Dead in Thay - Tales from the Yawning Portal: Dead in Thay
Dead in Thay. Near the village of Daggerford on the Sword Coast, the Red Wizards of Thay plotted to extend the evil reach of their land and its master, the lich lord Szass Tam. At a site called Bloodgate Keep they built a powerful portal, fueled by elemental nodes, that could allow Thayans to instantly transport whole armies into the very heart of the Sword Coast. With this power, the Red Wizards would surely overthrow and take control of the North. However, groups of heroes recently assaulted Bloodgate Keep and its master, the lich Tarul Var. With the help of a renegade Red Wizard named Mennek Ariz, this assault was successful. Bloodgate Keep fell, and Szass Tam's plans of invasion were crushed. What no one expected, though, was that despite the fall of the keep itself, parts of the Bloodgate Nexus (an interconnected series of teleportation circles) survived, and a Thayan Resurrection cell leader named Syranna devised a way to use it against Szass Tam. Syranna had been part of the team that originally assembled the Bloodgate Nexus, and knew that remaining nodes allowed direct access to a secret Thayan training ground known as the Doomvault. This adventure takes place in the Doomvault. It is designed for 9th-level characters. By the end of the story, they are likely to advance to 11th level or perhaps higher... if they don't end up dead in Thay. Synopsis Kazit Gul, a Thayan archmage, built the Doomvault to siphon the souls of those who perished within it for use in his dark experiments. One of these was the creation of an extradimensional vault in which he stored his phylactery. Eventually, Szass Tam and his followers defeated and enslaved Gul. They changed the Doomvault into a monstrous menagerie and arcane laboratory. Although the space is still called the Phylactery Vault of Kazit Gul, it now also holds the phylacteries of Szass Tam and all his elite lich servants. Syranna knows that if the characters can make their way through the Doomvault and find the entra...