Lasdolon Stormblade was an elven adventurer-turned-General in the Kyonin army who turned to sources both dire and vile in his search for a solution to the embarrassing blight of drow hidden deep underground. His faith was already faltering due to the perception that the order’s dogma was too obsessed with the balance of magic and a reticence to utilize all the tools at one’s disposal to solve a problem. His wife,
Loriana, was a cleric of Desna who tried to temper her husband's frustration. During an attack on a temple of Abraxas that the drow had barricaded themselves within, Loriana was struck with an arrow tipped with a powerful demonic poison. Lasdolon ordered his men to wipe out the drow within the temple and return with the antidote. The drow were heavily entrenched, and the elven soldiers quickly realized they were being ordered to commit suicide. With his wife writing in agony, begging Desna to help her, Lasdolon struck down several of his men who tried to retreat.
The drow took advantage of the chaos and emerged from the temple, pushing their attack. The elves were forced to retreat, but Lasdolon refused to leave his wife. Several commanding officers subdued Lasdolon and dragged him away. The drow pursued them, and Lasdolon had to be restrained to prevent him from charging through the drow to retrieve his wife. Loriana's screams echoed through the caves. The drow did not attempt to kill her. They let her suffer. Lasdolon cursed the gods for not aiding his wife and cursed the elves for disobeying him with their cowardice.
It took three days before the elves felt confident they had lost their pursuers. They found out how wrong they were when they woke one morning to find Loriana's horribly misshapen corpse in their camp, a departing gift from the drow. Lasdolon killed a dozen men in his rage before he was struck down and almost killed. He was returned to Iadari to answer for his crimes. However, as a member of the Winter Council Lasdolon was given a reprieve. His actions were considered the result of his grief. He was suspended from his position and given time to grieve.
But Lasdolon was beyond grief. He dove straight into madness. He wanted revenge. Revenge against the gods who had forsaken one devoted to them. Revenge against the elves, who were cowards at heart. They fled Golarion during Earthfall, they let the drow exist without having the fortitude to do what needed to be done to get rid of them. Their cowardice kept Lasdolon from helping his wife. As far as the drow went, they had killed his wife. They were no different than the rest of the animals.
The Winter Council came to Lasdolon with a mission. In some of their older maps, they found what they believed led to a powerful artifact being guarded by an even more powerful dragon. The artifact was underground and inside the drow-infested city of Celwynvian. They wanted Lasdolon to take a small team of soldiers to infiltrate the city and recover the artifact before the drow stumbled across it.
Lasdolon and his men made their way below the city. They found the lair, and a dragon was guarding the artifact. However, it was no ordinary dragon - it was a void dragon. Many of his men were killed, but he snatched the glowing green gem before the dragon could slay Lasdolon. It was no mere artifact - a vestige of Tharzduun, the Eye of the Abyss. At that moment, the mad god reached out and touched Lasdolon. The elf, already quite mad, let the chained oblivion take root in his mind. He used the Eye of the Abyss to absorb the life essence of the dragon and his men. He returned to the Council and reported that the map was false. There was no artifact.
Lasdolon's fall from grace was subtle, and his kin in the Winter Council, absorbed as they were with their projects, had no warning of the change in his demeanour. Tharzduun showed him visions of glyphs, and Lasdolon dove into his research. When he finally cracked the glyph codes and comprehended the construction of the earthfall glyphs, Lasdolon presented his findings to the Winter Council and suggested they use the magic to strike at the portions of Golarion where drow cities were hidden to collapse their cities and disrupt their worlds. While one of the other councillors—the wizard Hialin— seemed intrigued by his plan, the rest were shocked and sickened that he could be so blasé about sacrificing such significant portions of Nirmathas, Varisia, Cheliax, Druma, and Andoran. With Lasdolon’s burgeoning madness, the resulting argument swiftly developed into bloodshed, and the enraged Lasdolon struck down the leader of the Winter Council. This act was the final tipping point that triggered the Dark Fate—Lasdolon transformed into a drow. Stunned into paralysis by these events, the remaining councillors did nothing. At the same time, Lasdolon deactivated the wards that protected the Council’s fortress of Thorn’s End from the demons in the surrounding forest. In the chaos that followed, Lasdolon gathered much of his research and fled.
