Netheram

Netheram is an enigmatic beholder variant inhabiting the Valefor Deathworks.  Before he became a forge master. he cruised the depths of the Green Nebulous.  As an eye of the deep, he had no interest in the land except for the potential prey that came too close to the water's edge.

Eye of the Deep

One day, he was captured by the apex predators of the Green Nebulous.  The aboleth that captured Netheram decided not to kill him but to punish him for not bending a knee (or flipper, pincer, fin) to them, so they put him in a specially designed tank and sold him off to illithid merchants.  He was then carried north for ten leagues in a glass-steel tank of water.  Drow merchants then purchased him and took him to Valefor where Underdark oddities were highly sought after.

Netheram ended up in a glass covered pool.  This pool was glass covered because above it was the palace chamber for meeting important dignitaries.   This pool awed many who came before whatever hobgoblin satrap held sway over Valefor.  It also led to embarrassing situations when Netheram, in a fit of rage, would spring from the pools murky depths and clatter his pincers on the glass.

Netheram became a forge master by necessity.  He was saved from death after Valefor fell, operated on by duergar dissector/necromancer, implanted with a Tiwa'erra Void Sphere, turned into a death tyrant, modified to have a forge hammer and tongs instead of pincers, and left to figure out what to do with these implements.  Probably, the worst of Netheram's suffering was that he now functioned better hovering about the ground, rather than cruising underwater.  This last condition was said to be a directive from none other than the master of pain and suffering - the god Torog.

Hoof of Gluttony

When raiding barrows, tombs, and crypts it is sometimes good to know what was buried there.

When Morbakh raided the Barrow of Agdúm, all he knew was that the barrow's dead Ogre Lord once

King of Taln'nazân

had a prized weapon of great power.  Unbeknownst to many, the history of that weapon and what happens to those who come to own it is obscure and dark.

Morbakh raided the Barrow of Agdúm, losing most of his soldiers and personnel guard to a powerful ghost.  This ghost was the ward of the barrow and cursed to give watch over the place.   One of her most dangerous powers is the ability to infuse another with the dark gift of Rioch Tetrax.  This comes in the form of them becoming an extremely powerful form of undead called a King of Taln'nazân.  Morbakh succeeded in gaining his much sought after prize, the Hoof of Gluttony.  He yanked what looked like a skeletal horse leg from the resting place of Agdúm and turned to meet the ghost.

Perhaps Morbakh put up a good fight, yet he still died.  His death while wielding the Hoof of Gluttony is probably how he came to be a type of undead called a famine spirit.  This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that he was also infused with fell energies from the barrow's ghost.  He became a Taln'nazân Famine Spirit-King, which is possibly the most powerful form for a King of Taln'nazân.

Brightstar 1507

Ogre Lord Morbakh

It is obvious what these advisers are doing, their masters back at Drakhôr hope to destabilize the empire and wishfully see us waste boots and resources in a drawn-out war. What they and others continue to forget, is that high blood orcs don't fight because they have to, but because they want to.
 
- Blac'drugulois, excerpt from his personal diaries, "Brightstar 1507"

This is one of the observances made by the former emperor of the Orchish Empire.  He made this during the First Ogre War.  This war ended in a stalemate, at least according to the records of the Fograth.  To other powers, it was viewed as a defeat, with the Toomrur and their much revered Ogre Lords now seen as a regional power.

Sweat of Danzar-Khâl

What happened after the Black Tide was defeated and sent fleeing back to Necrocrypt? 

Katrana and friends

That story is still unfolding, but here is a nugget of holy crusaders storming the palace of the Lich Empress - does she perish?  Well sort of, but a super bad ass does not take a dirt nap so easily, for in the end, all are just pawns of even greater powers.

One of the things that helped bring her down for a time is a magical pool called the Sweat of Danzar-Khâl.  This pool of holy water is sited in the area of the Monument of Šadullu.  The Last Saints of Gûn, former high dwarven priests of Maharâg, and the soldiers accompanying them coated their weapons with this stuff and then reapplied it many times, striking Katrana Dumu-loc 99 times.  The number of hits against her is testament of an extremely powerful foe.

