Image owned by the author, drawn by Nicoy Guivarra, copyright and publication rights reserved.
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I wish to tell you a story.
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This is not a story of love; nor indeed is it of hate, or fear, though there is plenty to find in my society of merit enough to move a pen; not a story of wealth, though that comes too, in its time. It is not a story of cleverness, though that finds its place within these pages well enough, in the margins. Nor is it a story of gods and goddesses, though those come to play their own parts, not only in my own life, but in the lives of others. It is all of these, and yet none of them. It is a story filled with stories - a dozen stories, a hundred stories to take their turn upon parchment - a story of drow, of humans, of gnolls and goblins, of beasts beyond count and the women and men that house them. It is, in short, my story - I, Fadra Derethoi, the Iceheart Ssin, companion to villain and hero alike, and all within their turn, tell it to you as it was told to me, and I write it so that it, in all of its extravagance and sorrow, in its suffering and joy, in its great pain and its greater victory, shall be remembered.
This will not be a history. Nor, in fact, will I make an autobiography of it. You will receive nothing about my past and where or how I gained this most rare of skills, and the only speculation you might gain from these pages about my future, my plans, or of the secrets of the Ssin will be just that - for we lowborn Ssin do not easily share our secrets, nor the secrets of others. Or, at least we do not do so for free.
But what this will be, is a window - a porthole - a peep into a world most noble drow scorn, and common drow and surface castoffs relish. Why? Not only because it is I who write it - but because they are the experiences, mine and others, that I have selected to share in writing. And herein, I have tried to remain true to their account, though names may change, and places, and dates, and sometimes even people. That is not important. Read this with your mind's eye, and imagine yourself taking whatever part you will in the sordid play. After all, if you are reading this now, perhaps it is you that I have wrote of, after all.
But who am I to talk of others, when you know so little of I, myself? That is a fair question, and here is my answer;
I am a thief, within these pages; a fellow Ssin told me only today that one of her paintings had been stolen, but that she paid it little mind. The best form of flattery, they say, is imitation; what more, then, does it mean to outright steal those things which you find interesting? And so I have done within these pages, taking what I wished to take from those who wished to tell.
I will walk you through the stories, and give you the clothing to wear - and all I ask is that, for a few moments, you will believe me when I tell you of the life you gain from donning them.