Ghostfoot
2016-12-23, 05:21 AM
Behold the death of your world. There, cresting the
horizon. Yes, that faint body is he, and he comes
for me . . . for us all. Rejoice, for the end is near,
and all life, all pain, all suffering shall be silenced
in the perfect eternity of undeath.
Caira Xasten, mad astronomer and ur-priest
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/a/a0/Atropus.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091124231708
Atropus, the World Born Dead, drifts through the gulfs of space, searching for worlds to consume and, when it finds them, erasing all life with its gruesome touch. As the afterbirth of creation, it is committed to unmaking all things. Nothing, not even the gods, can halt its relentless progress.
Background:
Those few sages who even know of Atropus debate the origins of this elder evil. They agree that Atropus was spawned when Ao created the first gods, but where they differ is in how Atropus was formed. Some claim the elder evil gained awareness from the divine amniotic fluid surrounding the first god of death, while others claim Atropus was the last god Ao created, but it was stillborn. Atropus has never come close to Faerūn, but those aware of him are ever watchful of the heavens, waiting for the day when the moonlet circles the tapestry of night.
The moonlet is one of the drifting bodies forming the ring around the dull gray planet known as Glyth, one of the Five Wanderers that do not follow the ordinary paths of the stars. Little do the mortals of Faerūn realize the cataclysm affecting this distant world. Drawn by the widespread death and destruction meted out by mind flayer overlords, Atropus drew close, masking its approach behind the belt of debris forming the ring around the planet. While the illithids waged their interminable wars against the native humanoids, Atropus descended and wiped out all life, leaving Glyth an empty husk. Now Atropus turns its attention to Faerūn and begins its slide toward a world ripe for the taking.
Atropus is as much a place as it is a being. It is a small moonlet spinning through the void, waiting to be ensnared by the pull of the planets it nears. To those on the surface of the chosen world, it appears as a speck in the sky. At night it is almost invisible, blending in with the darkness, but during twilight and dawn, it looks like a moving pinhole of darkness.
As it draws closer and its sign intensifies, it grows, expanding from a tiny dot to a small disk until it dominates the sky. Pitted and slick with the black slime of the putrid amniotic fluid of its birth, it hangs above, always drifting away from the light of the sun and lurking overhead when the sun has fled. It has the appearance of a huge chunk of black stone, but from certain angles, it looks like a great hairless head, black eyes glassy and soulless.
The story so far...
Caira Xasten, driven mad with grief at the loss of her husband, vows revenge on the gods. Having heard wild rumors of the World Born Dead, she sent out her minions to steal a manuscript held in a vault beneath the Waukeen abbey of Goldspires in the city of Athkatla. Her minions succeeded and snatched the book, leaving scores of priests dead. You managed to recover the book, but not before Caira had a chance to learn its mysteries.
The priests contacted you once more. Having deciphered the old tome, the clerics suspected whoever sought the book intended to summon the World Born Dead. The manuscript offered few details, and the clerics were unable to elicit any concrete answers with their divinations. They did uncover the name of another tome: The book of vile darkness. You were tasked with locating this book before you arch-enemy Caira uncovered it, all the while facing innumerable cultists who sought the same end. However even as you researched this tome, you heard reports from all over about how the dead have begun to rise from their graves.
Meanwhile, sensing an opportunity to make a decisive strike against his ancient enemy, the Demon Lord Orcus dispatched his legions, led by a bodak named Gorguth, to invade Demogorgons layer, the Gaping Maw. This strike plunges the Abyss into widespread war, with demon lords and princes lining up against one another to settle old scores. The Dark Eight of the Nine Hells perceived this infighting as a weakness and for the first time mounted a successful invasion into the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. During the interplanar wars, Gorguth forswore his allegiance to Orcus and led his undead armies into the Material Plane through a gate created by the cultists in the service of Atropus.
Now, as you were caught up trying to stem the flow of demon armies and undead hordes, Caira has recovered the book of vile darkness and has begun to decipher it's secrets. Across Faerun, the undead outnumber the living, spreading like a cancer. Gorguths armies beat back the defenders, filling their depleted ranks by turning their fallen adversaries into undead. Even now the Bleak General marches toward Athkatla where he intends to rendezvous with Caira to greet the Wold Born Dead when it arrives. The remaining defenders in this last bastion of humanity frantically prepare their defences even as resigned wizards plan to save those that they can. Somewhere deep beneath the city, Caira is finalizing her research and beginning the daylong casting of fell sorcery that will finally bring Atropus to Faerun and extinguish all life....!
