Estoshan

*"Oh dear child. You truly don't know what's about do you? You and your little mad menagerie have no hope of turning back this darkness."*

## Appearances

### Debut

Volkair N Co.

*-Estoshan, upon one of his many appearances to The Mad Menagerie.*

**Estoshan** is a powerful entity that is the most persistent threats to the mortal world. Originally a fallen angel, Estoshan has been hanging on the edges of the world ever since his banishment from the ranks of his peers in an effort for vengence against Mt. Celestia for the murder of his family. Ever sense his banishment, he has been working to gain power for a vague goal of "Drowning the world in darkness".

He has a demiplane of his own, a twisted, darkened realm which he has near total control of. He is physically within this realm, often appearing in an illusionary form to taunt his enemies. Estoshan has shown on multiple occasions the capabilities to work powerful magic to impact the material plane.

He commonly recruits factions, monsters, and other powerful beings through a wide variety of means including mind control, deals, or mundane convincing. These "allies" are then reorganized to become more militaristic and more reliant upon Estoshan. He then sends them to war. This often consists of pillaging and attacking randomly as warbands when not directed against an enemy. One of these 'allies' was the Gnoll warband pillaging Valteria during the events of Volkair N Co. Despite incurring catastrophic losses whenever his efforts are counterattacked and foiled, Estoshan's power seemingly grows instead of diminishes due to these losses.

## Orgin and Motives

Estoshan was originally a servant of Mt. Celestia and those who dwelt upon it. He used his lofty position to bestow divine secrets upon the mortals of the material plane much to the displeasure of the multitude of deities upon the mountain.

This displeasure turned soon enough into a downward spiral, as Estoshan would compete to one-up and outdo those who continued to act against him. This struggle culminated in the slaughter of Estoshan's wife and unborn child. This event caused him to swear vengence, and seek out the darkest forms of power in an attempt to wrest the material plane away from those who he thought wronged him as a form of vengence.

## Tactics

Estoshan relies almost exclusively on swaying others to wage war on his behalf. After sweet-talking, bribery, mind-control, or otherwise acquiring influence over a group, Estoshan rapidly militarizes the organization into a cultish warband. This army is then unleashed to destroy any and all civilization they come across. Estoshan's warbands are often supplemented by monsters or other groups that Estoshan has also recruited in a similar manner.

These 'wars' are often immensely bloody and indiscriminate. Cities have proved most often to be the most common targets of these warbands. However, due to the often hasty organization of these warbands, they often fall apart very quickly when faced with any serious resistance such as well-equipped adventuring parties leading various allies. Volkair N Co defeated the earliest known warband after mustering multiple allies in an organized defense in Valteria, and The Mad Menagerie defeated a plethora of them back-to-back during their efforts to seal away Estoshan. Despite titanic losses and a near universal record of defeat, Estoshan continues to rally up warbands. How he grows his power despite his massive loses is a mystery.

It is not uncommon for Estoshan to 'Possess' somebody in order to more directly exert influence. This tends to be a once-per-warband deal if that, as not to draw too much attention to himself.

While Estoshan initially keeps his presence as hidden as he possibly can during the attempts of his warbands, after he has been outed he makes little effort to maintain the illusion of non-existence. The knowledge of his existence often dies with those who discover it shortly after, as was the case with the Castle Crashers.

After a warband fails, Estoshan seemingly slinks back into the shadows, never to be heard from again until he is inevitably unmasked late into his next attempt.

## Volkair N Co.

Estoshan appeared among the leadership of the Gnoll warband when Volkair N Co confronted them. He was apparently killed in this battle. When conferring with allies after moments after the battle, the party became aware of Estoshan's name and rumored status as an angel who fell a few decades prior to the events of the campaign. It was confirmed that he was one of the driving forces behind the warband. This is his earliest known attempt.

## The Knights of Tyr\Kingdom of Ruthwalker

Estoshan piggybacked off the success of Volkair and the Knights of Tyr throughout virtually the entirety of the Kingdom of Ruthwalker's existence. While seemingly not directly having a hand in the conflict, it was confirmed much later after the death of Volkair that Estoshan indeed had a large part in the Kingdom's bloody reign. This comes despite never so much as hinting at his involvement to even those he was assisting. Light of his involvement was only uncovered centuries after the events of the crusades, and specific details on what exactly his involvement entailed were virtually nonexistent.

