Dread Cult

The Dread are a cult of Dragon worshipers in Terrinoth. They plotted to bring back the chief of the dragons: High Lord Margath, who they believed was not killed but instead imprisoned. The cult originated as a splinter sect of the Cult of Kellos, and operated from a secret lair in the crypts of Vynelvale. The modern form of the cult is a split which has different goals to the old order, wishing to enslave Margath rather than free him. For this reason, members of the original cult sealed away the most secret and important relics and knowledge of their order in the Chamber of Knowledge which was hidden away behind traps and riddles in the crypts. The symbol of the cult is an upside down hand of Kellos.

During the Ascendance of Margath, the cult became significantly more powerful, even gaining enough influence to control entire villages such as Brightvale.

### Known Members

1. Montague Cullen
2. Valikor Rivermane
3. Alister Wendig
4. Lilith Vandenburg
5. Kastra Nelane

## Embers of Dread

### Introduction

When a rune-carved obelisk in the Ashen Hills flared to life with mystical energy, Dame Corinne Varr, Castellan of Fort Rodrick, immediately dispatched her best soldiers to investigate the bizarre occurrence. The group was commanded by Knight-Lieutenant Eveline and advised by the scholar Kristoph, a priest of Kellos. Fortunately, Baroness Pryor of Pelgate bolstered the garrison by hiring a group of adventures from the nearby Free City of Riverwatch.

In the hills, the party was ambushed by a dragon cult known as the Dread, their holy symbol recognized by Kristoph. The Dread were gathering around various obelisks, which Kristoph discovered were a part of some kind of ritual. They appeared to be tracing magical leylines across the hills, which all converged at one point. The party of heroes set about attempting to ward the obelisks against the leylines with a warding spell known by Kristoph. Belthir led an attack of the Dread against the party as they struggled to set up their wards. Eveline was skeptical of Belthir being present for anything other than coin, as he had a reputation as a ruthless mercenary. The wards worked and sent the Dread cult fleeing into the hills.

### Head of the Snake

Upon the party returning to Fort Rodrick, the Dread attack the Fort. Drotgor the Terrible, a Dread ettin, entered through an open gate and led the charge into Fort Rodrick. He was slain by the heroes who then closed the gate. A second force of Dread rushed forth and attempted the scale the ramparts with ladders, with Belthir at the front. After a strong defense by Eveline and her knights, Belthir and the other hybrids retreat into the sky, as Daqan spears and arrows pick off the retreating human cultists. The battle was not without losses, however, as Kristoph perished after rushing brashly to the front line during the second assault.

After the battle, Baroness Pryor arrived to hear Eveline's report. She relays that a cavern was found beneath the fort after a cellar was dismantled during the attack. It was her theory that the Dread were after something in that cavern. The baroness concluded that there must have been a traitor in the fort to let the Dread in, and reassigned the party to Riverwatch until the mystery could be solved.

### Fire With Fire

Eveline studied Kristoph's notes and saw that he was tracing leylines to find out what the Dread were up to. The lines converged at a point in Mennara's Teeth. This was the secret location of the legendary Cave of Wonders, as the heroes would find upon scouting it. The secret entrance was already open when the heroes arrived, and inside the cave was Belthir and the Dread. He taunted the party before disappearing through a dragon faced door which locked behind him.

The dragon-faced door spoke to the heroes, telling them they needed to best three trials of fire, ice and earth in order to pass through the door. The Trial of Earth is a puzzle involving rotating statues. It grants a green gem as its trophy. The Trial of Fire is to defeat Azarnoosh the Ever-burning, a demon lord. Defeating him grants a fiery heart as a trophy. Ixelvir constitutes the Trial of Ice, an Ice Wyrm whose death grants a silver locket as trophy. The three trophies granted access to the Cave of Wonders.

The revealed chamber was covered with runes like those on the obelisks in the Ashen Hills. Belthir was speaking with a robed figure who rebuked the mercenary for not slaying the heroes before announcing that his ritual is complete and leaving through a dark passageway which seals itself brick by brick behind him. Belthir curses the cultist's treachery in leaving him behind and vows to kill him after defeating the party, accidentally wasting one of three wishes of the Cave in granting himself magical invincibility to defeat the heroes. As they battled the party, the heroes rushed for the three ancient wish-granting relics in the cavern. Wishing upon each relic before Belthir's wish for victory was complete cancelled his wish and made him vulnerable again.

After Belthir was defeated, he decides to explain to the heroes the plot of his backstabbing employers. The Dread worshiped dragons as divine beings. To them, High Lord Margath, who fell in the Dragon Wars, was chief among the dragons. They believed that Margath wasn't dead, but locked away. And it was their plan to bring him back. After explaining this, Belthir flew away from the party into the sky.

### Catacombs of Dread

To investigate the Dread further, the party headed to Vynelvale, as Kristoph wrote in his notes that the cult originated there in the catacombs. There, they puzzlingly found Kristoph examining engravings on the walls. He says he didn't know anyone else survived the battle at the fort. He faked his death to flee the battle and strike out on his own, suspecting the possibility of a traitor in the party that let the Dread in. Hoping that he was wrong, he leads the party to the Chamber of Knowledge. Along the way, he explains some history of the Dread. They were once a splinter sect of the cult of Kellos. According to the writings of Valikor Rivermane, they built a chamber called the Chamber of Knowledge in the crypts of Vynelvale, their secret lair.

The part came to an antechamber whose floor showed a curved symbol, part flame, part dragon's claw. There were two doors in the antechamber. Kristoph said one leads to death, the other to the Chamber of Knowledge. The heroes inspected the doors to find inscriptions one them. One was labelled "This door leads to certain death," the other was labelled "Exactly one of the door inscriptions is true". The party proceeded through the former door and found a library.

Finding that several of the books in the histories of Terrinoth were out of order (such as "The Coming of Kellos" being after "The Dragon Wars"), the heroes rearranged the books, which swung a small bookcase on its hinges to reveal a secret passageway. Following this path led the heroes through corridors of enemies. They found a room full of statues and Kristoph consulted his notes. According to Valikor Rivermane, an early leader of the Dread Cult, one of the order - The Secret Flame - created a secret room known only to her. One of the statues in the gallery was the key to unlocking the chamber where the order's secrets were stored. The clue to discovering which it was was in tapestries in the gallery. The tapestries led the heroes to kneel before the statue of the Chronicler, which revealed a switch that opened a secret passage. The opening unleashed a foul stench which paled Kristoph's face and he collapsed in a corner of the room. He urged the heroes to continue without him.

In the room, the voice of Valikor claimed that the modern Dread were a new sect who wished to control Margath, as opposed to simply releasing him as the original leaders intended. Mistaking the party for members of the new Dread, a decrepit Valikor emerged to battle the heroes. He was a mangled shell of a man now, fallen to the dark art of Flesh Moulding to preserve his body. Valikor was defeated in battle by the heroes. A suddenly healthy Kristoph entered the room and rummaged through its contents to find a shard of the blade used by Roland of Kell to defeat Margath. Confident that it could be used to stop the Dread, Kristoph and the party headed back to Riverwatch.

### Unearthed Threats

The party headed to Sudanya, after Eveline and Kristoph concluded the leylines lead to Dread activity in the area. At Sudanya they found a pile of corpses and a band of goblins scavenging amongst them.

## References

1. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition): Embers of Dread
2. Runebound (Third Edition)