The Start of a Hero’s Journey  

The Legends of Drizzt: Homeland  

By: Aidan J. Cole  

Homeland is a fantasy novel written by R. A. Salvatore; it is the first book in the first Dark Elf Trilogy. It follows the story of a dark elf, or drow, named Drizzt Do’Urden. Drizzt was born to the ninth noble House of Menzoberranzan the underworld city being his homeland. He was born with purple eyes which was never seen on a drow before. As the third son, the drow’s culture demanded that Drizzt be sacrificed to their goddess Lolth. However, the murder of his older brother during a raid on the previous ninth house saved his life. As a child, Drizzt showed amazing reflexes and coordination. Consequently, Zaknafein (his birth father) was able to persuade Malice, the Do’Urden Matron Mother and Drizzt’s mother, that Drizzt should become a warrior. Thus, at the age of sixteen, Drizzt began his weapons training and would become one of the most formidable swordsmen in the world.  

At twenty years of age, he went to Melee-Magthere, Menzoberranzan’s warrior academy, where he excelled in his studies despite his resistance to the propaganda and lies made by the masters of the academy. He was the best of his class and those above him and all was well for the drow when Drizzt defies Lolth at his graduation ceremony. He began patrolling the Underdark with his patrol group and he witnessed the cruelty of his race when they raided a surface elf encampment. He saved the life of an elf girl during that dreadful night and though no one knew at the time, Lolth knew that Drizzt had saved the child and then House Do’Urden fell out of her favor. When he heard that Drizzt took no part in the murder of the surface elves, Zaknafein was overjoyed and revealed to Drizzt that he was his father. They planned to leave and live in the caverns of the Underdark but Matron Malice and her daughters, wondering why they lost Lolth’s favor, were watching them. They knew the only way to amend this was to sacrifice Drizzt to Lolth. Malice informed Zaknafein of this and he offered himself to Lolth in Drizzt’s stead but this was Malice’s intent all along. She believed that once he was sacrificed that Drizzt would begin behaving like a proper drow noble and would take Zaknafein’s place as weapon’s master. When Drizzt learned of his father’s demise, he confronted Matron Malice. He refused outright to be her new weapon’s master and using one of Zaknafein’s weapons he escaped into the Underdark to find his new life and his new home