Rhaglunieath

Theme: City of Eternal Nightmares | Seat of the Crawling Chaos | Cradle of the Rebellion

Overview

Rhaglunieath is a terrifying sprawl of obsidian towers, pulsating glyph-lit alleyways, and fungal bioluminescence nestled deep within the Underdark. Once a grand drow city known for its arcane schools and cultural brilliance, it has since become a nightmarish bastion of eldritch worship after Matron Morraine’s fall to the Crawling Chaos. The city now pulses with madness, with streets that whisper, dreams that spy, and statues that bleed when prayers go unanswered.

Despite its horror, Rhaglunieath is also a place of resistance. Beneath the broken spires and corruption lies a growing rebellion led by Lilith, known to many as the White Rabbit. From the Forgotten Warrens, her allies—many former slaves, exiles, and turncoats—wage a shadow war against Morraine’s cult, hoping to awaken the sleeping gods and restore sanity to the Underdark.

Key Factions

• The Cult of the Crawling Chaos:
  The Cult of the Crawling Chaos is not merely a religious faction—it is a sentient infection, slowly reshaping Rhaglunieath into a domain of unreason and unraveling thought. At its heart is the Outer God known only in whispers and sigils, a being whose will manifests through madness, memory erosion, and reality warping architecture. Its faithful are not converted—they are rewritten. Their prayers are not spoken aloud but breathed inward, where they become living glyphs that feed on identity. Under Matron Morraine's eldritch rule, this cult no longer proselytizes—it consumes.

  Structures of the cult are often grown rather than built, composed of flesh, fungus, and impossible angles. Every hallway leads to somewhere you do not remember choosing. The cult controls information by harvesting memory and emotion, transforming them into psionic wards and scrying tapestries. In this way, every secret becomes a snare, every regret a warded passage. Thaelynn serves as the cult’s prophet, interpreting psychic echoes through suffering, while Arch-General Xazrith crushes dissent before it becomes noise.

  They see themselves not as zealots, but as instruments of clarity in a world mired in divine lies. Their goal is not domination but purification—the breaking of the false self so that only chaos, the truest truth, remains. Their ultimate ambition is to awaken the Crawling Chaos in full, transforming Rhaglunieath into the first city of a new reality. One with no names, no lies, and no memory of what came before.

• The Rebellion (The White Thread):
  The White Thread is the name whispered in the dark corners of Rhaglunieath, spoken in lullabies and carved into the underside of altars. It is the rebellion in metaphor and form, a resistance movement led by Lilith—the White Rabbit—who once walked the halls of power and now dances through shadowed ruin. The rebellion operates in a lattice of autonomous cells, each guided by song-keys, psychic codices, and sacred verses pulled from Silver Temple relics. They do not spread flyers or raise banners—they spread memories, stitched into thought like thread into cloth.

  Each member of the Thread carries a coded verse, a mnemonic weapon that shields them from the city’s psionic surveillance. They strike where Morraine’s cult is weakest—along the seams of collapsed faith and unguarded shame. Children carry messages, elders carve maps into fungi, and assassins hide relics inside ritual wounds. Even the forgotten have roles; even the mad may still remember. Lilith’s vision is not revolution—it is restoration of sacred cycles lost beneath the weight of madness.

  Many in the rebellion believe the Ainheria walk among them, reborn in subtle ways. Others whisper that Lilith herself is a living cipher, embodying the will of the slumbering gods. The White Thread does not fight for victory—they fight so that future generations will remember what truth once sounded like.

• The Blackguard Legions:
  The Blackguard Legions are the unrelenting arm of Matron Morraine’s regime, forged in psychic flame and drilled into martial perfection beneath alien stars. Under the iron command of Arch-General Xazrith, these legions do not simply fight—they unmake opposition with clinical brutality. Every soldier is psychically branded to suppress doubt, emotion, and divine influence. Their helms are carved with glyphs that distort memory and blind oracles. The legions are not a military—they are a dogma with blades.

  Xazrith leads with terrifying precision, her glaive—“Veilpiercer”—capable of cutting through illusions, dreams, and divine protections alike. She maintains a near-perfect kill record in all engagements and has been known to execute her own lieutenants mid-formation for hesitating. Most terrifying of all, the Blackguard Legions move in silence, even in full armor. Their footsteps are memoryless. Their war songs are never heard—only remembered after the battle is lost.

  Some within the Black Church believe that Xazrith is trying to hold the legions together as a bulwark against Morraine’s full descent into madness. Others claim she secretly trains a breakaway force loyal to her alone. But as it stands, the Blackguards are Rhaglunieath’s most immediate threat—impossible to infiltrate, lethal to confront, and immune to anything that once resembled mercy.

• The Forgotten Warrens:
  Beneath the streets of Rhaglunieath lies the Forgotten Warrens—a sprawl of broken tunnels, slum-vaults, and skeletal homes carved into the city’s dying heart. It is a place of discarded things: exiles, failed cult experiments, memory-bleached prophets, and relics too cursed to house elsewhere. And yet, for all its ruin, the Warrens pulse with life. This is where the rebellion began, where the first Ainheria sigils reappeared, and where the last gods are still whispered to in broken song.

  Illusions run wild in the Warrens. Hallways lead to memories. Streets collapse only when watched. A child may lead you through a shortcut one day and vanish from existence the next. But for the rebels, it is home—sacred in its pain, defiant in its instability. Murf often returns here to find the familiar in the strange, and Lilith’s voice echoes loudest in this place, even when spoken in a whisper.

  The Warrens are protected not by walls, but by obscurity. Maps don’t work. Scrying fails. Only the lost may find their way. It is said the Warrens remember who you were before the city took you—and if you walk them long enough, they may return what was stolen. Or take what’s left.

Points of Interest

• The Depthless Vein:
  The Depthless Vein is not merely a place—it is an exposed wound in reality, an ancient rift that leads directly into the writhing realm of the Crawling Chaos. Though “sealed in dreams” by divine intervention at the end of a forgotten war, the Vein remains cracked in waking reality, pulsing beneath the Underdark with a presence that hungers for thought, voice, and form. The edges of the Vein shimmer with non-Euclidean geometry, making navigation treacherous and sanity tenuous. Whispered echoes drift from the depths—voices not your own, but ones you remember saying.

  It is said that Morraine first heard the Crawling Chaos here, not with her ears, but with the marrow of her bones. The Vein changes those who linger near it. Skin sloughs into thought, and time folds in upon itself like origami soaked in ink. Cultists come here not to worship but to be consumed, to let their names melt into the murk and re-emerge as something “better.” Some parts of the Vein only open when no one is looking directly at them.

  Among the Black Church, the Depthless Vein is considered a prophecy anchor—a location from which all terrible futures radiate. Lilith has vowed to seal it for good, but even she fears the cost. For many in Rhaglunieath, the Vein is not just a rift—it’s the mouth of a god still learning how to speak.

• House Vael’Keth Ruins: Lilith’s former noble estate, now a sanctified rebel sanctuary.
  Once among the most revered of noble drow houses, the ruins of House Vael’Keth now serve as a rebel stronghold and mourning ground. The estate’s skeletal spires reach like grasping fingers from the cavern walls, shrouded in luminous vines and mourning braziers that never extinguish. It was here that Lilith was nearly sacrificed to the Crawling Chaos—and here that she faked her death, reborn as the White Rabbit. Every broken mirror and cracked altar tells part of that story.

  The rebels have turned this once-sacred home into a sanctified sanctuary. Black Church prayers echo in hushed tones through the crumbling corridors, and Ainheria relics are buried in its walls for protection. Satori has meditated here; Murf once saw visions of Lilith’s past inside a shattered pool. Those who spend time among the ruins often feel phantom warmth—as though the house itself remembers what it was, and who it lost.

  A shrine has been raised to those who fell in House Vael’Keth’s last night. It’s said that if you offer your name there, the shadows will answer—but never lie. Though surrounded by danger and divine corruption, the ruins remain untouched by the Vein’s madness, as if protected by grief itself.

• The Webbed Oculus: A forbidden observatory turned divine prison. Used for aberrant scrying.
  Once a magnificent observatory built to track divine conjunctions, the Webbed Oculus has since been claimed by the cult of the Crawling Chaos and transformed into something grotesquely holy. The great lens is now shattered—its fragments levitate unnaturally, forming an eye that never blinks. Wrapped in layers of semi-organic silk and ethereal glyphs, the structure acts as a divine prison, holding either a celestial being—or an ancient thought—that cannot be fully slain.

  The Oculus hums with psionic feedback. Those who enter too deeply find their reflections scattered, and their own thoughts narrated back to them in alien tongues. Thaelynn often visits the Webbed Oculus to divine secrets, laying offerings of dreams and sacrifice at its base. It is not clear whether the prison was originally built to contain something of the gods, or if it was always meant to house something not of this world.

  The cult refers to the Oculus as "The Unclosing Gate." Some believe that scrying through its lens allows one to see the true shape of Rhaglunieath—not the city, but the mind dreaming it. No one leaves unmarked; most forget what they saw. A few remember too much.

