Our next update will contain the Nightfall Crypt, which is meant to provide a new kind of dungeon experience for Pantheon. To learn more about the gameplay aspects and intent of this area, check out our A Tiny Peek at Nightfall Crypts. In the meantime, some more information about the area has come to light.
A historian’s account taken from The Keeper’s vault.
“Nightfall Crypt is an underground complex associated with ritual erasure, mass interment without record, and the later establishment of an undead-controlled system under a powerful being known as Sarulith. The site is documented in scattered references that agree on three points: it predates Sarulith, it accumulated large numbers of unnamed dead, and it now functions as an organized facility maintained by the undead.
Early Use and the Order of the Veil Unremembered
The earliest surviving accounts attribute the crypt to a secret mortal organization identified as the Order of the Veil Unremembered. Their work centered on the removal of identity. Individuals taken into the complex were separated from name, affiliation, and public record. The method was procedural and repeated across many subjects.
Mortality within the complex was high. Many died during confinement or as a direct result of the rites. Bodies were interred on site without naming, registration, or funerary practice. Later testimony describes the dead as present in large numbers, distributed through side chambers and lower passages.
The entity known as Sarulith is recorded as a former member of the Ossuary Conclave, a structured group of powerful magic users gathered for unknown reasons. The Conclave existed under the authority of Vael Turog, the Sepularch Eternal, who is consistently described as a powerful lich seeking to enforce controls on lichdom. Surviving descriptions attribute to him policies concerning phylacteries, limits on the creation of new liches, and elimination of liches judged to be threats to internal order.
A faction within the Conclave attempted to remove Vael Turog from authority. Sarulith is listed among the participants. The attempt failed. Vael Turog’s response did not involve destruction. Sarulith was confined in a preexisting crypt. The confinement is described as long-term and designed to prevent Sarulith’s influence from extending beyond the site.
After Sarulith’s Confinement
Sarulith did not construct Nightfall Crypt and did not populate it initially. The unnamed dead were already present when he was bound there. Over time, Sarulith raised and bound portions of these remains, establishing an organized undead presence. Later accounts describe roles that include perimeter patrols, capture of intruders, internal security, and protection of key chambers.
Multiple reports indicate the presence of at least one living human who served Sarulith voluntarily. These accounts are consistent on the nature of the involvement: assistance with maintaining the ritual function of the site and supporting its continuity. Records do not reliably identify the individual by name or origin. Motive is not established.
Nightfall Crypt is treated in later sources as a site where early mortal practices of identity removal overlap with a later necromantic system sustained through repeated abductions. Sarulith remains confined, but the site is described as active rather than dormant.”