Zhervus Leshannodel

Zhervus potrait by rosyArrogant.

Lord Balgroth (Infernal Bloodline)

Arvemon Balgroth (Half-brother)

Yamalia Balgroth (Half-sister)

Vivion Helendove (ex-boyfriend)

Arvemon & Yamalia, "The Balgroth Siblings" (summons)

A young arcanist, **Zhervus** has proven himself to be a capable and intelligent divination wizard. Of hellish ancestry, he's the son of the now-dead king of Drayria.

Zhervus went missing after Vivion broke up with him in the Dusk Born's lair, cutting all ties with The Toad Gang. Later on, they were informed by Adrik that Zhervus had died.

## Description

### **Appearance**

Zhervus is a purple tiefling, his skin adorned by small white freckles. His physique is unhealthily skinny, bones showing. He wears luxurious clothes, with a number of golden accessories. The fur on his clothes is faux-fur.

Zhervus’ characteristic weapon is his fully-white wand, combined with purple hellish fire magic and a crystal ball he holds on his left hand. There’s a golden chain hanging from his chest pocket.

On his neck there's a choker, that matches Levienne's forehead gem. Both of these are enchanted so that they can find each other across long distances.

His old spellbook, which now has been destroyed, had beautiful golden details and a bright "Z" on its front.

### **Personality**

Intelligent and reserved, the young tiefling is known for keeping to himself. At first glance Zhervus appears to be meek, making himself small and hiding into the fluff of his coat, but underneath the exterior lays a deep need for power. Zhervus explores, pokes, and wonders, utilizing his arcane prowess to push for his goal: overcoming the low expectations set on him by others, but also the low expectations set by himself. Because of this, he's proven himself quite useful to the party, sharing a lot of different information regarding the arcane and different legends and myths. He lacks social skills, most particularly when it comes to catching social cues. He can be jittery and doesn't have the best grasp on Common, often forgetting words or taking pauses when talking. Despite this, he can stand his ground when speaking about topics he's surely confident in, such as the arcane, divination, and most recently literature.

Possessive and jealous, easily threatened. His drive for power can be self destructing and scary. Denies help when offered at times, seems to wallow in his own self hatred.

He can be very entitled and also a massive prick, unaware of how his behavior can affect others and also causing harm to others on purpose.

Zhervus has very low self-esteem: pushing blame onto himself, internalizing behaviors, and self-harming. This, alongside his introverted nature, might be a result of his sheltered and damaging childhood. Adding to this is his general sorrowful demeanor: Zhervus is always noting on his own failures or unhappiness: he can be very self-deprecating.

When angry, he turns rather violent and utilizes his fire magic to attack others recklessly. When questioned about this, he leaned on the idea that tieflings are "naturally aggressive", insisting that it was just something he was driven to do because of his infernal blood.

Zhervus is obsessed with fate, the future, and the knowledge of events to come, doing everything in his power to twist these events in his benefit. In so, he appears to hold a grudge against those diviners who don't follow his own code for the craft: Zhervus, in general, has a dislike for gods, and remarks quite a bit how these manipulate and take advantage of the oracles that utilize their guidance. In particular, he comments on both Adrik's and the Umbre Order use of divination magic with disdain.

Zhervus is a magic prodigy, beginning to learn how to forge spells at age seven, alongside channeling divination magic without utilizing the help of a god, which is considered an added challenge to the already difficult craft.

He seems to be generally unaware of manners regarding money, continuing to rely on Levienne for their funds.

Zhervus has very dainty mannerisms. He is also gay.

## Biography

### **Background**

Zhervus has been cautious in sharing information about his past, but has recently revealed to be the son of the Drayiran king. His mother made deals with Lord Balgroth, the head of a Canian succubi family, and as a result, cursed his bloodline. Zhervus speaks highly of his companion, Levienne, and appears to have - to some extent- grown up under his care. He reacted badly to being charmed by Vivion; and spoke of some sort of past trauma regarding being mind controlled. This was later revealed to have been caused by his mother, who he vaguely commented on her abusive and manipulative behavior towards him.

He has spoken about how his mother molded him into her prodigie, making him believe that if he could be powerful enough he'd receive the love he craved so deeply.  He also has noted in the past how he was punished by being denied food, which led to him being malnutritioned.

### **Arc I: "Beneath Cas' rose-colored Tree"**

Zhervus was first found after his attention was caught by Vivion disguised as a Tiefling in Roselake, to which he asked him several questions about his hellish ancestry, making Vivion upset that he had gotten his hopes up. He later buys him books.

He united the group first when he asked them to join him in an expedition to dwarven valenwooderian ruins. During it, he was almost eaten by a giant mother spider. He aided them with cleaning up the name of the Governor of Roselake, and later parted ways with the party before being promised a kiss from Vivion.

### **Arc II: "Following the rhythm of Morhanna's melody"**

The Toad Gang found him later exploring the Crystal Caves, neck deep into books, where he revealed his original spell “Zhervus’ Star Gazer” and, alongside Levienne, made a few remarks regarding Vladimir and his possible Asteri ancestry.

### **Arc III: “The ice that slips through the cracks of Solaris"**

Zhervus, throughout the latter half of the Caaerus arc, showed jealousy towards Vladimir and his relationship with Vivion, acting cold with him. At this point in time he also had attempted to support Vivion after he had confessed his secret to him, but felt like his boyfriend was acting distant and cold towards him, which made him upset. Both of these facts culminated when Vivion broke up with him, which caused Zhervus to explode and speak on his feelings of hopelessness and how he felt like hed' never have anybody truly love him, before storming out. Broken down and destroyed objects that had been gifts from The Toad Gang were later found.

Zhervus appeared to hold resentment towards Vivion and The Toad Gang, speaking on how maybe one day it's gonna be him who he battles.

I MISS HIM SO MUCH

## Gallery

Full body portrait of Zhervus (far right), alongside (from left to right) Levienne, Ren and Orlann, with their respective heights, by rosyArrogant.Full body drawing of Zhervus by Delva.
## Trivia

* It's mentioned several times that Zhervus' favorite food is cream puffs. The reason behind this is because when originally visiting Adrik, he baked these for him. This was the first time Zhervus was offered a home-made sweet, and as so ties the treat to the fond memory.
	+ Another one of Zhervus' favorite sweets is white chocolate. This is because his taste is awful.

* Excerpts from Zhervus' spellbook can be found here.
	+ Alongside spells, this also contains part of his thought process behind every spell, and was originally given to Vivion when he found the book partly destroyed.
	+ Within it, you can find Zhervus' own spell "Star Gazer", alongside the modified spells "Flame Spear" and "Summon Lesser Devils".

## References

1. ↑ "I've originally created the runes/incantation for Star Gazer at seven years old, and have since made adjustments until it was functional [...]" -Excerpt from Zhervus' spellbook.
2. ↑ "I was drawing him and thought he'd like white chocolate. I hate white chocolate, so it seemed apt." -The DM.