At first, traumatized by his transformation, Lasdolon swiftly saw it as a gift from Tharzduun. A gift and an omen. He was not placed on Golarion to destroy the drow but to destroy those who had been inadvertently responsible for creating them. By leaving so many elves behind, the elven nation had damned the survivors of Celwynvian to this fate, and they had weathered the Age of Darkness. In contrast, the elves had fled—the drow, Lasdolon realized, was the true inheritors of Golarion, not the elves.
The drow were also tied to the Abyss by worshiping the various demon lords. The drow would be the ones who would provide Lasdolon with the missing piece to free Tharzduun.
Lasdolon fled to the Darklands. He arrived in the drow city of Zirnakaynin and immediately raised attention with his power and shape-changing abilities, gifts from a dragon so he claimed. Despite being seen as inferior due to being male, his power, ability, and charisma earned him favour amongst several families. House Azinrae adopted him, hoping to use his magic and knowledge to further their agenda.
While enjoying his notoriety, Lasdolon began to miss life above ground. He had risen to authority amongst the drow despite his gender, which was easy enough for him to change. He did so often enough that it was unclear what his true gender was. Sometimes, he would change his appearance to human to agitate those in authority. He was always in his natural form around the matron of Azinrae and always showed her the utmost respect.
Lasdolon resumed adventuring, forming the group known as the Twilight Empire. Over time, the Empire grew from a group to a guild. The members were mostly male, but some female, all of who enjoyed living outside the confines of drow society. But Lasdolon remained vigilant, seeking a way to free the mad god from his bindings beneath the Abyss.
Using the vast libraries of House Azinrae, Lasdolon discovered many magical items. He also stumbled upon some information regarding Zalatas, the former Herald of Tharzduun. This interested him - he could summon Zalatas and then steal its essence, using it for his power.
The most exciting item found within the library was a sa'har
Pyramoid. The pyramoid belonged to the dark sa'har
Khaylin Cirdanas. He could access the knowledge within, including the location of the umbral temple - a place called the Throne of the Abyss, but to the rare few, it was called the
Throne of Tharzduun. The umbral temple held the seal, the chain that kept Tharzduun bound. If he could access the temple and channel enough souls into it, the seal would break, and Tharzduun would be free. The souls would be easy, using the earthfall rune to drop a star upon civilized areas and then drawing those souls into the rune.
The pyramoid also detailed another piece of information. Spiritbreaker, Khaylin's chakram, was a pocket dimension like the pyramoid. Within Spiritbreaker was another vestige of Tharzduun - a sword known as the Claw of Tharzduun. Lasdolon knew this history of the Claw and felt it could be a problem that could be used against him. He needed to get the chakram.
Lasdolon almost had the chakram, but before he could obtain it he was shot in the eye by a human adventurer -
Valarius Paragon. He survived the attack and replaced his missing eye with the Eye of the Abyss. At that point, his madness was complete, and he felt fate brought the arrow to his eye. Valarius and his friends kept appearing in Lasdolon's life, so he felt it was fate that they were meant to help him. The drow was completely mad.
Mad, yes, but not stupid. He knew these adventurers - the Guardians of Golarion - would be a thorn in his side. However, they had no idea they had a weapon to undo his plans. So he kept tabs on them, keeping them close and off-balance at the same time until he could get the chakram.
In the Throne of Tharzduun, Lasdolon used the Master Glyph to summon a star from space and tried to get it to crash into Golarion. The glyph was also a gateway to the Abyssal prison holding Tharzduun. Success in the ritual would kill tens of thousands, and every soul would be funnelled to Tharzduun. This could give him the strength to escape. But the Guardians of Golarion thwarted his plan, and Lasdolon was killed. The Claw of Tharzduun was used against the Eye of the Abyss, destroying both. Powerless, Lasdolon fell, and a mass of inky shadow consumed his body.
