Darkfell

### Location(s)

Binturia, Galkador, North Gobble-De-Gook, South Gobble-De-Gook, Adirondika, Sym’fadè Confederacy

## Casualties and Creations

### Creations and Gains

Metrion sealed away, Vierfrynn disappears

## Common Knowledge

In the fall of 10,014, an enormous army of undead and monstrous demon-dark elf hybrids spread mayhem across Orelisle. Countless millions were slain, villages and towns razed to the ground, and for a moment a darkness unlike any seen before or since coated the sky. It is for this darkness that this event is named. Even after the darkness was repelled, Darkfell stained the sky a deep crimson hue for months afterward and chilled Temporis in an artificial winter. Though the casualties perpetuated by the dark elf Vierfrynn, the architect of this atrocity, were numerous, they would be overshadowed shortly thereafter with the advent of the Planar War.

## Contributing Factors

### Ezyne Barath

The woman who would become Vierfrynn was born as Ezyne Barath, a powerful drow sorceress who ruled the Underdark city of Tunnel Town in the early 3000s. Frequent incursions, both from their bitter dark elven rivals and the surface-dwelling human tribes, slowly incurred a fury within Ezyne over hundreds of years. Her hatred towards surface-dwellers in particular surged when petty surface-dwellers made an attempt on her life. Narrowly escaping her assassination, Ezyne travelled across Orelisle for many years, growing stronger in power and resentment.

After learning the secrets of near-immortality from the Great Sheherazod, Galkadorian King Dirennyas’s royal alchemist, Ezyne built power and secret influence in the Underdark, biding her time as her memory faded into the long-distant past. Ezyne Barath vanished from the face of the Material Plane, and in her place Vierfrynn quietly awaited her day of reckoning upon the surface.

To further her aims of peace for Drow everywhere, she assumed the identity of Iraezyne Arabeth and ascended to the Amrali Council of Five as the Ambassador of Tunnel Town. Using her considerable sway within Amerale and Tunnel Town, she imbued the Amerale River with a subtle but potent alchemic toxin. When ingested, any humanoid creature would be forcibly transformed into a dark elf. The discovery of her plot, which did not succeed, forced Vierfrynn into hiding once more.

### Metrion

Metrion, Child of Death and sole Greater Reaper of Undeath, is an incomprehensibly powerful being. His intentions, while at times petty, typically far exceed the capacity of mere mortal minds. Perhaps to increase his own power, perhaps to ease the suffering of undead in the world, perhaps for some other reason, Metrion sought to end the stigma of necromancy and undeath in the Material Plane. Metrion wished to transform all life into un-life, and to ensure such un-life could be lived with no impositions upon the will of his undead subjects.

In this case, Metrion and Vierfrynn formed an unlikely pact. They put plans into motion to raise the largest army of undead Temporis had ever seen, conquer the world, and raise everyone as undead. Metrion would gain a paradise of free-willed undead and end the stigma of his surrogate children, and Vierfrynn would become Empress of Orelisle, convert all living beings to worship both her and Maelstrom, end racism and discrimination based on faith, and usher Orelisle into an everlasting era of peace. All that remained was to await the perfect time to strike.

### Destruction of Fort Veridae

The seasonal and expected destruction of Fort Veridae, bastion of the famous (or infamous, depending on who asks whom) Binturian Party, provided the perfect opportunity for the invasion to begin. With the Binturians mourning the loss of their home base, or at the very least inconvenienced by the lack of a central hub, would halt their mobilization. In that time, the unified undead legion could sweep across Orelisle and lay the world to waste before the Binturians could put their metaphorical shoes on.

## Binturian Involvement

Darkfell’s beginning was intentionally timed to catch the Binturian Party off-guard, though they were swift to act. At each step of Vierfrynn’s plan, the Binturians stood against her to varying degrees of success. During the final battle at the city of Amerale, the Binturians successfully interrupted Vierfrynn’s continent-spanning ritual to draw the Void into the Material Plane and defeated her.

## Order of Events

### Death of Tesseroth the Lesser

In order to claim control over the void, Vierfrynn brutally butchered one of the two entities known as Tesseroth. Tesseroth, a being made from the void and shattered fragments of an Elder Goddess, had partial control over the void. With this new power in hand, Vierfrynn began her plans in earnest.

### Drow Rebellions

At the start of Darkfell, many Drow clans around Orelisle had become aware of Vierfrynn's existence and plans to aid them in a more equal world. Most of the information was relayed to them from Maelstrom via their priests and priestesses. A number of these Drow clans began to rebel against oppressive forces and fervently called others out on racist remarks towards them. This would continue until the end of Darkfell.

