Ashtoreth

Ashtoreth is Her Imperial Majesty, the Locust Princess and, after the Sunscourge Heresy, the Demon Lord of Caer Tenebris and the sole Goddess of Frey, queen of tainted light and empress of the new Empire of Izevel. Leader of the Court of Locusts, Ashtoreth oversaw the fall of Noslith and her own rise to divinity, succeeding over the Dawn's Herald in the final battle for Lagarde. Ashtoreth claims direct descent from Terminus, the first Imperator of the Izevelan empire and the conquering cambion War Wizard, himself the spawn of Drakaina, a daughter and apprentice of Baba Yaga, and Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons.

History
Ashtoreth was born over a thousand years ago, in the year 2E.450 in the city of Demonstone, the imperial capital of the Empire of Izevel, the First Empire. Born as Desdemona Terminus, she was the firstborn child and Imperial Princess of Imperator Marcellus and the Imperatrix Consort Rosalinda. Three years later, her younger brother was born to the same mother, a sickly child, and Desdemona enjoyed greater favor and a more involved upbringing than the sickly Claudius, who was blamed for his mother's death in childbirth thereafter. However, by writ of primogeniture, it was established that Claudius would inherit the Demon Crown of Izevel.

In 2E.459, Desdemona witnessed the Izevelan art of soulforging perfected when the shortsword Ellyllon was crafted by the clerics of the Temple of the Demon Lords and the sorcerers of the imperial aristocracy in the city of Alsium, north of modern-day Noslith. The lives of five thousand slaves were sacrificed after the body of the empyreal lord Ellyllon was sealed within the grand arena, to bind and murder the god. The glorious atrocity had a deep traumatic and inspiring effect upon the young princess.

In 2E.460, the northern kingdoms of what would later become Ilfaine that had long ago fallen to the reign of dragons were sealed within five orbs of dragonkind. The northern kings Sarolozoth, Thessylimnias, Dastrivox, Akdarathys, and Oreptonthos were each trapped within an orb by the dark wizard, Nefastus, who became king of the frigid kingdoms they left behind. Nefastus began to enter the politics of the Izevelan empire, giving rise to great anxiety and stress for Imperator Marcellus.

Fall of the First Empire
In 2E.471, Imperator Marcellus Terminus died; in keeping with the Imperial writ of the founder, Archelaus, Desdemona was not crowned, and instead her sickly younger brother Claudius was named Imperator of Izevel. Claudius was not a strong ruler, yet he was easily controlled by Ilia Aurelian of Keziah, the unholy grandmother of the Temple of the Demon Lords, spiritual leader of the empire. However, Ilia's reign was opposed by Ammon, the ancient high priest of Asmodeus and founder of the Nine-Pointed Star. Ammon, at that time already a powerful mummy lord, had begun to plan against Ilia and Claudius in secret. A year later, his plans came to fruition when he met Nefastus. The dark wizard plotted with the infernal priest, and engendered a great deception. Nefastus appeared to the jilted Imperial Princess Desdemona in the form of Demogorgon, her great ancestor and god, and convinced her to steal the sword of Ellyllon. Born from a demigod's soul, the blade would be used to pierce the flesh of Deskari - to draw forth his blood, the vilest venom in the planes, and use it as a poison to kill her brother and force the aristocracy to recognize her as the stronger and supreme ruler. Although Desdemona had begun to accept her place, she only hesitated briefly before agreeing to the false demon lord's plans.

The witch-princess embarked on a journey to Havilah, the Heartland city of the Empire near modern-day Blackbridge where Lord Dathan of House Alphaeus, descendant of Avram, the city's founder, took the blade after the devastation it wrought on Alsium in its creation. She seduced the nobleman and then stole the blade in his slumber, escaping Izevelan nobles, demoniac and diabolist priests and vengeful servants of the Old Gods along the path. And then she entered the Abyss, journeying through all its infinite layers until finding the Rasping Rifts of Deskari, where she battled and subdued the demon lord, stealing his blood and filling Demogorgon's obsidian vial before returning to the material plane. Desdemona's great and dark adventure took another year, yet she was prepared when she returned to Demonstone. She announced that she had made peace with her brother's reign, and that she would host a massive gala in the Imperial Palace, bringing all the nobles and priests to the city to witness what would be in truth her ascension.

