It all started when I had a really clever idea...
Well, no... I guess you would say that it started when I got lost, or before that when I had a different clever idea, and before that... Oh bother. I suppose I should just tell you a few facts, and let you work it out from there.
I am Enelias, renowned wizard of the great drow city of Xassimar, the most feared in all the underda... Well, I suppose I do have to be honest. Xassimar barely qualifies as a town, much less a city, and survives mostly by staying out of the sight of larger drow cities that might threaten it, which is every other drow city, and I, while perhaps not its weakest mage, was the least experienced of those free of apprenticeship, and like my city, I was mainly surviving by staying out the sight of those with the power to crush me, which was much of the city population.
I was fortunately well endowed with the ability to be a craven coward who hid from the least threat. Most of my fellow apprentices scorned me for that ability, but they eventually learned that standing up to an overwhelming threat has certain drawbacks. It was a lesson they remembered for the rest of their lives... Not that that was very long in most cases.
But I had other character weaknesses, at least in the eyes of my fellows. While my fellow drow spent years remembering each insult and planning elaborate and painful revenge, I was too busy trying to just survive to try for a revenge that was nearly as likely to kill me as my intended victim. This of course led to me being considered a spineless weakling, but I was a live spineless weakling, and being not worth killing means not being killed. That is a considerable advantage when you realize that half of all drow die, painfully, at the hands of their fellow drow.
Being so determined to revenge ourselves on hurts and insults to each other, we drow are equally determined on revenge for having been driven from the surface so long ago, and we try to get revenge when we can and at any cost. Fully half of all drow die at the hands of surface dwellers who resist our revenge.
[Another half dies from the various dangers of the underdark, and virtually none from old age. If you wonder about three halves, well, Drow women are quite prolific. They are also said to be quite willing, but I can not say myself, and would not if I could. Women are not pleased to have their affairs mentioned, and the male who does talk is, if he is found at all, not in any shape to mention her affairs again.]
When our revenge costs us so many lives, one might ask why we bother. Those asking would be told that it is dishonorable and unjust to let such crimes go unpunished, and that the surface dwellers are weaklings who can be robbed and killed easily enough, and that anyone unwilling to go is a cowardly weakling who should be beaten to a pulp. What they would do if you asked again, I of course did not try to find out.
So it was that I took part in several raids against the surface, in which I achieved my prime goal, of surviving them. Unfortunately[?] I was not as successful in my secondary goal, of avoiding the notice of my superiors, who decided that someone so apt at evading them must be skilled at evading the surface dwellers as well, and put me on scout duty, where they were proven largely right.
So I became a well trusted [to the limited extent a drow trusts anything, least of all another drow] scout for drow forces and was well in the lead of drow forces when we moved against the tiny human kingdom of Fairhome and I was in position for my folly with lovely Sabine.
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