LUSKAN LORE
A character knows the following information with a successful skill check.
History DC 20: In the Year of the Haunting (1377 DR), Captain Deudermont of the pirate hunter Sea Sprite broke the stranglehold of a collection of pirates and evil wizards over Luskan to briefly serve as governor. Deudermont’s reign was short—the populace was too accustomed to the corruption-as-usual practices of the former city masters. The City of Sails ultimately fell back into the hands of the surviving high captains, who immediately began to fight among themselves. Within a decade all four had either been killed or run off.
Left without any central government, even a corrupt one, there was no hope left for Luskan. Rival gangs of thieves and pirates have been fighting, street by street and alley by alley, ever since. In the ensuing decades, numerous attempts have been made by master thieves, pirate captains, bandit kings, and monsters ranging from kobolds to beholders to take control of the city, but nothing resembling a government has stayed in power for more than a few months.
Streetwise DC 15: Huge tracts of Luskan lie in ruins—four thousand people inhabit a city built to accommodate ten times that many. The port is now useless, crowded with the half-sunken hulks of the last ships unlucky enough to tie up here, including the once-mighty Sea Sprite. No central leadership, and nothing even remotely resembling a city watch, exists. On a walk through the streets of Luskan, one encounters rats and other vermin the size of horses, roaming gangs collecting whatever meager spoils the rubble might still yield, and dead people and animals rotting in the streets or floating face down in the filthy, disease-ridden Mirar River.
Thieves and other outlaws who flee justice from places such as Waterdeep are never pursued past the gates of Luskan. No dungeon cell in another northern city could possibly be a worse fate. This sort of “immigration” is primarily how the population replenishes itself.
SITES AND FEATURES
Getting around in Luskan is an adventure. You never know if you’ll accidentally wander into the territory of a blood-crazed gang of thieves, wererats, or Shou yakuza.
The Broken Bridges: All three of the great bridges that once spanned the Mirar River are smashed. Attempts are occasionally made to repair them, sometimes with just a few ropes—so that the gang responsible for the repairs can charge a toll to cross. In the chaos of the City of Anarchy, these makeshift crossings never last long. Diving into the filthy, disease-laden, monster-infested river is attempted only by the desperate or the insane. Most Luskars content themselves with staying on their side of the waterway.
The Hosttower of the Arcane: Once the home of the Arcane Brotherhood, this strange ruin is haunted by undead. Lesser creatures roam the area around the structure; greater threats are entombed below. Few dungeons are more dangerous than this one, and the locals won’t go anywhere near it.
THE ABYSSAL PLAGUE:
BEHIND THE SCENES
In a dark dimension beyond the known planes of existence, the Chained God thirsts for freedom. Infusing his will into the residue of a long-dead universe—scarlet liquid shot through with veins of silver and flecks of gold—he sends this liquid crystal between worlds to prepare his way. But his will is not the only force that drives the Voidharrow.
Imbued with the power of the Voidharrow, the dragon Vestapalk creates a horde of demonic minions to spread the Abyssal Plague across the Nentir Vale. But the threat is not contained within a single world: Faerûn and Athas must contend with their own outbreaks of tainted demons and virulent disease. Will the Voidharrow consume the multiverse? Will the Chained God break free? Or will the heroes of the age put a stop to the Abyssal Plague?
The Abyssal Plague is an event that spans the geography of Dungeons & Dragons. Seven novels and a five-part novella tell its story across three worlds, and its insidious reach extends into roleplaying products such as Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale and future seasons of D&D Encounters.
With Shadowbane, the story of the Abyssal Plague is nearing its end. This is the second book (following Bruce Cordell’s Sword of the Gods) that tells the story of the Plague’s intrusion into the world of the Forgotten Realms, even as the central story of the Abyssal Plague has been unfolding in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS novels written by Bill Slavicsek, Don Bassingthwaite, and James Wyatt.
