The Fall of the Vlaak

Generally speaking, I do not like writing the "ancient history" of my settings. I find that it often offers little return on time spent when it comes to actual play. However, in this case I've had enough people using Krevborna ask me for more information about the Vlaak that I find myself willing to bend my own rules.

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The people of the Vlaak Empire originated as an ancient folk capable of traveling the planes of existence. Rather than submit to life as servitors and prey for the cosmic horrors from the Outer Dark that conquered their world, the progenitors of the Vlaak fled into the many worlds of the Mortal Spheres in their planar-faring craft. These alien beings now exist in a state of diaspora. When a fleet of their ships find a world suitable for colonization, they invariably attempt to defeat the native population and found a dynastic empire that echoes the former glory of their homeland.

When these planar travelers descended upon Krevborna they displaced both the pomenysh and humanity with their advanced technology and strange sorceries. In Krevborna, the Vlaak Empire arose to dominate the land for a thousand years until it was weakened by decadence and hedonism. The Vlaak priestly class fell into the worship of Dracula, who influenced the Vlaak to adopt the fouls arts of necromancy and blood magic. In particular, Lithka, the last empress of the Vlaak Empire, embraced transformative necromancy in her foolish pursuit of eternal life.

It is widely believed that the Vlaak died out and that their empire fell before the rise of mankind, but this is a historical inaccuracy. The human beings living with boundaries of what would become the Vlaak Empire were enslaved as servants of the Vlaak. Hidden within the Grail Tombs is evidence that the ultimate downfall of the Vlaak Empire came about due to a revolt by humans the Vlaak kept in abject bondage.

Furthermore, the blood-drinking rites practiced by the Church of Holy Blood are a debased tradition passed down by the humans who served the Vlaak Empire. The faith’s sacraments are based on distorted memories of Vlaakish blood magic. A few senior Church officials have discovered the awful facts of their religion’s origins, but they dare not express the truth for fear of toppling the Church from its corrupt foundations.

Lithka

The Grail Tombs’ most powerful villain is Lithka, the last ruler of the Vlaak Empire.

Lithka

Empress Lithka, last sovereign of the Vlaak Empire, continues to exist as an undead creature long after the fall of her people. She toils within the Imperial Crypt, working steadily among the piles of eldritch machinery, books of magical theorems, and alchemical apparatuses that clutter her inner sanctum. Despite devoting her every moment to occult research, her forays into unwholesome avenues of magical inquiry are always hindered by her persistent madness. Lithka’s brilliant mind was ruined by a disordering insanity born from the traumatizing ritual that transformed her from a living Vlaak royal into an undead lich. Lithka is usually lost in a fog of madness, delirium, and repressed memories, but her rational mind sometimes reasserts itself, granting her fleeting moments of clarity. During her brief lucid phases, Lithka schemes of returning to the world above and reclaiming her place as empress of all she surveys. If she were to regain her sanity, Lithka would be a grave threat.

    • Appearance: Her alien, corpse-like form is shrouded in the remains of a once-sumptuous gown.

    • Personality: She behaves as if she still presides over an empire at the height of its power.

    • Motive: She plots to remake the world in her own image to begin the second great age of Vlaak civilization.

    • Flaw: Her mind is not what it was—she scrounges through the pieces of her fragmented memories seeking coherence.

The Tomb of Ahkmosa and The Warren

Two Grail Tomb adventure locations.

The Tomb of Ahkmosa

In the far southwestern reaches of the Vespermark, the grasslands give way to an expanse of harsh desert and badlands called the Ash Barrens. The shifting sands of the Ash Barrens are dotted with an untold number of pyramids that are the burial sites for Vlaak nobles and members of the priestly caste. The largest of these pyramids is the resting place of Ahkmosa, a high priest of the Vlaakish cult of Dracula. 

    • Hidden with the pyramid’s internal maze is Ahkmosa’s gilded sarcophagus and the stone coffins of his immediate family, trusted retainers, and pets.

    • Desert nomads native to the region attempt to warn off any would-be trespassers who wish the breach the interiors of Ahkmosa’s pyramid, for a fearsome curse is said to descend on any who dare to rob his grave. 

    • The pyramid is also protected by both cunning mechanical and arcane traps—one of the traps will awaken Ahkmosa from his otherwise eternal slumber if triggered.

    • Once awakened, Ahkmosa will stalk the land as a mummy in search of his favorite concubine, whom he believes has been reincarnated as an innocent youth.

The Warren

A Grail Tomb beneath the streets of Creedhall has become the underground lair of a menagerie of bestial experiments who have escaped the laboratories of Creedhall University. These piteous humanoid creatures—which include scientifically and magically engineered mouselings and ratlings, as well as undefinable mongrels—have taken shelter within the Grail Tomb, renaming it “the Warren.”

    • Most of the creatures who dwell in the Warren merely want to avoid the people who populate the world above; they venture to the surface after nightfall to steal food and quickly return to their haven.

    • Reports of strange beastfolk prowling the town have so far been largely dismissed as the fevered imaginings of drunken students.

    • A vocal, and violent, minority within the Warren wish to strike back against the world that cruelly experimented upon them; they regard their feckless creators as monsters who must be punished, if not exterminated, for their hideous misdeeds. 

