Kyuss

Exile and Rise in Kuluth-Mar (~-6500 AR)

A brilliant but heretical cleric of Yhidothrus, Kyuss Descimus was once a promising apprentice of Zutha, the Runelord of Sloth and master of necromantic conjuration. While Zutha pursued undeath as a means of stasis and indulgence, Kyuss grew disillusioned with necromancy’s limitations. He sought not to preserve the dead, but to evolve beyond them. His radical experimentation drew the ire of the arcanocracy, and he was exiled from Azlant.   Traveling south into the Mwangi Expanse, Kyuss discovered a war-torn land filled with sickness, predation, and death. Rather than dominate the tribes he encountered, he used his charm, divine charisma, and belief-driven leadership to win their loyalty. Offering protection through his elite undead soldiers, Kyuss convinced the people to follow him willingly.   Together, they founded Kuluth-Mar deep in the Jungle of Hungry Trees, atop a powerful ley line nexus. At the heart of this convergence stood a towering Black Obelisk, half-buried in the earth and veined with void-tainted stone. Kyuss recognized its potential and enchanted the Obelisk, intertwining it with the region’s magical currents and converting it into a vast conduit of necromantic and planar energy.   This enchanted Obelisk became both the spiritual and magical core of Kuluth-Mar—an amplifier of Kyuss’s power and a future gateway for his apocalyptic ambitions. His rule began not as a tyrant, but as a protector. To his earliest followers, Kyuss was no villain, but a savior with divine purpose.  

Alliance with Jusad

During this era of apparent prosperity, a sorcerer named Jusad, master of sangromancy and descendant of a blue dragon bloodline, arrived in Kuluth-Mar. He and Kyuss formed a close partnership, their shared vision of transcending death uniting their research. Jusad became Kyuss’s most trusted ally and remained steadfastly loyal throughout.  

The Spellweaver Vault and the Gifts of the Void (~-6400 AR)

While delving into shattered ruins near Kuluth-Mar, Kyuss uncovered a long-forgotten Spell Weaver Node—a derelict complex built by the ancient six-armed spell weaver race. These nodes once served as dimensional laboratories, sites where reality could be bent, rewoven, and transcribed across time and space. Inside the decaying vault, gravity twisted sideways, chronomantic echoes whispered through airless halls, and broken runes pulsed like dying stars. Time flowed unpredictably, memories overlapped, and light fractured into impossible angles.   At the heart of the node, Kyuss discovered Mak’ar, a spell weaver lich. Undead but not mindless, ancient yet not entirely sane, Mak’ar claimed no allegiance to gods or demon lords. He had watched realities burn, timelines collapse, and pantheons rise and vanish. In Kyuss, he saw potential—or perhaps simply an interesting variable.   Mak’ar offered Kyuss two relics unearthed from the node’s inner sanctum:

• The Plates of Ascension, ancient metal tablets etched with planar convergence rites, were designed to harvest soul energy and catalyze transformation into a demon lord.
• The Black Wyrmstone, a powerful crystal said to be one of the building blocks of reality - the void, or that which opposes all that is.

Kyuss recognized the power these artifacts could provide. Though Jusad counseled restraint, Kyuss dismissed the warnings. He saw not corruption, but the final answer—a path to reshape death itself under his dominion.   Mak’ar asked for no price. Perhaps he simply wanted to observe what would happen.   From that moment forward, the ley lines of Kuluth-Mar began to twist around the Black Wyrmstone. The city became a crucible of planar tension and necrotic transformation. The stage was set for Kyuss’s final rite.  

The Age of the Worm God (~-6400 to -4800 AR)

As the power of the Black Wyrmstone fused with the Black Obelisk and the leyline nexus beneath Kuluth-Mar, Kyuss’s dominion grew unchecked. Now revered as a living god by his followers, Kyuss fed on the life force of ritual sacrifices and siphoned the chronomantic energy of the Wyrmstone to extend his existence far beyond mortal limits. Centuries passed in Golarion, yet within Kuluth-Mar, time slowed. The jungle withered outside its walls while the city thrived in eerie stillness, protected by wormthralls and void-empowered wards.  