She returned the sword Ellyllon to Lord Dathan Alphaeus. Then she poisoned her imperial brother's griffin steak with the rasping blood of Deskari. A hideous swarm of locusts burst forth from his stomach; he died in mere seconds, the defiled blood of Deskari's children and the blood that dripped from the dead emperor turning to the ichor of the Rasping Pox. Few survived the night the plague was unleashed; Desdemona escaped into the streets while chaos erupted in the capital. Both the infernal and demonic priesthoods agreed that the city should be sealed before the plague escape its bounds; however, both priesthoods escaped its walls the night before its sorcerers enacted that very plan. They sunk the city hundreds of feet beneath sea level, and then reconstructed the land above them, raising a hill to fill with unending water, forming the Wellspring and Griffin Hill. The city now in a sealed cave, they believed they had saved the empire, but the plague escaped the City Beneath nonetheless. It is said that Lord Dathan Alphaeus escaped before the sorcerers completed their plan and returned to his city of Havilah, where he unleashed the plague upon his vassals and, madly, sealed himself in his throne room and drove Ellyllon through his chest in an attempt to purify his dark and plagued heart.

Rise of Shadowthrone
The plague year began in earnest while Desdemona escaped to the Black Moor Well, an isolated riverside farmstead she used as her private summer home. She brought with her her servants: Nathaniel, Simon, Salome, Ruth, and Herod, loyal to the end. They would each die of the plague in spite of Desdemona's best efforts, and in 3E.474, after the plague year's end, Nefastus cast an epic spell that sundered every plagued humanoid in the empire, consuming their souls and diverting them from Deskari to himself. At the same time, he completed the ritual to become a lich, ending his life and being reborn as an undead abomination, the Shadowmaker. His form complete, the Shadowmaker brought eternal night, eclipsing the sun with the moon for hundreds of years, and declared the reign of his new empire of Shadowthrone absolute, the fall of Izevel complete. Desdemona lashed out in response, yet was easily defeated by the Shadowmaker, and retreated back to the Black Moor Well in failure. The last princess of House Terminus went into hiding for 50 years while Ammon began to hunt the demonic bloodlines into extinction. Within the Black Moor Well, she opened a portal to the Abyss, in vain attempts to conquer her ancestors or her gods, who considered her then little more than a betrayer. Desdemona used to learn alchemy and magic to conceal her identity, taking the name of Ashtoreth while earning the moniker of Locust Princess.

In 3E.522, Ashtoreth met the aging bastard son of Lord Dathan Alphaeus, Locus Alphaeus, a tiefling priest of Orcus, along with Amphitryon, a tiefling priest of Abraxus. Ashtoreth gave them both the longevity of an Izevelan noble; in recompense, Locus and Amphitryon professed their undying love for House Terminus. Ashtoreth became the leader of their tripartite cult, travelling to the Wosswood and building the Shambling Temple within its cursed forest grounds. Beneath Izevelan architecture, Ashtoreth made a pact with Deskari, the Locust Lord. While her cult grew, Ammon's power rapidly dissipated; in 3E.558, Ammon and his allies were banished to the Shadowfell after a failed attempt to unseat the Shadowmaker. Freed of the diabolists' tyranny, Ashtoreth began to gather the surviving demon cultists at the Shambling Temple, and in their numbers, the Shadowmaker had no choice but to allow them free reign of the ruined Heartland, which he had little interest in. Within the ruined walls of ancient Caer Sól, then, the cultists found many secrets. Ashtoreth swiftly learned that the castle was built upon a mythal that could be used as a conduit to open up a Worldwound upon Frey, ending Shadowthrone and bringing demons flooding into the realm, allowing Deskari to conquer it. She informed Locus and Amphitryon, and they began planning anew.

