Sschindylryn invasion of Eveningstar

The Sschindylryn invasion of Eveningstar was a part of the War of Everlasting Darkness, which saw the Spider Queen Lolth send the drow city of Sschindylryn to war with Cormyr under the cover of the Darkening, primarily fought in the King's Forest and the village of Eveningstar. The goal of the war was the capture of the Thread of the Weave, Ana Brabener, who Lolth intended to consume and use to further her manipulation of the Weave and the creation of the Demon Weave. The fighting around the invasion of Eveningstar spilled into the Underdark and the Demonweb Pits, and even the isolated world of Eberron was drawn into Lolth's plans. The invasion also allowed other forces to take advantage and act openly while the forces of Cormyr were distracted, including the Shadovar of Risen Netheril and the insane druid Halsaime of Thorngap.
==History==
===The War of Everlasting Darkness===
During the rising chaos and upheavals of the Second Sundering, it became apparent that Lolth the Spider Queen was spinning an immense web of conspiracy and bloodshed. In the , her champion Danifae Yauntyrr led an effort to capture relics and holy sites tied to the dead goddess Mystra, and channelled this arcane divinity to Lolth, giving her increasing over the tides of magic in the world and allowing for the creation of her personal Demon Weave. Ultimately, this would allow her to destroy the Weave entirely and replace it with her Demon Weave, making her the one true goddess of magic and the successor of Mystra. This was a similar goal as pursued by High Prince Telamont Tanthul of Thultanthar, who also sought to seize the Weave anchors in order to win Shar the portfolio of magic.
Her follower Tsabrak Xorlarrin drew on the power of the Demon Weave and created the Darkening, allowing the drow to operate effectively even in daylight hours and openly wage war on the surface in previously impossible ways. While much of the fighting took place in the Savage Frontier between Menzoberranzan, the Silver Marches, Mithral Hall, and other powers above and below the ground, the greater conflict reached other parts of Faerûn as Lolth's influence over arcane magic empowered her followers and weakened her foes. 
In distant Cormyr, one component of her grand plan involved the capture of the peasant girl Ana Brabener, who was unknowingly the Thread of the Weave, a living repository of Mystra's divinity. By consuming the divinity within Ana Lolth would take a significant step towards becoming the new and terrible goddess of magic, and by extension allowing her to tyrannize the entire world. She sent forth commands to her devout High Priest Hekta Szind of Sschindylryn, who organized the disparate drow houses of Szind, Avithoul, and Dun'Robar into a powerful coalition, with the lesser involvement of Houses Sparskrael and Cay'Vorym. With Szind's magic, Avithoul's slaves, and Dun'Robar's soldiers, they were able to draw up a sizable army that could openly challenge Cormyr long enough to achieve the capture of the Thread of the Weave. This was made easier by Sschindylryn's mastery of portals, which let them transport troops and supplies rapidly between their city and the surface rather than marching endlessly through the Underdark. Their operations on the surface were further aided by the Darkening, which allowed them to operate openly during the day. With these pieces in play, the city of Sschindylryn was set to war upon Cormyr for the glory of Lolth.
For their part, Cormyr was in a poor position to receive the attack as much of their attention was taken by their enemies in Sembia. Around the same time that the drow invasion began, the forces of Risen Netheril performed the Shadovar invasion of Wheloon, at first secretly and then overtly. They used the Abyssal Planus Mechanus Nether Scroll to create the Shadowfell Nexus and enable their operation, while at the same time Archwizard Amskar worked to build an army and raise a flying glacier fortress in the nearby Storm Horns with which to conquer Cormyr. This meant that the Purple Dragons and War Wizards of Cormyr were split between multiple threats and had difficult addressing each one.
===The Web of Chaos===
In a separate but related scheme, Lolth exploited the world of Eberron via the machinations of her split-self, the Spinner of Shadows. The isolated fragment of her divinity used a cult of the Lords of Dust to shatter her prison in the underworld of Khyber, then opened the Rift Between Worlds, a huge portal directly into the Demonweb Pits. The Spinner was reunited with her greater whole, and Eberron was left at the mercy of the growing hole in reality which would eventually devour the whole world and leave its rubble as a trophy in the Demonweb. While the forces of Eberron worked to contain the rift, Tavnar Kronnak implored a group of adventurers to explore the strange nightmare realm on the other side in the hopes of finding a way to close it permanently.
