Elire Stork

Elire Stork (also spelled Elira) was the firstborn child of Thalorian Stork and Selene Valcorn of House Stork. Long considered the ultimate hope for her family’s noble redemption, she was seemingly abducted and killed by the Cult of the Dragon. Her tragic demise, the preservation of her soul within a magical soulstone, and her brother Gilmore’s quest to resurrect her defined his early journey across the Sword Coast. However, beneath the tragedy lay a dark truth: Elire was a willing agent of the Cult of the Dragon. Under the Dragon Barrow, her soul was permanently fused with the resurrected green dragon Villathas (Virethas), the Jade Queen.

Early Life and Noble Grooming

Elire was raised in a pink-granite tower in the village of Pink Tor, located on Stork’s Rest—a wind-torn island on the western edge of the Moonshae Islands. The northern half of the island is dominated by the Glimmering Deep, a memory-stealing magical forest bordered by the decaying remains of the abandoned port Greyhaven. Generations ago, the Storks were exiled to this remote outpost by the High King of the Moonshaes as punishment for her great-grandfather marrying into coastal pirate clans. Despite this exile, their proud descent from the legendary dragonslayer hero Lady Tanager Alagondar spared them from execution. Over time, the family established tenuous influence in the Outer Isles, but harbored a deep bitterness toward the High King and a grudge against the Glimmering Deep, where Elire’s grandfather was mortally mauled by a white-antlered Harthwyld.

While her younger brother Gilmore was left free to pursue martial training and carousing as an expendable “second son,” Elire was groomed from infancy to restore the family’s lost glory. Her parents scraped together every coin to fund her education, which included tutors from Alaron, rare magic tomes from Waterdeep, and her enrollment at age twelve in a prestigious Elven boarding school in Silverymoon. She was intended to marry into an Elven noble house, secure favor at court, and solve the mysteries of the Glimmering Deep.

Unlike her brother, Elire took the ancient Stork children’s oath deeply to heart:

Every conversation with her parents concluded with the solemn vow: “One day, the Storks will return.”

Tragedy, Abduction, and the Soulstone

Approximately half a year ago, House Stork received word that Elire had been abducted from her boarding school in Silverymoon and killed by the Cult of the Dragon. Following ancient family tradition, which dictates that an heir must retrieve a deceased elder sibling’s remains before ascending to power, Gilmore embarked on a quest to the Sword Coast.

Upon discovering her remains were unrecovered, Gilmore beseeched the Raven Queen (the Matron of Ravens) at her temple in Silverymoon. After surviving a trial of full immersion in a pool of blood, Gilmore received a vision of the goddess, who bound his fate to hers. Soon after, Gilmore defeated two dragon-masked cultists and recovered a golden chain holding a purple soulstone containing Elire’s trapped soul. Seeking a proper rite to lay her spirit to rest, he traveled toward Phandalin, their family bloodline’s ancestral home.

The Quest for Rest and the Smelter of Gond

Originally, Gilmore aimed to lay Elire’s soul to rest. He believed this required traveling to Wave Echo Cave and encasing her soulstone within the molten metals of Gond’s Smelter. He learned from a scholar named Dusty that activating the smelter required several precise components: “the Mettle of the Dwarves” (blue-burning wood and ore from the caves), “the Ingenuity of the Humans,” and “the Grace of the Elves” (casting a Moonbeam spell, which had been mistranslated in ancient texts as “Elvish Tears”). Gond, he discovered, was not a deity but a highly talented dwarf blacksmith of the Forge of Spells during the Age of Arcanum.

Reflecting on this, while resting at a ruined temple of Ioun, Gilmore discovered ancestral records of Lady Tanager Alagondar, who had slain the green dragon Virethas, the Jade Queen, 300 years prior. This introduced the potential of fully resurrecting Elire. At the Smelter of Gond, Gilmore ultimately defied his parents’ wishes and ancestral rites, choosing not to encase the soulstone and preserving his sister’s soul in hopes of achieving a true resurrection. This magical pendant subsequently drew dangerous attention, including an ambush by a green dragon wyrmling and dragonborn cultists at the temple of Ioun.

Prophetic Nightmare and the Barrow Trap

Before the confrontation at the Dragon Barrow, Gilmore was plagued by a prophetic nightmare. He dreamed of running through Stork’s Rest and seeing Elire whistling to multicolored birds from their tower. A shadow swept over her, plunging both into a dark fall. He found Elire’s body broken, swarmed by black ravens cawing “The Undying Queen!” A green-scaled draconic worm emerged from her empty left eye socket, and Elire bit the head off a raven with a cold smile, as an infernal voice echoed: “You cannot save her. She will be mine soon.”

During the party’s exploration of the Hand of Sehanine, their companion Farwald (later revealed to be the ancient hero Hrothgar Hillsfar) was disintegrated by the Baelnorn Larellion. During a desperate resurrection ritual led by the druid Nalini, Gilmore invoked Elire’s soulstone to anchor Farwald’s spirit. Elire’s soul agreed to assist but demanded a chilling price: Gilmore must visit the Dragon Barrow—the resting place of both Lady Tanager Alagondar and the dragon Virethas—claiming she sought “revenge.” Unbeknownst to Gilmore, this demand was a trap coordinated by the Green Wyrmspeaker, Sidorna.

Betrayal and Fusion under the Dragon Barrow

Upon arriving at the Dragon Barrow, the party descended into a cavern of bone-white stalagmites and acid pools, which was actually the skeletal corpse of the green dragon. When Gilmore drew the legendary Dragon Slayer sword of Lady Tanager Alagondar, he broke the ancient magical ward preventing the dragon’s resurrection and triggered a paralysis trap that froze Nalini.

Sidorna stepped forward and seized the pendant. Gilmore was pulled into a shocking vision where Elire revealed herself not as a victim, but as an active and willing member of the Cult of the Dragon, complete with her own Green Dragon Mask. She taunted him as the “second son” who was never expected to matter, declaring that the Cult’s ultimate victory was inevitable and that “there is no good or evil, only power.”

Sidorna and her cultists initiated a dark resurrection ritual. Although the party fought desperately—with Nalini utilizing wild-shape and her Staff of Frost, Farwald casting Thunderstep, and Gilmore fighting with the Blade of Tristan—Sidorna passed the Green Dragon Mask to her final surviving cultist. The cultist stepped into the ritual circle as a willing human sacrifice. Elire spoke her final words to her brother: “It is time. Goodbye, brother.”

The ritual completed at 66 out of 100 points, resurrecting Villathas as a weakened adult green dragon held together by dark magic. The dragon’s consciousness and voice permanently fused with Elire’s soul and the power of the Green Dragon Mask, leaving Gilmore’s sister combined with the very beast their ancestor had slain. Fused as one entity, they escaped into the autumn sky. Gilmore subsequently sent an urgent warning to their parents at Stork’s Rest, pleading with them to bar their gates and trust no envoys.