The Key to the Abyss

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The Key to the Abyss is an artifact of dread power that was, and perhaps still is, guarded by the Watchers at the Gate, a sect of the Order of the Guardians in Darkon. As its name implies, the Key has a powerful connection to the Abyss and represents a direct portal to that horrible plane if the Key's thirst for blood is not quenched.[1]

Description

Physically, the Key to the Abyss is not a normal key at all, but rather an strangely shaped object the approximating the size of a human head. Its core consists of a lump made of an unknown- and indestructible metal. Tubes made of crystal- just as invulnerable as the object's core, are spaced irregularly along the Key's side, with a sharp, edged tube for blood-letting at the object's top. It is through this means that the Key is fed blood.[2]

History

The Key's connection to the Abyss was somewhow created, or at least discovered, by Master Bralkain and his team of Kargat wizards in 580 BC. He attempted to conjure and bind a fiend from the Lower Planes. A portal was opened up, and the Whistling Fiend, unbound, stepped through and proceeded to lay waste to Creeana. Bralkain and the surviving wizards eventually managed to shut down the portal. Azalin called them to Castle Avernus and transformed them into undead servants. Bralkain became a disfigured vampire.[3]

The Key itself sat in the dungeons under Castle Avernus for nearly a century, until the Guardians breached the dungeons' defenses and stole the Key in 675 BC.[2] The Key itself came to be looked over by the Watchers of the Gate at their stronghold for several decades.

Sometime after the Requiem of 751 BC, Master Bralksain led a team of agents from the Unholy Order of the Grave to seize control of the Watchers' Stronghold and kill or imprison many of the order's members. Against the wishes of his master Death, Bralkain remained at the stronghold for a week, attempting to discover a way to conjure and bind a fiend using the Key. However, the attempt was foiled adventurers and the Whistling Fiend, whom still held a connection to the Key.[4]

Destruction

Like many artifacts, the Key is invulnerable to convention means of destruction. However, it may be destroyed by feeding it the blood of a fiend- at least the Whistling Fiend- causing its connection the Abyss to implode on itself.[5] This fact was deduced by Sister Eleyna of Mordent.[6]

References

  1. ↑ The Heart's Final Beat, TSR Jam 1999
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 TSR Jam 1999 p. 45
  3. ↑ TSR Jam 1999 p. 42-43
  4. ↑ Played out in the module the Heart's Final Beat included in TSR Jam 1999
  5. ↑ TSR Jam p. 44
  6. ↑ TSR Jam 1999 p. 37

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

TSR JAM 1999 : The Heart's Final Beat

TSR JAM 1999 - pp37, 42

TSR JAM 1999 -pp44-45

TSR JAM 1999 -pp42-45

Key to the Abyss, The Key to the Abyss


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