Anubhak

Demon Lord of Monsters and the Unquiet Dead   Pre-History - An ancient legend tells of a monster so powerful and wicked that the gods banished him to be entombed on a remote island. The knowledge of this island was then erased from the minds of mortals so that it would be found on no map and remain lost.   5495 AE - The island of Maljeray is discovered, along with the secret Tomb of Anubhak. Anubhak worship is reintroduced to the world.   1500 CE - Tecumeth, a center of Anubhak worship in Anoria, falls.   3582 CE - A cult calling themselves the Scions of Anubhak insinuate themselves into the the society of Lokar, the Sacred City of Aleria. They incite a revolt, but it is put down by the combined forces of the city's indentured serfs and the mercenary/explorer group known as the Seekers.   3592 CE - Tarrus the One-Eyed, Lord of Liem, learns that one of the legendary Keys of Telku is located in dead Tecumeth, in the treasure chamber of Rhannon the Necromancer. He hires the Red Hawks, one of Anoria's mightiest army of mercenaries, to march into Tecumeth and retrieve it. However, the mercenary army is decimated by the Grog Warband, an army of hobgoblins who have taken up residence within the dead city's walls, and who are currently lead by a vicious minotaur called Delgar the Beast. After the failure of his first expedition, Tarrus hires a smaller team of Adventurers to infiltrate Tecumeth and locate the Key. While there, they encounter the ghouls, remnants of Tecumeth's former populace, who infest the city's catacombs and continue to follow Anubhak's dark rites. One ghoul in particular, a half-elf sorcerer named Arham who was bitten and transformed 50 years previous searching for the legendary Stone of Tribulia, becomes obsessed with the Adventurer named Adrienne when she steals his journal and ceremonial dagger. At one point while searching through Tecumeth , the Adventurers stumble across a shrine to Anubhak, stealing two magic jewels from the eyes of an idol to the dark lord and fighting off some of his ghoul followers.   The next time the Adventurers encounter followers of Anubhak, they are in the far northern village of Winter Wolf, which is being infected with a curse of lycanthropy. While investigating, the Adventurers discover that the cult of Anubhak may be the source of the infection. The Adventurers stop the werewolves, and also a gang of worgs and dire wolves all worshiping the demon lord.   Later, the Adventurers must confront Arham's son Grakhirt, who is uniting local goblin tribes to besiege the village of Nolivar and take its people as slaves. Though they slay Grakhirt, it is unclear if he, like his father, is a follower of Anubhak.   When the inquisitor of Ciril, Gideon Lorr, receives a prophetic dream in which he sees the vampire Lord Calibar destroying his home village of Stoutwall, he asks his fellow Adventurers to travel with him to Epethys to investigate. There they are coerced by a vampire named Valhingen, who claims to be Calibar's lieutenant, into investigating the tomb of Dir-Yabon, stating that the dead mage's machinations are what actually threaten Stoutwall. Gideon, who is a dhampir, must also confront the upsetting news that Calibar is in fact his sire. In the end, Gideon appears to sacrifice himself to save Stoutwall and his friends, even as Valhingen reveals that he was acting against Calibar, hoping to hurt him through the destruction of his son. After the Adventurers exit the tomb, they are confronted by ghouls, agents of Arham the sorcerer,who has continued to stalk them since they left Tecumeth.   After capturing or killing several escaped criminals in Distryll on another quest for Tarrus, the Adventurers are puzzled to hear one of them, Regla the Gasper, overcome with some sort of possession, scream the words "the Pillars of Midnight," right before she is executed for her crimes. With no other leads to go on, Tarrus sends one of the Adventurers, Nari Ashida, to Ferrantia to research the Pillars of Midnight in their expansive library. It is revealed that the Pillars of Midnight are referenced in a story called The Shadow in the Darkness, found in a book titled Legends of the Southlands, which refers to a brave warrior attempting, and failing, to save his beloved from the influence of some evil deity. After Nari is rejoined by her fellow Adventurers and a group of crusaders calling themselves the Light of the Sun, they all compare notes to discover that the Pillars of Midnight may in fact be a reference to a temple of Anubhak, where a cult calling themselves the Hand of Naraash are subjugating the local populace and conducting dark rituals in the demon-lord's name. The Light of the Sun tells the Adventurers that one of their own, a paladin of the Ancient god Jeda, named Jaryn, has gone missing searching for the Pillars of Midnight. The Adventurers agree to search for Jaryn while they investigate the Pillars of Midnight for the location of the next Key of Telku.   After locating the heart of the Hand of Naraash cult in the Grey Mountains and defeating Jaryn, who appears to have been possessed by Anubhak himself, the Adventurers discover that one of their own, a half-elf ranger who called himself Ramha Greensleeves, was actually the ghoul sorcerer Arham in disguise. But before Arham can stop the party, their dog Archie reveals himself to be a hound archon, who leads them through a portal in the Hand of Naraash temple to a far distant location in the Southlands, a so-called "Tomb of Anubhka." Here a scion of Anubhak guards one of the powerful Keys of Telku. Archie uses a fragment of the Rod of Law to grant the temporary powers of demigods to the party, allowing them to defeat the scion. With the loss of Anubhak's guardian, the tomb collapses.   Meanwhile, the party calling themselves Not by Choice has several encounters with the Ebon Triad, a cult who worships the legendary necromancer Rhannon as a deity. It is unknown at this time what followers of Anubhak think of this cult.   Current (3593 CE)- After travelling as far as Magepoint on the borders of Thyatis, the Adventurers return to Anoria and take a mission to retrieve another of the Keys of Telku from the lost dwarven city of Kragarak atop Mount Galadea. During the journey, they are once more betrayed by an erstwhile companion when the half-elven bard Liscales turns out to be a werewolf who leads the party into a battle with other followers of Anubhak, including a worg from the party's adventure in Winter Wolf. The worg and its wolf-were minions are all slain, but Liscales escapes.   After the recovering the Key, and then losing it to Tarrus the One-Eyed, the Adventurers find themselves wanted fugitives in Anoria. While hiding under the protection of King Tharin in Lidea, Rados of Niopus inadvertently draws the attention of Anubhak when he uses the head of the dead worg in a ritual to contact his own patron. After leaving Lidea, the party encounters a band of bugbears who appear to be followers of the demon lord. The full ramifications of this encounter and Anubhak's further plans for the Adventurers remain to be seen.