The Death Curse was an affliction on the whole world of Toril that stopped the dead from being raised and slowly killed everyone who had ever been returned to life.1 Its source was the Soulmonger, a necrotic artifact in the Tomb of the Nine Gods beneath Omu, on which the Atropal fed.23 The party was sent to Chult to find its source, and ended it on the night of the sixteenth of Eleasis, 1492 DR.45
Effects
While the curse lasted, the soul of anyone who died on Toril vanished at once, caught by the Soulmonger, and after a time was destroyed. Magic that returned the dead to life failed. Only necromancy that made undead of the dead still worked. The souls were taken so quickly that even liches could not feed their phylacteries.1
Everyone who had once died and been raised began to waste away, rot and at last die. Nothing healed or cured the wasting, and leaving Toril for another world or plane did not stop it once it had begun. Ghosts and other undead that already existed were not touched by it, and magic that spoke with the dead still worked. It was said that healing magic of every kind grew weaker.1
The afflicted grew black, bruised patches of skin that spread like gangrene, lost weight until their flesh was thin and papery, felt a cold that no fire warmed, and found that food tasted of ash. They dreamed of a writhing darkness or of a screaming blue light.
Late in Flamerule the curse quickened and began to take the strong.6
The souls of those who died inside the Tomb were held conscious and dragged down to feed what lay at its bottom.7
Cause
The curse was caused by the Soulmonger, which the lich Acererak, whom the party knew as the Architect, built to catch the souls of all who died on Toril and feed them to an atropal. A soul it had caught was not consumed at once, but once consumed it could not be restored. The Soulmonger also drew positive energy away from the rest of Toril, which was held to be why the raised were rotting. The only way to stop the curse was to destroy the Soulmonger.1
The Soulmonger stood on three adamantine struts over a lake of lava in the Cradle, the lowest chamber of the Tomb, and the Atropal hung above it and fed.3 The curse fed the Atropal, and by taking every soul it starved other liches, among them Valindra Shadowmantle of the Red Wizards, and drew them to Omu.
Exceptions
Twice during the expedition the dead came back in spite of the curse, and neither time by ordinary magic. On the twenty-fifth of Flamerule Taenae and Takhesis Calva were killed in the Maw Below, and the goddess Chakuna returned Taenae to life while Acererak returned Takhesis.8 On the tenth of Eleasis Acererak showed Takhesis the beheaded Ras Nsi raised again.9
At The Bastion, the temple at the heart of Tawb, the wasting ran more slowly, and the afflicted went there to buy time.
History
Origins
Acererak found an atropal adrift in the Negative Energy Plane and resolved to raise it into a god of death, for which it had to be fed countless souls. He brought it to the bottom of the Tomb of the Nine Gods, which he had built a century earlier as a trap to take the souls of adventurers. He enlisted the Sewn Sisters, a coven of night hags, who helped him make the Soulmonger and nursed the atropal, and he set the Yuan-ti of Omu under Ras Nsi to guard the way to the Tomb, with a promise to help them free their god Dendar.1
Across Faerûn
Priests and adventurers across Toril began to notice the curse, and some divined that an artifact called the Soulmonger was its cause and that it lay somewhere in Chult. The curse was taken for a plague and was the talk of taverns across Faerûn, and the afflicted crowded into places of healing, where nothing could be done for them. The lich Szass Tam of Thay, whose own kind the curse was starving, sent his lieutenant Valindra Shadowmantle to Chult with an expedition of Red Wizards under Zagmira, to claim the Soulmonger for Thay or else destroy it. The Harpers learned the name of the Soulmonger and roughly where it lay, and passed the knowledge to Syndra Silvane of Baldur’s Gate, an archmage who was herself among the afflicted.1
The expedition
On the thirtieth of Mirtul, 1492 DR, Syndra Silvane sent five adventurers to Port Nyanzaru to find the source of the Death Curse.4 On the fifth of Kythorn, in the Snake Temple, the party learned from the notes of the Red Wizards that the cause was a necrotic artifact called the Soulmonger, and on the seventh Zitembe of the Temple of Savras confirmed it.210
On the twenty-ninth of Flamerule the merchant prince Wakanga O’tamu showed the party a coffin that held only ash and Syndra Silvane’s amulet. She had crumbled to dust the day before, and her last words were “Tell them the Atropal laughs.” The gladiator Kragga was dead of the curse as well.6
On the fifteenth of Eleasis, inside the Tomb, the Watcher Savriel Tirinath found that the soul of the dead Ersklan Ghostfang was caught in a current that pulled it down, and Vonara understood that the Soulmonger had to be destroyed to free the souls it held.7
The end
On the afternoon of the sixteenth the party came into the Cradle and saw the Soulmonger and the Atropal. They broke the three struts, and the Soulmonger fell into the lava and dragged the Atropal after it. The souls came out in a flood.3 The curse did not end until Takhesis Calva, the vessel to whom the Atropal was bound, was dead. Then the wail stopped, the flood of souls ran to its last lights, and the Death Curse was over.5
The next morning Sister Silas cast resurrection over Inete, whom Takhesis had killed in the Cradle, and Inete returned. It was the first resurrection to work in a year.11
Appendix
Notes
Behind the screen
The general account of the curse, its cause, its origins and its spread across Faerûn follows the published lore of the Forgotten Realms, as given on the Forgotten Realms Wiki. Dates, the length of the curse and everything from the expedition onward are the campaign’s own.
Appearances
Named throughout the campaign, from Session 1 to Session 91.