By 3E.700, the ritual was prepared. Ashtoreth, Amphitryon and Locus attempted to open up the Worldwound upon Frey, but the slumbering Phoenix was alerted then of a threat to Caer Sól's mythal, and rose up to destroy the cultist triumvirate. Amphitryon and Locus were killed by the phoenix's flame without recourse, becoming demons in the Abyss in their afterlife, while Desdemona realized - as she was destroyed - that the mythal was made by elven high mages as a contingency - a way to preserve the God they had created should he die. The Phoenix was that preserved god, the Allfather half-destroyed. Before the Phoenix finished burning her away, Orcus froze time and whisked her to Thanatos, expending much of his power but breaking her pact with Deskari and rendering her a servant of Orcus for 500 years. Thus awakened and empowered by the mythal after centuries of sleep, the Phoenix left to destroy the darkness that had enslaved Frey, seemingly no longer satisfied in maintaining the firmament against those who would corrupt it (the fiends) and those who would destroy it (the eladrin).

Return to Frey
After 500 years, Ashtoreth was released from her pact to Orcus, as promised, and she finally returned to Frey in 5E.1200, to taste the air of her birthright. Shocked to learn not only that Shadowthrone had fallen but that Caer Sól had risen anew instead of Izevel, Ashtoreth began to seek out survivors of her fallen empire over the next 5 years. It becomes known that the Locust Princess has returned, but her travels come to little fruition. Thus she sought out her ancient home, Demonstone, finding Agrawel built atop it. Overcome with twisted grief and agony, she murdered King Alastar II and easily seduced his successor, the weak King Ardal III, entering into his good graces as the wizardess Aeronwen. Sapping away his strength, she likewise seduced and charmed the servants and guards of the royal household to dig down into the depths of the newly formed Griffin Hill and find the pulse of her dead city.

Over the next decade, Ashtoreth had seven children with Ardal III, bearing no further, never letting the King see any of his bastard children. The tieflings Marcellus, Nathaniel, Salome, Simon, Ruth, Herod, and Claudius were raised in secret passages in Castle Arvendon while the Locust Princess's passage was completed. In 5E.1227, Ashtoreth's grand passage was complete, and she murdered the thralls so none would know of its existence. Dubbed the Underbelly, the labyrinthine pass delves from Castle Arvendon to the City Beneath. There, she learned that although the Shadowmaker absorbed most of the souls she had infested with demon blood to ascend to lichdom, the most powerful sorcerers in Demonstone had sealed the city away to find a cure for the plague. When the plague found them, the tortured souls of the dead and the cursed living were twisted over a milennia, becoming plagueworn, horrid demons and wicked undead. Ashtoreth left the plagueworn behind and, reminded of the Shadowmaker's great transgressions, murdered King Ardal III in a fit of rage and left her twice-defiled home for the North with her seven princes and princesses. Her children became her guardians, and she gave them the garb of the ancient Praetorian Guard, the wraithlike imperial bodyguard of Izevel. With them at her side, Ashtoreth embarked on a ten year campaign against her true enemy - Shadowthrone - through the Six.

At the end of the war between House Terminus and the Children of the Six, in 5E.1237, Ashtoreth met Nazar Alphaeus, a tiefling priest of Orcus serving the Children of the Six and a descendant of Locus Alphaeus, Dathan Alphaeus and Avram Alphaeus of Havilah. She recruited the tiefling, departing together from Ilfaine to Noslith, where she met what remained of the Sable Order in Agrawel's underground, far beneath the lofty houses of its nobility. Ashtoreth and Nazar became its leaders; when they learned that the Sable Order fights against both the Cult of Demogorgon and the Cult of the Dark Prince, she began to play on all sides of the war, taking a lesson from the Shadowmaker.