• Cathedral of the One Thousand Mouths: The cult’s living temple, grown from the flesh of sacrificed gods. This revolting masterpiece of flesh-architecture is the living temple of the Crawling Chaos, grown from the surgically reassembled remnants of god-flesh and immortal memory. Its spires pulse, its altars breathe, and its walls whisper in languages never spoken. The mouths are literal—some sob, others pray, and a few simply repeat your secrets back to you before you’ve spoken them. Inside, time moves like syrup, and gravity occasionally forgets which way it should pull.

  Matron Morraine transformed the cathedral from a dead god’s ribcage into the epicenter of her cult’s faith. Here, sacrifices are not only expected—they are absorbed. The faithful offer memories instead of blood; the altar eats dreams, tongues, and truths. The mouths serve as divine scribes, echoing what no scripture dares record. Rebels who infiltrate its chambers rarely return the same—and those who do speak in riddles that only make sense during moonless nights.

  Thaelynn is believed to commune directly with the Crawling Chaos in the Mouth-Chamber, a central dome filled with teeth and sobbing light. The Ainheria have tried to collapse it more than once, but the cathedral simply grew back. The Black Church does not call it a temple. They call it a wound that learned to pray.

Culture & Horror

• Memory is fluid. Citizens often forget crimes they committed—or died committing.

• Dreams are monitored. The cult’s seers can rewrite your ambitions if they’re displeasing.

• Song is rebellion. The rebels communicate through ancient hymns and tonal rituals.

• The fungus sings. Bioluminescent spores vibrate with emotion and psychic residue.

The Yellow Murk

• "It is not fog that drapes Rhaglunieath, but the breath of an ancient thought—half-remembered, wholly vengeful." Telsin Rook, Archivist of Ash-Fold Scrolls
• "The yellow murk doesn’t obscure your path; it reveals the one you forgot... the one you were never meant to see." Thaelynn, Seer of the Crawling Choir
• "Breathe too deep and the fog remembers you. Forget too much, and it writes you a new name." Inscription found on a shattered altar in Eastmyr
• "It drips from the ceiling of the world like infected thought, clinging to bone, to memory, to reason itself. And in it, the city dreams its own death, again and again." Lillith

Major Districts of Rhaglunieath

The Bazaar – The Flesh Market
A district of endless noise, color, and suffering, the Bazaar is the beating heart of Rhaglunieath’s twisted economy. Slave auctions, sentient fungus trades, and symbiotic artifact bartering all take place under massive bone-latticed canopies. Criers shout in seven dialects at once, and the currency of pain is worth more than gold. It's here Murf was once sold—his collar still kept on display in one of the darker alley shrines. Markus once tailed a noble cultist through these alleyways during his escape, while Marak forged a weapon beneath a butcher’s stall before fleeing into the Braeryn.

The Bazaar is where memories are bought and sold, not as metaphors—but as tangible commodities. For the right price, you can buy someone else’s loyalty, or auction your regrets to erase them. Satori has begun documenting these trades, disturbed to discover ancient surface memories among the inventories. Memory merchants are now watched carefully by the rebellion, as many are suspected to be cult-aligned collectors tasked with unmaking prophecy through emotional erosion.

A shop known as Kirrath’s Harvest dominates the lower levels. It specializes in alchemical grafts, neural fungus, and “emotional transfusions.” Though it is run publicly by a jovial vendor, Black Church agents know the true owner is an aberrant creature whose real name cannot be remembered. One rare item found here—the Thorn-Glass Heart—allegedly lets you forget your greatest failure in exchange for a flaw chosen by the DM. Kirrath’s also sells “chained emotions,” prepackaged sensations stored in corked tubes, often used in rebellion rituals to mask fear or rekindle hope.

Despite the carnage and sorrow, the Bazaar is also where the rebellion recruits heavily. Many slaves bought their freedom with blood and joined Lilith’s cause that very hour. Murf’s name is spoken here in hushed reverence, not just as a freed slave, but as a symbol of retribution. Markus’s graffiti sigils appear sporadically across merchant tents, subtle indicators that the Black Church still listens here.

The Braeryn – The Forgotten Streets
The Braeryn is the collapsed memory of Rhaglunieath, a district lost to neglect, time, and unspoken atrocities. It is a maze of sunken stairways, broken bridges, and graffiti-laced walls that pulse with fungal light. Here, even the air forgets where it’s been. Once a lower-class neighborhood for artisans and dock workers, it was consumed by underground fault lines and abandoned when whispers began driving residents mad. Now, it houses the poorest outcasts, malformed remnants of arcane experiments, and those who were never meant to exist. It is also where Hattie and Murf vanished into legend.

The rebellion calls the Braeryn “the city’s dreaming corpse.” Markus has made it his canvas, secretly painting rebel sigils and warnings in phosphorescent ink. Satori meditates here among cracked statuary that weep for unknown gods. Marak has walked these streets alone more than once, drawn to their strange silence, and claims to have once heard the city itself breathe. Beneath the Braeryn lies a spiraling tunnel called the Cataclysm Scar—rumored to be where Matron Morraine made her pact with the Crawling Chaos. Some say the tunnel leads directly into the Depthless Vein.

The Braeryn’s only known shop is Grime’s Lantern, run by a lantern archon bound in cracked glass. It sells stolen memories, glowing bones, and lantern-oil that reveals the footsteps of liars. The rebellion uses the shop to vet new contacts; if you can pay with a memory and still walk away sane, you’re deemed trustworthy. The Black Church, meanwhile, maintains a hidden altar here to Ansil that only reveals itself during lunar eclipses—or under the influence of Cait Sith shadow magic.

Mechanics-wise, the Braeryn plays with time loops, dream-states, and mistaken identity. Every long rest taken here requires a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw to retain one’s identity. On failure, the character dreams they are someone else entirely and wakes with false memories that persist until magically cleansed. Arcane illusions bleed into reality, sometimes allowing brief glimpses of the city’s past—or possible futures. For Murf, this is holy ground. For everyone else, it’s where the city forgets you ever existed.

Clasdvill – The Industrial Veins
Clasdvill is the infernal engine of Rhaglunieath—a sprawling mass of heat-blasted machinery, soot-choked foundries, and soul-powered forges. Here, drow forge-scribes and enslaved elementals labor in unending shifts to supply the Crawling Chaos with weapons, constructs, and war machines. The air tastes like rusted blood and melted glass, and the screams of malfunctioning automatons echo through shifting gearwheels. Murf once worked here as a child, too weak to lift the crucible tongs but punished nonetheless. Markus once passed through Clasdvill in chains, witnessing the shackles that would soon bind others in his place. Even now, the sight of the hammering pyre-furnaces fills him with quiet fury.

Marak knows these veins better than most; before his escape, he was charged with overseeing quality control on fleshbound armor, a task that made him question whether he was still mortal. His detailed sketches of the internal layout have been critical to several rebel strikes. Satori believes the machines here follow a pattern older than Kol—one linked to Cipher creation. Some forge-prayers are spoken in dead alphabets, and occasionally, a broken machine will scream a word from a player’s forgotten past. The rebellion believes that deep within Clasdvill lies a buried forge-chapel that once crafted Beherits.

The district’s most notable vendor is The Ember-Gouge Crucible, a mobile market built into a chained iron colossus that drags itself across the factory floors. It sells unstable weapon prototypes, cursed blueprints, and “whisperslag”—molten memory cooled into ammunition. The Crucible’s merchant, an armless drow artificer named Serrith Vox, uses psychically-linked drones to handle transactions. Rumors say that Vox was once a lover of Morraine before betraying her and losing her arms to acid as punishment. Now, she forges in silence, haunted by guilt and surrounded by echoes of screaming metal.

Clasdvill’s mechanical hazards are relentless. Players risk exhaustion if they remain in the forges longer than an hour without magical protection or specialized gear. Areas near the “Hearth Core” produce hallucinogenic heat—requiring Constitution saves (DC 13) or causing players to relive past trauma as if it were happening again. Constructs with experimental enchantments may target characters based on guilt, reading their subconscious like prayerbooks. If Tier Breche is Rhaglunieath’s brain, Clasdvill is its burning heart—twisted by divine industry and stoked by unrepentant memory.

Dutchloim – The Spire of Silence
A sacred and haunted cathedral district, Dutchloim houses the quietest scream in Rhaglunieath. Here, every word spoken aloud carries risk, as the echoes may be heard by agents of the Crawling Chaos who dwell in the sound. The spires of Dutchloim rise into a web of chains and silence wards, their bells ringing only in dreams. Its streets are lined with hymnal tiles that play muted prayers when walked upon, and black-robed priestesses perform rituals of memory suppression each dusk.

It was in Dutchloim that the party first encountered the fractured remnants of the Silver Temple’s sacred architecture. Murf felt something awaken here—perhaps a tether to Ansil, perhaps the Cait Sith watching from the rafters. Markus and Marak both underwent early spiritual trauma here, shaped by the terrifying discipline of silence as obedience. Satori finds meditative clarity here despite the horrors, believing that prophecy lies in the quiet. The rebellion hides relics beneath old confession chambers, and Black Church inquisitors have repurposed its shrines as decoding centers for intercepted cult dreams.

The district’s most infamous merchant is the Archivist of Dust, a shopkeeper who sells scrolls of forgotten sins and broken vows. Customers pay in silence—every word spoken in the store removes one day of memory. The Church secretly funds this place, using its prophetic ledgers to locate cult infiltrators by their forgotten regrets..

