Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius

Mirror of the Eternal NightAt last as Taymora became more and morepowerful, the Church of Nyx conqueredKoskatep and chose the place to build a greattemple that soon enough attracted pilgrimsand colonists, but not too many, because itstrue purpose had to remain secret. Thegoddess of the Night found it amusing andfitting to no end that her temple was builtover a place once sacred to the Lord of theLight, and she chose the city to hide a verypowerful artifact - a constellation map whosepurpose was to slowly absorb magical powerand bring eternal night to the world.In Taymoran the city was namedKosmoteiros, signs of the universe. But intime of Taymoran decadence, when the fightbetween followers of Nyx and Thanatos wasat its height, a powerful army in service of theDark Lord conquered the city with theultimate goal of stealing the artifact, so thepriests of Nyx destroyed the temple, openinga chasm to the depths of the earth. Thestruggle for the artifact would havecontinued, but the destruction of Taymoraalso destroyed any memory of the city and itssecret. The Tal people of the area, and laterthe Traldars too, considered the place cursedand never went to live there. Others tried toreconquer the ruins - orcs, gnolls, fairy folk,bandits, dwarves, and ogres. Many of thesegroups were inspired by the immortals,because obviously Nyx and Thanatos had notforgotten what was hidden below, andneither had Ixion. Many times during thecenturies the three immortals have sentpriests and adventurers to Koskatep, toretrieve the artifact or to prevent the othersfrom obtaining it or, in the case of Ixion, toprotect his ancient secrets. Yet none of theimmortals was able to conquer the ruins onceand for all... at least until a few years ago.THE PEOPLE OF THENIGHTIn the History of Traladara "People of theNight" was the name that the first Traldarsgave to the Tal people, the descendants ofnorthern Taymorans surviving in the areaafter the destruction of their empire. Duringthe centuries they were absorbed in thegeneral traldar population, but notcompletely.Some of the Tals didn't integrate becausethey had very different traditions, the mostimportant of which was the cult of Nyx.When the Traldars arrived there was acenturies old bitter struggle going onbetween the cult of Nyx and Thanatos, withHel also involved occasionally on one sideor the other. Initially the Traldars aided thecult of Nyx and the neutral orientednosferatus against the evil vampires andfollowers of Thanatos. There was also ashort time of nosferatu kings that endedwhen Tarku Radu, the last nosferatu king,turned from Nyx to Thanatos and unleashedthe three years of winter on Traladara beforehis ultimate destruction...From this moment on vampires andnosferatus were lumped as "evil beings" inthe minds of the Traldars, and the followersof Nyx were often persecuted along with thefollowers of Thanatos... A succession ofcrusades were unleashed by Traldar clansand kings against undead, the first in 1423BC, then in 1147 BC and 343 BC. In 342 BCqueen Irina Lutescu concluded the Peace ofthe night with the still unintegrated Talpeople. The queen agreed to stoppersecuting nosferatu and the followers ofNyx.145THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1