Formation of the Court of Locusts
After fifty years, by 5E.1287, Ashtoreth had convinced all the demon cults of Noslith to fear and obey her and her Praetorian Guard. The ancient crones and hags of the realm, those who had remained of the Temple of the Demon Lords, still lead by Ilia, met her in the Western Weald and consecrated Ashtoreth as Locust Princess, giving her the Demon Crown of Izevel and signalling the rebirth of the Temple. Ashtoreth began the construction of a great tower in Bregate - known only as the Demon Tower - and met Sserenthriina, an ancient fiendish black dragon and the queen of Tor Llygad, who warred with the Lady of the Lake. Ashtoreth made a pact with the dragon. Seemingly in the shadows, meanwhile, Nazar began to plot against the Locust Princess with Augustus Aurelian, a death knight, and Briallen Morvud, a vampire. Believing they were shrouded in darkness, these two figures had respectively guided the Cult of Demogorgon and the Cult of the Dark Prince. However, when their plan came to fruition in 5E.1304, the Locust Princess simply forced them all to kneel, revealing her own shrouded knights - Riordan and Arianwen Beithell, two elder Acheiran vampires who once swore an oath to the House of Terminus. With Augustus, Arianwen, Briallen, Nazar, and Riordan as its founding members, the Court of Locusts was formed.

In 5E.1311, seeking to take advantage of a crisis, the Court of Locusts traveled to Isle Merfin after Duke Murtagh Flann kidnapped the ravishing Princess Deirdre Arvendon. There, they met Soveliss Moridhel and the fey'ri. Ashtoreth seduced Soveliss with promises of old power returning and then convinced him to wipe out both false rulers so that he might restore Isle Merfin as Daemonfey Isle. Soveliss and the fey'ri summoned a terrible storm that destroyed Caer Merfin, Alfred I, Murtagh Flann, and Princess Deirdre, and afterwards, the daemonfey joined the Court of Locusts.

The Order of the Griffin
In 5E.1327, at the conclusion of Noslith's war with Wraemore, Ashtoreth reclaimed Caladbolg and corrupted it back into Bechith, blade of late Izevelan royalty. The power of the Court of Locusts was consolidated thus after many decades, and thus Ashtoreth began to use it against House Arvendon. During the reign of King Gerwyn III, Ashtoreth observed the adventures of Alfred III and began to play the wizard, Faolan the Gray, against his companions, seducing him in the form of the Lady Ceinwen. At the end of Alfred's journey, he married Ceinwen, much to Faolan's grief and jealousy; however, a chance was given to be back at Ceinwen's side in the form of a contest for the position of Archmage. However, Faolan lost to Piri Niven; and so the gray wizard sought out the Sable Order in 5E.1360 after losing both Ceinwen and the chance at being royal wizard. The necromancers took Faolan in, and soon they took him to meet the Praetorian Prefect. The Blade in the Dark ordered the death of Piri Niven, and Faolan had no choice but to accept, although it pained him little. The feud was designed to work against the royal family, yet the destruction of the Crown of Swords Inn & Tavern in Agrawel in 5E.1377 as a casualty of that same conflict resulted in the Order of the Griffin turning its eye towards the Court of Locusts, leading to a long cold war between the two secretive factions.

The shadow war reached its climax in 5E.1410; while the King, the Royal Army, and the White Rose fought with the other forces of the Shrinelands against Tyr's invading armies, demon cultists attacked Caer Anghenfil at the behest of the Court of Locusts. The attack devastated the mysterious Order of the Griffin, leaving few to seek vengeance, which they would successfully. After rebuilding for three years, the Order of the Griffin, Piri Niven, and the Talons of Justice pursud the demon cultists to the Demon Tower in Bregate; they successfully destroyed the tower, slaying the Praetorian Guard, but the Court of Locusts evade them again, remaining little more than a mystery. Barely more than ten in number in the aftermath, the Order of the Griffin returned to Caer Anghenfil to roost. Meanwhile, the defeated Court of Locusts made their way to the ruins of Caer Merfin, where they made their lairs, while Ammon seized control of the abandoned lairs of the Sable Order, the Infernal Pact empowered by peace between the kingdoms of the Shrinelands.