Donigarten – The Gardens of Flesh and Rot / Hollow Eden
Donigarten is Rhaglunieath’s mockery of beauty—an artificial paradise sculpted from decay and obsession. Once a fungal research biome, it has become a hybrid of botanical horror and aristocratic indulgence. Vines grow into organ shapes, roses bloom from bone marrow, and soft loam pulses with unnatural warmth. Wealthy cultists stroll its sunless paths in illusion-crafted splendor, admiring orchards that whisper their names. It’s a district where beauty demands sacrifice—and often, sapient roots demand more than blood. Murf once stole a seed from these grounds, and it continues to grow in his satchel, despite never being watered.

Satori believes Donigarten touches the Murk—a belief reinforced by patches of terrain that phase in and out of sync with Kol’s reality. Occasionally, patrons vanish into flowerbeds and reappear days later speaking in forgotten dialects. Marak, who once served as bodyguard to a noble priestess in this district, still dreams of Donigarten’s orchards turning to ash. Markus has identified the cries of bound souls hidden beneath the roots, used as nutrients for cursed growth. The rebellion’s few incursions here have been catastrophic; memory distortion reaches a crescendo in Donigarten, and time does not pass the same for those who enter.

Within the center of the district sits The Bloomwright's Folly, a greenhouse-cathedral run by a masked horticulturist named Szelune. Here, rare perfumes and enchanted spore mixtures are traded for memories or firstborn secrets. One notorious concoction—The Orchid of Reversal—can resurrect a dead creature with perfect recall of a former life, but erases their current self. Black Church agents monitor Szelune’s creations carefully, fearing one may be a vector for Crawling Chaos contagion. Szelune herself may be older than the city and refuses to speak of her origin, except in cryptic floral riddles.

Exploration in Donigarten is dangerous not because of hostility, but because of acceptance. Characters who linger too long may find their senses dulling, their trauma washed away by unnatural calm. Wisdom saving throws (DC 14) must be made hourly to resist being “planted”—an effect that roots the target and begins rewriting their personality into a loyal caretaker of the garden. Safehouses here are grown, not built: the rebellion grows short-lived bulb-houses from stolen seeds, knowing they will collapse after three nights. If the garden could speak, it would say: "Everything thrives, if it forgets who it was."

Eastmyr – The Chains of Trade
Eastmyr is the city’s economic noose—a shrine to ambition, debt, and pact-forged enterprise. Here, trade is conducted not only in coin, but in oaths, souls, and fates bound by sigils. Grand auction houses loom like temples, and beneath them sit labyrinthine vaults filled with cursed contracts and Beherit fragments carved into stone. Murf nearly died here, caught in a ritualized sale that was meant to erase his identity entirely. It is a place where silence is currency and eye contact counts as assent. The Black Church believes Eastmyr is key to understanding how the Cult of the Crawling Chaos manipulates fate, binding entire bloodlines to future betrayals.

Satori has operated within Eastmyr’s archive towers, learning to decode pact glyphs and root out flaws in infernal fine print. He once triggered a memory trap embedded in a forged birth certificate—experiencing an alternate childhood so vivid it left psychic scarring. Markus has tracked more than one target through the Parapets of Obligation, the city’s hanging bridge markets where debts are thrown like daggers. Marak refuses to enter Eastmyr unless absolutely necessary; he once watched a rebellion cell vanish after signing a ‘harmless’ logistics pact. Lilith herself walked these halls in chains during her exile—only to return in disguise, whispering false names into the ears of tyrants.

The district’s most infamous vendor is Sigil & Sorrow, a debt-inscribing atelier run by a contract devil in mortal disguise. Known only as “Mister Quill,” the shop sells collapsible bindings, blank soul ledgers, and magically encrypted vault-boxes keyed to secrets rather than names. Black Church inquisitors purchase disposable identities here, while rebels trade memories to unearth forgotten deeds. The most expensive service offered is the Vow Eclipse—a magical erasure of one’s deepest belief in exchange for protection from divine detection for 24 hours. The side effect? The client forgets why they were ever part of the rebellion to begin with.

Mechanically, Eastmyr introduces pact-based exploration. Players interacting with contracts must roll Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Insight) checks (DC 15) to detect hidden clauses. Failed checks may result in temporary curses, debt marks, or magical compulsions. Any character who bargains here without safeguards risks becoming an unwilling agent of another faction. Eastmyr is not a battlefield—it is a war of paper, whisper, and blood-ink, where rebellion dies not with a scream, but with a signature.

Kyorbblivvin – The Slave Warrens / Hidden Warrens
These winding tunnels and cave-scraped hovels once served as the slave quarters of Rhaglunieath. Now they lie partially abandoned, half-collapsed, and overrun by mold, feral enchantments, and shifting illusions. What was once despair’s dormitory has become the hidden cradle of the rebellion. Murf and Hattie first fled here, chased by sentries and forgotten monsters. Many of the rebellion’s operatives call Kyorbblivvin home—not by comfort, but by oath. The spirits of the dead whisper to those willing to listen, and in the silence, the Cait Sith sometimes appear to those on the brink of breaking.

Beneath these warrens, the rebellion has carved tunnels and sanctuaries invisible to most. Magical misdirection fields distort time and space, with rebels navigating via humming stones or coded murmurs. Markus and Marak both carried wounded allies here during early raids, and Satori believes one tunnel entrance mirrors an ancient surface temple long thought lost. The rebellion’s central operations reside within a cloister called the Graying Sanctuary, where Lilith communes with former Ainheria ghosts and where the revolution’s dead are never truly gone. This is where strategy is born, where sacred rituals are written in ash and memory.

An underground speakeasy called The Rootcaller's Rest operates here under the guise of an herbal den. It serves smuggled liquor infused with memories—drinking one allows you to relive a moment of courage or clarity once felt by a rebel martyr. The bartender, a hobgoblin known only as “Ashbite,” is a former torturer turned revolutionary poet. Black Church agents meet here under strict oaths, and it’s rumored that a Cipher fragment lies beneath the floorboards. Occasionally, a patron will disappear mid-sentence, only to be found weeks later, convinced they had been gone for years.

Encounters in Kyorbblivvin often involve memory-altering terrain, such as shifting passageways that only respond to forgotten names, or animated walls that whisper your doubts aloud. One infamous trap known as the Cycle Gate resets a player’s memories of the past 10 minutes until an oath of resistance is sworn aloud. Mechanically, Insight and Perception checks in this district may be made with disadvantage unless the character is blessed by the Black Church or aided by a rebel ward. The very essence of resistance is etched into the earth here, where broken chains are used as holy symbols and prayers are carved into the bones of old collars.

Narbondellyn – The Noble Warrens
A district of opulence built on blood and secrets. Narbondellyn is the ancestral home of the drow matriarchs and highborn houses that once commanded Rhaglunieath with grace and terror. Now, it is a place of rotting splendor, where haunted ballrooms echo with cursed music and portraits age backwards. Matron Morraine still permits noble politics here—but only because they entertain her with their futile maneuvering. Every house is watched by crawling eyes, and every heir is marked with unseen glyphs that erode sanity if disobedient.

This was the first place where Murf tasted cruelty under silken veils. His presence haunts the memories of more than one noble family, and stories of “the cursed tabaxi boy” are whispered in social circles like ghost tales. Satori’s surface-born sense of politics serves him well here—he can read the tension in this district like an exposed ledger. The rebellion views Narbondellyn as a symbolic victory waiting to happen: the fall of one noble house would ripple like thunder across the elite. Yet, even they know that bringing this district to its knees may cost dearly in blood and memory.

Narbondellyn also holds an exclusive shop known as The Silver Mask Atelier, where enchanted masks can rewrite your appearance and personality for a price. The masks, crafted by a blind sculptor named Vel’Shyn, are known to weep when worn too long. Black Church agents occasionally pose as noble guests in this district, using the Atelier’s glamours to infiltrate dinners where cult plans are discussed under the guise of courtship and ritual duels.

Qu’ellarz’Orl – The Court of the Matrons
The spider’s heart and Rhaglunieath’s original seat of power, Qu’ellarz’Orl is a towering hive of matron estates, throne-crypts, and divinely cursed council chambers. Its spires spiral like blades, carved from obsidian and bone, and its balconies overlook the broken skyline like judges awaiting executions. Though Matron Morraine now rules from deeper sanctums, the other surviving Matrons—twisted by pact, power, or pride—continue to dwell here. These high priestesses engage in silent warfare, forging alliances in blood and betrayal, hosting carnivals of cruelty beneath shimmering illusion-masks. Murf has never entered Qu’ellarz’Orl, yet it haunts his dreams with impossible geometry and songs sung in the voice of his captors.

This is where Lilith’s noble line was betrayed and her family purged for resisting Morraine’s vision. Though few dare speak her name within these walls, secret sympathizers in House Vael’Keth leave floral tokens at sealed tombs in her memory. Markus once witnessed a failed execution here that left the condemned whispering prayers in tongues not heard since the First Age. Marak dreams of returning to this district not with vengeance—but with silence, to watch it collapse under its own sins. Satori believes this is the city’s beating conscience, and if redeemed, it might rewrite the future for all of Kol.

