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In a Norrathian age long past, when dragons ruled the lands,
seas, and skies, an ancient race did spring forth from the will of an unknown
god. They were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh
world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan. The true name of this extinct
civilization has been lost to the mists of time, the evidence of their existance
buried and all but destroyed by the elements and the forces of change.
The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost
race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children
of Veeshan. They speak of them to their young, as a human mother would tell
ghost stories to her child. The dragons whispered tales of a great kingdom of
wicked yet noble beings that built cities from the bones and sinew of the slain
children of Veeshan. This is one such tale, passed down to the scribes of New
Tanaan many years past by the dragon sorceror Ulvaxazoviak.
Many ages ago, in a time that only the spirits of the
ancestor dragons can recall, a long dead ancient race, The Xulous they are
called in the tales of my kind, did build upon the lands that would become
Tunaria a great necropolis to house their dead kings. The crypts of the
necropolis were fashioned from preserved remains of slain dragons and it was
called Lxanvon, which means in the tongue of the Xulous, 'Kings Rest'.
As the necropolis filled with the dead Xulous royalty,
honored and revered in death as much as in life, a festering evil began to take
over in the lowest bowels of the crypts of the kings. The Xulous, through their
adoration and reverence of their rotting kings, their defilement of the dead
children of Veeshan, and their dependence on the deaths of dragons for the
expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to
Norrath. As years passed, the evil presence in the bowels of Lxanvon grew
stronger, and there, within the rotting corpses of those ancient kings,
Bertoxxulous was born.
The royal priests of the Xulous kingdoms often journeyed from
their ivory cities to Lxanvon on behalf of their people, to deliver offerings
and praises to their dead kings. Bertoxxulous, donning the decaying bodies of
the dead Xulous nobles, appeared before these royal priests demanding obediance,
reverence, and sacrifices. Bertoxxulous deceived and corrupted the minds of the
royal priests and their allegiance belonged to the Lord of Death and Decay above
their living kings. Amidst these firsts priests of decay, one was held above the
others, Ultor Szanvon the Putrid; he led the priests of decay in the spreading
their dark doctrine. Ultor, an influential priest in service to the mightiest of
the Xulous nobles schemed and murdered his way into the position of chief
advisor to the living Xulous King. Ultor convinced Xulous King to visit the
tombs of his ancestors, and there within the presence of Bertoxxulous' full
might he performed a dark ritual, sacrificing the king in the bowels of the
crypt. Through the dark ritual Ultor summoned twelve spirits of previous Xulous
kings and bound them to his service.
The risen undead kings rose armies of the dead from the
necropolis of Lxanvon and spread across the lands ravaging all in their path,
and leaving only death and destruction in their wake. Those who were not
destroyed by the weapons of the undead armies were killed slowly by a deadly
plague, carried by the risen kings, and spread like wildfire amidst the Xulous.
Their entire race succumbed to the pestilence and the Xulous were no more.
Bertoxxulous, pleased and swollen with pride by his genocidal accomplishment
called his minions back to the necropolis that had served as their resting place
for so many years. The risen Xulous kings gathered in the bowels of their crypts
as a great mist enveloped Lxanvon.
The ancient dragons watched from afar as the mists cleared,
revealing only a barren and broken landscape where the necropolis had once lied.
It is said that the necropolis of Lxanvon still exists in the Plane of Disease,
unchanged from when the ancient dragons witnessed its vanishing from Norrath,
and that the form Bertoxxulous favors when visiting Lxanvon is a twisted visage
of the long dead race he destroyed, so many ages ago. |
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