Discord
Changelog
01-06-2014, 04:11 PM
The mishappen creature Nymcar had never known such pain as when the man in black armor and the Red Wizard had struck her down at the top of Thazar Keep. She, for indeed it was a female, had known it would be unpleasant, but Ireni could never have prepared her for the pain of the moment - even after her repeated warnings.
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Nymcar had deftly manipulated adventurers whom Ireni said would show up. She was not one that was terribly deceitful, and her lack of imagination had resulted in her using a name that she later wished she had not. Be that as it may, she had used the Pit of Pyarados as a sham test to weed out the ‘weak’. Or perhaps the lucky, depending on how one looked at it now.
These adventurers she had then tricked into placing the magic devices of magma and shadow, which according to the mysterious Ireni were created with the help of some fire priest in Thay, in Thazar Keep under the pretense that it was threatened by a traitor from the inside. They only discovered too late that the ‘traitor’ had been the one they were working for. In time though, Nymcar was confident that her legacy would show her to be anything but that.
With the devices placed, it had been a small matter for her to activate them as per the instructions and she, along with the entire keep, simply slipped into some type of shadow dimension, wiping it from the face of Faerûn. Where she was, she could not say - nor did she care. Ireni had explained what would happen next and all she had to do was wait and give those who would return the keep a token resistance and something to fight against when they inevitably discovered how to return it.
After the keep’s disappearance, monsters streamed down through the unguarded pass and into eastern Pyarados. Unfortunately though, they would not prove to be as even remotely dangerous as the true threat and reason the keep had been conveniently removed: the arrival of the conquering Tuigan Horde barbarians turning their sight to the western lands!
For the beleaguered tharchion, Valerios Theokillos, the problems that would signal the end of his reign had simply started with a village refusing to pay the taxes he demanded. But then the monster incursions from the unguarded Sunrise Mountains delayed his forces from marching on the village as he planned. Then things went from bad to worse as his punitive force finally marched on the village only to encountering a raiding force of 5000 Tuigan horselords. The force was only put down as his entire legion was called up and mercenaries he hired charged haphazardly throughout his tharch slaughtering any of the scattered barbarian riders they could find. The few surviving Tuigan retreated through Thazar Pass to the lands east.
But within days, things went from worse to catastrophic and the true reason for the loss of the keep was finally realized when a new force of 5000 Tuigan horselords began to make their way through Thazar Pass once again. Tharchion Theokillos, bowing to internal pressure from his family, appointed his nephew Gavros Mediocros as commander of a large force of gnolls and the vaunted Griffon Legion sent to deal with the new threat.
In what would come to be called the Battle of the Griffon Legion in Shar’s Pass to the west of where Thazar Keep once stood, the Tuigan executed a bold feint which lured the Griffon Legion to its doom in an ambush of a storm of arrows within the walls of the pass. Gavros himself perished in the battle along with hired mercenaries and other forces, and most of the gnolls.
As word spread to the west of Thay that the Pyarados legion had been defeated and the Griffon legion destroyed, the great and powerful Szass Tam himself decided to take action. Shortly after the battle, accompanying by a large contingent of varied backgrounds meant to impress the horselords, and following an elaborate plan hatched with the zulkir Yaphyll, he and those gathered deftly convinced the horselords to turn north and attack Rashemen with the Red Wizard’s aid and guidance from some of the mercenaries there who were either skilled warriors or knew Rashemen and its berserkers and witches common tactics.
As the war raged now in Rashemen, the Feast of the Moon was solemnly observed throughout Thay. And in Tyraturos, the spectre of the dead Hagrid Tenslayer came to some there and gave them the knowledge necessary to retrieve Thazar Keep - if not the understanding as to how and why it had been removed in the first place.
Through a cavern system in the sunrise mountains the heroes fought, which led them into the shadow realm that had consumed the Keep and its dungeons. Deactivating the focal points that held it there, and then leaving behind those to guard them from the shadows and demons that plagued them, the adventurers finally met Nymcar at the top of Thazar Keep, slew her, and deactivated the last shadowy and fiery focal point there. They were then transported to the barren Thazar Pass to watch the keep slowly shimmer back into existence, returning to guard the eastern frontier of Thay and the dangers that lurked beyond.
Those who had been in the keep at the time of its disappearance had been frozen in a shadowy state and had not even realized it had disappeared, and had been shocked when outriders and ravens from Pyarados final reached it explaining the events of the last several months.