Ashtoreth, grieving over the loss of all seven of her children, allowed the Court of Locusts to grow in individual power yet also allowed Piri Niven to find the Underbelly. The half-elf wizard entered its depths, but did not enter the City Beneath, instead returning to the surface and filling the Underbelly with deadly traps and monsters, his face stricken with fear of what might be beneath its secret chambers. Over the next several years, then, fearful of Ammon and their other enemies, the Court of Locusts remained on Isle Merfin, even when the Infernal Pact assassinated King Martin II in 5E.1469. When, in response, the White Rose massacred the diabolist inhabitants of the Hall of Flies and the Flooded Catacombs, forcing Ammon to retreat and foiling his plans to seize control of Noslith, Ashtoreth realized that she must play her most dangerous enemies against each other to have a hope of reclaiming her birthright.

The Black Cardinal
Darkly inspired, Ashtoreth laid out the basic designs of a plan of vengeance and conquest over not only Noslith but Frey itself. It began in 5E.1498, when she equipped three werewolves with powerful magic items; they became the Prince, the Priest, and the Prophet, leaders of the Half-Moon Heresy. The lycanthropes descended upon the kingdom, leading to the downfall of druidic and faerie power in the wilds and allowing monsters to roam free. At the same time, Ashtoreth had placed several powerful illusionists within the ranks of the Solist clergy.

The Half-Moon Heresy caused the death of Pelleas when the lycanthrope generals hung his broken body as their banner before the Monastery of the White Rose. The war was the beginning of the downfall of her successor and adopted sister, the half-elven dame Tyffayne, after the Bishop of Bregate - Yorath himself, agent of the Court of Locusts - betrayed her by calling away all the orders of Knights Templar at the battle of Wallow. The sight of her adopted brother's terrible loss - the only one who truly cared for her - and the defeat and humiliation of her order - engendered her fall from grace, all according to Ashtoreth's dark designs.

The sack of Ryfall lead to the desperate intervention of the Order of the Griffin, the death of Knight-Commander Athelstan Kerrain and the appointment and apparent death of Lothar Kerrain, his son. Likewise, when Cardinal Cahir, Father Aeron, and Hudde Glyn attempted to ambush Bishop Yorath as he fled through the White Forest, they were defeated, resulting in Hudde's death and Cahir's excommunication. The war was over at that point - the Inquisition slaughtered the Prince, the Priest, and the Prophet - yet Noslith was wounded and the true enemies had escaped. Meanwhile, with the druids and the Order of the Griffin defeated, Ashtoreth set about corrupting the White Rose, seducing Tyffayne to darkness and replacing the Praetorian Guard.

Elsewhere, excommunicated from the church and stripped from history for his failure and forced to become a scapegoat for the Heresy, the seventh Cardinal Cahir wandered into the Underbelly beneath Castle Arvendon and entered Demonstone, where he ended the ancient enchantments that sealed the plagueworn within. A powerful plagueworn called Legion, composed of thousands of demonic souls, awoke and possessed Cahir, using the theurge to rend a hole through the cavern wall into the Underdark, and the demons poured out of the City Beneath, unleashing the Rasping Pox on Noslith as they reached the surface. The crones consecrated Cahir/Legion as the Black Cardinal, leader of the Black Congregation, once the position of Ilia during the time of the Temple of the Demon Lords.

The Black Congregation attempted to use the plague to destroy Noslith, causing widespread death throughout the first outbreak, but Tegwen the Enchantress and the Company of Eight defeat the Black Congregation, capture the Black Cardinal and take him back to Agrawel, where he is executed. Cahir's death causes Legion to attempt to reform on the Ethereal Plane, but Tegwen confronts the demon and instead seals Legion within the crypts below Castle Gremfel in Lewarga, the Shadowfell mirror of Castle Arvendon in Agrawel; she meanwhile seals Cahir within a secret crypt below Carmarthen on the material plane. Ashtoreth was struck simultaneously by the beauty of her new rival, Tegwen, by the beauty of the chaos that had arisen, and by the beauty of her plague, returned, ravaging the wounded Noslith. Reaching for the last weapon known to her, Ashtoreth refilled her vial.

