Spoilers
Era: The Age of Repose
Origin: Liralor, the Feywild
Race: Elf
The Story of Ysalyn the Fell
The Fall of the Radiant Bridge
The Victory That Became Defeat
At the climax of the Age of Chaos, when the forces of light and unity stood against the overwhelming tide of Zoroth, the Hollow Prince’s corruption, it was Ysalyn The Fair who led the final, desperate assault upon the fortress of Kzar’ak at the base ofMount Zalrath. The great army she commanded—an unprecedented alliance of elves, humans, and all the united races who had answered her call—pressed forward in what would become known as (TODO: Battle name).
In the shadow of that accursed mountain, Ysalyn’s radiant form blazed like a star against the darkness, her connection to the aetheric weave burning brighter than ever as she channeled every ounce of her power to break through Zoroth’s defenses. The fortress walls, wreathed in shadow and corruption, cracked under the assault of unified purpose she had spent lifetimes building.
Yet in the moment of victory, tragedy struck. As Zoroth’s physical form was shattered and his armies scattered to the depths, Ysalyn herself fell upon the blood-soaked stones of Kzar’ak. Her allies, believing their radiant general had perished in the final push, mourned her as the greatest hero of the age and withdrew from the conquered fortress, carrying news of both triumph and devastating loss back to their peoples.
But Ysalyn had not died. Broken, barely clinging to life, her once-brilliant light reduced to the faintest ember, she lay among the ruins as Zoroth’s spirit—though his physical form was depleted—persisted in the shadows of his fallen stronghold.
The Harvest of Despair
In the aftermath of defeat, Zoroth’s few remaining servants crept from the depths of The Underdark to survey the battlefield. Among the carnage, they discovered what their master had hoped to find: the broken form of the one whose light had been their greatest threat. With cruel reverence, they bore Ysalyn’s unconscious body into the depths of Kzar’ak, to chambers where no ray of sun or starlight could ever reach.
There, in the heart of the fortress she had conquered, Ysalyn’s true torment began.
Zoroth, his essence damaged but his malice intact, turned the full weight of his hatred upon the one who had orchestrated his downfall. But this was no mere physical torture—Zoroth understood that Ysalyn’s greatest strength lay in her unshakeable faith in the goodness of others, her ability to see light in the darkest hearts. It was this very strength he would corrupt.
The Endless Nightmare
For thousands of years, Ysalyn endured torment that went beyond the physical realm into the deepest recesses of her spirit. Zoroth invaded her mind with surgical precision, exploiting every doubt she had ever harbored, every moment of loneliness she had felt as a bridge between worlds that never fully accepted her.
Nythera, Weaver of Nightmares, called from the pantheon of The Nyx, was enlisted to craft an endless tapestry of psychological horror. Night after night, dream after dream, Ysalyn experienced visions so vivid and cruel that they became more real than memory:
The Elven Betrayal: In these nightmares, her own people—those she had led to victory—turned against her with vicious contempt. They surrounded her with faces twisted by hatred, their voices echoing the old accusations: “Human lover,” “Traitor to your blood,” “Corruptor of the pure.” In the dreams, they cast her out from Liralor, the Feywild, stripping her of her heritage and declaring her an abomination for daring to see worth in lesser beings.
The Human Rejection: When, in her nightmares, she fled to the humans she had championed, she found only cruelty and suspicion. The very people she had died to protect spat upon her as “knife-eared deceiver” and “fey witch.” They beat her, maimed her, and drove her from their settlements, their faces warped by the same prejudice she had spent her life trying to overcome.
The Endless Cycle: Each dream followed the same pattern—rejection, betrayal, violence, exile. She would wake in her chains only to be plunged into another variation of the same cosmic cruelty. Both races she had united now existed only to torment her, their gratitude transformed into the deepest hatred.
The Death of Light
As millennia passed in this psychological wasteland, something fundamental within Ysalyn began to break. The light that had defined her existence—her ability to see good in all beings, her unwavering faith in the potential for unity—flickered and dimmed under the relentless assault of manufactured betrayal.
The Aetheric Weave (Magic), once her source of power and connection to Almariel, Lady of Light, became a conduit for poison as her perception of reality warped. Where once she had seen potential and hope, now she saw only the confirmation of her nightmares. Where once she had felt love for all creatures, now she felt the cold burn of malice taking root.
Her radiant form, once impossible to look upon for its purity, dimmed until shadows began to gather around her like a cloak. The light in her eyes—the light that had inspired armies and bridged worlds—was replaced by something harder, colder, and infinitely more dangerous.
Thus, in the depths of Kzar’ak, the hero known as Ysalyn the Fair died. What emerged from that crucible of psychological torture was something new and terrible: Ysalyn the Fell.
The Weapon Unleashed
When Zoroth was satisfied that the corruption was complete—when every trace of her former compassion had been transmuted into malice, when her love for both peoples had become an all-consuming hatred—he released his greatest creation back into the world.
Ysalyn the Fell emerged from the depths not as a conquered enemy, but as a weapon perfectly forged for chaos. She carried within her an intimate knowledge of both elven and human nature, their fears, their weaknesses, their deepest insecurities. She understood precisely how to exploit the fragile bonds she had once spent her life building.
Most terrifyingly, she retained much of her former power. Her connection to the aetheric weave remained strong, but now it channeled something far different than light. The very abilities that had once made her a champion of unity now served a darker purpose: sowing discord, exploiting divisions, and ensuring that the alliance she had died to create would tear itself apart from within.
The radiant bridge between worlds had become an instrument of their destruction.
Legacy of the Fallen
The emergence of Ysalyn the Fell marked the beginning of a new and terrible chapter in the history of Eldara, the Shimmering Veil. No longer would the unity forged in the Age of Chaos hold without question. The very success of that unity had produced its own antithesis: a being who understood better than anyone how to make enemies of friends, how to poison trust, and how to ensure that the darkness between peoples would grow until it consumed the light she had once embodied.
In her fall, Ysalyn had become something far more dangerous than any mere servant of chaos—she had become chaos itself, the manifestation of Vorthar, The Dark Weaver, will of Zoroth’s spirit, wearing the face of salvation and speaking with the voice of experience. For who could argue with one who had given everything for unity, only to be betrayed by the very peoples she had saved?
The tragedy of Ysalyn the Fell was not simply that a hero had been corrupted, but that her corruption carried the terrible weight of truth—the proof that even the purest light, subjected to enough cruelty, could become the deepest darkness.
And in that darkness, Zoroth’s greatest victory was complete.