Tuktalla Rynassai

**Tuktalla Rynassai - The Barovian Expeditions** *This tome is equal parts part history, log book, and inventories around the Rynassi’s campaigns to understand the fall of the Northern empires, and pursure plans to return to their homeland. It has been written and contributed to by several hands, and is stuffed full of maps, and nearly indecipherable itineraries, scouting reports and battle plans of the teams that ventured through the north lands.*

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> Years after the war and the stabilization of Aellyn Rynass, Rynassi mystics began expeditions North to explore the ruins left behind. For years, the results of their search for were grim. The major cities of the north plains were in ruin. Opportunistic tribes of Orcs, Gnolls and worse from the mountainous regions West of the Steppes ravaged the western edge of the region, while wild bands of ghoulish dead haunted the central steppes making re-settlement impossible. Only the Barovian’s seemed to still hold on to a semblance of civilization. Their caravans made their way back into the ruins of Vistania, and protected by either old gypsy magic or sheer determination, their homeland city in the shadow of the Barovian peaks began to rebuild. The great cities of Ra’Onitia and Leddig Slatte were now ruins, picked through only by brave adventurers, itinerant tribes or scavengers.
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> Seeking answers from their bretheren in the Parasa, the Rynassi braved the open steppes, and journeyed to Áringfell where they found they found the remnants of the Parasai kingdom and pieced together from the artifacts and tomes found in the capital the story of how the Fangs of the Veil sprung from the bosom of the great elven homelands. Braving the northern forests now overrun with undead, the Rynassi returned to Aellyn Rynass with enough history books to splice together the details that the larger history of the great war overlooked. They soon identified the names of the six terrible wizards that banded together to form the evil coven and began training elite squads under the name The Emerald Covenant to track them down and seek revenge.
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> The Rynassi successfully tracked Neferon to the Naizorai city of Eahdora where they foiled his attempts to rebuild the ruined city into a necropolis under his rule. Pursuing him south, they lost him in the foothills of the Alados Mountains. Returning to Aellyn Rynass, they recorded witnessing Jatheg the Gifted, an ancient bronze dragon rumored to live in the Alados peaks rousing from its slumber and descending into the foothills to confront the evil wizard. Unable to get near the site of the battle, they described rippling waves and explosions of magical energy from which neither the dragon nor the wizard emerged. Subsequent expeditions into the valley of the Alados report that the lands therein have been sundered by a wild magic surge the scale of which no one has ever seen. Huge chunks of the land defy physical law hovering above gaping chasms where unknowable beasts fly. The Emerald Covenant declared Neferon either eliminated or neutralized and turned their focus to the other Fangs of the Veil.
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> In the decades that followed, The Emerald Covenent found few results. Vague sightings across the eastern shores of the Outer Sea corroborated reports from Hatterwol and Artoverke that Hotakyn, Yormith and Ya-Thantoosh now roamed the coastlands. While still attended by undead minions, the banner “Fangs of the Veil” seemed to have been abandoned and no organized efforts seemed to arise beyond the occasional raids at the outskirts of the Foresaken Strand. The Rynassi theorized that the coven fell out of alliance, resulting in the mages taking up their own ways.
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> Exethanter and Uralath defied the Rynassi’s search for answers. The last known evidence of these members of the Fang occur in the final days of the war when the Caliphate Armies drove them into the Svalich Wood north of the Barovian Mountains. The Emerald Covenant’s mission reports into the Barovian Mountains and dense woodlands beyond become more and more obsessives and filled with wild theories as the years progress. The first three expeditions into the Svalich were never heard from again. The fourth, more heavily armed mission returned to tell not only the walking dead, but of mist filled forests and strange demons that tore at their very minds as they tried to escape.
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> Hereafter, a new leader of the Emerald Covenant emerges. Aladhon Lorophil takes over the order of specially trained mage killers with a new more singular focus on penetrating the mysteries of the lands east of Vistania. Aladhon began focusing more intent on magical training for Agents of the Emerald Covenant. The reports of returning missions of teams losing their way despite generations of elven wilderness skill, the mental strain of the most stalwart elves, and the wounds delivered by what could only be described as nightmares from beyond the grave fed his theory that a portal to the Shadowfell must lie somewhere in the Svalich wood. Speculating that the Fangs of the Veil exploited this connection to the shadow world to empower their alliance with the Drow of the Dorwine Underdark, and the dreadful power unleashed in the great war, Aladhon’s lieutenant, a talented sorceress named Llestra Allantyl seized upon these theories, and began to see linkage between the Rynassi missions to the Svalich and the end of the Caliphate offensive in the same region. Llestra soon came to promote the conclusion that the center of power that begat the Fangs of the Veil must be located within the region. The final chapters of these records describe how this area became the sole focus of their missions. The most highly trained squads of elven veterans and mystics set out for the Svalich wood in repeated waves, however always with the same result. Stragglers were the only survivors that returned to Aellyn Rynass, their minds seemingly shattered and fixated only upon horrific tales of being pursued through the mists of a dark primeval forest by unseen terrors.
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> As the Numbers of the Emerald Covenant dwindled, Llestra beseeched the Rynassi elders to underwrite a much grander agenda. Convinced that a portal to the Shadowfell in such proximity to the legendary crossing to the Feywild in Ortuva Gomad, she became convinced that the two regions could finally be rejoined and empower a return to elven golden age. Transcriptions of Llestra’s empassioned speeches to rally move recruits to the Emerald Covenant and training to venture north became more and more abstract and intertwined with ancient elven mythology as much as the history of the region.  Taking over the Emerald Covenant from Aladhon, she swelled the ranks and propelled new expeditions North to Vistania. Consulting with the Barovians she uncovered a mountain pass through the Barovian Mountains into the south side of the Svalichwood where she was convinced she could find a less fortified approach to whatever was left of the center of the Fang’s power.
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> In the mountains between Vistania an the Svalichlands, Llestra’s notes describe a mountain monastery held by an order of priests called the Phodra where they ascended by makeshift rope elevator to a view stretching north towards the Parasa. Her notes describe the ancient woods descending the foothills of the Barovian range into a dark shadowy land overcast with heavy clouds that choked the tops of the trees and peaks. Determined that this was the goal she sought, she lead her team north. It was 4 weeks later that she records waking up again in the care of the Phodra. Having found her collapsed body in the woods beyond the pass, the monks nursed her through a period of raving nightmares.
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> Upon her return to Aellyn Rynass, the journals of the Emerald Covenant take a turn. Llestra’s passionate speeches rallying the Rynassi to a re-unification of the elven diaspora give way to hurried notes of underlings that describe Llestra locked away in the inner sanctum, or lost in reverie in the gardens demanding solitude from the rest of the tribe. During this time, petty squabbles and rivalries begin to be noted. With the ranks of the Emerald Covenant again decimated, and Llestra’s mind seemingly broken the entries become infrequent and devolve to simple inventories of equipment, or more ominously, descriptions of prominent Rynassi that had gone missing while the stronghold itself seemed to sink into disrepair.
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> The final entries are from one Trivyre Ireana who decribes discovering the corpse of Thalanil, the Master Gardener of Aellyn Rynass. Fearing the worst, he writes that he will depart the strong hold at nightfall with Thalanil’s body and enact all the wards leaving Llestra within the stronghold by herself. He suggests seeking the counsel and aide of the Saevorai in Hatterwol as he fears Llestra’s last trip to Barovia broke her spirit or her mind, or both.
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See also:

Atalantë Parasai

The Naizorai Exodus