The Dark Sun

## The Cult

Of all religious cult worship, Vigo does not have the most individual followers, but they make up for their numbers with hyper powerful dark outsiders, and cult leaders. This cult exists through all of Fel's history, managing to survive through the Ages by sacrificing a great amount of power to Vigo. Powered by the Paradox, these cultists developed from budding occultists, then, in the Age of Growth, Vigo had fostered his power into a curse of undead. The Dark Sun curse, also known as the Starmark Plague; or the Innate's Kiss targets only those blessed by the gods with the birthmark of Holy Geometry, causing them to become undead, and spread to others. Priests began to drop like flies, inciting a two-thousand year age of corruption, and an eventual war against the newly empowered arcane casters. Adapting to Fel's growing corruption, The Dark Sun cultists parasitically leeched power from the Shadow Plane, and employed witches to corrupt the major artefacts of the other gods. Aiding Hexite warriors in the four corners of the world , the cult split into four Viscounts, and flood The Underdark in search for more powerful chaos.

Each Viscount represents one of four fears; mortal fears: Insecurity, Madness, Mortality, and Loneliness. Led by the most powerful cultist, these chapters were membered by the Pygmy Mongoloid, Vampire, Illithid, and Blu-goblin, respectively. They embody what defeats them, and are empowered by their own hypocrisy. The Vicounts may be the highest members of the single chapters, however, it is rumored that another title above Viscount exists. The secret members of this chapter are said to be infiltrators into Fel's most mysterious world-government, playing a meta-game with its nations, however, this is a common superstition, and has never been substantiated.

Intriguingly, new members of The Dark Sun are seldom recruited by missionaries, seeming to spontaneously begin to desire to stare at the sun. During the summer months, this call, also known as Sheitan's Call, compels people at complete random worldwide to step out into the noon-day sun, and become mad over the period of a few weeks. These victims are then known to abandoned their homes, and possessions, and flee to the outskirts of civilization, underground, or into wastelands to become witches, and clerics. No one can say how the Viscounts are able to attract their followers, except that there is a complex hierarchy in their chapters, and devoted cultists are often given obedience from the newer members. Murder among them is also common, through Viscounts are beings that only appear in image, and therefor are never in danger from a weaker cultist.

By the Age of Magic, the Dark Sun, and their anti-social agenda, have regressed deeper into madness. The cultists take part in a great war, leading to the birth of a fifth Viscount, Demon Witch Azuzu, who uses a final curse of stupefication on the entire island of Port Null, lowering the entire nation's autonomy, and eventully ushers worship of Hexe into the church of The Assimilated. By this time in cult history, Azuzu is only known as the soul that possesses Hex's artifact, The Orb of Ultimate Evil, a weapon of chaos, and instructor to Alice, who hosts the soul of the Vesuvian Avatar. Their involvement in the Viscountship of the Dark Sun stirs a migration of cultists to the nation of Tef for worship. Many cultists were chosen for use in experiments in transmography, both by the government of Tef, but by Siga as well. Eventually, Alice, using Githyanki technology reverse engineered from a crash site laboratory surrounding an abandoned Silver Ship, and the power of the proto-phylactery serum, created a genetic manipulation solution. Soaking in the solution rapidly administered the genetic code into the blood of any creature, making them more alien, and armor-shelled in black chitin. The scientists preferred to experiment on the spawn of the dragon Felwing, using their superior genetics, blurring the line between mortal man, and the church of The Assimilated.

Shadow magic is likely the name sake of the third age, as all other schools of magic are only celebrated, shadow magic is feared above all else, and is the most abundant in nature. Shadow casters will stop at nothing to obtain the power of the viscounts, including syphoning negative energy directly from the Place of Shadow, and peering through time for the Viscount's audience. Instinctually, they work towards empowering the church of The Assimilated, and propagating the most powerful beings of corruption possible. Demon transformations are at an all-time high (replacing the Daemonic reincarnation of the earlier ages), many who have died over and over again for their cause are 'rewarded' with new purpose in the accursed afterlife. Travel through the Shadow Plane almost guarantees an interruption by cultists who will die happily for a chance to drag another living soul down into the next level of hell with them. For this purpose, non-demon cultists rarely operate on the soul-trade currency, or any currency known to civilization for that matter. Shadow casters serve only that one purpose, often committing suicide to achieve the first step into the Shadow Plane.

## The Curse

Vigo has some of the most powerful agents, the Dark Sun Curse is proof of that, however, Vigo alone did not have to power to so completely corrupt Fel at once. The gods of the Occult Triad were all aware of, and worked together to use the power of the paradoxical Shadow Plane. The curse is considered the first world enchanting curse, reaching through the paradox to the sun in first year of the Age of Beginning. The solar light that bring day to Fel would forever be known as an enemy to the sane, and an inciter of war. Those who gaze at the summer sun are cursed to kill their neighbor, go to war, and die. Worse, is the effect it has on those born touched by the gods.

In the Age of Magic, either Vigo became powerful enough, or arcane magic had stolen the power of the gods, or both, the Dark Sun curse descended into a curse of death. To those born with a birthmark of the gods, a plague contagion spread, infecting some, and spontaneously turning some to undead. At random, victims became hosts, never showing the outward effects, other than a certain aura; some experienced terrible illness for days, others weeks; all eventually fall, and soon after re-animate into a plague corpse. These plague bearers are completely unintelligent, except for those priests who died quickly, and early, and were powerful enough to use miracles to preserve their minds. These undead priests were still lost to their gods, however, they all took up worship of the only gods who would have them in the Shadow Plane. Their purpose is to spread the plague of the starmarked, especially with extreme prejudice against followers of the Paladin, and Natural Triad.