Drizzt is one of those unique dark elves that have somehow broken away from the evil and cruelty of the drow race, and has forsaken Lloth the Spider Queen. Completely honorable, and
driven by a desire to do right, Drizzt is the epitome of a noble warrior and ranger. He has long since become accustomed (or perhaps resigned is a better word) to the prejudice against his race on the surface world, and loves living there nonetheless, though sometimes has doubts about whether he should go back to the Underdark after all.
III. History
(as written in The Dark Elf Trilogy and Icewind Dale Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore)
Born to Matron Malice of House Do’Urden by House Weapon Master Zaknafein, Drizzt was unusual from the very beginning, starting with his purple eyes. From a young age he had difficulty
understanding the whys of the evil around him, and he rather rebelled against it. Zaknafein, possessing some confusion on the subject himself, saw the child’s potential, as both something
different from the typical drow and as a warrior. After convincing Malice to allow him to turn Drizzt into a warrior, Zaknafein took the boy under his wing for several years. They were probably the only pleasant years Drizzt remembers from his days in Menzoberranzan.
Drizzt finally had to go to the Academy, and there he was introduced to the many lies (as he would later discover) that made up drow society. He was a fine warrior, but Malice was
concerned by his rebellious nature, a trait no doubt taken from his equally as rebellious father.
It was at the Academy, while studying magic with Masoj Hun’ett, that Drizzt met Guenhwyvar, a magical black panther brought to the prime material plane by a panther figurine. In later years, Guenhwyvar would prove to be his friend, companion, and salvation.
Thanks to his impressive fighting skills, Drizzt was often sent out on patrols in the Underdark with other drow, clearing the passages around Menzoberranzan of monsters. His group was
chosen to be sent up to the surface world for a rare but prized experience: a raid on a community of surface elves, the supposed enemy of the drow. It was the horror of that experience, of seeing the innocent darthiir (surface elves) slaughtered like sheep, that Drizzt realized he couldn’t go on like this. He saved the life of a moon elven child, pretending to slaughter her instead. That was the start of House Do’Urden’s downfall, and the beginning of his real journey.
After discovering the truth, Malice decided that one of the two dangerous males–Drizzt or Zaknafein–had to go, lest they put the house in danger. Drizzt was lucky enough to be away from
the house, and it was Zaknafein that was sacrificed to Lloth. At the same time, Drizzt ended up in a battle with Masoj Hun’ett, and he was able to claim Guenhwyvar for his own. Returning to
House Do’Urden harbored an unpleasant surprise, though, and Drizzt, upset that his father (and the only person that understood him) had been sacrificed, decided it was time to go.
He escaped into the Underdark, and lived alone with Guenhwyvar for several years. The panther’s companionship was the only thing that kept him from going mad of loneliness. After a series of adventures, Drizzt finally decided to head up to the surface world.
It was a difficult thing at first, with the prejudice of surface-dwellers and with his own body fighting against the sunlight and the strangeness of that foreign land. Eventually, though, Drizzt found someone to take him in–the retired ranger Montolio. It was Montolio that turned Drizzt–extremely cynical and hostile about religion after his experiences with Lloth–onto the worship of Mielikki, and taught him the ways of the ranger.
After the old man died, Drizzt wandered the surface, looking for a place to call home, a place where he would be accepted despite his skin. He eventually found his way to Icewind Dale,
practically the ends of the world and the home of rogues and people that wanted to disappear. It was an empty, dismal, cold land, but surprisingly, Drizzt did find what he was looking for there. Perhaps not total acceptance, but it was a definite start. And there, too, he met those that would become his family: Bruenor Battlehammer, his adopted human daughter Catti-brie, Wulfgar the Barbarian, and Regis the Halfling.
The Blooding began at the end of R.A. Salvatore’s The Crystal Shard, Book 1 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy. After saving Icewind Dale from an invasion by the evil artifact Crenshinibon, Drizzt and his friends had set out to find Bruenor’s lost homeland, Mithril Hall. The story stayed true until Drizzt’s party reached Luskan.
Therein begins the many twists and turns.
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