FromFromFrom BeyondBeyondBeyond thethethe VeilVeilVeil Sample file 1 The Dark Powers lder than time itself, trapped within the conines the entities' categorization and coninement. While this did of the Amber Temple, and beyond the help to preemptively deter outside interference in their comprehension of most mortal minds, the Dark research, by effectively concentrating such a large number of Powers of the Ravenloft campaign setting are powerful dark forces in a single location, the society had the quintessential abstract evils of the Dungeons unintentionally created a beacon of sorts for these powers to and Dragons mulitiverse. Whereas devils have resonate further into the cosmos, drawing attention from Otheir contracts, and demons have their rampant power-hungry individuals from across the planes. violence, the Dark Powers, akin to some Gothic horror beyond the realm of possibility, are subdued, individualistic entities The Amber Sarcophagi that crave the corruption of souls, feasting off the slow decline of morality and hope of their chosen champions. In the years and decades following the creation of their As presented in their most recent iteration, 5th Edition's supposed haven for research, the society came to a number of delightfully macabre Curse of Stahd, the Dark Powers are conclusions regarding the entities in their possession, least of relatively minor encounters for the players, offering leeting which was not their unique ability to radiate negative emotion gifts in exchange for largely inconsequential detriments. This is unless contained within a vault of pure amber. This discovery not to say that they were written poorly within the conines of happened only too late for a number of their members, who, in the adventure, for their subdued nature allows players to focus close contact with their queries for days or weeks on end, were on their primary goal of defeating Strahd and freeing Barovia tainted with delusions of the power they could achieve with the from his grasp. However, for those who wish to expand their aid of these aberrant minds. It wasn't long before a tomb was inluence over your players, or possibly generate entire added to the complex to inter these poor lost souls, the amount campaigns around these malevolent forces, I offer here an of which grew with every passing season. It was only after one expansion, both on the lore of the Dark Powers and the of the members was instilled with capabilities beyond their inluence they can exert over those desperate enough to deal comprehension, resulting in the deaths of a number of their with them. All of this is of course individual interpretation, and colleagues in addition to their own that the idea of a should be less of an exact rulebook to follow as opposed to a "dampener" of sorts was posited, a containment procedure that jumping off point for your own interpretations. Nevertheless, I would allow limited telepathic contact but not the negative hope you enjoy discovering exactly what lies in deep within the energy ields the entities radiated. Thus, the Amber Sarcophagi Amber Temple, and relish the lengths your will characters go in were born. pursuit of a Dark Power's devious gifts! It is not exactly known why amber works as well as it does in the suppressing of negative energy, but the results certainly spoke for themselves within temple. Members of the society A History of the Amber came to actually begin coating the walls of their studies with the material to limit telepathic intrusions while they worked, Temple with the entirety of the complex eventually having a solid- amber glaze to limit the powers' abilities to call out to the When discussing the Dark Powers, it is crucial to irst fully worlds beyond their cells. understand the conines in which they are bound to within the multi-planar complex known as the Amber Temple. While discussed briely within Curse of Strahd, I offer here a more in- Assault on All Fronts depth overview of the building's history, its inhabitants both It was also during these irst few decades that the temple began past and present, and how it manages to bind the creatures to experience the appearance of unwanted visitors, creatures within its conines. from a variety of planes that wished to claim what they thought were powerful artifacts calling out to them from within the Initial Inception structure. While the spellcasters had done extensive work warding the temple against potential attacks and escape Many hundreds of years ago, in a distant realm now lost to the attempts from the entities themselves, they were largely annals of history, a society of spellcasters took it upon unprepared for the arrival of outsiders, and suffered many themselves to trap and study a collection of entities they had casualties defending the complex from a wide array of threats, discovered adrift in the Astral Sea. Whether they were the from devils and demons to powerful adventurers seeking their congealed essences of long dead gods, or slivers of fortunes. incomprehensible forces from the Far Realm, the studious The most devastating of these conlicts occurred when a wizards and clerics knew not, but were very interested in Balor demon and a mass of its subordinates raided the discovering. complex, actually managing to shatter one of the sarcophagi Powerful forces such as these however were dangerous even and briely bind with the essence therein. Although the attack to those who knew how to subdue them, their still very alive Samplewas eventually routed, the Balor bfileeing sent back to the pits of consciousnesses attempting to sway the spellcasters even prior the Abyss to seethe with its newfound knowledge, the society to their actual discovery. Thus, with their powers combined, was reduced to less than half of its original numbers, and would and with the aid of a now unknown god of secrets, the society never fully recover from the blow dealt to it. created a permanent demiplane from which to safely go about 2 After this pyrrhic victory, the society limped forward for the When establishing a connection, a Dark Power's goal was to better part of three centuries before it inally collapsed from present itself as a benign benefactor imprisoned within the within, having been iniltrated by a pair of wizards determined conines the temple that only wished to forge a life bond in to deal with the powers that had spoken to them of the ininite exchange for fulilling the mortal's greatest desire. Once this knowledge the Amber Temple housed within its vast library. deal had been struck, the individual was granted their wish, but Their selishness however destroyed them and the remainder often at a tremendous personal loss. The Dark Power would of the temple's mortal inhabitants on a wave of necrotic energy then attribute this to the vile hands of fate, attempting to that effectively reduced them to ash. dissuade the poor soul bonded to it from blaming it for the mortal's hardships. Over time, the mortal would age beyond the The Shadowfell conines of their natural life, and rise again to continue lamenting their misfortune, all the while allowing the Dark Without their captors' continuous efforts to suppress their Power to feed continuously off of its suffering. Whether the inluence, the Dark Powers quickly attracted the attention of creature knew it or not, it had become the host to a parasite numerous denizens of the outer planes, who would each claim from another world, a malevolent entity whose entire existence the structure and its contents as their own before being revolved around further exploiting its hope for the future it was challenged and eventually ousted. Decades passed, and the promised. structure exchanged hands dozens of times before the Dark Overtime, the Dark Powers, through these champions of Powers within grew weary of the conlict they generated. Few if theirs, were actually able to draw a small portion of the any of the creatures who claimed to dominate them were Material Planes in which they held sway into the Shadowfell, susceptible to their inluence, already corrupted by realities creating a barrier of sorts between the two realms in the form from which they had traveled, and in time the power held by of a thick mist. Limited only by the sway they held over their the entities actually waned out of hunger. For the irst time respective mortals' hopes, these demiplanes existed in two since their capture, the beings were reminded of the bleak realities at once in a large mass that deied planar physics. The expanse that was the Astral Sea, and many feared what they Dark Powers had succeeded in the establishment of their own might become if they were starved too thin. realm, and were now limited only by their ability to trap more It was then that the idea began to circulate amongst the Dark mortal lies in their deathly embraces. Powers of projecting their inluence to mortal realms, places where souls yet to be corrupted lived en masse. The actual process of such was soon discovered to not be beyond the Exanther realm of their combined capabilities, the demiplane that In the blossoming years of this system, an elven wizard by the contained the Amber Temple allowing easier movement name of Exanther came upon the Amber Temple not through throughout the planes. When it inally breached the barrier his own Material Plane, but through the Shadowfell while between realms however, the Dark Powers found themselves researching the properties of undead within its conines. By no not in the Material Plane as they had wished, but in one of its means a skittish individual, Exanther's discovery of the esoteric bordering realms referred to by many as the Shadowfell, a knowledge within the Temple's conines led to his claiming of desolate relection of mortal reality where death permeated the structure for his own personal gain, from which he and the living rarely traversed.