Epilogue
I have traveled and chronicled most of the lands of the world we know as the Land of The Mists. My journeys and writings were originally commissioned by the great sorcerer king Azalin Rex.
I published my gazetteers detailing the regions of our world at his behest (and that of the Kargat) and, yet, in all my travels what has transpired in the past year of our world is without known precedent.
Indeed, the happenings commenced about a year ago when travelers and sages began noticing bottomless rifts and fissures filled with boiling mists forming at the borders of our countries tearing them asunder.
It was not until after the Great Collapse that I was able to fully understand that it was the unfolding of Azalin’s ultimate ritual and the machinations of a few legend travelers that resulted in the collapse of our world . . . isolating all of our regions from each other forever leaving us on isalnds . . . . alone . . . drifting in the mists . . . the end of what the cartographers once referred to as “The Core.”
From my own observations while living in southwestern Darkon on the outskirts of The City of Il Aluk in the fall of the year 773 B.C. and from what I have gathered second hand through my contacts that I can still reach . . . I will now relate to you those characters and events that led to the end of the world as we once knew it.
Upon arriving in Darkon, in the City of Stangengrad (recently absorbed by our lands) the group sought refuge from the dead in an abandoned residence where they interrogated their prisoner - - the sorcerer member of the Kargat known as “Solecto.”
Unsatisfied with the information they obtained from their questioning, the prisoner Solecto (while gravely wounded) was thrown from the second story window and fed to the hoard of the dead.
They say it was the rogue Erathos that so maliciously murdered the wizard Solecto - - cursed though he may be - - his story offers some hope for those of our world, for it is said, that notwithstanding the malevolence of his beguiling nature he was able to escape our world to another land . . . known as Faruen and now resides in a great city known as “Waterdeep.”
The aging Vistani Seer and Recluse Hyskosa - - as seen by the party at their lodgings in Stangengrad
It is said the group traveled from Stangengrad, north, to Castle Avernus and passed through what Azalin referred to as the “Doorway to Doomsday.”
From here, legend says it was the dark minstrel Alhuanna that first passed the threshold to Azalin’s final resting chamber.
And, what initially appeared to be an empty chamber of dust and bones later revealed itself to be the undead demi-liche Sorcerer King - - Azalin Rex.
The pillar of blue light within the chamber was that of pure negative energy drawing all life force into the what they call “The Negative Elemental Plane.”
From here, it was Justice Gwendolyn Morninglord that first placed a hand in that pillar of negative energy to learn its properties.
But it was the powers of Y’ian the Mad in the manipulation of time that rescued Alhuanna and the travelers on this final day of the Great Collapse.
Ultimately, Azalin revealed his true form in this final confrontation with the aspiration that he would be freed from this world by exchanging the life forces of his adversaries within a gem to the ferry man.
In the final confrontation with Azalin, he had what remained of the Kargat at his side, the Vampires Dorian and Koril, as well as the demon Tonic.
The Demon Tonic - - As seen in dungeon of The House of Bones in G’Henna
Though Azalin did manage to trap the souls of Erathos, Emalin Seatoe and Y’ian the Mad within a cursed gem . . . Y’ian’s use of the Glaive of Darkest Depths allowed the three to shift from the Negative Energy to the Ethereal . . . where they were able to summons the ferryman . . . Charon.
Charon Arrives . . . Flanked by the Caron Demons
The Charon Demons
Y’ian the Mad was ferried back to his home world, Eberron . . . from when he came . . . the jungles of Xen’drik.
Others . . . were not so lucky . . . and the druid Emalin Seatoe found himself stranded on the world of Athas, summoned by the great sorcerer Yarnath.
Emalin Seatoe - - as seen outside the town of Brigdarrow, Tepest
Still . . . others of their number did not manage to make it onto the deck of Charon’s ferry . . . when the cataclysm happened at Avernus . . . the fate of those trapped inside (Alhuanna, Justice Morninglord, Garath the Red as well as Koril of the Mists, The Demon Tonic, The Vampire Dorian and Azalin himslef remains unknown).
Garath the Red - - as seen while possessed by the Demon Tonic journeying to the western borders of fire in Hazlan
Others traveled with them as well . . . Brother Akold of the Lawgiver . . . and the vampire hunter Aaragon - they, however, were not seen since the battle with the dead at Stangengrad and the fall of Vlad Drakov while that city still existed in the domain of Falkovnia . . . if they survived the battle . . . they are presumably now in the domain of Falkovnia . . . forever separated from us by the void of the mists in a land overrun with the restless dead.
Brother Akold - as seen in the Temple of Belanus in Tepest, Gazing into the reflecting pool to see a vision of Y’ian the Mad in the lands of Sebua.
And what of the Psionic Lich and cultist Rook? . . . it is said his phylactery was buried by Y’ian the Mad in the basement beneath the Theater Macabre in the Nightmare Lands . . . that when Y’ian expelled the possession of Rook from his body in the dungeons beneath the Shadow Rift that the distance was too great for Rook’s soul to return to its phylactery destroying him forever . . . but . . . dreams being what they are . . . it is impossible to say.
Rudolph Van Richten - - as seen on East Timori Road with the Sadow Rift on the Horizon after battling the three hags with the company before returning with his neices to retirement in Mordent, Spring 773 B.C.
That is all that is known . . . or all that is said of those adventurers that brought about the Great Collapse . . . legend or not . . . it is what the people now believe as they drift alone through the mists of Ravenloft.
Signed - - “S”