After wandering into the Demonweb Pits, the Eberronians came across a most fortuitous ally: the sage wizard Elminster himself, on an adversarial jaunt through Lolth's domain and seeking his own escape. He gave them some handy assistance (by destroying a bebilith) and advice on how to leave the domain, and then left them to find their way out. The Eberronians continued to fight their way through the Demonweb in search of an exit, overcoming the champion Draegloth Giismekhan along the way.
===The Darkening===
====Initial Encounters====
The first attacks on Cormyr proper originated from portals that linked between Sschindylryn, the Underdark, and destinations near Eveningstar. One portal appeared on the surface deep within the King's Forest, and served as an initial base of operations in the region, while another appeared in a shallow cave south of Eveningstar across the Starwater River. Neither one linked directly to Sschindylryn, instead leading to within the local Underdark. The portals to the city were located deeper in the Underdark, behind significant drow defenses and native hazards. On the surface, the drow began burning and logging the King's Forest around their portal, intentionally despoiling the landscape in an act of pure spite and driving the local dryads mad with pain. They marched under the artificial night of the Darkening and overtook the scattered villages and hamlets they found while moving north towards Eveningstar. Most prominent of these places was the village of Deep Glen, which was utterly destroyed.
The first wave of raiders struck the western and southern edges of Eveningstar by surprise under the daytime Darkening, burning numerous homes as they went. They captured Tummarlin's farmstead and the village granary, and burned the House of Morning, the large temple to Lathander and Amaunator. Though they were driven off, they destroyed much of the western village and captured many prisoners who were taken away to the Underdark as slaves.
After their attack failed the drow put Eveningstar under siege with raiders that blocked off the roads and made it almost impossible to travel to or from Arabel and Suzail. They also communicated to the defenders that they only sought the Thread of the Weave and would leave the village alone otherwise, though none in the village knew who or what that was. The locals set about desperately building barricades to fortify what remained of the village, using the ruins of the House of Morning and the Eveningstar War Hospital to anchor the palisade. The Purple Dragons began training Evenors as a militia, and numerous bonfires were set up around the village and kept burning to dissuade drow with their bright light.
====Eveningstar Under Siege====
Around this point, the Eberronian planeswalkers arrived from the Abyss to the Underdark via another portal, emerging somewhere inside the rear of the drow forces as they moved onto the surface. They fought their way through the drow and arrived at the D'Zani outpost, overcame Master Wizard Tsabyrr and moved onwards through another portal to the shallow cave south of Eveningstar, where they rescued a number of freshly-captured Evenor villagers, including Ana Brabener. With the drow commander Ydrae Avithoul and her vanguard defeated, the Evenors were returned to the surface and the Purple Dragons and War Wizards moved in and secured the cave, preventing any more drow incursions from that direction using the portal.
During the initial raids, the Midler farmstead was captured by the cruel priestess Vicala Szind, who kept the Midler family alive while she forcefully interrogated them about the Thread of the Weave. She was unable to make any progress thanks to their ignorance, but their cook Maisby remained unnoticed and hid in the farm shed, then fled back to Eveningstar to get help. A pair of Purple Dragons were sent to investigate but were overcome by the Sschindylrynyr drow, then followed up by the adventurers. Learning that Vicala had linked her minions and her prisoners to her own life force, the adventurers had to stealthily free the Midlers and slay Vicala's followers before assailing her, lest she use them as sacrifices.
After the King's Forest village of Deep Glen was destroyed by drow forces, House Szind necromancers descended on the ruins and its large graveyard. They began reanimating both the recently slain Cormyreans and their ancient ancestors, providing the invasion with yet more bodies to press into the fray. The Amaunatori priestess Barana Talmere learned of this desecration and organized a mission to strike at the graveyard, which slew the perfidious necromancers and their undead servants as they excavated great pits in the graveyard and performed their rituals.
