The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

The human wizard’s eyes lit up as she scanned the text, and Lyrgern studied her face carefully to assess her
reaction.
‘Something of interest?’ he asked blandly.
‘Yes,’ she mumbled distractedly, her eyes flashing across the page before her. ‘The soulburners. I had heard of them
... there are rumours ... but I never knew if there was any truth to them at all.’
‘There is,’ Lyrgern nodded. ‘A good deal of truth. As with all such things, there are a number of useless myths
surrounding the daggers, but the core of the story is true. They do exist.’
The wizard shifted her weight on the cold, rough lump of stone serving as her chair. ‘This tells me one of the
daggers is destroyed, another is forever lost, and three others are thought to be under the control of different
factions.’
‘Correct,’ Lyrgern said, all but certain he knew exactly where the human was headed. With a bit of concentration, he
kept the smile off of his face.
‘That leaves one more,’ she continued. ‘There is no indication in this text of its whereabouts. Is there anyone who
knows what has become of it?’
Still fighting off his smile, Lyrgern spread his hands and shrugged. ‘Who can say?’
Once created, the soulburners were entrusted to Kalash’s
demonic servants. The wizard’s power and isolation
had drawn the attention of many potential rivals over the
years, mages from the drow and other Underdeep races
who sought to claim Kalash’s knowledge and treasures
for their own. The great wizard sent his servants to find
these enemies and to slay them utterly with the power of
the soulburners.
What eventually became of Kalash is unknown. After more
than a century of slaying all who opposed him, the mighty
wizard vanished. His demonic slaves appeared in the cities
of the drow one final time, gifting the six soulburners to six
drow apparently chosen at random, before departing for the
last time to their infernal homes.
In the time since, two of the soulburners have been
irretrievably lost or destroyed. The first of these was in
the possession of Morlosh Gasshan, a famed assassin
who was slain by the vengeful family of his last victim.
Unfortunately, the battle took place in the lowest levels
of the city of Thak Rulush, where a spider web of narrow
bridges is suspended over a massive pool of magma, and
the final blow against Morlosh drove him over the edge
of a bridge into the molten rock below, forever entombing
the soulburner he carried. The second soulburner was
destroyed in a mighty battle pitting House Arras’zur and
House Narrishtah against a host of shangu. A spell intended
to undo any magical advantage the drow might have had
succeeded dramatically, destroying even the power of the
soulburner carried by the captain of House Arras’zur.
The destruction of the soulburner ripped a hole through
the planes, effectively ending the battle when a horde of
demons began vomiting forth from the rift.
What has become of the other four soulburners is unknown,
as the owners of these weapons go to great lengths to
conceal them. It is widely suspected, however, that at least
one of them is in the hands of the followers of Mu’Ushket,
that another is under the control of the Circle of Five, the
rulers of the Cabal and that still another is possessed by
House na’Khotan. The fate of the fourth, much like the
location of Kalash Tak’Arann’s hidden home, remains a
mystery.
The soulburner daggers are simple, unembellished weapons
in appearance. The colour of the blade is a grey so deep it
borders on black, and the metal reflects no light. The dagger
is formed of a single piece of metal, from point to pommel.
When created, the soulburners’ hilts were wrapped in the
scaly hide of shangu, but this would certainly have been
replaced by now.
205