There is no open market in Qu’ellarz’Orl, but rumors tell of The Velvet Thrall, a traveling vendor of forbidden devotions—holy texts penned in blood, and relics once bound to fallen gods. Its merchant is never seen the same way twice. Some say it is a soul fragment of a dead Ainheria. Others believe it’s a failed clone of Morraine. Regardless, the Church covets its stock, and the rebellion fears what it might unleash.

Mechanically, Qu’ellarz’Orl is a site of divine psychic pressure. Insight checks are made with disadvantage, and failed Wisdom saves may cause false visions—glimpses of idealized futures designed to seduce. These visions can tempt players into betraying party goals in exchange for phantom redemption. Divine spellcasters must succeed on a DC 16 saving throw when casting spells here, or have the magic subtly altered by the will of the Court. In Qu’ellarz’Orl, faith is a weapon—and belief is a battleground.

Tier Breche – The Bastion of Authority and Arcana
The disciplined mind of Rhaglunieath, Tier Breche towers over the city like a spined crown. It is the arcane nexus where spellcraft, martial philosophy, and divine experimentation converge. Sorcerers and summoners walk alongside battle-masters and heretic inquisitors. Its walls are engraved with spells that record and erase memories at will, and its towers hum with dark energy even when no rituals are being cast. This is where Marak once trained under false identity, earning scars not from battle but from obedience. Markus was conscripted here, his mind half-bound by oathscrolls before he escaped into the Braeryn. Both know that Tier Breche is more than a school—it is a forge for living weapons.

The rebellion has little access to Tier Breche’s inner sanctums, but the outer libraries and ruined auditoriums serve as battlegrounds for knowledge. Satori once recovered a shard of a Cipher spell here, buried beneath a statue of a weeping saint. He now believes that the Crawling Chaos was once worshipped in secret by Tier Breche’s founders. Murf avoids the district entirely, unsettled by the strange magical pull he feels in the deeper halls. Ghosts of failed apprentices—some missing limbs, others missing time—still patrol the dormitories, whispering lectures from syllabi no longer taught.

At the base of the Spire of Ink stands Scripture’s Spiral, a storehouse of spell-encoded scrolls, mnemonic elixirs, and soul-bound quills. The proprietor is a faceless drow named “Inkroot,” who speaks only by writing in the air with burning ash. Black Church operatives sometimes visit the shop to purchase forgotten cantrips or “teaching curses”—charms that inflict magical knowledge at the cost of sleep or memories. One rumored item, the Lexicon of the Fractured Will, teaches a random 5th-level spell each dawn—but slowly corrodes your ability to form original thoughts.

Mechanically, Tier Breche is a high-risk exploration zone. Arcane experiments gone awry manifest as planar fractures, shifting gravity fields, or “conceptual familiars”—manifestations of discarded ideas that now roam the halls. Spellcasters must pass a DC 15 Arcana check each hour to avoid having a known spell randomly erased until their next long rest. Magic is power here—but only power that obeys. The rebellion’s dream is not to destroy Tier Breche, but to reclaim it: to carve knowledge free from tyranny and write new futures in the bones of old scripts.

Notable NPCs

Breg Thumgar, Artificer of Rattlecoil Vault

Breg Thumgar is a grim-faced goliath artificer who defected from the dwarven forges after refusing to mass-produce arcane shackles for the drow. He now runs the Rattlecoil Vault—a subterranean lab riddled with mechanical traps, half-finished relics, and cursed prototypes. Breg works alone except for a chorus of sentient tools, each embedded with fragments of his own memories to help him think faster and forget less.

Breg once repaired Murf’s armor after a battle with a Crawling spawn and etched a protective sigil into its lining—something even Murf didn’t notice at first. He respects Marak’s strength and has offered to reforge the warrior’s ancestral weapon into something ‘worthy of the coming age.’ Breg is fascinated by forbidden technology and believes the Crawling Chaos is not just evil—but a design flaw in reality itself. He dreams of rebuilding the world as a clockwork of just decisions.

He has a deep distrust of divine magic and wears a device that dampens it around him. Some say Breg once built a god-killer rifle but buried it beneath the Vault out of guilt. His memory is failing, and he fears one day waking up without knowing what side he’s on. That’s why he now builds memory-binders into everything he touches.

The Cait Sith, Murf’s Familiar

The Cait Sith is an enigmatic feline spirit tied to death, memory, and fate. It appears as a sleek black cat with glowing silver eyes, capable of speech in dreams and whispers in shadows. It first came to Murf in his youth, when he was on the brink of death, and has remained a constant—if mysterious—presence. Some in the Black Church believe the Cait Sith to be an ancient Ainheria familiar; others call it a death-guide, or even a shadow of Ansil.

It is fiercely loyal to Murf but offers guidance only when Murf listens to his heart rather than his rage. The Cait Sith has protected him from assassins, led him through cursed ruins, and helped him uncover his faith. When others see it, they often forget the encounter unless they too are marked by destiny. It has an uncanny ability to locate lost things—especially names, memories, and divine threads.

The Cait Sith communicates through riddles and sudden appearances. It purrs in places where fate thickens and vanishes when divine energies flare. Hattie calls it “the soft-footed prophet,” and even Lilith steps lightly when it passes. It is one of the oldest allies the rebellion unknowingly has.

Chidori of the Fifth Wind

Chidori is a monk of elemental harmony and guardian of the Way of the Fifth Wind, an ancient tradition that balances earth, fire, wind, water, and void. He found Satori on the streets, saw his spark, and took him and Jun in. While stern and at times seemingly emotionless, Chidori loves his students like thunderclouds love the rain—silently, fiercely, always. His eyes are clouded with past battles, and his body is lined with scars, each one a story.

Chidori now operates in secret beneath Rhaglunieath, offering martial guidance and spiritual cleansing to rebels broken by war and dream-madness. He meditates under a waterfall that isn’t really water but memory made fluid. Many claim to have found their inner strength after just one of his nods. Satori still visits him, and Chidori often shares tea, wordless encouragement, or harsh rebukes.

He distrusts the gods but respects the Ainheria. His technique can strike divine energy from the air, and once he shattered a Crawling sigil using only breath and will. Chidori’s greatest regret is that he cannot protect Jun and Satori forever—but he believes in the peace they will bring when they find their path.

Elyra Moonbloom, Herbalist of the Hollow Petal

Elyra Moonbloom is a half-drow apothecary who operates the Hollow Petal—a greenhouse-burrow where memory-root, ghostcap, and soulmoss grow beneath mirrored lanterns. She uses her craft to brew tonics that restore forgotten truths or numb trauma, depending on the need. She was once a priestess of a surface cult that worshiped divine silence, but turned to the Black Church when her goddess vanished without answer.

Elyra is quiet, melancholy, and deeply observant. She collects abandoned dreams in crystal vials and sells them to travelers with questions they can’t ask aloud. She has helped Jun craft special tonics and often provides Murf with draughts to focus his spirit. Her shop smells of sage, burnt lilac, and something no one can name but all recognize.

Though she rarely speaks of it, Elyra’s own memories were burned out during a ritual gone wrong. She remembers faces, but not names. Love, but not who she loved. Each potion she brews is an attempt to stitch her own mind back together. And yet, she remains a pillar of healing in a city that forgets what kindness looks like.

Hattie, the Stitchmother

Hattie is a matronly Tabaxi, once a slave healer in the deeper cells of Rhaglunieath’s empire. Known now as the Stitchmother, she escaped with Murf during a deadly plague outbreak and has since become a quiet pillar of the rebellion. Hattie keeps a warm den hidden beneath a fungal orchard, where she tends to the wounded, teaches lost healing rites, and comforts those broken by magical trauma. Though her eyes are failing, her claws are steady—and her heart, unbreakable.

She is beloved among rebel children and feared by some older rebels who owe her their lives but not their secrets. Hattie is a devout follower of the Ainheria and keeps dozens of bone-carved saints beneath her bed. She refers to death as “the patient we never rush.” Her relationship with Murf is more than mentorly—it is familial, the bond of those who survived the impossible together.

Though rarely seen outside her sanctum, Hattie’s influence extends far through the rebellion. She trained Jun in herbcraft, provided early shelter to Markus, and once tended to Satori during a fever-dream ritual. Her greatest fear is not death—but forgetting the names of those she couldn't save.

Jun of the Wild Verse

Jun is Satori’s younger sister, a soft-spoken herbalist and poet raised in the gutters of Rhaglunieath. Abandoned by their parents as children, Jun and Satori survived by relying on each other. While Satori trained under Chidori, Jun found her calling in crafting potions, tending to rooftop gardens, and writing delicate verses that speak to grief, hope, and becoming. Her words are sometimes used as prayer in rebel safehouses.

Jun is widely loved by the rebellion and respected by its mystics. Her tonics are subtle and soulful—infused with emotion, memory, and often a small drop of her own blood. She once brewed a tea that helped Lilith recall her mother’s voice. Despite her gentle nature, Jun has hidden depths of resolve. When Elyra was kidnapped by cultists, Jun led the rescue herself—with no weapons but words and poison.

She carries a small journal at all times, filled with half-songs and promises she plans to keep. Murf sees her as kin, and Markus says her smile could halt a war. She refuses to leave Rhaglunieath until every child is safe to write poems again. Her dream is to plant a real garden, not grown from corpses or blood, but sunlight.