In a strange twist of fate, the three young friends Cormul Haythorne, Torin Betrich, and Ana Brabener decided that they needed to do something to end the bloodshed: find the Thread of the Weave. They knew of an old abandoned Temple of Mystra in the King's Forest and went to investigate, hoping to find an answer there. Unfortunately Ana was captured by the drow warleader Odezzt Avithoul, while her friends escaped to get help. Odezzt determined that Ana could be the Thread of the Weave, but before he could finish interrogating and examining her his forces were struck by the Eberronian adventurers and Ana was able to make her escape with them, using her newly-awakened magical abilities to blast through the barriers the drow set to contain her. On her return to Eveningstar she was taken in by Elminster as his student so that she could better use her magical talents, if only to protect the village.
While fighting continued outside the village, the agents of the drow worked to sabotage it from within. A sizable team of yuan-ti worked with the mercenary green dragon Tharmalos, infiltrated the water-filled caverns beneath the village, and poisoned the town's water supply. This was discovered by the stonemason Unmar Halberg, who sent a team down to investigate. They found those responsible for tainting the water supply and slew the great dragon, saving the village from the grave threat.
Another enemy within was the night hag Frelga, who lurked in a cavern near the village along with a coven of forest hags. Together they peered into the dreams of the village and tormented them with mocking threats and demands, hoping to find any clues to the Thread of the Weave. While not a physical danger, the dreams were clearly related to the drow intentions and left the victims in a state of waking terror, and so the Wizard of War Barthand pursued reports of laughter emerging from a hole beneath the ruins of a razed home, and went to investigate underground. After he did not return, the village elder Ingval Muth sought some adventurers to follow and rescue him. They found Barthand imprisoned in the form of a large mushroom and rescued him from the hags, then caught and eliminated Frelga as she pondered her divinations about the Thread of the Weave.
====The Battle for Eveningstar====
The drow returned for a second attack on the village, striking at night this time. Swordcaptain Garwyn Thane organized the defense and planned a strategy to fiercely counterattack once the drow assault faltered. With Elminster distracting the enemy and Ana Brabener holding the gates, the defenders were able to withstand the initial attack, pushed back through the ruins of western Eveningstar, and took the fight to the drow field headquarters. The drow commander Draya Dun'Robar and her bebilith mount Red Weaver were caught at the camp and defeated, sending the remaining drow into a full retreat and relieving Eveningstar of its immediate danger.
===The City of Portals===
The War Wizard Korrex Dunhaven organized wide-ranging strikes on the three main noble houses of the city, aiming not to militarily conquer the city but set the different power blocs against each other. Once they were at each other's throats, not only would their war effort stall, but it would leave the Sschindylryn Ziggurat and High Priestess Hekta Szind open to direct assault.
A team was infiltrated into the compound of House Avithoul thanks to being illusioned to look like harmless slaves. The plan was devised by the driven ex-slave Mirini Elemys, who wished only for Avithoul to be shamed and destroyed. Once inside the estate, the Cormyrean team was able to wreak havoc as they destroyed treasures, killed house members, and freed the slaves, causing a full-fledged revolt. The most foul drow of the house, Slavebreaker Solul, also met his end during the raid. The surfacers escaped without Avithoul realizing what had happened, and they went on to suspect Szind and Dun'Robar as having a hand in sending agents to ruin their house.
The martial house Dun'Robar was targeted by Wizard of War Traegar Vadamore, who sent a group in to sabotage their weapons. Armed with rust monster ichor and illusioned to look as drow servants, the infiltrators simply walked into the estate, destroyed the prized armaments, and slew the High Battlemaster Teblyn Dun'Robar when he challenged the invaders. House of Dun'Robar was left in complete disarray with an armory of ruined weapons, defeated champions, and suspicions of Szind and Avithoul involvement.
House Szind found the ire of the priestess of Amaunator Oryne Belamadin, who detested their necromantic experiments. Still hidden by drowlike illusions, the team was sent in to destroy all the necromantic cauldrons and the undead they produced. The head necromancer Relig met his end, and the intruders crashed into an intra-house plot by Silan Szind to kill and puppet her Matron Mother Zhivisha Szind. By the end of the incursion, Szind had lost much of the magical expertise and equipment used to produce undead, and considered Avithoul and Dun'Robar the most likely instigators of the disaster.
