man can be, highly intelligent and good with words, and flirts as he breathes. He knows he’s good looking too, and uses all of this to his full advantage. Not a day goes by where some sort of innuendo, come on or otherwise less than chaste word escapes Jarlaxle’s mouth. He’s also totally the type to kiss and tell. See: Brass dragons. Two brass dragons. At the same time. Who were sisters. This is his favorite story and if you don’t want to hear it then you better not spend any sort of time with him at all because if you do you are going to hear this story every night for the rest of your life. He’s very proud of himself. In fact, not a book has gone past with him in it that he has not, at least once, had a relationship with someone else. He isn’t picky about it and is quite the hedonist. With that in mind, he’s a hedonist with morals and knowledge of boundaries, and can be easily set off course with but a word. Jarlaxle is no monster, after all.

Most drow are evil, this is a fact. With one or two rare exceptions, most drow are vile, violent, backstabbing creatures who would happily slaughter their own mother and father in order to gain power. Jarlaxle is not entirely exempt from this, but... unlike the rest of his kind, Jarlaxle has learned, and has kept, the ability to care. He doesn't really care about a great deal of people, and this tends to show in how he treats them. Kindly, yes, but as things to use. Tools to manipulate for his own use to improve his life and increase his rewards. There are very, very few people Jarlaxle can claim to actually care about more than mere surface attraction or for personal gain. He also feels something most drow do not comprehend: regret. Zaknafein was one of the first people Jarlaxle could ever claim to care about, before he probably even knew what the word care or love even meant. However, as a product of the Underdark, he still betrayed his friend, and sentenced him not only to a life of suffering, but to a painful and humiliating death, a death that did not even end in Zaknafein's rest and freedom from slavery. It is this that eats him, his single, glaring regret. His one and only regret, it is why he cares now so deeply for another two. Drizzt and Artemis, in which he sees so much of the friend that he betrayed. Redemption in some form or another for his mistake in the past, still unforgivable.

With this in mind, this doesn’t necessarily make Jarlaxle a good person either. He is a brigand after all, and whatever thing he may happen to want, whether it be a necklace, a crystal or a fancy new magic pair of pants, is a thing Jarlaxle is going to be getting, whether or not someone wants him to have that thing. He’s also not easily startled or angered, but he can be brought to anger, and it’s... usually best that this doesn’t happen. While he is far kinder than most of his species, Jarlaxle is by no means a soft person, and if he feels it is necessary, he can become unimaginably cruel. There are only a few ways to upset him to this point, one of them being threatening or hurting the few people in this world that he’s found quite dear to him. He’s left parts of the Underdark in ruins to protect Drizzt, after all, and he’s got an excellent memory.

Speaking of the Underdark and setting it on fire, Jarlaxle has personally crafted literally everything about himself, from his choice of hairstyle, to the clothes and their color to the very way he acts as a massive middle finger to drow lifestyle. In a place where black and red and white, backstabbing secrets, the subjugation of males and deep attention to vanity rein, Jarlaxle is a wild, loud, brilliant rainbow, and that rainbow spells the words FUCK YOU LOLTH. Raised as a child of a prophecy, an agent of chaos, rumored to be chosen by the spider goddess herself, expectations were heaped on him, to be powerful, to be a force for the Underdark, to be a strong and terrifying tool, to be used by the powerful matrons. Jarlaxle... didn't really care for that. Instead, he used the assumption that he'd accepted Lolth's favor (he didn't), to gain ground, and without her favor, made himself the most powerful drow in the Underdark. He shaved his head, as males are considered useful only so long as they are beautiful and fertile, and long hair is a sign of beauty, power and status. Slaves had short hair. But no hair at all? He refused to even be on the spectrum of societal status. In direct, flagrant opposition to the dark leathers and grays and solemn, threatening colors most drow saw fashionable, he dressed himself in a rainbow, a loud, clattering, clinking, magical rainbow. A loud rainbow that can kill you if he just twitched his finger wrong.

But just because Jarlaxle dresses like a pride parade threw up on him with every intention of annoying drow nobility, doesn't mean he doesn't care what he looks like. For you see, Jarlaxle is well aware that he is very attractive. And goes through great, great lengths to ensure that every time he gets dressed, he looks perfect. The man will spend hours in the mirror, fixing every thread just right, adjusting each and every ring, making sure his cape flutters right and that his hat sits just jauntily enough on his head. Jarlaxle is obsessed with looking good.... just like any other drow, actually. Some things one cannot escape, and apparently for Jarlaxle, the obsessive need to constantly look his best is one of them.

On top of all of this, Jarlaxle is old, for a drow. At over five hundred years old, he's dedicated his life now to adventure, because he seeks new experiences with the ravenous hunger of a man who's been starved for years. Jarlaxle has become bored with the Underdark, with the constant struggle for power. He doesn't have to struggle for it anymore, after all, and considering how long he's been around and how predictable he now finds most of the other drow in the Underdark, he's well aware that he'll probably never be taken by surprise down there and be forced to fight for his place. Ever. Instead, to assuage his boredom, and to ensure that he has truly experienced everything this life has to offer him, he's left for the surface. Seeking new and more fantastic things, Jarlaxle has the energy of a child. A child who's drank three red bulls, one espresso, been promised eight kittens and given a bag of pixi sticks. He's exhausting.

For the most part though, Jarlaxle appears to be easy going, charming, charismatic and full of good jokes. He is very good at reading people, and is highly empathetic, capable of altering key, subtle parts to his own personality in order to best suit a mood, a person, or a situation. While it’s never enough to call him two faced, it’s certainly enough to make him unpredictable. He’s never been a cruel leader, and most of the men in his house, despite perhaps being deeply tired of his antics on occasion, and perhaps somewhat disapproving of his tastes in bedmates and friends, still respect and generally like their captain. Even if they did make him pay to use their services becausekimmurialisadouche.


Inventory: ITEM LIST PART ONE
ITEM LIST PART TWO

No mounts are going to be included, and all weapons will be left behind.

Powers: Most of Jarlaxle's abilities, magical ones at least, come from an item. As with most of his kind, he has faerie fire and globes of darkness, but no really if you name an item, Jarlaxle has it.

As far as physical goes:

Brawler

Duelist

19th level rogue and swashbuckler.

Jarlaxle is a highly flexible, fairly physically powerful, well trained and very skilled opponent versed in many different arts of battle. From hand to hand to sword play to magic item usage and even a few spells. A jack of all trades in this manner, he’s deeply intelligent and learns quickly, and can formulate a plan on the spot if need be. A master of using the chaos of a moment to his best advantage, Jarlaxle’s prime ability seems to be causing chaos and then manipulating it to his needs and standards, whether it be through magical, political, economical or... explosion based means.

He’s hard to hit, and in return hits hard back, in a nutshell.


Sample: SAUSAGES

Pizza fite

Namely for one thing.

One of Jarlaxle's items gives him the spell "Charm Person". While it doesn't destroy free will, or would otherwise make a character do things that would endanger themselves or people they love, it does make the spell caster, Jarlaxle in this case, seem more friendly, trustworthy and reliable than he otherwise would have.

OPT OUT HERE if you'd rather Jarlaxle not be able to charm your character. You don't need to give a reason, don't worry.