The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

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Following Darkness Like a Dream
The Player Characters’ quest to thwart the Dark
takes them into the Plane of Shadow and from
there to the sub-plane of Noctulos where the
tenebrium crystals are found. Their journey to the
gates of Noctulos leads them through a strange city that
seems to be composed of the bad memories of a city on
the Material Plane, in which ghosts (metaphorical and
literal) roam.
Noctulos is a plane of nightmare, ruled over by a
bloated vampire tyrant of the same name. His servitors,
enormous bat-like undead creatures called nightwings,
glide across the landscape pursuing fleeing souls.
The hag-like minions of Noctulos feed him energy
by slipping into the Material Plane, draining life from
mortal children as they sleep and transferring it to their
lord when they return.
Unfortunately for the Player Characters, most of the
tenebrium in this area has already been taken. There
is one huge mass that is still available, though – the
throne of Noctulos himself. This is the only piece of
the darkness-emitting crystal that is large enough for
the Conclave’s purposes.
Noctulos is a devotee of the Dark, the selfsame force
that is in eternal opposition to the Starborn. Should
the Player Characters defeat Noctulos, they will catch
a glimpse of their enemy, the Dark itself, in humanoid
form for the briefest of moments.
The Player Characters should be 16 th to 18 th level before
undergoing this adventure.
Plot Event: Cadfannan’s Briefi ng
Cadfannan, the straggle-haired unshaven elf who works
with the Conclave and specialises in alchemy, explains
the situation to the Player Characters as follows:
‘The tenebrium crystals you brought back were, uh, a bit
on the small side. No disrespect to you, we’ve learned
a lot from them, but the thing is, we can’t do much in
the way of testing. That is, we know we can create an
energy emission that’ll set up a resonance strong enough
to destroy, say, a sliver the size of a copper piece, but
we don’t know that the same techniques will work on a
larger mass. It’s definitely going to take a special spell
to do this, though. The stuff’s resistant to shattering
spells and it shrugs off most of what we can throw at
it. Intrinsically magical, y’see. Not like ordinary rock.
Where was I? Um, yeah. So.
‘You’re going to have to go and fetch a large enough
piece for us to test the disruptor spell on. That means
going to Noctulos, the plane where chummy was
fetching the crystals from and selling them on to the
drow. You might want to pack some decent protection
against negative energy, because from what we can tell,
it’s undead paradise over there. Eternal gloom, great
big cliffs of black rock, ruddy great bat-winged shapes
flying across the sky… Yeah. Anyway. You’ve got a
choice here. We can either plane shift you to Noctulos,
or you can head back to the ice citadel and use the gate
that wossname used. Once you have a nice big lump of
tenebrium, say, about a cubic foot or so at least, contact
us and we’ll get you home.’
Note: The briefing above assumes that the Player
Characters return to Xoth Sarandi once they take the
small tenebrium crystals from Bastirak. It is however
possible that the Player Characters decide not to return
to Xoth Sarandi at the end of that adventure, but instead
head through the gate to Noctulos under Bastirak’s
citadel. So long as the players understand (out of
character) that the gate marks the beginning of a new
section rather than an additional bit on the end of that
adventure, there is no reason why they should not just
carry straight on.
Location: The Plane of Noctulos
Noctulos is a place of shadow and murk, adjunct to
the Plane of Shadow and strongly drawn towards evil.
Many of its denizens are servants of the Dark.
The vista before you is not pitch black, but rather
crepuscular and gloomy. The sky is perpetually overcast
with indigo clouds, dimly visible from the thin glow of
light that comes through them. Distant shapes like vast
deformed bats wing their way across the horizon.
The landscape is one of rocky outcrops, patches of sand,
scrub and bleak leafless trees that seem to be dead but
still growing. The highest points are mountain peaks as
jagged as broken bottles, while the lowest are marshes
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