Nimly's Backstory

Prelude 1

15th of Hammer, 1435 DR

An icy wind blows through the western reaches of the Nether Mountains, through a landscape hostile to most creatures of Faerûn. A swirl of powder dances in the shifting currents, flowing down the glacier of a snow-capped peak. Nothing stirs on the surface. On the calendar of Harptos, it is the month of Hammer and the landscape braces for the intense cold; midwinter is just fifteen days away. Below this mountain, far below, down through the impenetrable rock for a distance of a few miles as the elemental flows, there is a city. 

Nestled deep below the protective embrace of the Nether Mountains, the city of Glimmerstone is unaware or unconcerned by the grip of winter on the land above. The whole layout cannot be seen in full from any location, as it consists of caverns connected by orderly tunnels. If a god could see through the solid stone of the mountain and watch these creatures like ants in a farm, they would see several revealing cross-sections that explained much. The city has three defended entrances placed equidistantly around an outer ring, with several inner rings on multiple levels that contain dozens of small and medium-sized caverns. Nearly ten thousand busy creatures call this city home; the majority are svirfneblin, along with several hundred myconids. There are often a few duergars and drow in the city for various reasons, along with traders and other travelers from the surface.

Over the many long years in the Underdark, the deep gnomish artisans and their apprentices have carefully molded every bit of the environment in their reach. Mica has been infused into the walkways to give them clarity; ghost moss sheds its light from the walls and glowcap mushrooms stand diminutively in clusters near residences and other important buildings. The entrances have been cleverly fortified with a manner of magical and mechanical tricks to thwart incursions that might come. More than a few of the residents remembered the fall of Blingdenstone in 1371DR and this city has done all it can to prevent a similar tragedy. Each new tenday and month and year brings new mining expeditions that might bring back resources for the artisans to work into wondrous things, giving a meaning to those in the city that goes beyond mere survival. The city hums on, bringing new life, knowledge and treasures into the world.

On this day, some distance away from the grinding and crashing of the ore refineries and gem processing machines, somewhat closer to the Merchant District with voices as the loudest component, furthest from the unfeeling gloom of the greater Underdark, there sits a house in the third ring that shares a cavern with thirty-seven other residences. Thorfinna Sparkleshine has both hands outstretched, the cords in her neck taught as she is wracked with pain. One hand is held by her husband Tiberius and she holds an unremarkable hammer in the other. She swings her strong right arm in time to her contractions, taking solace from the ritual and passing the pain out of her body into the block of granite on her right. Red dust flies, again and again. On this day, Nimly Sparkleshine is born amidst granite powder, surrounded by his mother and father and a few close friends. Murien Mossberry stands closest to the happy couple, gazing in approval through wet eyes as the screaming little creature tastes the earth for the first time.