The Council of the Golden Harp

 

    You feel the familiar disorientation as you are transported through space to the reciprocal portal in the golden council chamber. The circular chamber is quite huge being roughly two hundred feet in diameter. The buttressed dome shaped ceiling rises to over a hundred feet at its apex. Beautiful paintings adorn the dome depiction several creation myths and scenes from various scenes from the dogma of good aligned deities. On one large panel is depicted the deception of Helm by Mystra and the creation of the Sarilian stones as she wept from her alabaster tower. Large granite columns are spaced evenly around the central dais on which sets a vacant thrown. Swirling geometric patterns of gold and silver mosaic surround the thrown. Between the columns bleacher style seats made of granite blocks rise up from the floor to meet the curved wall. Eternally burning torches are set in golden sconces ring the chamber and spiral up the columns illuminating the pale white stone with a warm yellow light.

    You arrive at the council chamber standing on the central dais at the center of one of the swirling golden patterns. You have been preceded by Old wizardly looking man wearing fine clothes and smoking an ivory pipe shaped like a snake. Several colored stones orbit above his head. There are three beautiful women here, two in beautiful gowns bedecked in rich fabrics and a multitude of gemstones and the third in mithril plate armor of impeccable craftsmanship. All three bear a strong resemblance with one another. As you are taking in the room and its inhabitants a man in black clothes holding a large crystal staff teleports in followed almost immediately by a humanoid in a billowy silver cloak. His hands are pale and look human but his face is shielded by a silvery magical screen within the confines of his deep cowl. The various luminaries of the forces of good in the realms stand about or take seats whichever suits them while Kelben introduces you.

    It is now that I mention so as not to earlier confuse you while describing the Council of the Golden Harp that while you see these things you also see yourselves and all of this appears ghostly as if viewed from afar via some means. Currently you find yourselves standing in a mirror image of that other ghostly place though now you are alone save for the king in yellow who occupies the central thrown. If you concentrate it you can inhabit your other body making the king in yellow appear ghostly but if you let your mind go you can simultaneously exist in both places at once. As you try to come to grips with what exactly this is all about the ancient king begins talking in his raspy voice as if from the grave, "Twadu du luc" he incants in a long dead and forgotten language as he pulls a glowing caterpillar from a small gold box, "Nam atha du attuc" and the little glowing caterpillar starts to climb up his ancient bony finger leaving behind youthful flesh. The caterpillar continues its journey about his person exchanging ancient flesh and tattered yellow robes for a man in his mid thirties adorned in an iridescent yellow robe bound at the waist with a shiny black leather belt. The buckle depicts some ancient symbol or sigil. As you stand there in amazement at what has transpired he looks down on you from his thrown and smiles. With more ancient arcane words and a few sigils drawn in the air with his left index finger his robes come to life with power. The blank yellow slate has been filled with swirling red patterns that occasionally erupt with little arcs of raw magic power. The drain on the weave causes those attuned to such things to swoon. In his now youthful voice the king in yellow addresses you, "Ah it has been a thousand years since I was young again. I had forgotten how good it feels. The endless years have a way of piling up on you like chorded wood. It can become unbearable. I have chosen to be honest with you and in return for what I am about to tell you I would like your cooperation. I know that now it might seem unfair that I am not giving you much of a choice but I hope that once you have heard what I have to say that you will choose to do my bidding willingly.

    Many thousands of years ago my kind ruled this planet and countless others like it through our magical might. You know us as the Netheril though there are few left that know the truth of what befell us. You are uniquely qualified to understand how the smoke of time can obscure the truth. We as a race were not evil but like Humans, Elves, Dwarves and countless others there are individuals not representative of the whole capable of doing great evils. At this time I was indeed a king of a city state that lied on the shores of a beautiful emerald ocean. My city was constructed almost entirely with magic and as you might imagine there were wonders around every corner. Fountains that sang songs and dispensed fine wine, Floating towers ringed in multi-colored lights, animated brooms that swept the streets basically if it could be imagined someone would figure out a way to make it happen. Indeed there was a great deal of personal pride and a bit of one-upmanship driving the magical innovations. I fell victim as did many of my kind to a kind of drunkenness to a feeling of entitlement where any act could be justified by our own great magical abilities. I began to feel the weight of time and though I had already prolonged my life for centuries there were limits and I was nearing mine. As you are no doubt aware magic was very different at this time and many things were once possible. There was no distinction between arcane and divine magic for instance. Mystra separated the two to prevent mortals from gaining more power than they could responsibly handle. It was at this time of high magic that I summoned Death himself to my summoning chamber and sought to make with him a pact. In my supreme arrogance I though myself his contemporary and believed that I could bargain with him for immortality. He was quite agreeable and though I will not discuss with you the price of my immortality I can tell you that it has become a curse and for many centuries I sought only an end to my torment.

    So here we stand in the ancient Council of the Golden Harp that not even the mighty wizards of today who believe themselves to be ancient and powerful fail to even know the truth of where they stand. I built this chamber with my magic in that forgotten epoch when my beautiful city of floating towers was young. I have sat on this thrown through all of that time occasionally going out in the world to do this or that and I have watched many men stand about scheming to thwart evil. As I have recently decided to take an interest in the affairs of this world again there are some further things that I would have you know. If Vecna is successful he will plunge this entire world into an undead apocalypse that no living thing will escape and he will rule supreme, unchallenged from his necropolis poised on the edge of the shadow realm. With my help you unwittingly thwarted him when I sent you after the sword Bhelu, the lord of destruction. Now after seven thousand years Vecna has made a pact with Orcus, the prince of the undead, for an undead world would fall under his purview and only make him that much stronger. Vecna cannot complete the ritual and become a demi power without is missing hand. Without it he is merely an archmage and can be killed like any other archmage. With it he will ascend and replace the ancient fallen blood god. You must do as they ask and destroy the hand. The alternative is undeath and servitude for all.