The First Horseman
The Solist Church successfully ended the first outbreak of the Rasping Pox, and thus it took several years for Ashtoreth to reproduce the rasping poison that engendered it, especially without instruction from Nefastus. When she succeeds, she unleashes it in the heart of Bregate in 5E.1521, a kingdom once cursed by the Infernal Pact, no stranger to affinity for fiends. She takes the guise of Aeronwen once again and seduces the Duke of Bregate, Duncan Gardner, pulling him away from Ammon's grasp and into her own. Meanwhile, assassins trained by Vaielnor Elenviel, at the commands of Tyffayne, corrupted and seduced to darkness by Ashtoreth into her new Praetorian Prefect, assassinate priests across Noslith, ending with the death of the Bishop of Bregate, the ascension of Anselm/Yorath to leadership of the clergy and the beginning of the Fifth Crusade. As Aeronwen, Ashtoreth kept the Duke's eye firmly fixed on the crown, while the fallen priests of the Brotherhood of Illusionists served to corrupt the nobility beneath the Duke away from the Infernal Pact and towards the talons of the demoniac. By 5E.1522, the pressures of the Fifth Crusade lead Uriel Hieremias of Inoam and Caius Cassian of Tor Beleth to join the Court of Locusts, making their number seven. Although the Fifth Crusade created a problem for the Infernal Pact, it was still dangerous to the tieflings of the Court of Locusts. Furthermore, Tegwen the Enchantress and the Heroes of Blackbridge had begun to prove difficult obstacles to the end of the crown. Moreover, the assassinations were incomplete; the Archbishop was the final obstacle to the destruction of House Arvendon. The Court of Locusts, through the agents of Lady Quirelle Moridhel, fey'ri sorceress; Vaielnor Elenviel, demoniac assassin; Jae Florian, leader of the Yellow Rose; Faolan, wizard of the Sable Order, along with Audamar, the order's leader; and Becuriel, an ancient incubus that once served Ashtoreth in the days of Shadowthrone, within the Shambling Temple. Faolan would corrupt one of the houses of the Hinterlands, to bring down the wrath of the Crusade and expose their merciless nature, to imperil Piri Niven and to lock him away, to destroy both the wizard and the Crusade. Jae Florian, under Quirelle's heel, would allow Becuriel to spread the plague throughout the Hinterlands, to weaken the King and trap him within the walls of Agrawel. The world focused on the fervor of the Crusade would then be blind while Vaielnor Elenviel retrieved the blade of Impietas, the weapon that would end the life of Tegwen of House Beldrec in the hands of the Black Cardinal, and assassinated the Archbishop Harald, achieving vengeance and destroying the defenders of the crown in one fell swoop beneath the Eclipse. King Richard II, trapped in Agrawel by rebellion and by plague, would fall to the White Rose, and the subsequent war engendered between Duke Duncan of House Gardner and Princess Calanthe Arvendon would allow the Court of Locusts to begin to move against Caer Sól, with the pagan support of Earl Ethelhelm Beldrec guaranteed and the fall of the King's River Valley all but assured. Ashtoreth would watch all through her familiar, the quasit known as Pestilence.

With Noslith under their control, the Court of Locusts planned to use the magic of the subsequent Eclipse to summon five demon lords, to draw the Phoenix out of hiding and to see them do battle. Dagon, Demogorgon, Graz'zt, Juiblex, and Orcus would enter the world, slay the Phoenix, and then slay each other. Ashtoreth's design was officially to have the Court of Locusts take the Ashen Egg from the battlefield thereafter, the key by which Ashtoreth would ascend. However, a Dark Pact was formed amongst her allies, between those who followed Graz'zt and Orcus, to take the egg for their own patron, to allow the spoils to go to the victor in truth. Ashtoreth foresaw this, and made plans to destroy her allies and secure her ascension no matter what. She would not tolerate the chaos of the Court of Locusts in her path to true power.

