The Fourth Cataclysm (story)

Often pointed out as the primary precursor to the Fourth Cataclysm, the arrival of the Shadovar enclave, the City of Shade, was only one step in a much larger plot, thousands of years (or more) in the making.

Still, the sight of a massive, black cloud shifting through the skies over the Anauroch was a dramatic sight indeed. Few have ever seen the City for what it is--a massive, 20-mile wide disc of utter blackness, studded with innumerable ramparts, fortifications, and exotic weapons--as its movement through the atmosphere creates a massive fireball, cloaked in its own smoke and ringed with lightning storms, even as it traverses the Shadow Plane. What they have seen has been terrifying enough.

Few thought the rumors of the City's return were true, as, for months, the only evidence was the ramblings of mad merchants and desert wanderers, as the City did not leave the desolate wastes of the Anauroch. However, the world would soon know its might in a very real form.

The Shadowsfall War

Shortly after the arrival of the City in 1372, the city of Evereska came under increasing attack by phaerimm. What begin as an occasional pecking at the edges soon became a full-fledged onslaught. Hundreds died as the city's most powerful mages and warriors fought desperately to stave off the ravenous phaerimm. At the time, nobody knew where they had come from; it would later be learned that their escape was the fault of the Shadovar, whether deliberate or accidental.

Aid was on its way from Evermeet, Silverymoon, and the Lord's Alliance, but it was too little and too late. As the protective mythal of Evereska shrank away from the magic-consuming phaerimm, the city seemed to have no hope. But then, their hope arrived...a hope that came with a terrible price.

The City of Shade settled in over the city, casting darkness over the entire Evereskan Vale; little could be seen from beneath the mountains, as the massive disc blotted out the sun. The City used an unknown magical device to create a massive canopy of shadow, completely enclosing the entire vale with an opaque, impenetrable shield of utter blackness. Absolutely nothing could get in or out...the phaerimm would not be able to escape into the greater world.

At the time, the Shadovar took credit for "saving the world" from the phaerimm onslaught, though the cost was unfortunate. The assembled armies still had to fend off what little phaerimm escape the fall of the dome, and their battles against that tiny fraction went poorly enough to convince many that the Shadovar were correct in sealing them away, despite the thousands of elven lives that would be lost, not to mention the horrible loss of culture and history that would come with the destruction of Evereska.

However, though the dome of shadow would last almost a year, longer by far than the assembled armies would wait, it did eventually lift, and Evereska had survived. The phaerimm were dead to the last, and, with them, 75% of Evereska's population. All but one of the city's vaunted High Mages had sacrificed himself for the cause, and the vast majority of the city's warrior and wizards were slain. The survivors spent years interring the dead, and would never forgive their lethargic allies, nor the Shadovar, for whom they blamed the entire ordeal.

In 1377, the Underdark was in turmoil. Lolth, principal goddess of the drow, spontaneously stopped granting spells to all of her priests. What followed was a monumental effort on behalf of the clergy to disguise their weakness, to avoid a total dissolution of drow civilization. With each passing month, their ability to maintain the ruse weakened, and rebellion began to spark throughout the Underdark.

While most of the world was apathetic toward drow concerns (and more so were uninformed), a few intrepid adventurers, hailing from, of all places, Evereska, proceeded into the Underdark, in an apparent effort to help mitigate the oncoming disaster.

The Death of Kiaransalee

In a series of events that has taken scholars years to unravel, it appears the adventurers first thwarted the otherwise meteoric rise of High Priestess Irae T'sarran, who had completed a ritual, at the cost of almost every soul in the city of Maerimydra, to become the avatar of the goddess Kiaransalee, in that goddess' mad plot to seize power in the vacuum left by Lolth.

The party struck at precisely the right time, slaying the priestess, and, in concert with Vhaeraun, the goddess herself. The event was marked by dramatic magical anomalies throughout the Underdark, including the spontaneous resurrection of thousands of drow of various ages, as well as the brief but cataclysmic appearance of The Undying Temple, Kiaransalee's divine realm, within the confines of Cormanthyr.

Fall of an Icon

Meanwhile, the city of Menzoberranzan, long an icon of drow civility and power, came under direct assault from a private army led by Silverymoon's Lord Consular Kyrin Lothandrien, in a wild gambit based on his (correct) theory of Lolth's silence. The Silver Crusade, as it was called, was successful, against all odds, in breaking the city of Menzoberranzan and seeing the surrender of its foremost matron mother, Triel Baenre, taken back in chains to Silverymoon.

Kyrin had intended for the Chosen of Eilistraee, Solaran el Estrelle, to assist him in the conquest and forced resettlement of the drow of Menzoberranzan. She refused, seeking some new, unknown destiny, leaving him with the task of taming the conquered city. When her people left the Moonwood, he appropriated their lands as internment camps for the conquered drow, forcing them from the Underdark, so he could use their city as a base for further conquests.

