Kaz Shadowfuse

Unflattering depiction of Kaz taken from a Teocristan newsprint.

Kaz Shadowfuse (born Caz Shadowfuse) was born in 106 4a and was a devoted warlock follower of Vhuzompha. He was the founding member of the Deep Order of Kazian Instruction, a cult based upon the series of graphic novels penned for him by his patron, which involved the everyday activities of a humanoid girl that attended a magic university devoted to the virtues and teachings of the Great Old One.

### Early Life (Backstory, taken from second-hand account)

The following is an account he had written about his life prior to his later adventures in the Feywild.

Caz was the third born of six to the Shadowfuse name. His family was goblin royalty, so this means that he will never be the head honcho seeing as his two brothers seem to shine compared to him. He can tinker and haggle and make explosives like the best of them, but it never really seemed to be enough. If he wasn’t in his workshop he was in the library found in the family mansion. He loved the books about adventure out on the high seas and even under the seas. One day he stumbled upon a strange story about a powerful being that birthed all of the life in the ocean. The story interested him so he marked it for later. As the day progressed, he made his way into the deeper older parts of the library when a book fell off of a shelf behind him.

The book was called “warlocks: power well worth the price” it talked about different warlocks and their rise (and fall) to power! He read well into the night and soon found himself lusting for the power he was reading about and he ended up falling asleep at the table. As he slept he heard whispers that he couldn’t quite understand, but he could make out certain ideas the whispers were trying to portray. They promised power, power to outshine his siblings and even his father. All he had to do was pledge himself to her...him?? -boom- he woke to to the librarian dropping a heavy tome on his table. He issued an insincere apology and escaped to his workshop. He cleared his workbench and finished the book sitting for a while and letting it all sink in. He wanted that power that his dream promised him. He picked up the other book and opened to the marked spot. “Vhuzompha” ... he felt a little uneasy but also excited. The next evening he made his move

He packed a day bag and headed to the beach. His family owned a secluded beach that he was going to attempt to communicate with vhuzompha at and when he got there the beach was empty. He waded into the water, closed his eyes and waited. He waited the whole day and well into the night, never moving and never opening his eyes, just repeating in his mind “vhuzompha please notice me.” He ended up drifting into a light sleep. In his dream he was floating out into the deep ocean, all around him was water. Then he felt a tug and he was pulled under. When the water covered his head his mind was full of the same whispers from his prior dream. He desperately clawed at the water around him but made no progress at movement. All of the sudden a voice entered his mind. “You seek power, I don’t care why...you’re only alive now because you have potential...perhaps...you could entertain me awhile...”

e gasped laying on his back on the beach next to him was a tome, it was damp and had barnacles and a starfish clinging to it. He eagerly grabbed it and flipped it open. As the book swung open he briefly heard the whispers again but it immediately stopped when he realized that he couldn’t process the intricate runes and diagrams inside. He tried all day, sitting on the beach until the sun was setting before he closed the tome and laid out in the sand. He desperately started thinking about how he would unlock the powers locked in the tomb when he saw another book wash up onshore

It was small and had a glossy cover. When he opened it he realized that it was meant to be read back to front, so when he flipped it, it read “eldritch university” it seemed like it was a comic, completely drawn out with the text in a bubble. The story followed vhuzi-senpai as she guided a new student through his first days at this new school A thought traced his mind as he leafed over his find “ if you do not understand your tome perhaps this will help....but I will ask more of you..."

He picked up his tome and this comic and headed home

As he walked he read, and before he was in his workshop he had finished it twice. Vhuzi-senpai was sort of hard on the new student always calling him stupid and hitting him with books but he eventually learned what she was trying to teach him. Eventually Caz looked at his tome, he opened the still damp pages and was shocked to discover that he could understand everything inside. He read, ate and read some more until he was exhausted. That night as he slept vhuzi-senpai visited him as she (he?) looked in the comic. “Listen, these powers come with a price. You will obey my wishes or I will repossess your mind...until then I will continue to draw out your lessons so that your feeble mind

Past adventures: - immediately went to sabotage the fisherman’s guild. While sneaking around he uncovered a pirate smuggling ring run by the Calico Jacks. Because the smuggling ring would cause his family to lose money he decided to use some of his new abilities to prey on the lackeys superstitions causing them to flee. The first mate remained behind to confront Caz and lost his life. Caz found a blank teleport tablet that he looted as well as some gold and stuff. - out in town at a pub reading his latest issue of “eldritch university” when he overheard a hit on a hero’s guild member, some goblin rogue. Caz gathers the info and stalks his prey, eventually catching him off guard and finishing him. Rogues go down easily enough when they are drunk. He gathered proof and collected the bounty, he wasn’t interested in anything the rogue had on him. -while at home he overhears his brothers talking about owlbear attacks on the family mines. He ventures out and starts thinning them out, catching them alone. He uses some explosives he’s made to give him an advantage over these powerful beasts and kills many of them
 He collected the pelts and was making a ton of money on them so he continued, gaining some newfound respect from his family for protecting the mines and lining his coin purse. He just finished collecting a pelt from a fresh kill when the attack came. The huge owlbear was considerably bigger then the others and Caz, having just finished a particularly difficult fight, was no match. He was mauled within an inch of his life before the teleport tablet smashed and he was hurled through the space between worlds and landed in a tavern. He’s been in the tavern for 1 month. He hasn’t had any new copies of “eldritch university” and is getting bored with the old ones. He is starting to run out of gold and is frankly bored.