The Abyssal Plague story is something of an experiment. We at Wizards of the Coast wanted to see if we could create an event that would bridge our disparate novel lines, encouraging readers who are loyal to just one of our worlds to try reading books set in others as well. We also wanted to orchestrate a shared experience between novel readers and roleplaying gamers. The full fruition of that effort is yet to come, but it’s something we’ll be doing again in future years.
THARIZDUN: ORIGINS
As we set about looking for a story that could span the worlds of D&D without turning into one of those crazy comic-book mashups that pits Spider-Man against Superman in an event that strains credulity, we ended up drawing on elements that stretch way back in the history of D&D to the Chained God, Tharizdun. Created by Gary Gygax himself in the 1982 adventure The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, the Chained God clearly hearkens back to the malign ancient deities imagined by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Monte Cook’s Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure (2001) drew on the Forgotten Temple’s mythology and made Tharizdun, also called the Elder Elemental Eye, a central figure.
In 4th Edition, we gave Tharizdun a key role in the early days of the universe. As described in the Monster Manual, Tharizdun created the Abyss by inserting a shard of pure evil into the swirling maelstrom of the Elemental Chaos. As punishment for his crime, the other gods locked him away in an extraplanar prison.
And that’s the starting point for the Abyssal Plague event. As we plotted out the story, we decided that Tharizdun’s prison was actually the remains of a dead universe, where the Abyss had grown to consume the entire cosmos. In sort of a divine act of poetic justice, the gods locked Tharizdun away in a universe that symbolized the threat of his own crime.
THARIZDUN: ESCAPE ATTEMPT!
As described in The Gates of Madness, a cult of Tharizdun used a shard of the Living Gate to open the Vast Gate, creating a window into his prison just wide enough for him to send through the Voidharrow.
The Vast Gate first appeared in Bruce Cordell’s adventure The Gates of Firestorm Peak (1996), where it was described as the portal through which the Far Realm exerted its influence on the adventure’s dungeon. The Living Gate, though, was first described in Player’s Handbook 3 and The Plane Above (2010)—a strange Astral portal, also leading to the Far Realm, discovered by Pelor, Ioun, and Tharizdun near the beginning of time. The shattering of the Living Gate created the shard-mind race and proved a pivotal event in the history of psionic power.
So the cult used part of the Living Gate to open the Vast Gate, creating a tiny window into Tharizdun’s prison. Tharizdun sent the Voidharrow through that window with the idea that his cultists could use it to enhance the power of the Vast Gate and widen the portal so Tharizdun himself could emerge from his prison. But, as so often happens, a group of adventurers foiled that dastardly plan. Even as the Voidharrow transformed the unwitting cultists into demons, the adventurers came in and disrupted the Vast Gate. In the ensuing chaos, demons and other fragments of the Voidharrow were scattered throughout the cosmos.
The demon called Nu Alin, introduced in Mark of Nerath, was one of the cultists who opened the portal, transformed by the Voidharrow into a liquid being that inhabited mortal bodies. A vial of the Voidharrow substance itself came back to the world with the adventurers, where it ended up in the wizard Moorin’s tower in Fallcrest.
THE PLAGUE STRIKES
The Abyssal Plague gets underway in Don Bassingthwaite’s novel, The Temple of Yellow Skulls. Familiar characters introduced in Bill Slavicsek’s Mark of Nerath return in Yellow Skulls: the eladrin wizard Albanon, the human fighter Shara, the halfling rogue Uldane.
Also back on the scene are the mysterious possessing demon Nu Alin and the green dragon Vestapalk, dual harbingers of the plague.
The Temple of Yellow Skulls picks up more or less where Mark of Nerath left off, but it puts the adventurers’ focus firmly on the threat of the Voidharrow. As the novel begins, three adventurers—Shara, Albanon, and Uldane—are in Fallcrest trying to decide what to do next. They’re quickly thrown into adventure, of course, and along the way they visit one of the most evocatively named places on the map of the Nentir Vale, which gives the book its name. They also meet an aging cleric named Kri Redshal, who claims to be the last surviving member of an order founded by the adventurers in the novella, the Order of Vigilance.