And Nymcar, apparently dead on the roof of the Keep, had returned with it.
--------------------------------------
Nymcar had deftly manipulated adventurers whom Ireni said would show up. She was not one that was terribly deceitful, and her lack of imagination had resulted in her using a name that she later wished she had not. Be that as it may, she had used the Pit of Pyarados as a sham test to weed out the ‘weak’. Or perhaps the lucky, depending on how one looked at it now.
These adventurers she had then tricked into placing the magic devices of magma and shadow, which according to the mysterious Ireni were created with the help of some fire priest in Thay, in Thazar Keep under the pretense that it was threatened by a traitor from the inside. They only discovered too late that the ‘traitor’ had been the one they were working for. In time though, Nymcar was confident that her legacy would show her to be anything but that.
With the devices placed, it had been a small matter for her to activate them as per the instructions and she, along with the entire keep, simply slipped into some type of shadow dimension, wiping it from the face of Faerûn. Where she was, she could not say - nor did she care. Ireni had explained what would happen next and all she had to do was wait and give those who would return the keep a token resistance and something to fight against when they inevitably discovered how to return it.
After the keep’s disappearance, monsters streamed down through the unguarded pass and into eastern Pyarados. Unfortunately though, they would not prove to be as even remotely dangerous as the true threat and reason the keep had been conveniently removed: the arrival of the conquering Tuigan Horde barbarians turning their sight to the western lands!
For the beleaguered tharchion, Valerios Theokillos, the problems that would signal the end of his reign had simply started with a village refusing to pay the taxes he demanded. But then the monster incursions from the unguarded Sunrise Mountains delayed his forces from marching on the village as he planned. Then things went from bad to worse as his punitive force finally marched on the village only to encountering a raiding force of 5000 Tuigan horselords. The force was only put down as his entire legion was called up and mercenaries he hired charged haphazardly throughout his tharch slaughtering any of the scattered barbarian riders they could find. The few surviving Tuigan retreated through Thazar Pass to the lands east.
But within days, things went from worse to catastrophic and the true reason for the loss of the keep was finally realized when a new force of 5000 Tuigan horselords began to make their way through Thazar Pass once again. Tharchion Theokillos, bowing to internal pressure from his family, appointed his nephew Gavros Mediocros as commander of a large force of gnolls and the vaunted Griffon Legion sent to deal with the new threat.
In what would come to be called the Battle of the Griffon Legion in Shar’s Pass to the west of where Thazar Keep once stood, the Tuigan executed a bold feint which lured the Griffon Legion to its doom in an ambush of a storm of arrows within the walls of the pass. Gavros himself perished in the battle along with hired mercenaries and other forces, and most of the gnolls.
As word spread to the west of Thay that the Pyarados legion had been defeated and the Griffon legion destroyed, the great and powerful Szass Tam himself decided to take action. Shortly after the battle, accompanying by a large contingent of varied backgrounds meant to impress the horselords, and following an elaborate plan hatched with the zulkir Yaphyll, he and those gathered deftly convinced the horselords to turn north and attack Rashemen with the Red Wizard’s aid and guidance from some of the mercenaries there who were either skilled warriors or knew Rashemen and its berserkers and witches common tactics.
As the war raged now in Rashemen, the Feast of the Moon was solemnly observed throughout Thay. And in Tyraturos, the spectre of the dead Hagrid Tenslayer came to some there and gave them the knowledge necessary to retrieve Thazar Keep - if not the understanding as to how and why it had been removed in the first place.
Through a cavern system in the sunrise mountains the heroes fought, which led them into the shadow realm that had consumed the Keep and its dungeons. Deactivating the focal points that held it there, and then leaving behind those to guard them from the shadows and demons that plagued them, the adventurers finally met Nymcar at the top of Thazar Keep, slew her, and deactivated the last shadowy and fiery focal point there. They were then transported to the barren Thazar Pass to watch the keep slowly shimmer back into existence, returning to guard the eastern frontier of Thay and the dangers that lurked beyond.
Those who had been in the keep at the time of its disappearance had been frozen in a shadowy state and had not even realized it had disappeared, and had been shocked when outriders and ravens from Pyarados final reached it explaining the events of the last several months.
And Nymcar, apparently dead on the roof of the Keep, had returned with it.