### Fall of Gobble-de-Gook

Metroin travelled to Binturia to raise millions of elite undead. The Binturians tried to stop him, but a failed barrier ritual unleashed the horde’s full might upon the world. The army, commanded by Metrion, marched south. There they expanded the nation of Galkador as the collective Undead blitzed through the divide and carved their way through the mostly vacant Gobble-de-Gook. This split the nation into North and South Gobble-de-Gook, with the undead claiming the removed territory. The already weakened nation of Gobble-de-Gook did not have the forces to drive back the Undead, and the area would remain infested with undead until the Planar War.

### Rekindling the Aiurian-Taliosi War

When the Undead Army turned northwards, they broke through Talios and Aiur. Undead bled through the borders, evacuating villages and scaring away residents while the lands were desecrated. The resulting rush through the two countries broke off a piece of Aiuran lands, violating the country’s symmetry. This newfound irregularity was a devastating blow, an insult that was quickly blamed on the Taliosi. With their ancient tensions rekindled, the tenuous cease-fire between the two powers ended and war broke out.

### Adirondicka Dryad Massacres

Pushing through to Adirondicka, the Undead Army continued it's rampage. While most of the lumberjack residents peacefully picked up their log cabins and carried them to another section of the forest, the dryad residents fought back against the Undead scourge.  The Dryads rejected their presence and fought back against them. This would result in a decent amount of both Undead and Dryad deaths in Adirondicka before the Undead continued on their way.

### Destruction of the Magic Broadcast Network

Before the Battle of Amerale, Vierfynn took it upon herself to eliminate communication to Amerale and all other places of her plans. While delaying the Binturians by negotiating a peace treaty in bad faith, Vierfrynn eradicated the Magic Broadcast network with a massive surge of ritual magic, false and misleading messages, and an unconscionable amount of vitriol. The Magic Broadcast Network has not returned despite many efforts.

### Darkfall

Using ritual power, Vierfrynn exerted her limited control over the Void and began to execute a continent-spanning ritual to draw its corruptive influence into the Material Plane. The focal point for this ritual was the former seat of her power, the city of Amerale. The Binturians infiltrated Metrion and Vierfrynn’s castle, splitting into two teams to deal with each threat. Metrion was defeated and banished by his father, Death, for rebelling, Vierfrynn was defeated in her powerful Drider form before being consumed by the void and disappearing.

## Aftermath

### Drow Distance themselves from Vierfrynn

In the years that followed, Drow made a point to distance themselves from the actions of Vierfrynn and Darkfell as a whole. Though many still believed in the world she had promised to create, openly acknowledging a person with so much blood and carnage attached to their name made them easy targets for retaliatory attacks. Some today still believe in what she tried to achieve, but that number shrinks a little more each year.

### Renegotiation of Aiurian-Taliosi Cease-Fire

Some time after Darkfell’s conclusion, but before the beginning of the Planar War, Aiur and Talios renegotiated the cease-fire that had kept their nations at relative peace for years. It is possible that the Binturians were involved in the deliberations, but impossible to verify one way or the other.

### Amrali Political Restructure

With the revelation that a member of the Council of Five had betrayed the city, and the disappearance or death of the remaining councilmembers, Amerale experienced a power vacuum that threatened the city’s recovery and even its continued existence. The most powerful noble families gathered together to reach a solution, and implemented a new monarchical government headed by Faysal Tayanar, one of the surviving councilmembers, and formally dissolved the Council of Five as an institution.

### Coldest Winter in History

The darkness that entered the Material Plane persisted through the whole winter after Darkfell’s conclusion. The skies never lit brighter than a dim twilight, and snow fell near-constantly for six months. No winter before or since has been as dark, as cold, or as brutal.

### Vierfrynn’s Disappearance

Though she was defeated by the Binturians, Vierfrynn’s body was lost to the Void through a portal of her own creation. This would be the last physical appearance of Vierfrynn to date, though her influence is still felt through the aftermath of the Fel Invasion and the alluring power of Fel magic as a whole.

## Further Information

This information was documented several years after they  actually took place. Though these events largely took place in-game, many members of the LARP Club who participated in them have moved beyond the club. As such, this document records second-hand accounts based on what was written down about this plot after it was completed, which were then distorted further by subsequent changes to the setting’s lore. If you participated in this plot and are interested in furthering Lore Committee’s understanding of it, please reach out to us at binturianlore@gmail.com.