In Oath of Vigilance, by James Wyatt, these adventurers are joined by two old friends from Mark of Nerath: the dragonborn paladin Roghar and the tiefling warlock Tempest. Kri Redshal takes Albanon under his wing, Shara struggles to overcome her failure to avenge the death of her lover and finds comfort with a dashing drow warlock, and Tempest finally confronts the demon that possessed her.
The story of the Abyssal Plague in the Nentir Vale comes to a conclusion in The Eye of the Chained God, coming in April 2012. Don Bassingthwaite returns to wrap up the trilogy, and the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS world will never be the same!
THE PLAGUE SPREADS
Tharizdun’s escape attempt was so impressive that it couldn’t be contained to just a single world. And sure enough, when Tharizdun’s cultists opened the Vast Gate and created a tiny window into the Voidharrow, the multiverse trembled. And cracked.
When the adventurers featured in The Gates of Madness disrupted the cultists’ ritual, bits of the Voidharrow escaped through the Vast Gate and into other worlds. By the time the heroes arrived, with the Voidharrow already come through the gate and the ritual in chaos, the Vast Gate was flickering from world to world. When the heroes first appeared, they could see through the arch of the gate “an unfamiliar city with a tall black tower rising above it,” but moments later that scene was replaced with another. Soon, a cultist “stumbled through the arch. With a flash of crimson light, the man disappeared into a desert landscape under a dark red sun.” And so the Abyssal Plague spread to the world of Athas, the Dark Sun setting. The story of its infestation there is told in Keith R.A. DeCandido’s novel, Under the Crimson Sun.
Two demons—and one of the heroes—passed through the Vast Gate into the world of Faerûn. A demonic weaver of nightmares and a mass of crystalline spider-like creatures both fell through the portal to the Forgotten Realms, as did Demascus, the hero of Sword of the Gods. All that happened a few hundred years ago, and the seeds of the Abyssal Plague lay dormant in Faerûn for centuries.
In Sword of the Gods, Demascus must reconstruct his shattered memories even as he encounters the resurgent Abyssal Plague. Calling itself Murmur, the nightmare demon can infest the dreams of its host and tear the fears from its victims to clothe in pseudo-living flesh. But Murmur is not without all compassion—it seeks to revitalize a sibling Voidharrow fragment that fell with it, one whose “dispersed” nature has scattered its consciousness. If Murmur can resuscitate its sibling (called Scour), the two Voidharrow demons will move on to their next project: whelming the Forgotten Realms with demonic excess as happened in their own home fossil universe.
PLAYING THE ABYSSAL PLAGUE
Unfortunately for the worlds of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, all these different outbreaks of the Abyssal Plague mean containment has been lost. The plague is wider than can be controlled in even seven novels.
If you’re a player of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS roleplaying game, you’ll find statistics for some of the Abyssal Plague demons on the following pages, ready for introduction into your game. (These demons originally appeared in the Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale sourcebook.) And watch for The Elder Elemental Eye, coming in early 2012—a new season of D&D Encounters coming to a game store near you, bringing the story of the Abyssal Plague to an exciting conclusion. http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Feature.aspx?x=dnd/feature/abyssalplague
ABYSSAL PLAGUE
DEMONS
Alien entities from a dead universe, plague demons have the same chaotic and destructive nature as demons from the Abyss deep within the Elemental Chaos. Unleashed upon the natural world, they are a virulent infection that spreads like wildfire through a parched forest.
A ritual undertaken in ancient times released the exarchs of the demon lord of a dead universe, a universe where the demon lord succeeded in conquering its Abyss but also inadvertently destroyed the planes around it. Brought to the natural world, these exarchs planned to establish the Abyssal plague, unleash hordes of plague demons, and open the way for their demon lord to step into this existence.
