Settled near Neverwinter, Nydarin is a rather ancient high elf family and Ilqar is the second oldest child. The family used to be prominent in political machinations of Faerun but now have stepped down into positions of commerce and magic research.

Lucero, the first born, is incredibly competent and magically gifted and while Ilqar tried to follow in his footsteps they always fell short and eventually it became too much. About two decades ago they had an explosive fight after which they dropped any attempts at hitting the impossible high bars that were set and they haven't talked to each other for the following decade.

In the aftermath of the fight Ilqar spent a lot of time by himself in the woods around the Nydarin family estate and at some point they started experimenting with various drugs after reading that some people managed to unlock their magical potential that way. It never quite worked for Ilqar but the drug induced haze made the stress of everything less overwhelming.

About five years into this one evening Ilqar met an elf who introduced himself as Komos, they clicked well, maybe the fact that Ilqar was already high out of his mind at the time helped, and while Ilqar has trouble remembering the later half of that night they weren't that concerned about it. Over the course of the next couple months Ilqar and Komos ran into each other quite often in the same woods and turned into a friends with benefits situation. Ilqar was trying as hard as possible not to completely fall head over heels for the man, but failed miserably.

After a couple months Komos showed Ilqar how to summon a "Book of Shadows" and while Ilwar didn't think it would work for him, it did. At the time they thought that maybe his magic potential finally unlocked. It took a couple more months before Ilqar was finally able to put two and two together and came to the conclusion that Komos was not in fact just a normal elf who happened to visit his family's estate a little too often. Unfortunately for Ilqar that red flag was expertly masked by the rose colored glasses that were already firmly on.

Komos confirmed the suspicions, he was in fact an archfey who made a pact with Ilqar that very first time they met. Despite never quite explaining why Komos promised that not all warlock pacts are scary and dangerous and that in fact in a certain light even clerics make pacts with their gods. Basically he told Ilqar to not worry about it... so Ilqar didn't.

The only thing Ilqar was upset about is that Komos didn't tell him sooner and that he didn't show Ilqar his true form until then.

Eventually Ilqar's parents grew tired and fed up with him not really doing anything with his life and put an ultimatum that he either goes to college like this brother did or they will disown him and strip huim of the Nydarin name. Wasting time at college for a couple more years seemed like a fine idea and now possessing some magic Ilqar decided that maybe it wouldn't even be that bad in the end.

And so he's now at Strixheaven.