Lilith, the White Rabbit

Once a noble priestess of House Vael’Keth, Lilith was marked for death after rejecting the corrupt rise of Matron Morraine. She faked her own death during a sacrificial ritual, disappearing into the city’s deepest ruin-veins. Over time, she transformed into a mythic figure—The White Rabbit—whispered of by slaves, exiles, and turncoats. Lilith now leads the rebellion from the Forgotten Warrens, balancing ruthless efficiency with a fierce protective instinct. Her presence alone can spark hope among the hopeless.

Despite her legend, Lilith is haunted by loss. She carries the weight of her family’s erasure and dreams of vengeance, but fears becoming the same tyrant she once opposed. Her charisma is matched only by her paranoia; she maintains a network of double agents, false leads, and decoys to avoid being scryed or captured. Lilith believes in restoring the old gods—Ansil, Ceslida, Auriel—but through sacrifice and subversion, not worship. She is especially invested in Murf’s growth, having seen visions of his place in a prophecy tied to divine collapse.

Lilith wields a custom-made relic known as the Lachrym Blade, forged from the tears of Ainheria. It feeds off regrets and glows in the presence of divine suppression. Her preferred tactics involve surgical sabotage, misinformation, and psychic amplification through the city's dream-veins. Many rebels never meet her directly—they hear her through echo-scrolls, illusory masks, or whispered prayer-code. Even among the Black Church, some wonder if she is a mortal or something far stranger.

Lucasta Rellin, Keeper of Quill & Chime

Lucasta Rellin was once a powerful contract witch in the service of the Golden Clemency, trained to extract, bind, and sanctify divine oaths. Disillusioned by the corruption of her order, she defected to the Black Church, where she now operates the Quill & Chime Archive—a rebel bureau of sealed contracts, soul-bindings, and forgotten name-pledges. Her ink is made of tears and duskroot, and her quills are cut from fallen martyr-feathers.

Lucasta is stern, elegant, and terrifyingly precise. Her word is law among rebel negotiators, and her scrolls carry legal weight even in enemy courts—because no one dares break them. She keeps track of every deal the rebellion makes and every one broken. Markus once stole from her vault, and she made him return it by whispering his true name to a mirror. She has a soft spot for Jun and a cold war of respect with Thaelynn.

Lucasta believes language itself is sacred and dangerous. She considers herself a linguistic blade-smith, and her ultimate work is said to be a scroll that, when spoken, will nullify all divine magic for a single hour. Her forge is a scriptorium lit by floating phrases, each etched in a different tongue. Some say she was once in love with a god—but bound it to silence in exchange for freedom.

Mavindra “Hexgrin” Slareen, Shadowcrafter of the Umbral Tapestry

Mavindra is a changeling warlock-artist who specializes in weaving shadows into wearable spells. She runs the Umbral Tapestry in Braeryn, where rebels come to buy glamoured cloaks, stolen identities, and anti-scrying tattoos. Mavindra is unpredictable, flamboyant, and never wears the same face twice in a week. She speaks in riddles and barters in secrets rather than coin.

Her creations shift shape based on who wears them, binding to memory and intent. Satori once wore one of her cloaks and briefly merged with his younger self. Mavindra calls Markus her “arrow prince” and always tries to sell him enchanted quivers that sing. She flirts with everyone but seems to have a sincere artistic respect for Jun.

No one knows her real name or face—only that she is loyal to Lilith and carries a sealed writ of the Black Church. Her tapestries are rumored to hold echoes of past timelines, stitched into warp and weft. If she ever dies, her final form will be decided by her last customer’s wish.

Morraine, Matron

Matron Morraine was once a pragmatic and calculating leader of Rhaglunieath’s noble houses, known more for her political precision than cruelty. That changed after her secret journey into the Depthless Vein, where she encountered a slumbering fragment of the Crawling Chaos. She emerged twisted in both mind and spirit, her flesh tattooed with shifting black sigils, and her voice layered with echoing tones. From that moment, her rule became one of mad devotion and eldritch rebirth. She replaced the city's traditions with aberrant liturgies and reshaped society into a cultic engine of horror.

Morraine now seeks to awaken the full presence of her eldritch patron, believing Rhaglunieath must become its mortal temple. She crafts nightmare architecture, weaponized memories, and psionic pylons that warp reality across the Underdark. She no longer speaks of drow heritage or divine law, considering such ideas obsolete before the ‘Coming Pulse.’ Her most loyal followers are twisted reflections of their former selves, willingly feeding their minds into the city's hive-madness. Morraine’s face is always veiled in obsidian silk, and it’s whispered she now speaks only in glyphs.

Despite her transformation, fragments of the old Matron remain. She still honors her deal with Arch-General Xazrith, and some believe her obsession with Marak stems from echoes of a previous, human version of herself. Others say she is no longer a singular being but a chorus of identities trapped within a flesh-host. Her influence is widespread, and even non-drow powers—like the Patriciate—fear her destabilizing effect on magical boundaries. Matron Morraine is Rhaglunieath’s greatest threat and its cursed queen.

Naivarra, the Drow Lover

Naivarra is a highborn drow noble of House Nelviir, rumored to be the secret lover of Markus. She is elegant, composed, and utterly ruthless in courtly manipulation, yet something in Markus melted her outer shell. Their love is a dagger’s edge—dangerous, passionate, and forbidden under Matron Morraine’s regime. Naivarra uses her influence carefully to protect Markus from afar, feeding him information through veiled intermediaries.

She is a master of subterfuge and illusion, rarely appearing in the same guise twice. She keeps a collection of enchanted masks, each reflecting a different political persona. Her heart is torn between duty to her crumbling house and the quiet dream of fleeing with Markus to a place the gods have forgotten. She has sabotaged her own house’s rituals more than once in the rebellion’s favor—though she would deny it.

Naivarra’s greatest secret is that she once received a vision from Ansil before the god’s slumber—a vision that told her love might one day redeem the Drow. Whether that vision was true or manipulation from the Crawling Chaos, she does not know. But she clings to it, as she clings to the thought of Markus returning to her.

Olorune Vael’Quessir, Sister, Keeper of Verdant Memory

Once a respected druid-priestess of a surface elven conclave, Sister Olorune descended into Rhaglunieath to chase a prophecy hidden in fungal bloom patterns. She never returned to the surface. Instead, she founded the Grove of Verdant Memory—an underground sanctuary that reclaims divine soil and tries to restore the natural cycles poisoned by eldritch influence. Her staff is a living branch that flowers based on her thoughts.

Olorune is graceful and quiet, yet every movement she makes ripples through the mushrooms around her. She believes that memory is a root system, and the past can be regrown. Murf visited her during a crisis of faith, and she fed him tea brewed from blossoms only visible during lunar tides. Satori once trained in her grove during a meditation retreat that lasted five days in a single breath.

She is cautious of Lilith, wary of Morraine, and open-hearted toward rebels seeking balance. Olorune occasionally speaks in plant-tongue, a harmonic resonance that can calm the maddened. Her grove is filled with living carvings—faces grown from bark, whispering secrets lost to the world above. She dreams of growing a god back from seed.

Parona “Ashsoul” Vharvis, Curator of the Velvet Reliquary

Parona Vharvis was once a rising star among the clerics of Ceslida, tasked with curating relics of martyrdom and radiant suffering. But visions of Ansil’s broken dream shattered her faith and drew her to the Black Church, where she now curates the Velvet Reliquary—a sanctum of heretical saints, cursed devotions, and sacrificial altars. Her domain is cloaked in velvet shadow, and the relics whisper truths that burn.

Parona is grave and almost monastic in demeanor, wearing robes woven from discarded death shrouds. She speaks as if every word is a prayer laced with grief. Her face is painted with soot to honor the Ainheria, and she never removes her gloves. Her favorite relic is the Tongue of Saint Martriel, which she consults during moments of spiritual conflict. Despite her somber presence, she has saved many rebels from divine despair.

She has a tense alliance with Thaelynn and distrusts Lucasta, believing written law can never outweigh felt suffering. Parona is one of the few allowed to officiate mercy-pacts and spirit-bond severances. She has an uneasy friendship with Markus, often reading him like a living scripture. Her chapel is barred to the uninvited—because some relics bite.

Sharn the Twice-Drowned, Witch of Broken Echoes

Sharn was once a bard of the surface, drowned during a failed revolution, and resurrected in the swamps by a forgotten Ainheria spirit. Her rebirth left her marked—her hair always wet, her voice echoing with ghostly harmonics, and her eyes filled with moonlight seen from beneath water. She runs the Broken Echoes parlor in Eastmyr, crafting lullabies for lost souls and bone-hymns that drive out possession.

Sharn is strange even by rebel standards. She speaks in broken stanzas and sings prophecies in her sleep. Murf once found comfort in her dirges and returns to her often for counsel. Her songs reach into memory, pulling truths that were forgotten—or hidden. She wears a crown of barnacles and dreams of drowning the city in silence.

She is close to the Cait Sith, who curls at her feet when she plays. She holds a deep hatred for Matron Morraine and believes her own death was orchestrated by the Matron’s earlier cult. Sharn is a master of psalm-magic and conducts rituals that bind hope into melody. She is respected by the Black Church, feared by the Cult of the Crawling Chaos, and adored by rebels who sleep better because of her hymns.