Heroes of the age stepped forward to disrupt the ritual, and the threat of the plague demons seemed to have been dealt with. Recently, however, one of the exarchs escaped from its ancient prison, and the demon lord found a host in the natural world.
Now the Abyssal plague has ignited a fever that burns throughout the land. Plague demons of various forms have begun to appear, threatening civilized settlements across the Nentir Vale. The very touch of a plague demon can pass along a debilitating disease that can lead to death or even transformation in rare cases. The alien disease is capable of turning humans and other natural creatures into plague demons.
Plague Demon
Chaos Hound Level 5 Minion Skirmisher
Medium elemental beast (demon) XP 50
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. Initiative +7
AC 19, Fortitude 18, Reflex 17, Will 15 Perception +3
Speed 8 Darkvision
TRAITS
Pack Attack
The plague demon’s attacks deal 2 extra damage for each other plague demon that is adjacent to the target.
STANDARD ACTIONS
Bite (disease) At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +10 vs. AC
Hit: 5 damage, and the plague demon can shift 1 square. At the end of the encounter, the target makes a saving throw. On a failure, the target contracts Abyssal plague (stage 1).
Str 18 (+6) Dex 16 (+5) Ois 12 (+3)
Con 18 (+6) Int 5 (-1) Cha 10 (+2)
Alignment chaotic evil Languages —
All plague demons so far observed share certain physical characteristics. A crimson crystal substance, either in liquid or solid form, is somehow incorporated into each plague demon’s body. The crimson substance contains strands of silver and flecks of gold, and it appears as either an oozing liquid or as hard as an ARMORED shell. The substance might manifest as veins of pulsating liquid crystal running between armored plates or undulating from cracks in the skin, solid crystal protrusions, or even crystalline weapons emerging from limbs.
Plague Demon
Chaos Hound Level 5 Minion Skirmisher
Medium elemental beast (demon) XP 50
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. Initiative +6
AC 21, Fortitude 19, Reflex 17, Will 15 Perception +7
Speed 6 Darkvision
STANDARD ACTIONS
Grabbing Claws At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +10 vs. AC
Hit: 5 damage, and the target is grabbed (escape DC 15) if the plague demon has no creature grabbed.
Bite (disease) At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature grabbed by the plague demon); +10 vs. AC
Hit: 8 damage. At the end of the encounter, the target makes a saving throw. On a failure, the target contracts Abyssal plague (stage 1).
Str 18 (+6) Dex 14 (+4) Wis 11 (+2)
Con 18 (+6) Int 7 (+0) Cha 10 (+2)
Alignment chaotic evil Languages —
Abyssal Plague Level 8 Disease
Those infected by this disease slowly develop oozing sores, blisters, and growths that appear as crimson crystal laced with veins of silver and flecks of gold. The crystal can be in either liquid or solid form.
Stage 0: The target recovers from the di
sease.
Stage 1: While affected by stage 1, the target exhibits sores and growths across 10 percent of the body and loses a healing surge.
Stage 2: While affected by stage 2, the target has sores and growths over 50 percent of the body and loses a healing surge. The target also takes a -2 penalty to AC, Fortitude, and Reflex, and is slowed.
Check (Stage 1 or Stage 2): At the end of each extended rest, the target makes an Endurance check if it is at stage 1 or 2.
11 or Lower: The stage of the disease increases by 1.
12-15: No change.
16 or Higher: The stage of the disease decreases by 1.
Stage 3: While affected by stage 3, the target has sores and growths over 90 percent of the body. The target also takes a -2 penalty to AC, Fortitude, and Reflex, and is slowed. In addition, the target becomes increasingly disoriented and chaotic as the demonic nature of the disease takes hold.
Check (Stage 3): At the end of each extended rest, the target makes an Endurance check if it is at stage 3.
11 or Lower: The target dies.
12-23: No change.
24 or Higher: The target transforms into a plague demon chaos beast.
Shadowbane: A Forgotten Realms Novel Page 34
