Nightshade Pricklypear

Article written by Uziel

Nightshade Pricklypear (Born: ? AC) is a Kender who has the ability to commune with the dead, and is known as a nightstalker. Described as being a thin and lithe male kender, he wore his hair in the traditional topknot and always wore a purple vest and purple britches. Nightshade's communion with the dead had made him a serious kender, and although still bearing the innate kender curiosity, he was somewhat fearful of the living. Unlike any other kender, Nightshade took no enjoyment or spent any effort in borrowing things from others, instead having a natural aversion to borrowing anything, and being almost completely inept at it.

Early Life

Much of Nightshade's early life was spent with both his parents, who were Mystics that communed with the dead. On his travels across Ansalon with his parents, Nightshade discovered he had an inherent ability to talk to the dead as well, and would play games with the dead. He grew tired of being accused of stealing things by living folks, and begun to hang around in cemeteries and mausoleums on a more frequent basis, since the dead never accused him of theft. With the end of the War of Souls, Nightshade soon had no dead spirits to play with, as they had begun to transcend beyond the mortal plane, and begun wandering through towns studying the undead and searching for any remaining spirits.

The Undead Expert

On Nightshade's travels to find spirits in 422 AC, he encountered the monk Rhys Mason, who convinced the kender to join him on his quest to locate the monk's brother. Rhys also told Nightshade that the goddess Zeboim had visited him and told him that Nightshade was an expert on undead and the person needed to aid the monk on his quest to unravel the plots of the god Chemosh. After scouring a battlefield and speaking to dead souls, Nightshade deduced that Chemosh was no longer harvesting the souls of the dead, as he was now finding servants amongst the living. The pair traveled through Haven and then Solace, where the kender decided to peddle his wares as a communer with the dead to the local populace.

In the dark inn called The Trough, Rhys and Nightshade tracked down Lleu Mason, Rhys' brother. As the monk tried to question his brother, Nightshade advised him that Lleu was in fact one of the dead... and yet he appeared to everyone else as a living breathing person. Rhys had already learnt that Lleu was mixed up with Mina somehow, and when Nightshade and Rhys confronted Lleu and his new convert Lucy Wheelwright, they were attacked. Nightshade tried to use his mystic powers to turn the undead away, however Lleu and Lucy revealed themselves as the members of the Beloved of Chemosh and dismissed the kender's magic as if it was nothing. Nightshade and Rhys fled from the undead, and the kender recalled that he had also seen other members of the town, and that they too were obviously dead followers of Chemosh, who wore the guise of living folk.

Zeboim again spoke with Rhys and Nightshade in the Solace jail, where the goddess told them that she needed them to go to Storm's Keep where she required them to defeat the death knight Ausric Krell and rescue her son Ariakan, whose soul was trapped in a khas piece. She then transported the pair of them to Storm's Keep, and magically transformed Nightshade into a miniature kender, who was stored in Rhys' pouch. When the monk confronted the death knight, Nightshade crept onto the khas board and found Lord Ariakan and spoke to the soul of the son of Zeboim. Whilst Ariakan refused to be rescued, the kender instead charged the former lord and barreled him over. Noticing the movement on the khas board, Rhys picked up the kender and the khas piece containing Ariakan's soul, and fled from the death knight.

The kender and the monk returned the khas piece to Zeboim, and Nightshade was returned to his normal size, as well as being transported with his companion back to Solace. After encountering another Beloved of Chemosh, Nightshade and Rhys track the undead to New Port, where they again encounter Rhys' brother Lleu, and witnessed his demise at the touch of an innocent child.

References

Amber and Ashes, p. 165-173, 176-193, 203-223, 248-252, 264-269, 287-307, 311
Amber and Iron

Article Tools

Report An Error or Add to this Article | Submit a new Article

Categories | Heroes

This article has been viewed 2,281 times. It was added on June 13, 2006, and was last modified on June 13, 2006.

Information presented in the Dragonlance Lexicon has been independently researched by a team of volunteers, and original sources have been cited for each article. This and any other Lexicon articles are intended for personal use only and may NOT be posted on any other web site or otherwise distributed.