You are a hundred or so miles northwest of the city of Athkatla, at Citadel Amnur one of the twin Citadels guarding the Cloud Peaks. The mood is grim on the northern border. As the necrotic moon hangs low in the sky above, the surviving population has all but fled to the capital city. A hardened force of 700 men and women hold the Citadel, paid well to buy time for the remnants of humanity and other mortal races to flee to what passes for safety. Throughout the land, healers and priests are confounded as minor ailments become untreatable and fatal. The dead rise and have wreaked havoc among the smaller communities. In larger towns the graveyards and mausoleums have been sealed off and completely incinerated where possible as ancient ancestors claw their way forth. Even the newly dead rise in undeath and must be quickly isolated or restrained lest they drag more of their townsfolk with them.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/baldursgategame/images/e/e5/Amn_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140216193909
As if the inevitable spread of walking dead were not enough, the Gate far to the north spews forth an unholy legion of demons and dead straight from the Abyss. The horde of chaos advances now toward the Citadel driving with it the dead of Atropus. Ultimately it heads toward Athkatla which sits as an alluring target with so many beating hearts cowering within its walls, unaware that beneath the city the godless lunatic Caira Xasten seeks to doom them all.
Here, with the soldiers under Captain Arilan Krimmevol ready to lay down their lives (in exchange for significant remuneration), you know that you must hold off the forces of Orcus for a few more days as the main Amnian military in Athkatla prepare the city for the final siege. Yet you know that you cannot delay here too long as the cultists of Atropus must still be rooted out in Athkatla before they can destroy the world! The Council of Six works to do this in your absence but even with the priests of Waukeen and the Shadow Thieves on their payroll your assistance is vital.
Captain Krimmevol strides toward you, his face grim beneath his turbaned helm...the scouts must have returned with news of an imminent threat!
horizon. Yes, that faint body is he, and he comes
for me . . . for us all. Rejoice, for the end is near,
and all life, all pain, all suffering shall be silenced
in the perfect eternity of undeath.
Caira Xasten, mad astronomer and ur-priest
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/a/a0/Atropus.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091124231708
Atropus, the World Born Dead, drifts through the gulfs of space, searching for worlds to consume and, when it finds them, erasing all life with its gruesome touch. As the afterbirth of creation, it is committed to unmaking all things. Nothing, not even the gods, can halt its relentless progress.
Background:
Those few sages who even know of Atropus debate the origins of this elder evil. They agree that Atropus was spawned when Ao created the first gods, but where they differ is in how Atropus was formed. Some claim the elder evil gained awareness from the divine amniotic fluid surrounding the first god of death, while others claim Atropus was the last god Ao created, but it was stillborn. Atropus has never come close to Faerūn, but those aware of him are ever watchful of the heavens, waiting for the day when the moonlet circles the tapestry of night.
The moonlet is one of the drifting bodies forming the ring around the dull gray planet known as Glyth, one of the Five Wanderers that do not follow the ordinary paths of the stars. Little do the mortals of Faerūn realize the cataclysm affecting this distant world. Drawn by the widespread death and destruction meted out by mind flayer overlords, Atropus drew close, masking its approach behind the belt of debris forming the ring around the planet. While the illithids waged their interminable wars against the native humanoids, Atropus descended and wiped out all life, leaving Glyth an empty husk. Now Atropus turns its attention to Faerūn and begins its slide toward a world ripe for the taking.
Atropus is as much a place as it is a being. It is a small moonlet spinning through the void, waiting to be ensnared by the pull of the planets it nears. To those on the surface of the chosen world, it appears as a speck in the sky. At night it is almost invisible, blending in with the darkness, but during twilight and dawn, it looks like a moving pinhole of darkness.