Telsin Rook, Archivist of Ash-Fold Scrolls

Telsin Rook is a half-elf historian and relic-dealer with ties to both the rebellion and the darker archives of the Black Church. Once a scribe for the Patriciate, he defected after uncovering texts erased from reality. He now guards the Ash-Fold Scrolls—a hidden chamber of history scrolls too dangerous to remember and too vital to destroy. Telsin is thin, pale, and wears a coat sewn from library cards and forged permits.

Telsin was the first to identify Grim’s cipher sigils appearing on ancient vault doors beneath Rhaglunieath. He is obsessed with the forgotten and catalogues relics that shift when observed. Murf distrusts him, but Marak finds him useful. Satori once called him “a memory hoarder,” a title he now uses proudly.

His voice has a hypnotic cadence, and he can lull people into half-trances with historical footnotes. He is fascinated by the Cait Sith and once offered it a dream-map in exchange for its paw print. Telsin fears being forgotten more than dying. He once claimed, “History isn’t written by victors—it’s written by survivors who lie better.”

Thaelynn, Seer of the Crawling Choir

Thaelynn is an arch-seeress and living conduit of the Crawling Chaos, entrusted with interpreting dreams, conducting ritual sacrifices, and embedding aberrant sigils into the walls of reality. Once a gifted child-seer born of low blood, she was taken by Morraine and raised in total sensory deprivation to amplify her sight beyond sight. Freed only for rituals, Thaelynn’s body was warped by the psionic energies she channeled. Her hair has turned white as milk, her eyes are fully black, and her voice causes minor hallucinations when spoken in full syllables.

Though feared, Thaelynn is calm and surprisingly empathetic to those beneath her station. She sees suffering not as punishment, but as purification—a path to alignment with the Chaos. Her predictions are rarely direct; instead, she speaks in riddles, symbolic omens, and bloody metaphors. She often seeks out those on the verge of mental collapse, offering mercy or madness depending on their potential. Among Morraine’s followers, she is considered sacred—among rebels, she is death in slow motion.

Thaelynn once crossed paths with Markus in a dream-bridge moment, and their encounter left him shaken for days. Some say she remembers him, though she shouldn’t be capable of holding onto mortal names. She is fascinated by Satori and the echoes of divine balance within him, calling him a “vessel of discordant purity.” Thaelynn is guarded constantly by aberrant constructs she refers to as her “Choir”—a collection of levitating masks that scream in unison when danger approaches.

Vellin Mark, Professor and Keeper of the Fracture Lexicon

Professor Vellin Mark is a high elf scholar who defected from the Patriciate’s academy after discovering forbidden scripture encoded in tectonic fault lines. He now safeguards the Fracture Lexicon, an expanding tome bound in obsidian scales that records and rearranges every lie told within Rhaglunieath. Vellin is part oracle, part logician, and full-time irritant to those who prefer facts remain buried. He is also a vital, trusted advisor of Lillith and her revolution.

Vellin dresses in patchwork robes stitched with footnotes and wears glasses that flash red when lies are spoken nearby. He catalogues dreams, betrayals, and altered timelines, seeking to reconstruct “the true memory of the city.” His lectures are long, disorienting, and punctuated with sudden revelations. Satori once attended a seminar and emerged speaking backward for an hour. Vellin considers this a success.

He walks with a cane that doubles as a seismometer and keeps a pet bookwyrm named Hypothesis. Despite his arrogance, he is beloved by rebel students and feared by truth-twisting sorcerers. Vellin has a truce with the Cait Sith and once bartered a false prophecy for access to its library of paw-prints. He dreams of a future where no truth needs defending—only remembering.

Vornak “Crater-Tooth” Shalegrit, Armorer of the Crushed Oath

A duergar exile and former warmason of the Depth-Forged Bastion, Vornak now runs a weaponworks beneath Braeryn known as the Crushed Oath. His black iron forge is fueled by spite and spellfire, and every weapon he makes remembers the battles it was denied. Vornak has tusk-chipped teeth, a cracked skull plate, and arms like anvils. He has crafted arms for tyrants and traitors—and now only for rebels.

Vornak rarely speaks, but when he does, his words weigh tons. He respects strength, but not foolishness, and has broken more than one arrogant rebel’s sword to teach a lesson. Murf earned his approval by refusing to flinch during a tempering ritual. Markus once traded an ancient arrowhead for a blade that burns brighter in darkness. Vornak’s smithy is protected by molten glyphs that whisper when steel is drawn.

He keeps a broken oathblade above his forge—a weapon he swore never to remake. He fears becoming what he once was and forges only what he calls “weapons of defiance.” His gear is used in Black Church inquisitions and rebel assassinations alike. Deep inside, he just wants to build one thing worthy of redemption.

Xazrith, Arch-General

Arch-General Xazrith is the iron-fisted military enforcer of Matron Morraine’s regime, a drow warrior whose scarred glaive speaks louder than her voice. She once commanded battalions for the old noble orders before swearing herself to Morraine’s eldritch cause. Clad in chitinous black plate carved with Chaos runes, Xazrith inspires dread on the battlefield and total obedience in the ranks. Her gaze alone is said to trigger flashbacks in weaker soldiers. Yet behind her stoic demeanor is a past steeped in pain and betrayal.

Xazrith was once married to Marak, and their parting left a wound she’s never fully allowed to close. Her loyalty to Morraine stems as much from purpose as it does from vengeance, discipline, and a desperate need to remain useful in the face of divine madness. She drills her legions with absolute precision and is known for enforcing ritual executions by her own hand. Despite her fearsome reputation, she still keeps a faded handwoven charm from Marak's tribe on her belt.

Rumors circulate that Xazrith has begun questioning Morraine’s sanity in private. Her loyalty is fracturing under the strain of constant psionic interference and conflicting orders from cultist hierarchs. She continues to train, hoping that discipline will silence doubt. Her ultimate fear is that she may one day be commanded to kill Marak—or that he will come to kill her, and she won’t resist.

Shops

🛍️ The Hollow Script

Black Church Codex Shop – Dutchloim District

Shopkeeper: Archivist Telsin Rook (Male Half-Elf)
Backstory: Once a famed court scribe for the drow matron houses, Telsin betrayed his lords by transcribing forbidden scripture into living ink. Found by Black Church agents bleeding from his eyes, he was “blessed” with the Sight and given sanctuary in Dutchloim.
Personality & Quirks: Calm and whisper-soft. Telsin compulsively traces words in the air with his fingers and refuses to speak unless inside a warded zone. Sometimes he speaks in reverse or mirrors the exact words someone else is about to say.
Motivations: Telsin believes the only way to destroy a god is to rewrite its origin story. He now crafts sigils and relics that unravel divine truths and encode Black Church prophecy.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Scroll of Threaded Fate – Can be burned during a long rest to receive a vision of a nearby plot or prophecy (once per week).

  • Scripture-Veil Pendant – Once per day, renders any spoken lie as undetectable by divine magic for 1 hour.

  • Inkblot Familiar Bottle – Releases a CR 1 shadow familiar made of cursed ink for 10 minutes.

  • Prayerwheel Censer – Once per long rest, grants +2 to saving throws vs. psychic effects.

  • Mnemonic Grimoire – Read to gain advantage on one Intelligence check per day, but lose a memory for 24 hours.

  • Sibilant Quill – This stylus writes in languages the user doesn’t speak, but only when they bleed on the page.

  • Divine Erasure Chalk – Wipes away divine sigils, glyphs, or runes with a single touch.

  • Scroll of the Hidden Page – Illusion-scroll that hides its real content beneath a false one (detectable only with true seeing).

  • RARE: Glyphsleeve Vestments – Robes that store one spell cast on the wearer, which can be reactivated once within 24 hours.

  • VERY RARE: Inkwell of the Forsaken Word – Allows the user to inscribe one spell into an enemy’s mind as a psychic bomb (must beat DC 17 Wisdom save or take 6d10 psychic on activation, once per week).

• Official 5e Items

  • Wand of Secrets

  • Spell Scroll (3rd level)

  • Ring of Mind Shielding

  • Potion of Clairvoyance

  • Tome of Leadership and Influence (cursed imitation)

  • Helm of Comprehending Languages

  • Eyes of the Rune Keeper

  • Robe of Useful Items

  • Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location

  • Ring of Spell Storing

🔧 The Smoke-Clad Anvil

Black Church Forge & Alchemical Smithy – Clasdvill District

Shopkeeper: Vornak "Crater-Tooth" Shalegrit (Male Duergar)
Backstory: Vornak was once a master war-forge contractor for the Patriciate during their first southern expansion. After witnessing the annihilation of a rebel village due to one of his constructs, he abandoned the surface and pledged himself to Ansil through a battlefield vision. Now a consecrated Black Church forgemaster, he smelts not for empire, but for redemption.
Personality & Quirks: Gruff, volcanic temper, but fiercely protective of rebels and artisans. Refuses to use his left hand for forging, claiming it's “the hand of empire.” Keeps a rusted helmet on a spike in his shop that he talks to when making difficult decisions.
Motivations: Seeks to craft weapons worthy of severing divine chains and believes the Crawling Chaos can be cleaved if struck at the right place, at the right time, by the right blade.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Lanternbuckler – A buckler shield that emits dim light in a 10 ft radius; once per day, it blinds aberrations for 1 round (Con save DC 14).