Earthfall and the Suspension of Ascension (-5293 AR)

When the Starstone fell from the sky and obliterated Azlant, the world descended into the Age of Darkness. The cataclysm disrupted the leylines, destabilized arcane fields, and sent divine and planar energies into disarray. Kyuss’s ongoing preparations for ascension faltered—ritual components failed, planar connections fractured, and the Abyssal tide he relied upon was cut off.   Rather than risk failure, Kyuss suspended his ascension, focusing instead on preserving his sanctuary. The Black Wyrmstone, though twisted by void energy, remained functional. It created a protective sphere of temporal stillness, shielding Kuluth-Mar and sustaining Kyuss and his undead legion while the rest of Golarion suffered.  

The Rite of the Worm and the Fall of Kuluth-Mar (-4977 AR)

As the planar tides restabilized and the arcane flow returned, Kyuss enacted his long-planned cataclysmic ritual designed to elevate him into a full-fledged demon lord. With the Black Wyrmstone and Plates of Ascension in hand, Kyuss tethered the Black Obelisk to multiple planes and began siphoning the souls of Kuluth-Mar’s citizens en masse. The skies blackened with parasitic stormfronts, worm-shaped lightning raked the city, and necrotic rain fell in torrents, liquefying flesh into divine fuel. Thousands died, bodies decaying faster than the life could leave their melting shells. Their screams of agony were hymns of suffering to Kyuss.   Such power could not escape divine notice.   Tynathria, draconic goddess of creation and destruction, sensed the corruption of the wyrmstone that she had forged. An implement of her making was being used to elevate a lesser being. It was an affront to her draconic pride. Acting through her High Priestess, Ardura Tor'lyn, she dispatched a sacred cohort of drow priests to intervene. In a final act of sacrifice, the priests bled their life essence directly into the Black Obelisk, reversing its function. What was meant to be a planar gateway became instead a prison, a tomb for Kyuss’s transcendent form.   The backlash was apocalyptic. The wyrmstone detonated, releasing uncontrollable waves of necrotic energy. Kuluth-Mar was annihilated, its temples flattened and its people twisted into the first Spawn of Kyuss—undead horrors riddled with immortal worms.   Amid the maelstrom, Jusad—Kyuss’s loyal sorcerer ally—was hurled from the ritual site. His body was ravaged by voidfire, his face erased, his name obliterated. When he rose again, he was no longer the man he had been. But even stripped of his identity, he would be forever devoted to his master’s return.  

Imprisonment and Cult Legacy

Imprisoned within the Black Obelisk, Kyuss’s hatred simmered. Though his body was gone, his essence endured. The Obelisk radiated Yhidothrus’s corruption, animating undead and spawning new horrors. His cult preserved his teachings and sought to fulfill prophecies that would one day free him.   To protect the world from his influence, his name was systematically purged by the Church of Pharasma and other faiths. Kyuss became a forbidden legend—his deeds erased, his city buried, his title twisted into myth.  

The Awakening and Dragotha (3225 AR)

Millennia later, the draconic tyrant Dragothalax, seeking immortality, was drawn to the Obelisk. Kyuss reached out telepathically and promised him the power of undeath in exchange for freedom. Dragotha lax shattered the Obelisk’s seals and partially released Kyuss’s essence. In return, Kyuss gifted Dragothalax the secrets of true undeath, transforming him into Golarion’s only true dracolich.  

Tynathria’s Wrath and the Second Imprisonment

Kyuss’s escape incited the wrath of Tynathria, who dispatched her avatar, the Dark Queen, and the Church of the First to intervene. The Dark Queen destroyed Dragothalax’s physical form, but his undeath endured. The Church of the First stole his phylactery, forcing Dragothalax to flee and sever his alliance with Kyuss.   With Dragothalax gone, Kyuss was vulnerable. The Church enacted divine rituals to bind him once again within the Obelisk, sealing him with divine wards.  

Current Status

Kyuss remains imprisoned in the Black Obelisk, his essence still potent, his hate unquenched. His Spawn wander the lands, his cults work in secret, and continue to orchestrate their efforts. Prophecies speak of an Age of Worms, a time when the stars will align and the Obelisk’s seals will shatter. Until then, the Wormgod dreams of freedom, and the world remains unaware of the doom beneath its feet.