The Dawn's Herald
Faolan was successful, and although his plans ended in his death, he made contingencies that were successful. The Heroes of Blackbridge, reformed as an adventuring party that would later be known as the Dawn's Herald, found evidence of the Crusade's massacre at Hambor and slew the corrupted leader of its house, drawing the Crusade's ire in the meantime. On their journey to Agrawel, to face the King for their slaughter of a sovereign lord of Noslith, they met Vaielnor Elenviel and assisted him in retrieving Impietas, destroying a Cult of Tiamat that had threatened Westmoor in the process. The Dawn's Herald arrived to Agrawel and were cleared of their charges, but fell into a conflict between the Infernal Pact and the Court of Locusts, fought between the proxies of the Syndicate and the Yellow Rose. The Dawn's Herald nearly prevented the Eclipse, storming Becuriel's manor in Agrawel, but the inadvertent destruction of Becuriel's shadow-orb caused a massive explosion that caught the eye of Pestilence and thus Ashtoreth herself. Ashtoreth appeared as a hooded female tiefling to the Dawn's Herald before the burning manor, slaughtered the survivors with Bechith, and then took them captive, raising those from the dead whom had value to her or to her minions. One among them proved exceptionally valuable: Elric Thrussell, heir to the former royal dynasty of Agrawel. Ashtoreth forced Elric's cooperation with the Court through Becuriel. However carelessly the defeated knights of the Dawn's Herald were discarded, it is clear that Ashtoreth underestimated them. The knights escaped the dungeon they were left in after witnessing Elric's fall, and convinced Jae and the members of the Yellow Rose loyal to him to betray the Court of Locusts. The consequences were swift. Quirelle recaptured Jae; with only hours before the Eclipse, the Dawn's Herald stormed Quirelle's lair and saved the lost knight. Together, they reached Griffin Hill, and confronted the risen Black Cardinal and his reassembled Black Congregation. Yet when they entered into battle with the dread demon priest, they realized they had fallen into another trap. Faolan the Black, who was slain and reborn by their efforts, had allowed the Dawn's Herald to escape Jae's dungeon so that they might be turned into vessels for a ritual that would turn him into an arch-lich on par with the Shadowmaker. Furthermore, he had turned Piri Niven himself into his new phylactery. With Tegwen left to fight the Black Cardinal alone on the Shadowfell battlefield of Felldrake Hill, Piri Niven said his farewells before teleporting with Faolan to the Positive Energy Plane, destroying them both. The survivors defeated the Black Cardinal yet witnessed his essence fade into Carmarthen; when they returned to the Material Plane, the archbishop and much of the clergy there were slain, assassinated by none other than Vaielnor Elenviel, although they were officially assassinated by the Infernal Pact. Anselm was declared the successor to the archdiocese, due to his involvement with the creation of the Fifth Crusade, the Altar of Panacea, and his early involvement against the Infernal Pact conspiracy. Believing their enemies were mostly defeated, Noslith continued to work against the plague, which had now entered the walls of Agrawel. The Fifth Crusade prepared to make its final move against the Infernal Pact, while the Dawn's Herald and the clergy worked on the Altar of Panacea, a magical artifact that would end all disease, the Rasping Pox included.

Ultimately, the Altar of Panacea was revealed to be another trap laid for the Dawn's Herald. When the knights realized that both Anselm and Elric were servants of the Court of Locusts, they stormed the cathedral of Carmarthen. There, Anselm revealed his identity of Yorath, and activated the corrupted Altar of Panacea, releasing swarms of raspers across Griffin Hill. The resulting battle besmirched the Dawn's Herald's reputation as they were forced by House Thrussell forces and the arrival of the Royal Army to retreat from the city altogether. After a prompt warning from Calanthe, the knights escaped Agrawel and decided to make way for Westmoor. Disunited by suspicions of Tegwen and her ties to the Infernal Pact, the knights and the Yellow Rose were nonetheless able to rescue Caelan Fox, a knight who had fallen to darkness along with Sir Elric Thrussell in the attack on Becuriel's manor. Ashtoreth dispatched the Blade in the Dark after them, but they rode on through the Western Weald, finally arriving at Lagarde, their destination, where Jae, Henry, and Lemuel hoped to start their Order and begin their war against the Court of Locusts in earnest. They found their enemies waiting for them, and so the Dawn's Herald defeated Quirelle and the Child of Stars, who had overtaken the ruin of Lagarde with their cult.

