When Szass Tam the epic lich took over the nation of Thay, he tasked the Red Wizards with building a series of fortresses over powerful sources of necromantic magic all through the Realms. These fortresses would siphon and channel magic energy to him, helping him power a major ritual that would turn him into a god.

The Dread Ring was the fortress built into the Neverwinter Wood. The Thayans’ plan here was to wake up the slumbering primordial Maegera, which would level Neverwinter completely and kill every one of its inhabitants. The power derived from these deaths would then be sent to Tam. The wizards were foiled at the last minute, yet Maegera still woke up a little and caused the eruption which almost destroyed Neverwinter.

Now the Thayans are back. There are little more than frightened whispers about their presence in the region, and no one knows they were responsible for destroying the city thirty years ago, but if left unchecked there’s a good chance they’ll finish the job, one way or another.

Goals and Strategies

The Thayan presence in the region is focused on the ruins of the Dread Ring, where living wizards and undead laborers work tirelessly to rebuild the walls of the fortress and fix its damaged magic circuits. They’re led by a lich named Valindra Shadowmantle, one of Tam’s lieutenants.

Her mission is to either restore the Ring to its old purpose, or to find a new one for it. The first goal is likely impossible - the godhood ritual does not allow for second chances and all of the other fortresses have proved unusable. Valindra has a pretty good idea of how she will reach the second goal, though.

She has discovered why this site was a suitable location for the fortress in the first place! Deep beneath its location is the incredibly ancient tomb of a great black dragon named Lorragauth. Inside rests the beast’s intact skeleton, which emits a great deal of necrotic energy. Valindra thinks it’s possible to animate the skeleton as a dracolich under her control, and she’s “conquered” a local cell of the Cult of the Dragon to aid her in this endeavor.

The Cult of the Dragon are an old Forgotten Realms standby: yet another bunch of evil maniacs intent on ruling the world, but also the only group in the setting who knows how to make dracoliches. Their ritual requires a living dragon, but Valindra is confident her pet cult can change it to work on ancient bones. And if they can’t, she’ll find someone to resurrect the dragon first and then turn it into a dracolich.

The cult, of course, is not happy about this. Its leader, Adimond Kroskas, is being forced to work for Valindra because she stole his Ring of the Dragon, which acts as his symbol of authority and is a powerful magical item in its own right. He can’t call on his own superiors for help because they’ll destroy him for losing the ring. He’s currently maintaining the loyalty of his underlings because he’s promised to get the ring back. While he figures out a way to do it, he and his cult are working to find a way to raise Lorragauth… as slowly as possible.

At the same time, Valindra is still trying to find a way to properly “refuel” the Dread Ring. One of her theories is that it might be possible to drain power directly from Maegera to feed into the fortress. That would require finding a new path to Gauntlgrym (the one they used in the novel has collapsed). If the Netherese manage to fix Xinlenal, though, she might divert her efforts to capturing it in order to use its mythalar engine as that power source.

A third goal they’re working towards is building up an undead army. They’ve begun a mass grave-robbing operation in Neverwinter’s cemetery to produce low-level undead to act as laborers and guards, and are sending the surplus back to Thay to aid in their war with Netheril as well. They’re also established an outpost in the crypts beneath Castle Never, where they are attempting to raise an old group of heroes (the Neverwinter Nine) as powerful revenants.

Player Tie-Ins

The Renegade Red Wizard is our theme that’s on a collision course with the Thayans, but others might also find themselves involved. People have started to notice the grave-robbing and might contact someone like Oghma’s Faithful or the Neverwinter Noble to help them solve this mystery.

The Uthgardt Barbarian would also be very interested in this as the Thayans are a very likely suspect in the sacking of their holy burial mound.

Conversely, Oghma’s Faithful might be approached my mysterious but generous patrons who wish to hire them to perform some important magical research…

Oh, we also get full stats for the stolen Ring of Dragons, which might make a cool magic item for the PCs if they manage to acquire it. It’s a Level 7 Rare item. Wearing it gives you the ability to speak, read, and write Draconic, and to communicate telepathically with dragons in your line of sight. It also has two active daily powers. One of them makes your location known to every evil dragon within a day’s travel, which cultists use as a way to summon allies but is likely to backfire for PCs. The other projects sustainable illusion of a dragon of up to Gargantuan size within 40 squares of you. It can make sounds and move, and generally does a convincing job of looking like you summoned an elder dragon bodyguard. However it will pop like a soap bubble if it touches anything or is hit by an attack.

Relationships

New Neverwinter has just started to look into Thayan activities in the region, and the Thayans have begun providing material support to the Sons of Alagondar to thrown them off the trail.

Valindra knows the Abolethic Sovereignity has an operation in the region, but that’s all she knows, and it makes her very angry. She’s begun sending people to investigate.

The Thayans and Netherese are at war all over the Realms, and this area is no exception. A lot of that undead manpower Valindra has been building up is being used in an ongoing battle against the local Netherese operation.

She also has some conflicts with the Many-Arrows Orcs, who occasionally encroach upon the Dread Ring and must be driven off.

And finally, you’ll notice that I did not mention the Ashmadai even once despite Valindra living in their head rent-free over in the Ashmadai entry. That’s how much she thinks of them. They are nothing more than disposable muscle to her.

Impressions

As we’ll see from the encounter table in the next post, the Thayans are clearly set up to be one of the campaign’s final bosses - possibly the final boss if they manage to animate Lorragauth. Valindra is the most powerful faction boss so far even without the dragon, and their backstory does have a nice thematic link to the event that started this whole situation in the first place.