  • Reinforced Fogplate – Heavy armor resistant to psychic damage, but grants vulnerability to radiant while worn.

  • Ashen Mail – Medium armor woven from temple-cinders; gain resistance to fire, but leave soot tracks unless magically silenced.

  • Bastion Gauntlets (VERY RARE) – Once per long rest, can catch and deflect a magical projectile, reducing it to 0 damage and storing it for 1 round to be redirected.

  • Abyssal Blade – Longsword that deals 1d10 slashing plus 1d4 necrotic damage in dim light or darkness.

  • Whispersteel Blade (RARE) – Silent when drawn, deals psychic damage to enemies who fail a Wisdom save (DC 13) on hit once per turn.

  • Firebiter Bolts – Arrows that deal 1d6 bonus fire damage and ignite flammable terrain.

  • Chain of Sworn Vows – Whip that deals psychic damage to oathbreakers (marked with a custom curse or backstory feature).

  • Spineweaver Helm – Grants +1 AC and resistance to being grappled; the back sprouts retractable spines when wearer is bloodied.

  • Hexed Hairpin – Can be driven into metal to rust machinery, disable locks, or disrupt magical constructs.

• Official 5e Items

  • Adamantine Armor (Half Plate)

  • Belt of Dwarvenkind

  • Gauntlets of Ogre Power

  • Potion of Heroism

  • Flame Tongue (Longsword)

  • Immovable Rod

  • Ammunition +1 (20 bolts)

  • Armor of Resistance (Fire)

  • Cloak of Protection

  • Weapon of Warning (War Pick)

🪷 Root & Requiem

Black Church Apothecary of Memory & Bloom – Donigarten District

Shopkeeper: Sister Olorune Vael’Quessir (Female Drow)
Backstory: Once a midwife-priestess of House Vael’Keth, Olorune survived the purging of her temple by hiding in Donigarten’s rootbeds for seven days, nourished only by the whispers of the land itself. She emerged changed—no longer worshipping any god, but listening to what she calls “The Memory Beneath.” She joined the Black Church after aiding in the birth of a revenant Ainheria.
Personality & Quirks: Warm, soft-spoken, often finishes sentences with lullabies. Tends to plants as if they are children. Her shadow sometimes moves in gestures opposite her body.
Motivations: To preserve memories and spirits through herbal alchemy. She believes death is not an end, but a transition misunderstood by gods. She helps the Black Church grow their resistance by nurturing forgotten strength.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Eclipsing Tonic – Grants +1 to Wisdom checks and saving throws for 1 hour; side effect: visions of past selves.

  • Sunroot Elixir – Heals 4d4+4 HP and removes one level of exhaustion, but makes you glow faintly for 10 minutes.

  • Fogmilk Draught – Once consumed, allows player to walk through fog-based illusions for 1 hour.

  • Vial of Silver Breath – Grants immunity to poison for 10 minutes and allows whispering across 100 feet.

  • Bloodrose Tonic – Restores 2d6 HP on consumption, and creates a crimson bloom in your palm that can cast command (once).

  • Shroud-Wrapped Philter (RARE) – Once drunk, allows the user to become intangible for 1 round when hit. Usable once per long rest.

  • Rebirth Salt – Revives a creature that died within 1 minute to 1 HP, but they return with no memory of the past day.

  • Bone-Stitched Bandages (Cursed) – Heal 3d8 HP, but for the next 24 hours, the recipient feels phantom pain anytime a nearby creature takes damage.

  • Dew of Forgotten Saints (VERY RARE) – When consumed, grants one automatic success on a death save and immunity to radiant damage for 1 hour.

  • Prayer Pebbles – Small etched stones that glow in the presence of divine magic and whisper forgotten prayers.

• Official 5e Items

  • Potion of Healing (Greater)

  • Elixir of Health

  • Potion of Vitality

  • Oil of Etherealness

  • Bead of Force

  • Necklace of Adaptation

  • Amulet of Health

  • Periapt of Wound Closure

  • Scroll of Protection (Aberrations)

  • Stone of Good Luck (Luckstone)

🕳 Echo & Holler

Black Church Memory Curio & Shadow Trader – Braeryn District

Shopkeeper: Sharn the Twice-Drowned (Nonbinary Deep Gnome)
Backstory: Once a seer enslaved by drow inquisitors, Sharn’s memories were ritually torn apart during an experiment to unwrite prophecy. Escaping into the Braeryn, they survived by gathering fragments of forgotten lore and storing them in jars, vials, and ink-stained paper dolls. The Black Church found them whispering prophecies to the wind, and offered a place, not as an oracle—but a collector.
Personality & Quirks: Sharn speaks in riddles, repeats phrases from people who haven’t spoken yet, and writes backwards when thinking. They wear a cloak stitched from diary pages and always smell faintly of lilac and ink. Will not answer a direct question unless bribed with a story.
Motivations: Sharn wants to reconstruct what was erased from the world. They believe the Crawling Chaos’s greatest sin is not destruction, but erasure. Through memories—shattered, stolen, or sold—they resist.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Memory-Knot Bracelet – Tie it to a finger and recall one forgotten truth (or hallucinate one). Once per long rest.

  • Earrings of Sudden Silence – Once per day, silence a 20 ft radius for 1 minute without concentration.

  • Witch-Coin Choker – Wearing this lets you re-roll a failed death save once, but you lose a minor memory (chosen by DM).

  • Ring of Smoke-Sight – See through magical darkness and illusions for 10 minutes/day. Leaves a smoky eye mark on your iris.

  • Amulet of Oozing Light (VERY RARE) – When you are dying, this pulses outward with radiant light, healing 2d10 to allies in range and dealing 2d10 radiant to aberrations.

  • Doll of the Hollowed Saint (RARE) – Can store a dying creature’s last words and replay them once per long rest.

  • Timewound Pocketwatch – Once per week, repeat the last round of combat. May trigger time-ghosts.

  • Liar’s Lens – Eyepiece that glows faintly when a lie is spoken near the user. May trigger false positives if worn by the cursed.

  • Fable-Map – A shifting cloth map that shows symbolic representations of secrets, not literal geography.

  • Astral Thread – A spool of shimmering thread that binds one object or creature to another. Can reveal hidden connections once per long rest.

• Official 5e Items

  • Sending Stones

  • Scroll of Protection (Fiends)

  • Dust of Disappearance

  • Potion of Gaseous Form

  • Wand of Magic Detection

  • Boots of Elvenkind

  • Robe of Eyes

  • Cloak of Elvenkind

  • Eversmoking Bottle

  • Ghost Lantern

🧠 The Fracture Lexicon

Black Church Arcana & Forbidden Thought Repository – Tier Breche District

Shopkeeper: Professor Vellin Mark (Male Human, Age Unknown)
Backstory: Once a respected cognitive arcanist of the Spellwright Consortium, Vellin discovered an ancient cipher that rewrote the very framework of magical theory. Upon presenting his findings, he was branded insane, imprisoned, and nearly lobotomized. Saved by a Black Church sleeper agent, he now manages a forbidden trove of arcana and rogue thought-patterns from a warded chamber deep in Tier Breche.
Personality & Quirks: Eloquent but scatterbrained. Vellin often forgets conversations mid-sentence and restarts them using different logic threads. Writes formulas on the walls using chalk he later eats. Considers forgetting a moral act.
Motivations: Vellin believes that truth is recursive and must be unraveled through contradiction. He seeks to “detonate the lie of understanding” and birth a new cognitive age through fragmented spell theory. Loyal to the Black Church’s goal of freeing minds from divine compulsion.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Mask of the Elseface – While worn, allows the user to cast detect thoughts at will, but you lose all memory of who you are for 10 minutes afterward.

  • Mourning Bell Pendant – Worn around the neck; rings softly when someone nearby lies about something they once believed.

  • Paper Effigy – Craft a paper doll with a drop of someone’s blood to receive dreams about their recent fears. Can only hold one person’s essence at a time.

  • Whispersteel Quill – Writes in hidden ink only revealed when someone nearby speaks the true name of a god.

  • Lexicon of Shattered Thoughts (RARE) – Tome containing fractured cantrips and riddles. As a bonus action, can cast one spell of your level minus 1 with +1 to DC, but must roll on a madness table.

  • Starshard Feather (VERY RARE) – Pluck this into your flesh to rewrite one known spell with a spell of the same level you’ve never cast before (once per long rest). Psychic backlash deals 3d10 damage.

  • Compass of Nevernorth – Points not toward cardinal direction, but toward the last place you were most afraid.

  • Chain of Stolen Meaning – A silver circlet that makes the wearer immune to zone of truth and causes others to misinterpret what they say.

  • Sigil-Stapler – Fires arcane nails that pin glyphs into physical objects. Can make runes persist beyond dispel magic or counterspell.

  • The Erased Inkpot – Use to scribe a scroll or spellbook entry that vanishes from sight. Cannot be read without true seeing or the blood of the original caster.