With the three drow houses weakened and their alliance faltering, the Sschindylryn Ziggurat was left relatively vulnerable. Elminster led a team including Ana Brabener into the Ziggurat, aiming to reach the Temple of Lolth at the top. While Elminster unlocked the secure magical portal, Ana and the rest of the team passed through to the Temple of Lolth where High Priestess Hekta Szind awaited. Though unhappy with the invasion, Hekta was in the midst of finishing a large divination ritual that would properly reveal the location of the Thread of the Weave and was thrilled to see that it had been delivered to her. She magically paralyzed the escorts and mind-controlled Ana into walking through a portal to the Demonweb Pits, giving the prize to Lolth.
When the paralysis broke, the adventurers fell upon the High Priestess. Despite her great power and her personal guardians, she was unable to defeat them and made the mistake of begging Lolth for assistance. The response was a hulking goristro that emerged from the portal, denounced her weakness, and executed her. The demon then warned that her favored status had won her a swift death, while those that struggled against Lolth would die much more slowly. With the Thread of the Weave in Lolth's claws, Elminster and his allies were forced to return to Eveningstar and consider their options.
===The Queen of the Demonweb===
After Eveningstar was secured and Sschindylryn set against itself, the War Wizard Xarathas took the lead in the operations against Lolth in her own home plane. A key goal was the capture of several orbs of Lolth, a set of magical artifacts that were vital to keeping Ana trapped and limiting her power. Three of them were vulnerable to attack, though guarded by powerful servants of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
The War Wizard Walak located an orb that was held by Lord Grulemith, a powerful goristro with his own domain. He was protected by legions of demons and monsters, and mockingly challenged the intruders to navigate his labyrinth of a domain while completing arbitrary tests of wisdom and strength. The arrogant demon was finally tracked down in his lair and destroyed, leaving the orb vulnerable to being stolen.
The bold arcanaloth Ymris arrived in Eveningstar disguised as an old man, and offered a deal: he would apply his efforts and that of his team of yugoloth mercenaries towards the goal of slaying the glabrezu Kishnaurac, for he had already been hired by another party to assassinate the demonic lord and was happy to share the burden. Kishnaurac was the chosen guardian of another orb of Lolth hidden inside the Realm of Ruin, and so taking him down would bring Cormyr one step closer to victory. In an unsurprising twist, Kishnaurac simply offered the mercenaries more pay if they worked for him instead, causing the yugoloths to switch sides. Though the demon was slain and the orb recovered, Ymris offered an apology and compensation for the difficulties his hirelings had caused (though only after being encouraged to do so by Elminster).
The third orb of Lolth was found in the Demonweb at the Rift Between Worlds, guarded by the fearsome draegloth Khaszlokhar. The sage Valana developed a spell that would allow the Eberronian adventurers to stop the Rift from growing while stealing the orb—albeit at a significant cost. They were able to use their own life force to sabotage the expansion of the Rift thanks to Valana's adaption of drow blood magic, weakening themselves while saving their homeworld. Khaszlokhar tried to eliminate them while they were in a vulnerable state, but even then the draegloth was defeated and his orb taken.
Elminster's allies performed one final attack to sabotage Lolth's plans and rescue Ana. With three of the orbs removed, the bindings placed on her were weakened and rescuing her became a plausible possibility. Breaking in without stealth or guile, the heroes fended off the armies of minions and Lolth herself as they freed Ana and helped her drain more orbs of Lolth, which strengthened her further while Lolth raged. Finally, the rescue party found a functioning portal out of the Demonweb Pits and escaped with Ana, emerging in the Underdark of Faerûn. Lolth appeared one final time in material reality to smite Ana as a lesson in power—only to find that she could not, and Ana blasted the Demon Queen back into her domain.
Knowing that Lolth would continue to pursue the Thread of the Weave and place Eveningstar in more danger, Ana and Elminster departed together in order to hide her from Lolth's gaze. With Ana vanished and Sschindylryn in disarray, the war effectively ended.
===Other Conflicts===
====The Netherese Legacy====
After escaping Wheloon Prison with the Abyssal Planus Mechanus Nether Scroll, Oriphaun Huntsilver passed by Eveningstar on the way up the High Road to the Storm Horns. He knew that the Shadovar were on his heels after helping foil the Shadovar invasion of Wheloon, and so he led them on a chase while tearing the Nether Scroll to pieces and hiding them along the High Road. While his Harper allies arrived with Rina Belostos to help, the Netherese threw caution to the wind and openly sent a small army of hired mercenaries supported by arcanists, priests of Shar, and shadows to take over the whole area west of Eveningstar. This resulted in the blockade of the road, an incursion into Tyrluk, and the assault and capture of the Purple Dragon fortress of Granwell Keep.
