Coming of Converu Quest

Coming of Converu Quest:

Nyakigah Sha Yith - Black Libram of Souls

Backstory:

At some point in the millennia between the War of Fire and the fall of the human republic, there was a great archmage of the name of Vila. Tapping the horrendous powers of madness, chaos, and blending it with the void, he created the abomination known as Sothmogga.

Sothmogga was a mindless creation, but designed to grow more powerful as it fed on life and positive energy. Vila had designed the creature to be controlled by the Nyakigah Sha Yith, but Sothmogga soon became too powerful to be directly lead. The beast traveled to a celestial plane known as ‘The Grove of the Celanim’, which was inhabited by a race of beings of pure energy (the Celanim), and the divine, otherworldly trees of their beautiful grove.

Unprepared for a cosmic horror of Sothmogga’s magnitude, the grove was decimated by the monster, which drained its energy for its own. Swollen in size and potency, Sothmogga turned its attentions to Avendar and the prime material. As Sothmogga expended energy to open a portal to our world, the templar Converu appeared, wielding Anirim’s javelin and dealing the distracted creature a mortal blow. Unfortunately, Converu fell in his battle with Sothmogga, perishing to protect both Avendar and the remains of the Celanim.

Sothmogga was bound by the Titans, who confined him with their mightiest spells into the Astral Prison. Converu was rewarded for his task, and Ascended to the status of demigod by Jolinn, who tasked his benevolent spirit with repairing the damage Sothmogga had done to the Celanim and their Grove.

The archmage Vila left the Grove (from which he had unsuccessfully tried to control Sothmogga one last time), fleeing the wrath of the Celanim, the Titans, and the Sons of Jolinn. Vila became a hunted man, barely escaping capture, death, and destruction through the use of the Nyakigah Sha Yith. With time, mortality began to take its toll on Vila, who used the spells in the libram to become a lich.

Unable to remain in any one place or plane for any length of time, Vila’s hold on his own sanity became tenuous, and he lost the Black Libram in one of his constant battles with the Celanim. In time, Vila’s true power faded, and his undead form gradually became less tenable. Eventually, Vila became a demilich, and his only physical presence was in the animation of his skull. [By casting his awareness loose from his physical form, Vila became virtually untrackable -- his remains were hidden in some secluded locale, and his awareness roamed the planes.] Vila was tormented by his fate, as he was unready to leave physicality behind as of yet, and was not content to the arcane and evil mysteries which occupied other liches which had left behind their physical forms.

• * *

Present day:

Converu has nearly completed the long task of cleansing the Grove of Celanim. He is poised to ascend to the heavens, but one final task remains. A group of Sothmogga’s spawn (generally made up of corrupted Celanim) have fled the Grove, making their way to Avendar, where they seek to free Sothmogga, who they regard as their god. They are led by Gyel-Xan, the most powerful of their number. 
Converu seeks to stop them, and returns to Avendar to gather the forces of light.

Act I: The Veil of Shadows

The spawn of Sothmogga have gathered a group of impressionable mortals and power-seekers to form a small cult in Var Bandor. 
Their first task in accomplishing the goal of freeing Sothmogga is to neutralize the threat of the Titans. Knowing that Anirim and his people are too powerful, Gyel-Xan hatches a devious ploy. Rather than removing the Titans (who are far too powerful to be attacked directly), Gyel decides to arrange a massive piece of illusion magic. For the duration of the spell, no Titan will be able to see or detect any visitor to the castle, and no visitor to the castle will be able to see or detect any Titan. [Basically, an archmage-caliber version of the obfuscation spell.]

In this act, the Scions of Sothmogga combined their newfound powers in the prime material to summon a swarm a minor demon lord and a swarm of vershaks to assault the mountain city of Krilin. 
This attack weakened one of the military powers in the Brintor mountains, allowing them to agitate the shuddeni to occupy Kor Thrandir’s forces, as they continued their hunt for the Black Libram.

The attack on Krilin was foiled by Yesa and the forces of the light, who found only a single spawn of Sothmogga, left to direct the attack in a nearby cave. He dissolved into a puddle of acid when slain, leaving the heroes with more questions than answers.

Act II: Alas poor Vila, We Knew Him Well

The spawn discovered that the Black Libram had actually been destroyed, so the only remaining source for knowledge of the spells used to create Sothmogga lay within the archmage Vila. Vila, of course, was now a sort of demilich, but had failed the final incantation needed to grant himself transcendent power. Left with his consciousness trapped inside his immortal skull, Vila had been ensnared by Chagrob, Grand Vizier of Logor, who had affixed him to his throne to make use of his knowledge.

The spawn, aware that the archmage Vaeshir sought the ritual required to transcend into another level of awareness, gave word to him (through the person of Shasarik) that Vila had the information he sought.

Gathering the required reagants from the ritual, Vaeshir and the Shunned gained access to the macabre art gallery of Chagrob, and eventually to his Throne. In return for a series of diabolical bargains, Vaeshir obtained the skull of the demilich Vila for a period of one moon. In return, he agreed to “Return the Skull of the demilich to the Throne of Logor” as part of a dark prophecy.

From the mad demilich, Vaeshir learned the secrets of the ritual. And, for his assistance to the heretics of Yithoul, Vaeshir was able to discover where Vila had gone wrong in his attempt to achieve transcendence.