• Official 5e Items

  • Wand of the War Mage +1

  • Tome of Clear Thought (single-use version)

  • Ring of Spell Storing

  • Robe of the Archmagi (cursed knockoff)

  • Scroll of Wall of Force

  • Potion of Mind Reading

  • Circlet of Blasting

  • Helm of Telepathy

  • Wand of Magic Missiles

  • Manual of Quickness of Action (cursed)

🕷 Velvet Reliquary

Black Church Relic Salon & Forbidden Devotions – Qu’ellarz’Orl District

Shopkeeper: Parona “Ashsoul” Vharvis (Female Drow)
Backstory: Once the youngest high priestess of a minor house, Parona was condemned to slow immolation for consorting with heretic prophets and crafting relics in secret. The Black Church stole her remains mid-execution—some say what returned from the flames was not entirely her. Parona now curates and crafts items for those who dare defy prophecy. She no longer speaks of her noble name except in mockery.
Personality & Quirks: Utterly calm, painfully formal, and incapable of lying. Keeps a gilded reliquary chained to her waist that hums when divine entities are nearby. Refuses to enter temples. Only ever touches items while wearing gloves made from the flesh of saints.
Motivations: Parona seeks to dethrone gods through the corruption of faith. She believes true worship can become a weapon—if inverted correctly. Every relic she crafts is a step toward unbinding the divine cycle.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Veil of Apostate Tears – Hood that grants resistance to radiant damage but causes disadvantage on Persuasion checks made to religious NPCs.

  • Crucifix of the Drowned Saint – As an action, call upon a forgotten martyr to impose disadvantage on an undead or celestial’s next attack roll. Usable 1/day.

  • Divine Embers – Burning ash collected from the robes of a fallen god. Consuming it gives +1 to one saving throw per day, but induces minor hallucinations.

  • Pallid Mask – Wearing it allows the user to see through illusions caused by divine spells. Causes a slight change in your voice each day.

  • Tincture of Grasping Vines – When splashed, causes plants or clothing to animate and grapple one creature (STR save DC 14).

  • Shroud of Devouring Hope (RARE) – Cloak that grants advantage on stealth checks in temples or holy sites; radiant spells cast within 10 feet of you fizzle unless the caster passes a DC 15 Con save.

  • Dagger of the Martyr’s Echo – When thrown, returns to your hand with a whispered memory of its victim. On a crit, it deals 1d8 psychic damage and forces a Wisdom save or silence the target for 1 turn.

  • Censer of the Forgotten Choir – Cast calm emotions once per long rest, but the smell triggers grief in allies (imposes 1 round of lethargy unless they succeed a DC 13 Wisdom save).

  • Candle of Betrayed Vows – Burns for 10 minutes. While lit, detect thoughts works on all within 15 feet but exposes the caster’s surface thoughts to the same.

  • Starshard Reliquary (VERY RARE) – A palm-sized meteor fragment once touched by a dying god. Once per long rest, touch it to cast divination with perfect clarity—but suffer 2 levels of exhaustion.

• Official 5e Items

  • Necklace of Prayer Beads

  • Scroll of Guardian of Faith

  • Rod of the Pact Keeper +1

  • Mace of Disruption

  • Scroll of Divine Word

  • Ring of Resistance (Radiant)

  • Amulet of the Devout +2

  • Scroll of Planar Ally

  • Shield of Expression (icon shifts to reflect the last divine entity you insulted)

  • Periapt of Proof Against Poison

💀 Quill & Chime

Black Church Contract Vault & Secret Binding Atelier – Eastmyr District

Shopkeeper: Lucasta Rellin (Female Tiefling)
Backstory: A former debt witch for the Patriciate's Oathguard Ministry, Lucasta specialized in binding souls to administrative contracts with celestial-seeming language. When she discovered a Beherit fragment locked inside a charter scroll, her sanity frayed—but the Black Church rescued her before she was erased. Now, Lucasta uses that same legal mastery to unmake the oaths she once forged.
Personality & Quirks: Meticulous, formal, and obsessed with etiquette. Signs her name backwards on all documents. Keeps a miniature brass chime that rings when someone nearby is about to agree to something they don’t fully understand. Speaks to contracts like they’re alive.
Motivations: Lucasta wants to unravel the theology of obligation. She sees law, not gods, as the true jailor of Kol—and intends to shatter the divine order with red ink and razor parchment.

• Homebrew Inventory

  • Contract of Mirror Guilt – Enforces a magical pact where any damage one party takes is echoed to the other unless disavowed in blood.

  • Seal of Compelled Truth – A silver wax seal that casts zone of truth on the next contract it's applied to.

  • Ledger of Forgotten Oaths – A cursed book that reveals a creature's oldest broken promise, once per long rest.

  • Oath-Pin Quill – Any contract signed with this burns its sigil into the target’s shadow, visible only under moonlight.

  • Ink of Withheld Consent – A rare vial that makes a document appear unsigned to magical detection.

  • Gavel of Soul-Weight (RARE) – A mace that deals extra 2d8 psychic to any creature currently bound by contract, vow, or curse.

  • Obligatory Vestments – Robes that compel all creatures who see you to address you formally and avoid hostility for 1 minute (once/day).

  • Chime of the Last Loophole – Rings once when a binding magical contract is about to be broken or exploited.

  • Coin of Forfeit Favor – Flip to retroactively transfer a favor owed to someone else (Insight DC 17 to notice it).

  • Vault Key of Unnamed Debt (VERY RARE) – Opens any lock tied to a magical debt or stolen name. If used, the user becomes bound to one favor owed by the item’s previous owner.

• Official 5e Items

  • Scroll of Geas

  • Scroll of Modify Memory

  • Robe of Eyes

  • Ring of Mind Shielding

  • Heward’s Handy Haversack

  • Eversmoking Bottle

  • Tome of Leadership and Influence

  • Portable Hole

  • Decanter of Endless Water (for contract rituals)

  • Candle of Invocation (divine corruption hazard)

RHAGLUNIEATH MADNESS SYSTEM

“Madness here is not a scream. It’s a whisper that changes the shape of your past.” — Lilith, the White Rabbit

Core Madness Mechanic: Madness Points (MP)

Each player in Rhaglunieath tracks Madness Points, a measure of how warped their mind has become by psychic pollution, divine corruption, and memory bleed.

• Gain Madness Points (MP) when exposed to:

  • Failing saves against district-specific madness effects (see above)

  • Witnessing horrors tied to the Crawling Chaos or a Beherit activation

  • Participating in rituals or using cursed/memory-linked items

  • Reading forbidden texts, especially from Tier Breche or Qu’ellarz’Orl

  • Re-experiencing false memories, dreams, or identities from Braeryn

  • Casting divination or enchantment spells without protection

🧠 Optional Rule: Wisdom or Charisma-based characters may substitute a saving throw of their core casting stat for Wisdom saves tied to madness events.

MADNESS THRESHOLDS

Madness Points (MP)ConditionExample Effects1–3 MPUneasyDisadvantage on Insight in divine or holy places4–6 MPFragmentedNightmares, memory flashes, possible false beliefs7–9 MPUnstableMild hallucinations (sight/sound), minor personality shift10–12 MPCorruptedFalse memory manifests as real; gain a Madness Flaw13+ MPBrokenDM controls behavior for 1d4 rounds during high stress; risk of permanent identity loss

MADNESS FLAWS (Choose or Roll 1d8 at MP 10+)

1. You believe the world ended 100 years ago and everything since is a lie.

2. You’re convinced one party member is a shapeshifted impostor.

3. You cannot say your real name—or remember it without help.

4. You believe you’re living someone else’s story.

5. You compulsively write sigils on surfaces and forget doing it.

6. You think you've already died and are watching your body play out old memories.

7. You re-experience an old trauma every time someone casts a spell nearby.

8. You believe your actions are being controlled by an unseen reader (meta-horror).

🧠 Optional Rule: You may gain one additional flaw for every 3 points above MP 10.

CONSEQUENCES OF MADNESS

• At 7+ MP, Insight, Arcana, and Religion checks made inside Rhaglunieath are at disadvantage.

• At 10+ MP, Remove Curse or Greater Restoration must be used at a higher level (5th or 6th) to have any effect.

• At 13+ MP, every long rest risks permanently losing a core memory, chosen randomly unless magically shielded.

EXAMPLES OF ESCALATION

• Stepping into Donigarten barefoot, a player hears their mother whispering in the vines. They fail a DC 14 Wisdom save → gain 1 MP.

• Reading a glyph-bound scroll in Tier Breche with a mistranslation → gain 2 MP.

• A character sleeps in Braeryn and wakes up believing the rebellion never happened, attacking a rebel ally → now has 8 MP and a flaw.

• A Cleric in Qu’ellarz’Orl lies to a Matron → psychic feedback triggers Truth Infection, and they gain 2 MP, breaching the 10+ tier.

• After casting divination on a Beherit fragment, a PC’s mirror reflection speaks to them. Failing the save, they gain 3 MP and now believe they're a god in mortal form.

REDUCING MADNESS

MethodMP RecoveredCompleting a major Black Church ritual-2 MPSpending a full rest under Cait Sith guidance (like Murf’s familiar)-2 MPUsing Dew of Forgotten Saints-3 MPVisiting the Mirror-Drift Baths with a personal secret-1 MPReceiving a Greater Restoration or Restoration + Insight intervention-3 MPBurning a Prayer Pebble in divine silence-1 MP