This blatant hostility went largely unaddressed, as the Purple Dragons and War Wizards were devoted to the ongoing battles with the Sschindylrynyr drow. Instead, the Harpers took the lead (while disguised as traveling musicians) and fought the Shadovar for the pieces of the Nether Scroll. Despite their best efforts, the Shadovar reassembled the Scroll and accidentally opened a portal to the Abyss at Granwell Keep. After a three-way battle with the glabrezu Razagnol, the artifact was secured and Rina and Elminster arrived to definitively hide the Nether Scroll and prevent any further misuse.
====The Secret of the Storm Horns====
Deep in the Storm Horns, the Netherese under Archwizard Amskar prepared a flying glacier fortress using a recovered ancient mythallar. To protect and garrison this flying castle, they recruited an army of orcs, gnolls, harpies, hill giants, and frost giants, buffered by an outer detachment of human mercenaries who scouted and poached in the surrounding foothills. While exceptionally well-planned and hidden, the operation suffered a fatal setback when a large group of orcs independently decided to go raid Eveningstar, only to be soundly defeated by the alert and prepared garrison at the Eveningstar bridge.
Though puzzled by the seemingly inexplicable orc raid, the Purple Dragons worked with the Harpers to find and destroy the threat in the mountains. After eliminating a good part of the army, they joined Oriphaun Huntsilver on the enclave itself as it launched in to the air, leading to a fraught battle atop it that resulted in the death of Amskar and the complete destruction of the enclave and mythallar before it could be used to threaten Cormyr.
====The Druid's Curse====
While traveling to the Storm Horns, Oriphaun Huntsilver overcame a Netherese arcanist and took his magical staff, which he correctly identified as a dangerously powerful artifact. He gave it to his friend Halsaime to handle, expecting the senior druid to do well, but instead Halsaime was subverted by its malign influence and driven to a peculiar madness. He took over the druid circle of Thorngap, drove the creatures and fey into a frenzy, and used red musk creepers to create an army of zombies.
The ranger Peron Uthe was infected with the disease and returned to the Eveningstar War Hospital for treatment, only to transform there and infect many other patients with his plague. Despite the pressing drow invasion, the short-staffed Anazar Narroun sent some adventurers to deal with the situation, where they worked with head priest Hurim Jaskyr in creating an inoculation against the red musk creepers, allowing Peron Uthe to be safely destroyed. Shortly afterwards, the healer Eolynn Arva reported that Uthe Lodge was overgrown with strange plants, and the inspection found the malevolent dryad Sylvie building an army within the former home. Working with Harper Jussko Kwahn the dryad and her tree were destroyed, and Halsaime's involvement was determined. The Harpers pursued his trail to Thorngap, his home at Thorn Hollow, and finally the Druid's Deep where he made his last stand. With the druid slain and the staff destroyed, Eveningstar and the world were spared one more peril, though the battle with the drow continued.
====Murder by Night====
In a tragic turn, the Eveningstar War Hospital was struck by a second disaster. While fighting the drow in the King's Forest, a patrol of Purple Dragons was attacked by what seemed like wild beasts and then returned to Eveningstar for treatment. Unknown to all, they had been infected with lycanthropy. The first sign that something was wrong was when the head priest Hurim Jaskyr was murdered by an involuntarily-transforming werewolf, which prompted a lockdown of the building, though no Purple Dragons or War Wizards could be spared to investigate.
The healer Delethir Mistveil brought in a team of adventurers who quickly discovered the werewolf problem and began rescuing the patients even while fending off those that suddenly transformed into bloodthirsty beasts. When they finally got the doors open, the pack leader Ogiyon Tomain burst into the building, having followed his victims there and seeking revenge for those of his pack that had already been slain that night. Though many perished, the hospital was ultimately saved from complete destruction and the werewolf leader killed.
==Appendix==
===Notes===
===Appearances===
===References===
Category:Wars
Category:Events in the Demonweb Pits
Category:Events in the Underdark
Category:Events in Cormyr
Category:Events in the Eastern Heartlands
Category:Events in Interior Faerûn
Category:Events in Faerûn
Category:Events on Toril