Meanwhile, the Court of Locusts had made further plans. The Yellow Rose was secretly reified under the rule of King Duncan Gardner, and several lords reforged their old vows to Bregate. Sir Elric Thrussell had been trusted with a knightly order to rival the Dawn's Herald, the Order of the Sons of Rhydderch; he would become the false hero where they had become the false villain. Elric was sent to empty the Infernal stronghold of Caer Cythraul, and to dispatch the Iron Regent, who had outlived his usefulness. The Court began preparing to make its final move against Noslith, deciding to wield the Yellow Rose and the White Rose both against the crown. Ashtoreth was still set on achieving victory, although it was beginning to seem impossible, the path ever winding. Her hope finally came through Soveliss Moridhel; the old lover of the princess gave Ashtoreth several pieces of interesting information. As the grandfather of Lagarde's one-time ruler, Lady Quirelle Moridhel, and frequent speaker with Morag, the kraken, Soveliss alone was aware that his grand-daughter may have found something even more powerful than she herself was previously aware – what their spy at Lagarde, the doppelganger Romulus, called the phoenix-fire – what Morag had sought to snuff out ever since Mère Fleur first found it. Soveliss had revealed more than he knew; Ashtoreth immediately identified the phoenix-fire as a piece of Sol himself. They departed for Tor Beleth, to prepare for the final battle, while the Dawn's Herald attempted to consolidate power in the Crossing, unprepared for a direct assault.

The Sunscourge Heresy
The Court of Locusts swiftly and brutally conquered Castle Antenor, decimating the Dawn's Herald in the process, thanks especially to a bargain made with Cyrus Chalfont, who betrayed the knights for the Court. They forced Father Aeron to summon the angelic spirit of Mère Fleur, so that Ashtoreth might learn every secret of the phoenix-fire. When Ashtoreth withdrew it from the earth, the leadership of the Dawn's Herald returned to occupied Lagarde only to witness her ascension. Godric Aldane died in a failed attempt to gain vengeance on Cyrus seconds before Ashtoreth spilled her tainted blood upon the earth-node and invoked divine intervention. The corrupted Rite of Panacea burned the fire of the Phoenix away to cure the plague by replacing the taint of Deskari with the taint of Ashtoreth, creating the Plagueborn and the Phoenixtear. Ashtoreth then grinned and crushed the Phoenixtear in her hand; a pillar of light enveloped her, and then she disappeared, ascending to godhood.

At that point, the Phoenix ceased to exist, consumed entirely by the ego of Desdemona Terminus of Demonstone. The sun in the sky above turned blazing red crimson, and the very name of Sol became corrupted. The goddess transported herself to Caer Sol, slaying the Cardinals instantly and calling upon the elven mythal there that first created the Phoenix. The Fifth Crusade, alerted by the Cardinals, who felt and witnessed the Phoenix's demise, rode immediately to Caer Sol, while the Bregatian army departed, along with the Wilted Rose, for Agrawel. The Fifth Crusade's march was halted on the final day, when they witnessed Caer Sol and Mt. Loinnir rise into the sky above them. Caer Tenebris and the Black Crusade were then formed from the mythal and the knights. On the thirtieth day, or the thirty-third and final day of her ascension, Ashtoreth opened the Worldwound, tearing the firmament asunder and opening a permanent rift to the Abyss. Ashtoreth's final declaration was to the Plagueborn that survived the resultant deluge - rule your new empire.