Parzal the Outrageous

Parzal was a young-looking man who stood 6’ 2” tall, weighed 170 pounds, and had piercing blue eyes. His black hair was always worn in the latest style.

His father was a ranger born on another world, while his mother was a spellcaster from the far east. When Parzal was five years old, a sohei from the Monastery of the West Wind entered his house, assassinated his parents, took Parzal and his brother, stole all the family’s wealth, and burned the house to the ground. The sohei dropped Parzal into the Dunes of Death (an ocean of sand more than 2,000 miles across), because they felt he was too strong-willed to be subjugated properly, and they eventually sold Lampris into slavery.

After seven months of harsh survival, wandering priests happened upon the boy and took him to their monastery. At the age of 25, he became a brother in the monastery. On his 30th birthday, the monks revealed that—many years ago—they had heard of a young boy who showed the greatest of promise in the mystic arts. They appointed their sohei to bring the boy to the Dunes of Death to see if he had the tenacity to become a monk. In payment, the sohei could steal whatever he found in the house. That young boy was Parzal.

Awe struck and slack-jawed by the news, Parzal fled the sanctuary, vowing to avenge the death of his parents and his brother’s apparent sale to slavery. He searched the world for his brother but never found any evidence of him.

Disillusioned, Parzal threw his efforts into magic, working on spells and writing a book about his experiences, Parxal’s Perils. He had this manuscript transcribed 1,000 times and was amazed at how quickly the books sold. One purchaser, Mortimar (NE hm A23), contacted Parzal with a business proposition. This offer entailed the creation of a magic shop to sell Parzal’s books, as well as a storehouse for every imaginable spell component. The sales of his books soon allowed this new partnership to expand into seven stores in only one year (the store in Karsus Enclave was the third).

Soon, Parzal gave Mortimar control over the business end of their shop, QM III. Mortimar handled the sale and purchase of items and components. In the meantime, Parzal wrote books.

One day, an individual came into the shop and requested a curse be placed upon a man immorally involved with his wife. Parzal agreed to help the man, especially when he offered 100,000 pieces of platinum for payment. Parzal searched Netheril for his would-be-victim and placed a horrid curse on him. Unfortunately, the man turned out to be an official in the Karsus enclave government. Parzal’s face turned up on wanted posters throughout Netheril.

Parzal fled back to QM III where his partner, Mortimar was frantic with worry. Mortimar devised a plan to announce Parzal’s death from an experiment gone awry. Parzal agreed to the plot, and the constabulary stopped searching for him once Mortimar conveniently “found” a body in an alley with a shattered amulet of life protection, claiming that it once belonged to Parzal.

Mortimar then had Parzal’s name removed from the ownership documents. Once this occurred, Mortimar let slip that he set Parzal up so he could take over the business. After hearing his former partner gloat over his achievements, Parzal fled QM III in disguise and began working on his most feared spell: Parzal’s revenge (of which no copies currently exist). He inscribed the spell down on scroll paper, cursed the scroll, and placed a preamble onto the page that stated that the scroll was a “Promotion to Vitality and Stamina.”

Disguised as a lowly fighter with no possible way to read scrolls, Parzal entered the shop and asked the item’s worth. Mortimar read the preamble and agreed to buy the scroll-for a measly 50 gp. Mortimar thirsted for a Constitutional bonus since he recently lost some vitality when he made a permanent magical item, so he read the scroll. The curse quickly overcame him. When he was done reading the scroll, he was only a shell of a man.

Parzal’s closest friend, Archmeagan (LG hm A19), took over the business. Mortimar, looking for a way to end his torment, confessed to cursing the Karsus government official, even though he didn’t do it. Seven days later, he was put to death. Parzal came out of hiding and was sentenced to 60 days in prison for falsifying his death.

Archmeagan planned to turn ownership of QM III back to Parzal when he was released from prison; Parzal swore not to let anyone else run his business again. He also planned to take a long vacation in the south immediately upon his release.

Parzal survived the fall of Netheril because he was on vacation in the south.

'''Editor's Note:''' What? What?! All of this is completely outrageous!