Over a century after the end of the plague and overthrow of the monarchy, Maxwell considered the rise of Ruthwalker to be the single most successful attempt at his plans Estoshan had achieved to date.

## Castle Crashers

During a quiet night in their outpost while hiding away from Valrin, the Castle Crashers who had served alongside and fought against the Knights of Tyr voiced a mutual experience of uncanny feelings while dealing with the Knights of Tyr and the order's most senior leadership. Grex, a member of the group, stepped away and spoke to the shadows in the outpost, seemingly to no avail.

In reality, this drew Estoshan's attention to them. He sent Valrin a dream showing the templar where those he was hunting could be found. He also made the eyes of various group members play tricks on them in the shadows to taunt and unnerve them.

When Valrin arrived at the outpost with two battalions of knights and three small trebuchets, Estoshan in the body of one of the mage attendants. During the battle; he assisted Grex in wounding Valrin as to enrage the templar, tampered with the group's Helm of Teleportation as to prevent their escape, killed a fleeing Malak with a power word Kill, and otherwise oversaw the slaughter of the group while laughing and taunting them.

## The Mad Menagerie and Defeat

When investigating the Children of Malice, The Mad Menagerie encountered a shadowy figure while raiding one of the children's bases. After mocking them, it swiftly vanished. After a handful of clues and further encounters, it was confirmed that the figure was indeed Estoshan.

Using the Children of Malice, Knights of Tyr, and other factions such as a Bugbear army, Estoshan waged war against the titular group of adventures and their ever-growing roster of allies. After an immensely bloody conflict that saw the sudden decimation of multiple major cities, This war reached a climax when the party entered his realm to seal him away using a ritual. This attempt succeeded, and Estoshan was finally contained within an intricate prison, which appeared orb-like from the outside.

The Menagerie hid this orb where it will hopefully remain forever.

## Known Warbands

* Gnoll Warband (Volkair N Co)
	+ A Gnoll Warband consisting of multiple tribes of Gnolls and other monsters was formed by Estoshan and set loose on the continent of Valteria. It was defeated by Volkair N Co and their multiple allies in open battle when the group directly attacked the warband's leadership. Estoshan himself was present among this leadership via possession of one of the members, who killed in the battle. The loss of leadership combined with massive losses elsewhere in the battle, the warband was scattered.
* The Knights of Tyr and Kingdom of Ruthwalker (Red Crusades/Ruthwalker: Defeat Racism)
	+ Shortly after Volkair Rikliv secured control of the keep he gained during Poker night, Estoshan began subtly influencing him unbeknownst to the aasimar and virtually everyone surrounding him. It is largely unknown and highly debated precisely how much Estoshan influenced Volkair during his reign over Ruthwalker, however the presence of Estoshan became undeniable in the rise of the kingdom in the decades after Volkair's passing. This was by far the largest and most successful warband to date, only being destroyed by Maxwell centuries after it's formation.
* Children of Malice (Mad Menagerie)
	+ A former cult of Lolth, Estoshan influenced the organization and rapidly warped it to his will. It quickly became militaristic and began ravaging Wildermount before being stopped by the Mad Menagerie, Maxwell and the Cobalt Soul, and the recently-reformed Everwatching knights.
* Knights of Tyr (Mad Menagerie)
	+ Using a Mind flayer, Estoshan recruited the Knights of Tyr present in Wildermount under the command of Callistus Serriaros in an attempt to join forces with the Children of Malice. This attempt was thwarted by the party by killing the mind flayer and freeing Callistus. Instead of joining the Children, most of these knights joined the reformed Everwatching Knights.
* Enslaved Monsters (Mad Menagerie)
	+ During the course of their conflict with Estoshan, the Mad Menagerie encountered a vast number of monsters that were enslaved with a mixture of mind-control collars or magic. These monsters were often sent to bolster the Children of Malice's ranks or sent individually to destroy cities or other population centers such as Rohsona. While not technically a 'warband' in the traditional sense, Estoshan appeared to have a large amount of cataclysmically powerful monsters that he dispatched in an identical fashion to as previous warbands. Some of these monsters bolstered the efforts of previous warbands, most notably the Children of Malice.