Therai

Like all those in Talam'h that find their identity and meaning in community, Therai's story is that of his people's.

The charcoal-skinned Tieflings of the Rujyr'pul (meaning 'River Men'), like many Tieflings, are originally from Hell. Specifically for them, the 6th layer of Hell, the Rolling Wastes of Malbolge. The Rujyr'pul were a family of ferrymen, assigned to their occupation by the original Arch-Duke of Malbolge, Moloch, to usher those hapless souls that found themselves down the River Styx. However, the Rujyr'pul found themselves at the end of Moloch's cruel whip even more than the other pitiable inhabitants of the layer. Moloch, for whatever perverse reason, exacted great pleasure from afflicting the Rujyr'pul in particular. After centuries of this torment, the woman who would come to be called the first Exarch of the Rujyr'pul, a Tiefling who came to choose the name Exodus, rounded up members of the Rujyr'pul and through great cunning, managed to sail the Rujyr'pul up the River Styx to freedom in Talam'h (adding a treasured layer of irony to their name of 'River Men'). However, it was not long after being free that the Rujyr'pul would find themselves being hunted by agents of Moloch. Many of the Rujyr'pul would be killed during these times, including the Exarch, Exodus. Decades of being on the run from Moloch's agents thinned the numbers of the Rujyr'pul down to merely twenty. However, most of the Rujyr'pul considered a life of freedom on the run to be greater than a life of servitude under Moloch. During these decades, however, many different members of the tribe would be named Exarch; until it finally came to one man named Iathos. Iathos, burdened by his own experience of being on the run for his whole life, as well as by the complaints of the younger generations of the tribe (who, at this point never having known slavery under Moloch, began to wish to surrender to the Arch-Duke and return to Malbolge), decided they would find a place that, even if they were to be found, no agent of Moloch would pursue them in. And then they found the Ashlands. A land so inhospitable and full of monsters, that Moloch eventually ceased sending more of his minions to their deaths chasing after the Rujyr'pul. The tribe, however, had an advantage the agents of Hell did not: Friends. Living in the Ashlands were two other groups of wanderers, exiles, and refugees already accustomed to surviving the harshities of the Ashlands. A clan of Half-orcs called the Savhantra Manisara, and a tribe of Goblins called the Afiadas. The three groups banded together and made life in the Ashlands begin to work. It was here, early in their settling down in the Ashlands, that Therai was born.

Years began to pass, and the Rujyr'pul that had not even lived enslaved in Malbolge came to prefer the brutal lifestyle provided to them by the Ashlands than life on the run from the agents of Moloch. It was then, when Therai was nearly 8 years old, that a group came through the Crags where the three tribes lived. This group were those heroes that would come to be known as the Seekers of the Golden Grain. The Seekers stayed with the tribes in the Crags on their way out deeper, even to the center, of the Ashlands. The Seekers during their stay stopped to help a quandary that was presently afflicting the three tribes: Possessions from each group were going missing. From the Seeker's investigation, they determined it was the group of gypsies known as the Vistani, who would on occasion pass through the Crags. The fact this good-natured group would stop to help a group of strangers, all of whom had known very little kindness in their histories, seriously impressed upon the minds of the three tribes. Therai especially was enamored by these selfless heroes. And although his experience with him was relegated only to seeing him from a distance, this is the first time Therai would meet the man who would come to be the most transforming figure in his life: Leo Palevalor.

Years after the Seekers sealed Tiamat away to Hell, Leo along with Gerwas returned to the Crags, and got to know the people there. Leo began to learn that he and the Rujyr'pul had much in common, as they were both living lives on the run from agents of Moloch. This brought Leo very close to the Rujyr'pul, who became the first serious kinship he had had outside of the Seekers. Therai made himself known to Leo in these visits, developing a real friendship with the Seeker. Eventually though, in 21 YH, Leo, having gained the name of Mask, acquired the religious affection of the Rujyr'pul, having sworn to them that with his new powers he would protect them; the first instance of them becoming religious in all their years in Talam'h. Therai, being 29 years old at this point, made a point to devote himself to Mask's (Leo's) service, and became a Paladin of Mask; along with many of the other members of the Rujyr'pul inducting themselves into the service of their new Patron-deity, Mask. In the proceeding 4 years, the Savhantra Manisara had a schism and split into two factions, each leaving the Ashlands. As well as for the first time in since settling down in the Crags, the Rujyr'pul began to once again be hunted by agents of Moloch. They managed to use their knowledge of the terrain to their advantage and fend off any invaders, but this combined with the Savhantra Manisara's exit from the Crags, left the Rujyr'pul feeling the time to leave the Ashlands would be soon at hand. Then, in 25 YH, Mask would coordinate with the Rujyr'pul to support a new organization he was forming: A Thieves Guild. So Opal, oldest daughter of Exarch Iathos, agreed to come to Tycheron, a city bordering the Ashlands, and help support Mask in his efforts. It was soon after Opal's leaving to Tycheron that efforts of Moloch to reclaim the Rujyr'pul increased, sending agent after agent, devil after devil to try and capture the tribe. This drew the attention of Mask who would leave Tycheron and the Thieves Guild on occasion to assist his petitioners, to whom he had sworn he would protect. Later that same year, Mask would then ask Therai to come join his Thieves Guild to try and make up for the loss of Aeran Crimsonspark who had been killed on assignment. Therai gladly agreed, though worried to leave his people at such a time. For a more complete recounting of Therai's adventures with the Thieves Guild, please read the WorldAnvil page 'The Thieves Guild'.

After Mask had been captured by the Palevalor Cult of Moloch and killed, the agents of Moloch organized a more proper assault on the Crags; killing among many others, Exarch Iathos, and captured the rest of the Rujyr'pul (by this time 45 surviving members beside Therai). Therai, heartbroken, began looking to leverage the guild, the resurrected Leo, Gerwas, and the newly restored God Mask to recover his family. Together they infiltrated, researched, and discovered more about Moloch and his operations in Malbolge. And in 38 YH, when the Thieves Guild had reunited to celebrate the coronation of Senua Voldren as Regent of Tycheron, Therai and the Thieves Guild descended into Malbolge to recover the Rujyr'pul. They traversed the Rolling Wastes, met and freed Therai's people, continued on to the sanctum of Moloch, and were then transported again, this time to the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire where they had learned Moloch was away on holiday. Traveling there, they battled the Arch-Duke as well as his titanic, fiend daughter, Malagard, upon the back of whom Moloch's vacation palace was built. They managed to slay the Arch-Duke, sending him back to Hell to reform. Therai and the Thieves Guild then returned to Talam'h having recovered the Rujyr'pul, saving the tribe from enslavement to Moloch for their second, and hopefully final time. However, after the Rujyr'pul were together again, Therai felt they still needed leave and go somewhere far away to evade the clutches of the Cult of Moloch once and for all. So the Rujyr'pul named Therai their new Exarch, and as leader of his people, Therai took the Rujyr'pul to the port city of Orkenskar, base of operations of the defunct Palevalor Cult of Moloch, and had his people sailed across the Sjebna ocean, somewhere only they and the Gods know; hopefully safe at last from Moloch. And thus concludes the known story of Exarch Therai.

Therai's first and foremost priority in life has been to help protect and preserve his family, his tribe: The Rujyr'pul. Even his hound-like allegiance to Mask originates and sustains itself out of this mission.