Rainoga

The Scarlet Ossuary of Akhmelereh is an ancient, half-buried necropolis repurposed by the Red Wizards into a reliquary of undeath and arcane dominion. Situated deep within a salt-crusted basin once ruled by a forgotten Netherese archlich, it now serves as a sanctuary and ritual testing ground for necromancers loyal to Szass Tam. Here, elder Red Wizards conduct horrifying experiments to perfect “soul-sieving”—the extraction of spiritual essence from Phaerimm, Bedine, and even Shadovar captives to fuel necrotic constructs and undead hybrids. Loyalists believe Akhmelereh is one of the keys to transforming all of Thay into a nation sustained by soulcraft and magical servitude. But beneath the reliquary, something ancient stirs: a primordial shadow, neither living nor dead, sealed in fractured bone tablets that even the Zulkirs fear to read aloud. Yet the rituals continue, ever deeper, ever darker.

The basin surrounding the Scarlet Ossuary resembles a bleached wound in the desert—a wide depression of cracked salt and shattered bone, its surface littered with half-buried statues of weeping, eyeless figures. The only entrance is a ribbed gate formed from dragonbone and chiseled basalt, adorned with rust-colored sigils that throb softly at dusk. Within, the architecture blends ancient Netherese solemnity with Thayan cruelty: narrow corridors lined with skeletal guardians, alcoves filled with floating spellbooks chained to phylactery-choked braziers, and chambers where soul-ash drifts like incense smoke. The walls pulse faintly with embedded soulgems—each glowing red when occupied, black when spent. The Heart Reliquary, the Ossuary’s central sanctum, holds a hovering lattice of bone and ruby, shaped like a thorned lotus and alive with wailing whispers. Floating lich-administrants and red-robed researchers move silently across stone bridges suspended over vast ossuaries.