Vaeshir prepared the ritual, knowing that he must act quickly to return the skull before Chagrob’s deadline. Shasarik, however, harbored resentment that Vaeshir might seek to leave the Coven, as well as for his long indenture to the scholar. Acting on ‘advice’ given to him by the spawn, he disrupted the ritual at a key moment, stunning Vaeshir, rendering him temporarily ineffectual in his new form.

When Chagrob called for Vaeshir to return the skull, Shasarik took up Vaeshir, hoping to placate the demon lord by giving him the skull of the scholar who had sought to bargain with him. As he brought Vaeshir’s skull between planes, however, the binding unraveled, allowing him free action just as he was brought to the court of Chagrob.

Chagrob called due the bargain with Vaeshir, demanding that he produce the skull of the demilich Vila to be returned to his throne. Shasarik held Vila’s skull, and would not yield it. Vaeshir, seeing some avenue of escape, realized that the dark prophecy had no specified whose skull would sit on the Throne of Logor. Further, he had agreed to use his newfound powers as a demilich to assist Chagrob in destroying a demon lord.

With the die cast, and slavery or destruction the only possible outcomes, Vaeshir engaged Chagrob in a magical duel, using every iota of his old repertoire as well as his new powers to tap into the power of the Throne of Logor to make the power of the dark prophecy come to fruition. He defeated Chagrob (thus fulfilling one part of the bargain), then claimed the Throne of Logor (thus fulfilling the rest of the pact), thusly avoiding his fate. Chagrob, eager to curry favor with his now better, accepted a position as Vaeshir’s advocate, acting as advisor to the new demon lord.

Shasarik, having broken free of the last of his mental bonds (his old attachment to Vaeshir was perhaps the last vestige of his sanity) was received by Serachel, who called upon the Court of Logor. In return for Shasarik’s long service, and in recognition for the truth of Shasarik’s dual mental nature, Serachel allowed his true nature to emerge -- a young dragon of the void, whose mentality had been nurtured in the tortured nightmares of Shasarik’s physical shell.

Vaeshir allowed the remaining members of the Coven in the court to depart, and agreed to consider the counsel of Serachel (who warned him that he was still bound, if now only by different oaths), as well as cryptic hints about what the spawn of Sothmogga’s role was in these affairs.

Act III: The Day of the Tentacle

With the return of the archmage Vila’s skull to Avendar proper, the spawn were able to broker a deal with Yurhari (the skull’s new owner), to obtain knowledge of the spells needed to free Sothmogga.

Waiting until the right moment, they struck at the seemingly abandoned Titan castle, slaying the aelin wizard (who had been working with the forces of the light to unravel the true fate of the Titans).

The champions and their allies had eventually discovered that the spawn had used a powerful artifact known as the Orb of Dreams to cloak the castle in a powerful illusion spell. Using knowledge gained from Zilba, the heroes tracked the spawn down to their lair below Var Bandor, where they discovered a ghastly assortment of demons and anomalies. Fighting their way through the lair, they eventually found the Orb, but also a shal’kril -- an organic horror used by Gyel-Xan to record his thoughts. Yesa wore the dread thing, allowing it to inject Gyel’s thoughts directly into her mind. 
She faced the mentalic projection of Xan, and listened to his mad ramblings and discovered that contrary to the belief of the other spawn, Gyel did not actually seek to free Sothmogga -- he sought to become Sothmogga.

While Krilin’s forces were depleted and Kor Thrandir on watch for the shuddeni, they were able to convince the Patrician of the gravity of the situation, and he lent them Corporal Landilus and a division of Earendam’s guard to aid them in breaking through the small army of demons which swarmed about the Titan castle. 
They came to the castle, and broke the Orb at Anirim’s throne, unraveling the spell. The Titans returned to contact with the surrounding world, and the demons above were swiftly dealt with. Below, however, Gyel had spelled the astral prison so that beings beyond a certain power could not physically enter. Thus, the heroes had to descend and fight the remaining spawn, and eventually face Gyel, who had grown extraordinarily potent as he fed off Sothmogga’s energies.

The heroes first killed all the Spawn, which then through Gyel into a panic. He drew massive amounts of negative energy from Sothmogga, and prepared to eliminate the heroes. Before he could do so, however, Converu crossed the planes to return to Avendar, where he confronted Gyel. Further panicked, Gyel drew power as fast as he could, expecting Converu would violate the tenets of the gods and strike him down. Much to his dismay, Converu did nothing, as by drawing on so much power, Gyel had become indistinguishable from Sothmogga in terms of his mystical energy signature. The astral prison’s spell enclosed Gyel, “reading” him as Sothmogga, and binding him the same way his progenitor was bound.

Converu comforted the heroes, and promised them that he had returned as a demigod of the light, and then returned to pay homage to Jolinn before preparing his own place in the heavens.

Converu was one of Avendar’s most powerful warriors and templars in life, living after the War of Fire, but before the War of Night. (Thus, he was most likely a templar of water.) He no doubt had many and numerous exploits, but the greatest was his sacrifice in defeating Sothmogga.

Why he was tasked with cleansing the grove is not known. Perhaps he begged Jolinn to be able to further aid the Celanim after taking pity on what Sothmogga had done to them (and Jolinn rewarded his self-sacrifice with godhood), or maybe he felt some vice on his part has resulted in his inability to save them (perhaps he could have slain Vila and did not, or something else).

His icon is most likely a sunburst, and he always appears as he did in life, only in a perfected state.