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tripleyeeet · 3 months

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did somebody say updated zayis lore dump???

(warning: long and unedited because i cannot be bothered)

zayis has 4 brothers. 3 half, 1 full —all of which are tieflings. she's also the middle child and often gets overlooked even though she's arguably the smartest next to her full blood brother, dharmir.

out of all the half siblings she's definitely closest to cai —the youngest— because he's the only other sibling willing to defy their father.

since she can remember she's always been a night owl. when she was a kid, instead of sleeping you could either find her in the library or on the roof reading. both of which were frowned upon, so she got pretty good at sneaking around.

because of this she hardly ever got in trouble. even though she was definitely the most defiant. unlike the rest of her siblings she could easily fly under the radar for pretty much anything, so she abused that power by frequently sneaking out when she got older.

during that time she met a boy named vesryn. another tiefling who shadowed a locksmith in his youth before joined the zhentarim as a thief.

the two hit it off almost immediately and eventually became partners for a long period of time before amicably parting ways.

growing up, zayis also devoted a lot of her spare time to learning, she quickly became a viable asset to leire, resulting in her becoming one of his favourites by the time she turned 15.

because of this, when talks of which child would ultimately take over the family business zayis became one of those options alongside the oldest sibling, thenon, who's probably zay's least favourite sibling.

because of leire's infidelity against their mother, thenon and the final half brother, mavi, actively make sure that both her and dharmir know their place.

this ultimately creates a divide, resulting in thenon and zayis competing for leire's affections, despite zayis not really giving a shit.

all she wants is to win and hold that power over the rest of leire's other family, which quickly consumes her.

from ages 16-20 zayis becomes the perfect daughter, doing whatever she can to stay in the limelight until her mother eventually goes missing.

immediately both dharmir and zay think sarza (leire’s actual wife) had something to do with it thanks to her jealous nature, but that's inevitably debunked when zayis seeks out more information.

information that, eventually leads her to vesh —a duke of malbolge who offers the truth in exchange for her soul.

despite the pushback from dharmir, zayis ultimately agrees to pact and learns that cazador szarr is involved, which forces her to formulate a plan. one that results in her sifting through her father's endless list of connections, eventually settling on the zhentarim who cautiously accept her services.

(for reference: this is absolutely a result of nepotism since both her parents and her now boyfriend work for them.)

despite that though, she ends up becoming a really viable asset. with an affinity for illusionary magic and, as the years go by, eventually becoming a very skilled arcane trickster who uses her skills to complete a lot of assassination jobs.

timeline wise, she's an active member of the zhentarim from ages 21-26 before she inevitably leaves to work for cazador after getting tipped off that he's looking for new staff.

at which point she meets astarion and the rest of the spawn. as well as elias who seems to be cazador's right hand man, essentially relaying all of his lord's orders to everyone else.

like cazador's he's absolutely ruthless and despises failure, so zayis has one opportunity to prove herself worthy. one that pairs her up with astarion.

thankfully the job is essentially just a glorified night of babysitting. making sure he gets from point a to point b while drawing the least amount of attention.

and as expected, it goes off with only one hitch —the hitch being astarion's entire personality.

which is unfortunate because after that they essentially become partners and later (very reluctant) casual lovers when zayis and vesryn part ways due to their clashing opinions on her new job.

which quickly becomes her entire life. now that she's connected to astarion in a new way.

when she's not working, she's still actively trying to figure out what could've happened to her mom. and when she is, she's following astarion around, making sure he doesn't get killed so that can get laid and paid.

and for a while, she's fine with it. despite the differences her and astarion have, she's content on the physicality of their relationship.

plus, having some sort of eyes and ears within the manor when she's not there certainly helps, even if he's unaware of her intentions.

but then the night happens. the one where vesh appears in the middle of a job demanding assistance, distracting her long enough to miss the drunken man attempting to attack astarion.

it's a night that becomes the tipping point for her feelings, realizing that, despite trying really hard to keep astarion at arm's length, she's definitely infatuated with him.

something she can't be, so after one last night together she stops sleeping with him. making excuse after excuse until the night of the kidnapping hits and they blow up in the middle of a job. yelling and screaming so loud that neither of them notice the mind flayers lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike.

#zayis marden #oc lore #updating her tag to her full name so that the new lore is actually accurate!!! :)

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tripleyeeet · 8 months

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talk about your bg3 character!! im interested in knowing more about them :0

i mean... if you insist...

(also sorry this took so long my brain literally could not condense this in a way that made sense?? so hopefully my rambling isn't too convoluted??)

anyway, this is zayis marden! she's a mephistopheles tiefling, arcane trickster rogue with a sage background!

to give you the sparknotes version of her backstory zayis was raised in baldur's gate alongside her brother dharmir. thanks to their adopted high elf father, leire, both of them appeared to have been brought up well, earning themselves a good education and connections thanks to his politics. behind closed doors however, both children were neglected unless seen in the public eye, resulting in a lot of resentment on dharmir's side and recklessness on zayis's.

because of this, as they got older, they grew apart and zayis left home instead of continuing her studies, resulting in being excommunicated and forced into a life of good ol' fashion crime.

then fast forward a few years and we see that zayis is weirdly thriving. not only is she having quite honestly the time of her life ripping off non-bauldarian's throughout the city, but she's also found a lot of success working as a sort of "under the table" bounty hunter for various clients. (including cazador szarr who often tasks her with keeping a watchful eye on his various spawn in exchange for a bit of coin.)

so yeah, that's all i'll say for now but basically to sum her up she's a very clever rogue who understands how to survive no matter the cost thanks to her hatred of everyone and stubborn nature. :)

#i could honestly write a thousand paragraphs about her #but i also don't want to spoil the entire thing #in case i actually post her fic #:)#bg3 tav

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