The Sweat of Danzar-Khâl acted as a holy curse on Katrana, causing her evil essence to wander lost for almost a century.  The final outcome of what happened to her when she finally found her phylactery is covered in the Monument of Šadullu.

Clouds of the Broken Continent

An entire continent nearly swallowed by the Nine Tongued Worm.  Šadullu was ripped from the mantle of Bal-Kriav and drifted towards the churning rift of a primordial dreadnought.  The Nine

Monument of Šadullu

Tongued Worm had already destroyed one world, and now Bal-Kriav was on the menu.  Fortunately for those that call this world home, the gods arrived and drove the Nine Tongued Worm back to the Elemental Chaos.

Šadullu is often referred to as the Clouds of the Broken Continent.  This is because that is what it looks like from the sea or the air - an entire continent sheared from the surface, broken, and then scattered over a vast area, from a mile or so above the ocean to near airless heights into the clouds.

One of the peoples that dwell among the shattered continent is the Laupha. These storm archons once served the durkoth at the Spire of Rioch Tetrax.  When the durkoth grew flippers and gills, and crawled into the sea, the Laupha were the first to fly to freedom.  They went en-masse to Šadullu and now dwell there in the tens of thousands.

Rifts in the Web

Rifts - not the ones in the ground, but tears in the Web of Magic.  They come in two classes, inter-planar and intra-planar.  Some call them planar gates, but whichever name you pick, they are holes in the Web of Magic.  They come about from use of magic in an area for a prolonged time, like what happened in the Gulimbor Catacysm.  While others come about from the use of magic items or casters opening them.  In the Dawn War, the primordials used these rifts to cross great distances across the planes. or between worlds  Those that opposed the primoridals, the gods and angels of the Throndar and Bal-Kriav.  Sarseg used this gate to send his hordes against a region of Brucrumus known to hold a hospital and training ground for the angelic armies.  Sarseg was crafty when he created the Radullu Rift.  He knew quite a bit about the workings of the Web of Magic - thanks to once being an untainted weave spider.  When Sarseq built the Radullu Rift, he surrounded it with an area of  dead magic which made it irreparable. 

mane preparing to become one with a Manes Chimney

Dawn Era, actively sought to close them as soon as they were detected, or risk being overrun by a seemingly endless horde of primordial soldiers.

The Radullu Rift would lead to great changes in the topography of  Brucrumus's western fringe.  The area on Bal-Kriav's side became flooded from a lake on Throndar.  The water of this lake still feeds into this realm from high atop a plateau of the Northern Hordelands.  The tremendous flow of water created Radullu, Orukhan, and led to the creation of a vast swamp south of the area - a region of the realm now known as the Troll Bogs.   The Nature Protectorate Boglin says that the lake on Throndar would surely have drained by now, but for another gateway somewhere out their that itself acts like a drain from the Troll Bogs, or somewhere else, and forces water back into Throndar's lake.

One of the longest non-permanent gates to remain open was the Sôvuk Sea Gate.  In the Demon Spawn War, this gate was opened by the demon lord Gorag'theg.  He and his abyssal horde used it to cross the planes, leaving the Abyss and entering Bal-Kriav.  The weave spiders took so long to close this gate because Gorag'theg built the Manes Chimneys.  These ghastly towers burned soul energy and in turn provided a counter to the repairing being done by the weave spiders.

Dragon Wake

Dragon Wakes are periods when all the dragons of an area are simultaneously awoken from their slumbers.  Dragons are like cats in that tend to sleep a lot. 

In the earlier D&D editions, they had tables with a percent chance of a party wandering into a 
dragon's lair, finding a sleeping dragon and either threatening it with death or dispatching it outright.   TSR drifted away from that idea with later editions.

Time to score some loot!

There have been three Dragon Wakes on Bal-Kriav.  I put up a piece on the Third Dragon Wake.  The two things all Dragon Wakes have in common is that dragons are awoken from their sleeps abruptly and they are frenzied.  The outcome of dozens or even hundreds of enraged dragons flying around a continent are always devastating to life and property.  During this time, even good dragons are erratic and unpredictable.  

The Third Dragon Wake was started by the kobold sorcerers of Tinvaakin Kurtulmak.  This mage guild, along with Ashmerthoon, hastened the downfall of Arkhosia and Bael-Turath with their Dragon Wake.