The Ossuary of Lamashtu and The Stain

Two Grail Tomb adventure locations in Krevborna.

The Ossuary of Lamashtu

The Ossuary of Lamashtu is a Grail Tomb hidden in Sibersk that houses the yellowed bones of long-dead Vlaak necromancers. 

    • The charnel vaults of the Ossuary of Lamashtu were recently discovered by Maeve Malistrada, a death cultist who hopes to make use of the skeletal remains of the Vlaak sorcerers found within this Grail Tomb. 

    • According to the experiments she has performed within the Ossuary of Lamashtu, the bones locked within its many chambers are heavily charged with necromantic power. 

    • Maeve hopes to harness the necromantic potential of the Ossuary’s treasure trove of skeletons by assembling them into massive skeletal constructs that will do her bidding.

The Stain

Formerly a pristine stretch of wetlands surrounding Piskaro, the Stain is now a vast bayou that has been corrupted by the chaotic magical energies leeching out of the Grail Tomb that sleeps undisturbed at the heart of the swamp. 

    • The Grail Tomb underneath the Stain is the burial place of dark priests of the Vlaak Empire.

    • The vile influence seeping from the Grail Tomb has resulted in the mutation of the bayou’s vegetation and wildlife, as well as an increased toxicity of its waters. 

    • The plant life found in the vicinity of the Stain is twisted, evidencing a vast variety of alien splendor; some of the Stain’s flora have even achieved a dim sentience and a taste for flesh.

    • Similarly, the bayou’s reptiles and insects are deformed in both body and mind—they possess a surprisingly vehement cruelty that exceeds the predatory instinct. 

    • The worst of the Stain’s corruptions are the malformed pomenysh who have become nightmarish horrors driven by rage and madness. 

Chancel's Sewers and Midian

Two Grail Tomb adventure locations.

Chancel’s Sewers

The sewers that run beneath Chancel were originally a system of tunnels leading to the catacombs of the Vlaak city that once stood on the same spot. 

    • The magical emanations from the Grail Tombs beneath Chancel still exert a baneful influence: the vermin that live within Chancel’s sewers often grow to a prodigious size, possess an unusual fierceness, and are more apt to carry virulent diseases without suffering their effects. 

    • Silas Dregg, a wererat and would-be crime lord, has established his hideout deep within the sewers. 

    • Silas is attended by a small army of urchins and orphans that he sets to picking pockets and committing burglaries—but he also captures and trains the giant rodents that thrive in the sewers, raising them to be viciously loyal.

Midian

Midian, the Imperial Crypt, the grandest of the Grail Tombs, lies underneath Veil. The sprawling crypt complex is as large as a small city. Though Midian was built to be the final resting place of Vlaak emperors and empresses, it still remains the residence of Empress Lithka, the last ruler of the Vlaak Empire. 

    • The vile rite meant to ensure Lithka’s immortality was not fully understood by the Vlaak who embraced a cult devoted to Dracula as the first and foremost of the undead.

    • The ritual did manage to unnaturally extend Lithka’s life, but she was transformed into a desiccated undead abomination instead of being granted unending eternal youth. 

    • Believing that her people have died out entirely, within her laboratory Lithka researches the possibility of engineering a populace cloned from her own tainted essence. 

    • If her magical replication proves successful, she will emerge from Midian with a cohort of clones intent on reclaiming the lands of Krevborna and fostering the rebirth of the Vlaak Empire.

The Grail Tombs

art by Wayne Snyder

When I was writing Krevborna, I wanted there to be an in-setting rationale for the existence of dungeons--even megadungeons, if I felt like running one. The Grail Tombs fit that bill; you just can't beat "remnants of an ancient fallen civilization" as the justification for all sorts of weirdness.

The Grail Tombs

Dungeons Left Behind by a Lost Empire

The Grail Tombs are ancient catacombs found deep within the earth throughout Krevborna. These labyrinthine dungeons and burial vaults belonged to a long-dead civilization known as the Vlaak Empire. Chalice motifs and frescoes depicting the alien Vlaak nobility dominate the walls of the Grail Tombs, revealing them to have been tall, gaunt beings with mottled gray flesh and hauntingly large, pupil-less black eyes. They were well-versed in the use of arcane sorcery, artificer magic, and psionics, but their empire fell when it embraced a death cult that ultimately transformed Lithka, the last empress of the Vlaak nobility, into an undead abomination. 

     The Vlaak Empire left behind many artifacts of advanced technology and magic in the Grail Tombs. These treasures command exorbitant prices from collectors, but obtaining them is fraught with peril—the Grail Tombs are guarded by antediluvian constructs, cunning traps, and baleful curses. Additionally, unnatural phenomena, such as warped time, impossibly convoluted architecture, and sentient machines, have been encountered in their stygian depths. 

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Grail Tombs:

    • The Grail Tombs are subterranean catacombs left behind by an inhuman empire. 

    • These dungeons are known as Grail Tombs because they tend to be decorated with images of chalices and visual allusions to rites involving the imbibing of blood.

    • The Vlaak who created the Grail Tombs are depicted as tall, gaunt figures with mottled flesh and pupil-less eyes.

    • Uncanny phenomena frequently occurs within the Grail Tombs due to the ancient magic that lingers within them

    • Treasure hunters often seek powerful artifacts within the Grail Tombs.