The Order of the Zaratan

Deep in the hidden reaches of northwestern Salixis (former Undying Pactland) and lost since the long-ago Age of Heroes lies the monastery of the Order of the Zarantan. While the Order itself fell over 600 years before the return of the Dragons, the Elemental Node deep in the earth beneath the site persists. The Order of the Zaratan took its name from the elder elemental of earth who guarded the elemental node. This powerful entity had a longstanding alliance with an Undying Patron, a lich known as Ri-Nek. This Ri-Nek was made a lich by the power of others rather than their own volition, and strove to avoid falling into the evil ways often expected of a lich by consuming only the souls of those who had done great evil themselves. Ri-Nek and the zarantan joined their powers in the form of magical mud baths, as the zarantan would draw forth mud from the earth surrounding the elemental node and Ri-Nek would infuse it with the vigour of the Undying, such that it gained the power to prolong life.
For some unknown reason, Ri-Nek left the monastery and disappeared from mortal knowledge. In their absence, the monks fell to infighting and the monastery disbanded and depopulated. For six centuries, all that remained were a handful of monks who had volunteered to become Stonecursed, their bodies and abilities preserved in an ageless stasis. What circumstance was originally intended to trigger their awakening is subject now to mere speculation, for their statue-like bodies seemed to be the only trace of life left.
When a group of adventurers investigated the ruins and employed powerful magic to restore the six remaining Stonecursed, however, they also found that the remains of the monastery were not as empty as it had seemed.
Unlike its lich ally, the zarantan had never left the ruins of the monastery that bore its name. The whole of the complex had over the years become infected with the D--------, the corruption often known as the Mind Plague. Broken down by its parasitic influence, the elder elemental had been warped into a massive, terrifying aberration.
Bringing all their power and ingenuity to bear, this troupe of adventurers were able not merely to slay the aberration, but also, by calling upon the most complex magics known to mortals,to restore the great being to its elemental form and rid the entire area of the corrupting influence of the Mind Plague. The restored monks, powerful warriors in their own right, chose to leave behind the ruins of their home - now the tomb of all their brethren - and travel with the adventurers who had freed them.