### Later Life (Leaving the World Serpent Inn)

Caz joined a small group of planeswalkers comprised of himself, Clink, Teal Cardahn, Leo Holloway, and Sillah Deathfall. They found themselves in the Feywild at the same time as the Seelie Court's palace and through making conversation with Squelaiche, managed to secure a leprechaun guide through the Murkendraw. The escort turned South almost immediately when their guide, Carroway, was killed by a ricochet from Leo's gun during an encounter with some particularly nasty trolls and Caz was afflicted with a nasty case of swamp fever that drained his intelligence and left him greatly fatigued. Salvation came from the swamp in the form of Baba Yaga who negotiated with the party to explore an old crypt and retrieve a magic lantern which could guide them out of the Murkendraw. The crypt ended up being one of the original belonging to the Cardahn family, and was occupied by Neversong vampires who were guarding the imprisoned fey they had captured, including the one trapped inside the lantern. The party left the vampires destroyed and saved themselves.

This occurred in a way the witch did not foresee. The lantern was recovered, the vampires slain, and then the lantern was taken to Harrowhame where the adventurers met the bandit known as the Silver Fox, who told them about Razcoreth's hold on the forest. Worrying about interruptions on their way to Shinaelestra (the ancestral home of Teal) the adventurers assisted the Silver Fox in sabotaging the green dragon, fighting his lieutenants and entering the underground temple of the Queen of Air and Darkness, where her vestige lay beneath the earth. Believing falsely that Razcoreth would be there, the dragon's deception proved unsuccessful. By bringing the lantern of the Queen's essence to the place where the vestige laid, the resurrection of the goddess seemed inevitable, but was stopped by the actions of the warlock Caz, who desecrated the temple and burnt the lantern- as an offering to his patron- an unexpected turn that sent a large portion of her former portfolio directly into the writhing tentacles of the Great Old One Vhuzompha. As the party moved further in the Silver Fox moved excavation equipment they found inside, positioning a large drill over the altar of the Queen- knowing it was a source of the green dragon's power yet not understanding its purpose truly. Kaz once again defiled the vestigal altar, before helping drop the drill on top of it, crushing the vestige. As the altar began to crumble Razcoreth filled the temple with oil, in an attempt to burn out the adventurers, but was thwarted by the Silver Fox who revealed himself to be a Mercury Dragon. In an act of self-sacrifice he burned in the oil as he held the doors open.

The green dragon, disconnected from his patron was made short work of, and the evils of the Queen of Air and Darkness officially came to an end.

Caz, searching the realm of Razcoreth, corrupted a former shrine for fey spirits creating a well where souls could be offered to Vhuzompha. He found himself in the vicinity later of the Lake of Dreams, which he immediately fell into and drowned. In an instant he was resurrected by his patron, a show of good-faith to her faithful. In support of his queen he changed his name from Caz to Kaz.

The party made their way to the ruins of the former city of Shinaelestra, which they found was occupied by a group of half-elven rangers led by an incredibly ancient and dying priest, the oldest Cardahn and only remaining member of the clan inside the ruins. He told Teal and the rest about how to restore the former palace, an extraplanar space that they could return to and use for planar travel with the securing of lodestones, however the keys were kept inside of the treasure room of the mad queen of the Fomorians, Connomae who was the leader of Vor Thomil. The party slipped into Vor Thomil through a set of aging steam vents worked by the Forlarren, a terrifying blend of fey and fiend that gave insight into the degredation of the underground city and Connomae's negotiations with the powerful devil Moloch. Taking a forlarren named Kryx with them as a companion, the party navigated through the vents into the kingdom's deepest dungeons where they inadvertently freed Tyrim Neversong, a vampire long-lost to time in a magical stasis. Tyrim had many regrets and decided to help Teal restore the palace in the hopes he could one day restore their former city. Tyrim went on a bloody rampage across Vor Thomil, killing fomorians and devils by the dozen in order to distract any guards from the treasure chamber where Connomae displayed her many symbols of opulence.

The treasure room was easily accessed, once the boiling steam vents were navigated with few injuries, yet retrieving the 'key' proved difficult. The room was host to a golem made of an amalgamation of treasure. Once the golem was taken care of the treasure was their's for the taking. Sillah snagged an ancient looking stone bracelet that summoned a construct mount, the mythical golden boar Gullinbursti that once belonged to Freyr. Teal found the key after several minutes of careful searching- it took the form of a device.

When they returned to Shinaelestra Tyrim met them at the former palace facade where the decrepit leader of the ranger settlement was ready to take his last breath. With Teal in his rightful place as heir to the city he passed on. Tyrim took Teal's blood with the device and showed him the palace, which was host to Vara, a construct that controlled the subplane the palace inhabited. The palace was reformed to fit the needs of Teal and his companions and the locations of available lodestones were revealed. Unfortunately all but one was disabled. Tyrim used the palace to travel to the material plane, stepping out into the city of Alleria.