As it draws closer and its sign intensifies, it grows, expanding from a tiny dot to a small disk until it dominates the sky. Pitted and slick with the black slime of the putrid amniotic fluid of its birth, it hangs above, always drifting away from the light of the sun and lurking overhead when the sun has fled. It has the appearance of a huge chunk of black stone, but from certain angles, it looks like a great hairless head, black eyes glassy and soulless.
The story so far...
Caira Xasten, driven mad with grief at the loss of her husband, vows revenge on the gods. Having heard wild rumors of the World Born Dead, she sent out her minions to steal a manuscript held in a vault beneath the Waukeen abbey of Goldspires in the city of Athkatla. Her minions succeeded and snatched the book, leaving scores of priests dead. You managed to recover the book, but not before Caira had a chance to learn its mysteries.
The priests contacted you once more. Having deciphered the old tome, the clerics suspected whoever sought the book intended to summon the World Born Dead. The manuscript offered few details, and the clerics were unable to elicit any concrete answers with their divinations. They did uncover the name of another tome: The book of vile darkness. You were tasked with locating this book before you arch-enemy Caira uncovered it, all the while facing innumerable cultists who sought the same end. However even as you researched this tome, you heard reports from all over about how the dead have begun to rise from their graves.
Meanwhile, sensing an opportunity to make a decisive strike against his ancient enemy, the Demon Lord Orcus dispatched his legions, led by a bodak named Gorguth, to invade Demogorgons layer, the Gaping Maw. This strike plunges the Abyss into widespread war, with demon lords and princes lining up against one another to settle old scores. The Dark Eight of the Nine Hells perceived this infighting as a weakness and for the first time mounted a successful invasion into the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. During the interplanar wars, Gorguth forswore his allegiance to Orcus and led his undead armies into the Material Plane through a gate created by the cultists in the service of Atropus.
Now, as you were caught up trying to stem the flow of demon armies and undead hordes, Caira has recovered the book of vile darkness and has begun to decipher it's secrets. Across Faerun, the undead outnumber the living, spreading like a cancer. Gorguths armies beat back the defenders, filling their depleted ranks by turning their fallen adversaries into undead. Even now the Bleak General marches toward Athkatla where he intends to rendezvous with Caira to greet the Wold Born Dead when it arrives. The remaining defenders in this last bastion of humanity frantically prepare their defences even as resigned wizards plan to save those that they can. Somewhere deep beneath the city, Caira is finalizing her research and beginning the daylong casting of fell sorcery that will finally bring Atropus to Faerun and extinguish all life....!
You are a hundred or so miles northwest of the city of Athkatla, at Citadel Amnur one of the twin Citadels guarding the Cloud Peaks. The mood is grim on the northern border. As the necrotic moon hangs low in the sky above, the surviving population has all but fled to the capital city. A hardened force of 700 men and women hold the Citadel, paid well to buy time for the remnants of humanity and other mortal races to flee to what passes for safety. Throughout the land, healers and priests are confounded as minor ailments become untreatable and fatal. The dead rise and have wreaked havoc among the smaller communities. In larger towns the graveyards and mausoleums have been sealed off and completely incinerated where possible as ancient ancestors claw their way forth. Even the newly dead rise in undeath and must be quickly isolated or restrained lest they drag more of their townsfolk with them.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/baldursgategame/images/e/e5/Amn_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140216193909
As if the inevitable spread of walking dead were not enough, the Gate far to the north spews forth an unholy legion of demons and dead straight from the Abyss. The horde of chaos advances now toward the Citadel driving with it the dead of Atropus. Ultimately it heads toward Athkatla which sits as an alluring target with so many beating hearts cowering within its walls, unaware that beneath the city the godless lunatic Caira Xasten seeks to doom them all.
Here, with the soldiers under Captain Arilan Krimmevol ready to lay down their lives (in exchange for significant remuneration), you know that you must hold off the forces of Orcus for a few more days as the main Amnian military in Athkatla prepare the city for the final siege. Yet you know that you cannot delay here too long as the cultists of Atropus must still be rooted out in Athkatla before they can destroy the world! The Council of Six works to do this in your absence but even with the priests of Waukeen and the Shadow Thieves on their payroll your assistance is vital.
Captain Krimmevol strides toward you, his face grim beneath his turbaned helm...the scouts must have returned with news of an imminent threat!