During the siege, the archmage Gromph Baenre and his associates within Sorcere generously offered assistance to the noble houses, as each had opted to defend only their lands, allowing Kyrin's army to focus his assault on one isolated foe at a time. In each case, the matron mothers either capitulated to Gromph or to Kyrin; those who chose the former would become (predictably) slaves of the wizard's new allies in Sshamath, and those who chose the latter would instead become slaves of Kyrin.

In the end, Gromph offered a kinder fate to his sister Triel, who he would take into his protection as a consort, but she refused to yield her city. In the end, she faced Kyrin alongside her sister Quenthel and the defenders of Arnach-Tinilith. The final battle claimed her sister's life, but, try as she might, she could not find an honorable death; she was taken prisoner by Kyrin, who, citing the Marches' failure to follow him in his conquest, refused to cede her to King Helm. She remains Kyrin's personal prisoner.

Revelations

As 1378 rolled around, the Underdark had been cleared of over half its population. Many were dead, but many more had escaped to the surface world. A great many flocked to the banner of Veldanthir, the City of Dark Hope, ruled by High Priest Rylaun Greyshade of Vhaeraun. A smaller but significant fraction instead flocked to Myth Drannor, wherein they were promised protection by the Church of Eilistraee led by Shade, with the approval of the Coronal. Many more simply dispersed into the surface world, integrating with local communities, or remaining outlaws, feeding upon the dregs of society.

During the dissolution, Rylaun had been quietly amassing a great deal of knowledge and power from ancient Narfell, and had been empowering the daemoncysts of his city, once Dun-Tharos, capital of that dead empire, with sufficient power as to enslave a deity. He had been manipulating many factions, including the slayers of Kiaransalee, into aiding him in his endeavor, with the ultimate goal of summoning Lolth into the Realms and allowing his deity, Vhaeraun, to slay her, gaining her power, and becoming supreme among all drow gods.

The slayers, realizing the deception, instead fell in with the most powerful faction still remaining in the Underdark, the Conclave, a faction of mages of Sshamath. The wizards had been planning for this event for centuries, and their plans had been in effect for months before anyone knew of the dissolution. They had woven an epic spell which would retract the faerzress from all the Underdark into their city. It was their theory that the faerzress was the literal "soul" of Lolth, and without concentrating it, she could neither be destroyed nor resurrected.

Within the city was a rival faction led by High Priestess Alisannara Morcane of Lolth. Morcane's powers were restored after she was resurrected by the slayers, following her death at the hands of the betraying mages of Szith Morcane. She was granted visions by the nearly-silent goddess, which bade her to follow them and aid in their quest, for they would ultimate aid her in restoring Lolth to new heights of glory.

Alisannara had amassed much of the world's supply of priestesses of Lolth who yet retained their magicks. They formed a powerful opposition to the Conclave, and offered food and shelter for the tens of thousands of drow expatriates from other cities who had flocked to Sshamath, untended by the mages, whose resources had wholly been thrown into their conquest of their hated goddess.

The party mediated the dispute, seeing the death of the chiefs of the Conclave, and ultimately dove into the soul of Lolth through a nexus of faerzress energy, to find themselves within a metaphysical realm of her memories. They fought alongside her in the fall of Illythiir, and were tested by her champions in the court of Lolth. As death set upon them, Eilistraee stepped forth to stop her mother's madness once and for all. As she battled Lolth, the latest in a series of futile endeavors, she halted, much to the chagrin of Vhaeraun, who was watching everything go so well.

She realized, at last, what needed to be done. She realized that Vhaeraun, too, would soon meet his end, and that she would otherwise inherit the sin and the taint of Lolth. Instead, she chose to sacrifice herself, using all her divine power to purge from all those she could reach, through their faint hope of a better future, all connection to Lolth, and therefore all connection to the sins she would otherwise pass on to them.

With her death, thousands of drow, the world over, found themselves physically changed, reverted to their Illythirii form: brown skin, blue eyes, fit for daylight and not everlasting darkness, and a new vigor with which they could meet the challenges of resettling the surface world.

Incensed by this betrayal, Lolth cast the interlopers into the depths of the Demonweb Pits, where they battled through millions of demons to where the heart of the goddess lay, bound in chains, fed upon by her own demonic offspring, all under the watchful gaze of the Betrayer, Wendonai.

Desperate to claim ultimate power, Vhaeraun commanded his minions on earth to bring forth Lolth as he originally planned. Rylaun stretched the facilities of Dun-Tharos beyond their capacity, temporarily binding the demonic form of Lolth into the Realms, allowing Vhaeraun to attack her, even as, from within, the slayers were battling Wendonai for her very soul.