With time on their hands once again, the party took it upon themselves to start reforming their city, using their gold to create businesses and rebuilding the structures around the settlement. They doubled back to Razcoreth's lair and began the process of removing treasure from his hoard, where they came face to face with his former lieutenant Bargus. Bargus had become preserved in a state of eternal rot and decay, an entity of undeath and entropy. He struck down Clink in the conflict and nearly took Teal with him before being destroyed by the others. Kaz cut out the mummy's heart and kept it in a jar of saltwater. The saltwater heart regrew, becoming a terrifying eldritch lich that Kaz led to the ocean of the material plane from Shinaelestra during a shift.

After the settlement had been greatly restored and was even seeing a burst in immigration from the material plane (namely Ravenholdt) and the success of the courier service between the material plane and Feywild, it was clear that Shinaelestra had a chance to be a city once again. Teal hired a halfling that had some renown as his head guard and, confident in the protection of the settlement, he set out with his party once again. The party met the warlock Zahera during this time, as she was examining strange phenomena with souls in the area around Shinaelestra (likely a consequence of Kaz's rituals with Bargus's heart). They tracked down the lich to the ocean and almost killed the monster in its infancy before being held back by Kaz. The monster escaped.

Sillah Deathfall was in search of a powerful relic known as the Acorn of Wo Mai. The search led them first to the Plane of Elemental Air where they met with the great Caliph of the Djinni, Husam al-Balil ben Nafhat al-Yugayyim. He bid them to travel to the city of Settis where he believed his son Prince Ali'Khashar al-Balil ben Nafhat al-Yugayyim was murdered, and implores the party to search his son's tomb in order to retrieve an elemental gem that was both powerful as well as sentimental to the Caliph.

The party in Settis made contact with the seedy underground of a city of slaves connected to the City of Brass and led by the former viziers of the Princess of the Ifriti, Omaira al-Sidan al-Harriq Ibnat Lazan, who were actually acting in their own interests while the princess was completely isolated in mourning for the lost prince, who she had eloped with millennia before.

The party, with the help of the slavers, was shown where the crypt of the elemental prince was, and by excavating it they discovered evidence of a plot by the Dao. The prince of Dao had organized the murder of the prince of the Djinn. At the end of the tomb the party fought the head vizier of Settis and were victorious, yet their journey left Kaz greatly injured after he was submerged in molten lava, merging his magic goggles with his flesh and fusing his symbol of Vhuzompha with his skin. He was horribly disfigured. They placed their hands upon the gem and began to signal for the Caliph to take them away, but were interrupted by two events: the arrival of the princess of Ifrit and the accidental release of the very much not murdered prince of the djinn. The prince gave his father word that he was alive, allowed for the party to give the Caliph his gem, and then the two went to the paraelemental plane of smoke for a holiday. Sillah was rewarded by the Caliph with the acorn of Wo Mai- a banded pendant in the shape of an acorn harboring an ancient spirit that offered advice in exchange for the promise to one day release it. The party took a selection of slaves from Settis to Shinaelestra where they were freed and given options to stay and utilize their skills to support the city, which they almost all agreed to. Working in workshops, forges, courier services, protection services, and a soap company the group was able to make the city a bright and vibrant hub for life and bustling hub for commerce for those who knew the way and understood the shift.

Leo and Kaz were overtook with nightmares coinciding with the opening of the Halls of the Elder Gods, a massive mega-dungeon that sprawled sub-planes with the promise of great power within. The dungeon had been created by the group known as the Elder Gods in order to give mortals the tools needed to defend their worlds against the forced of the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones, as well as challenges for mortals to attain great amounts of power without the direct interference of the gods in question. Leo was given images of his homeland, a terrible wasteland, while Kaz was given direct guidance on what the reward of Boccob was- a powerful single-use spell that was capable of releasing or sealing away any extraplanar entity, from Great Old One to a god. Kaz sought to use this to release Vhuzompha and bring about her glorious vision for the future.

The party ventured inside of the dungeon and, with some difficulty made it through the floor of Boccob- which had been infiltrated by followers of Vecna and Shub Niggurath who had set a shoggoth upon them. On their way through the floor Kaz and Zahera fell victim to a nasty bit of magic- a sphere of annihilation, and they both lost limbs. Kaz had one leg and pressed on, while Zahera lost all of her limbs. She was returned randomly to the Material Plane where she would be nursed back to health, but she would never see what the Elder Gods had to offer.

Narrowly surviving with the additional help of an orc named Xoruk,an old man named Lokken, and a strange revenant. the party banished the shoggoth and continued onward to the layer of Bast. Bast's layer provided challenges of combat which Kaz was not successful in completing. He had been sacrificed by a crazed goblin cultist of Loki in the middle of the fight. The party attempted after the fight had been called to retrieve Kaz's soul, but were stopped by Skadi. His former companions opted not to resurrect him when given the option by Loki.