Betrayers' Rise

Betrayers' Rise
Depiction of Bazzoxan, with the Betrayers' Rise set against the mountainside in the background, by Kent Davis from Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep.
General Information
Terrain	Mountain tunnels
Fauna	Giant rats
Location Information
Plane	Material Plane
Continent	Wildemount
Region	Xhorhas

The Betrayers' Rise is a temple to the Betrayer Gods and, in the time of the Calamity, was the seat of the Demon Princes of the Abyss. The temple was once called "the Bazzoxan" but Bazzoxan later came to refer to the entire settlement built around its ruins.

Description

Fan art of the Umbra Gates leading into the Betrayers' Rise, by Miloš Radojkić.

A gargantuan double door called the Umbra Gates marks the main entrance to the Betrayers' Rise. The doors are made of onyx inlaid with silver and copper, with carved imagery of demons. Much of the bottom section of one door had its imagery chiseled away at one point, but what remained was an image of the massive bestial body of Baphomet walking along a broken land, an army of malformed creatures swarming around him, and the partly ruined border of the door depicted a snakelike creature with one visible arm.

There are multiple barricades set up throughout the exterior and interior of the various tunnels of Bazzoxan, but evil creatures still manage to creep past, and the soldiers kill them and try to fill the gaps. There is one side entrance to the right of the Umbra Gates through which the Aurora Watch attempts to funnel the creatures.

Lianos, a soldier of the Aurora Watch who had not gone far into the temple, said that there was a large central chamber within Betrayers' Rise from which extended a great many tunnels. But the interior of the temple rearranges itself so that different groups experience different configurations.

In the adventure Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, set around 836 PD, one incarnation of the Betrayers' Rise is presented. Immediately behind the Umbra Gates, one party of adventurers may come upon a bridge ending at a door with a symbol of Avandra that some creature(s) had failed to scratch away; the door glows and opens readily when the Jewel of Three Prayers is close. The hallway beyond has reliefs of a battle involving celestials, mortals, and fiends, and depicting Alyxian accompanied by Avandra and another of the Prime Deities, Sehanine. Various chambers are dedicated to different Betrayer Gods, and one stained-glass window features the symbols of eight Betrayer Gods active in the Calamity plus the symbol of Vecna. Several of these nine deities, like Asmodeus, are not associated with the Abyss.

An altar to Avandra remains deep in the heart of the temple, surrounded by a large mass of bright crystal.

History

The Betrayers' Rise was the historical seat of power on the Prime Material Plane for the Demon Princes of the Abyss, in Xhorhas. For a brief period of time during the Calamity, there was unity between the demonic Princes for the purposes of fighting the Prime Deities.

The known Demon Princes of the Abyss include:

• Baphomet ("The Horned King"): Demon Prince of Beasts
• Demogorgon ("The Sibilant Beast", self-proclaimed "Prince of Demons"): Demon Prince of Madness
• Graz'zt the Seductive ("The Prince of Pleasure"): Demon Prince of Indulgence
• Juiblex ("The Oozing Hunger"): Demon Prince of Formlessness
• Orcus ("The Blood Lord"): Demon Prince of Undeath
• Yeenoghu ("The Beast of Butchery"): Demon Prince of Savagery

Fan art of a battle at the Umbra Gates, by Vanessa Schiefer.

After the fall of Ghor Dranas, the hero Alyxian and an army marched on Bazzoxan and fought their way into the temple at great cost. Alyxian prayed to Avandra for her blessing to aid in his fight against the demons there, and Torog taunted them in the darkness.

Following the Calamity, settlers from Rosohna wandered north and began renovating the ruins of Bazzoxan, but eventually dungeoneers found the dormant gateway to the Abyss within the temple, went mad from the demonic influence, and accidentally reactivated the gateway. There is some contradictory evidence in the canon about when the gateway to the Abyss was reactivated. As of 836 PD, the gateway was said to have been reactivated "about forty years ago", although one soldier claimed that year that the Aurora Watch in Bazzoxan had been holding off whatever creatures escape the temple for the better part of a century.

Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep

Depiction of the site within the Betrayers' Rise where Alyxian prayed to Avandra and received her blessing, by Kent Davis from Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, p. 74.

In this adventure, set in 836 PD, two parties of adventurers delve into the Betrayers' Rise in search of the place where Alyxian prayed for Avandra's blessing during the final siege of the evil temple in the Calamity. Agents of the Cobalt Soul, Allegiance of Allsight, and Consortium of the Vermilion Dream are also investigating related matters.

As of this time, a small number of Aurora Watch arcanists are posted in Bazzoxan to attempt to find and seal the planar rifts through which various threats emerge.

The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen

At some point presumably in the 840s PD, Leylas Kryn, Dryca, Roshan, and some Aurora Watch soldiers delved into Betrayers' Rise, on a mission to use an artifact called the Stormlord's Heart to enter Lolth's domain, the Dreadnest, to rescue Quana Kryn and retrieve a Luxon beacon. Quana, using the Stormlord's Heart, returned to Bazzoxan with the beacon, which turned out to have been corrupted.

Trivia

• The known Demon Princes in the Critical Role canon match those in the Forgotten Realms canon of Dungeons & Dragons, but not all of the latter have been mentioned in Critical Role media.

References

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