Viconia DeVir

Viconia DeVir
Basic Information
Home ------------------------- Menzoberranzan
Gender ------------------------------------- Female
Race -------------------------------------- Elf, Drow
Rules Information
Class ----------------------------- Cleric of Shaw
Alignment -------------------------- Neutral Evil

“	Viconia reveals (quite proudly) that she is a dark elf from the Underdark city of Menzoberranzan. She says very little about her reasons for leaving that sunless realm, though separations of such nature are never gentle. She does claim to no longer worship the spider goddess Lolth: a change that even you know is often fatal. Her new faith is in the night goddess Shar, an appropriate choice for a drow, though this is not a firm indication that she has given up the brutal ways of her people. She finds the laws of the surface world quaint and m'ore than a little strange, but this is simply because of her lack of experience. Likewise she seems a bit naive about how her race is viewed by surface dwellers. Many will not give her the chance she seems to expect, and even being seen with her may affect how people think of you. You know that as a drow, she has resistance to magic, both beneficial and harmful.	”
	—Character description from the Baldur's Gate computer game.

Overview

Viconia is a Drow who was forced to leave her home in the Underdark. Once in the surface world, she forsook the spider Goddess, Lolth, and became a follower of Shar instead. She is first encountered in Baldur's Gate, but her full backstory is not revealed until Baldur's Gate II, and then only through conversations with a male protagonist who is romancing her.

Viconia was from a Drow House of high standing, but was forced to flee to the surface after she'd refused to perform a sacrifice. As a result of this act, her family was disgraced, and her brother, who had stood up for her, was turned into a drider as punishment. Shar, the Goddess of Loss and Darkness, granted her powers in the surface world, but agents of Lolth continue to search for Viconia, intending to destroy her.

Surface life does not come easy for Viconia. She finds the surfacers a bunch of insipid fools, best used as slaves, and isn't afraid to say so. She is persecuted by most of them, even when she does try to fit in; she is first encountered while trying to escape from a Flaming Fist soldier who intends to kill her for being a Drow, and in Baldur's Gate II, she is found on the verge of being burned on a stake by an angry mob. She may later describe how she lived fairly peacefully on a farm near Baldur's Gate until her neighbors discovered she was a Drow, upon which they captured her, abused her, and buried her alive. She dug herself out and took her vengeance upon them before fleeing to Athkatla.

The Viconia romance in Baldur's Gate II is a game-spanning process composed of several elaborate conversations that can ultimately result in a terrible breakup, marriage, a possible change of her moral alignment, and several others. Viconia proves a hard woman to love, constantly challenging her suitor's emotion, intellect, taste, sexual prowess, and trust, but in the end she, the Drow, may herself fall in actual love.

Viconia: Sarevok, may I share a whispered word with you? Sarevok Anchev: Yes, drow? What is it you want? Viconia: I miss the customs of my homeland, like the breaking in of new pleasure slaves. The largest and strongest were the hardest to break, but they were the most rewarding. Sarevok, I find your great size... intriguing. Sarevok Anchev: Were you to break me, Viconia, you might find nothing but the chill emptiness of the grave within. Viconia: That does not repulse me as you might imagine. We drow are ever eager to broaden our... experiences. Sarevok Anchev: I orchestrated a war to slaughter thousands. I have felt the cold embrace of death. I have witnessed the horrors of the abyss. But you, Viconia... you scare me. Viconia: Cowards everywhere I turn! If you find your courage, Sarevok, seek me out.