Acererak

Acererak was a powerful demilich and creator of the Tomb of Horrors.

History
Though the exact date of Acererak's birth is unknown, it is believed to have been sometime in the 18th or 19th century of the Sixth Age. He was the offspring of a human woman named Valinda, and the balor known as Tarnham. Though his mother loved him, his obvious fiendish heritage made them pariahs. When he was ten years old, fearful villagers set his home ablaze, killing his mother. By the time he was an adult, he had grown into a cold, bitter man with nothing but hatred and revenge in his heart. Eventually he journeyed to Estorium, whose citizens were less fearful of his demonic aspect. He spent years there learning arcane magic, with a particular focus on necromancy, including at the hands of Ras Nsi. During this time, he decided to become a lich and developed a longterm plan of some sort. The last thing he did before his transformation into a lich was to set down a journal chronicling his life, which would be found centuries later by the wizard Gerik Desatysso.

Little is known of his precise activities during the intervening years, but by the 29th century he had become a demilich and a devotee of Nerull. By this time Acererak had also created the Tomb of Horrors. The tomb served as a massive altar to the god of death, and magical spells woven into it funneled the souls of all those slain within directly into Acererak. In order to ensure a steady flow of souls, he spread stories and rumors of the vast wealth that lay within in order to entice adventurers and treasure hunters to their deaths. It is not known how, or even if, Nerull's death in the Deity War affected Acererak's plans.

In addition to the Tomb of Horrors, Acererak had also located and taken control of the City of Moil within the Negative Energy Plane and linked it to a demiplane within which was constructed the Fortress of Conclusion. A hidden path linked all three, the clues to which were inscribed on an amulet. Acererak had also learned the true name of his father, and used it to trap the balor within a crystal prison in his fortress.

In 2938, Gerik Desatysso, having found and deciphered the amulet, recruited Falon T'Selvin and the Band of the Hand to take him into the Tomb of Horrors. Falon and most of his companions were killed, but Desatysso managed to enter Moil and, ultimately, the Fortress. He was no match for Acererak, however, who placed him under a curse of eternal torture.

In 2959, the Challengers of the Unspeakable entered the Tomb of Horrors and destroyed Acererak, taking the soul gems from his skull to utilize in a ritual to close a portal into the Far Realm. The soul gems were eventually stolen by agents of the sorceress Theriana, and lost during her defeat in Estorium. Acererak had reformed his body in the meantime, and soon afterward went to the city of Omu, where he slew many of the inhabitants and raised them as undead to expand the royal crypts into a maze of death traps. Acererak also slew the Nine Gods of the Omuans, entombing their remains within his new lair and christening it the Tomb of the Nine Gods. Within its depths he brought an atropal from the Shadowfell, using a trio of night hags called the Sewn Sisters to help nurture it. Together they build an artifact known as the Soulmonger, designed to capture the souls of all who died in the world and feed them to the atropal. Acererak also formed an alliance with his old teacher Ras Nsi, now leader of the yuan-ti that ruled Omu, to keep trespassers away from the tomb.

In 2968, resurrection spells began to fail across Syra as the Soulmonger was activated; this event became known as the death curse. Leardon Sunflare's investigations led him to believe there was some sort of link with the Tomb of Horrors and sent asked fellow Brightstone Hero Flynn Cupsigh and his companions to investigate. It soon became clear that Acererak had returned. While exploring the tomb, they freed an efreet who granted them three wishes in exchange. With one of their wishes, they asked for knowledge of how Acererak could be permanently destroyed. He replied, "In the jaws of darkness, at the hour of ascension, only a great sacrifice of souls can forever destroy Acererak." At the heart of the tomb they confronted and defeated the demilich once again. Though they knew now that this defeat was not permanent, they nevertheless delivered his soul gems to Leardon. Leardon would later use the gems to narrow down the source of the death curse to the vicinity of the lost city of Omu.

In 2970, the Sutler Expedition entered the Tomb of the Nine Gods, killed the atropal, and destroyed the Soulmonger. Enraged, Acererak emerged from a portal in the form of a lich and attacked them, but they managed to push him back through it. Acererak then departed back to the Fortress of Conclusion to continue his plans. The Expedition, along with Leardon Sunflare and Ru Bae Ya, ultimately followed Desatysso's footsteps to the Tomb of Horrors, through the City of Moil, and to the Fortress of Conclusion, where they found Acererak and the enormous multi-faceted crystal that served as his phylactery. The crystal was filled with powerful souls culled from both the Tomb of Horrors and the death curse, including that of Leardon's wife, Gremaka. Now able to manifest as both a lich and a demilich simultaneously, Acererak told them that, having overcome all of his traps and trials, their souls were now powerful enough to be the final catalyst in his plans: to merge with a portion of the Negative Energy Plane and become antheos.

The heroes soon realized that they had two choices: destroying the phylactery would, as the efreet said, also destroy Acererak, though at the cost of the souls of Gremaka and thousands of others. Or, by exposing the phylactery to a sufficient quantity of magical sunlight, they could free the souls. However, doing so would prove only a temporary defeat for Acererak. Though Leardon proclaimed that his love for Gremaka made him eternal, and swore he would be there when Acererak returned, Acererak destroyed Leardon's body and summoned his father, Tarnham, to kill them. With their options dwindling, Ru Bae Ya disintegrated two of the supports holding the phylactery aloft. The third support could not bear the weight alone and snapped, sending the massive crystal tumbling into the pit of pure negative energy below it and utterly destroying it. With its destruction, both the lich and demilich bodies exploded into dust as Acererak was vanquished forever.