The resulting battle shook the foundations of the earth, as the great and terrible Wendonai was finally bested, and Araushnee finally freed from millennia of imprisonment and torture. Vhaeraun, with his greatest opportunity finally in hand, was betrayed by his greatest servant, Veldarin, a future version of Rylaun from a world ravaged by his god's conquest. It is thought that, by foiling his god's plot, Veldarin undid his own existence and was annihilated.

When all was done, the goddess had been restored to the Seldarine, and returned, in the company of the new demigods Arin Mor Saregg and Rylaun Greyshade, inheritors of Vhaeraun's legacy, and Shade, who would carry the torch for the departed Eilistraee, to the sacred groves of Arvandor.

The city and realm of Veldanthir fell to the command of Rylaun's brother Szoth, who would usher in a new era of order and prosperity after the reconstruction of the ruined city. In the west, the city of Sshamath executed the final stage of their plan, liberating their city from the grip of the earth, arising into the sky as a massive crag, hovering over the mountains west of Cormyr. The Conclave fell to the leadership of Quinrissa Sa'arweyn, daughter of the late Guldor Zauvirr; she and Alisannara, long friends and lovers, would wisely rule over the divine and secular concerns of the city.

In the end, some 300,000 drow would rise to the surface world; the majority yet remain scattered throughout the Underdark. Many seek safety and cannot find or reach it; others do not want to journey to the surface, and would rather face the dangers of the dark below, even bereft of faerzress and the shield of the once-mighty drow civilization. Parties from surface dark elven communities seek these stragglers, and try to escort them to safety; others still seek them to join the ranks of those who oppose the changes that have been forced upon them, and to reestablish the drow as the foremost power of the Underdark. It is unclear how the matter will resolve.

Short version:

• Netheril announces its return, establishing a grand city at the heart of the Anauroch, now largely reinvigorated due to epic magic. Prince Rivalen has claimed a bride: the daughter of Shar herself, and with their union, it is implied he will reign supreme among the Princes of Shade. No word from the others.
• The gathering spelljammer forces of Toril--the Akh'Sildar, the Fleet of Seven Stars, and the Veldir Expeditionary Force--are summarily banished from the crystal sphere by the Shadow Queen, and with them, much of the opposition to Netherese domination. The remainder--the Chosen of Mystra--are immediately assaulted.
• Qilue Veladorn, Elminster, and the Simbul are killed or missing in action due to Netherese assault. Arabel turns back the empire, not without suffering the loss of Briar Rose, High Priestess of Suné.
• The commander of Korramas, the Netherese flying fortress used to assault Arabel, shuns the rule of Rivalen and assumes command of all Shadovar forces he can muster. The Knights of the Last Sunrise are thus formed, and soon ally with the Disciples of Adamas and the Cult of Twilight.
• Erik's forces successfully test a device built by Adamas that instantly transmutes vast amounts of life into shadow energy. The small scale test devastates a few villages in the remote parts of Aglarond; the large-scale use is planned on Thaymount, where the Empress has apparently allowed her allies to construct a vast machine. What its stated purpose was is unknown, but when it is realized that activating it will cause unparalleled destruction while granting the Shadovar yet unfathomed heights of power, a group of heroes commissioned by the Argentsworn attack. Unable to dismantle the device, they instead modify it, and reverse its flow--it absorbs shadow energy on a massive scale, devouring the Shadow Weave and utterly removing it from existence. The works of shadow magic, such as the false verdigris of the Anauroch, fail, and some of the older Netherese flying fortresses (though not those constructed by Adamas) fall to earth.
• The KLS and allies are not quite finished. They ally with the Jade Empress, descendant of the Tuigan khans, and aid her conquest of Semphar, with their eye on Mulhorand and lands west. The Covenant and The Initiative confront the Shadovar. Erik himself is destroyed, through a process unknown. Leadership among the Shadovar dissolves. The Cult of Twilight await signs of their prophecy, but lose heart as it fails to materialize. Adamas remains at large, as does Caliban.

Meanwhile:

• King Aleric Argentsworn and Empress Zahl are slain by agents of the Red Wizards and the Hathran, seeking to undermine the stability of the region. The crisis is able managed by the courts of both, who preserve peace and defeat an uprising of rebels. Aleric is succeeded by Ninaren Olósynne who rules the reunified human and elven lands of Aglarond, and Zahl is succeeded Anastasia I.
• Pharaoh Horustep III abdicates, fleeing Toril altogether to rejoin his "true people" in the stars. His sister Keket assumes the mantle of Pharaoh of Mulhorand.