The First One
D&D 5e
Nerull tried to overthrow the pantheon by hoarding souls.
He schemed with Vecna to keep souls from travelling naturally to the Astral Sea and beyond, instead siphoning the souls exclusively to his realm.
Vecna discovered that certain temples still existed in the natural world, remnants of the game abandoned by the god.
Using the Council as a pawn, he hatched a scheme to activate these temples.
He used his power over undeath to increase the number of risen corpses, spurring the world into a panic.
A party of adventurers were gathered by the Council to solve this issue:
Vani, Gnome con-artist and entertainer and sister to Geo;
Geo, Gnome inventor and brother to Vani;
Orsik, Dwarven craftsman and Rumnaheim seargent;
Marcus, Halfling priest of Tuern;
Dokris, a Dragonborn seeking revenge for the death of his clan;
Kaphree, a Human with a deep connection to Dragons;
and The Scholar, an enigmatic Gnome who has traveled the universe.
Vecna manipulated this group to activate these temples, thus completely blocking all energy transfer between the material plane and Astral Sea.
A group opposed to the Council, known as the Coalition, learned of this plot and sent a rival party to try and disable the temples.
While they weren't successful in this endeavour, they did inadvertently awaken Gorrelik from his slumber.
Seeing what was happening around him, the god left the mortal world to warn the rest of the pantheon.
While the gods were too late to stop the temples from becoming activated, they were able to use the offending adventurers to stop and kill Nerull.
To fill the void, Marcus was apotheosed to fulfill the duties of death.
