Ka'Mort

Ka'Mort, Empress of Earth
Type	NPC
Character Information
Titles	Empress of Earth
Creature type	Elemental
Race	Primordial
Languages	Primordial
Place	Mount Ygora, Domunas
Connections	Rau'shan
Status
Status	Dead
Cause of death	Diffused across many realms by the Astral Leywright
Death episode(s)	"Fire and Ruin" (E3x04)
Appearances
First seen	"Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) (in a vision)
Last seen	"Campaign 3 Episode 110" (3x110)
Stream	Exandria Unlimited: Calamity (2 episodes) Campaign Three (1 episode)

Ka'Mort, Empress of Earth, was a Primordial sealed in the Founding and finally destroyed on the eve of the Calamity. As an NPC, Ka'Mort is played by Matthew Mercer.

Description

Ka'Mort was described as a towering figure, and in a vision from her perspective she passed through rock and shale as if she were one with the material and breached the surface like a massive whale. In her final moments, bound together with Rau'shan, Emperor of Fire, they were combined into a great quantity of magma.

In Ashton's vision, when he talked to the Empress, she appeared as a green gem shining like a burning eye.

Biography

Background

Ka'Mort and Rau'shan were the greatest Primordials on the continent of Domunas in the Founding. During the Schism, Ka'Mort and Rau'shan were among the few Primordials who were not killed, but Pelor and Melora defeated the two and sealed them both beneath Mount Ygora.

The elemental power Ka'Mort and Rau'shan continued to emanate drew the druids of the Gau Drashari, some of the earliest of whom were genasi, to the mountain. The Gau Drashari treated Mount Ygora as a holy place and, deep underground, tended to the seals holding the Primordials. The druids took care of that place well, which led to the founding of Toramunda, and the growing city and the elemental power also drew the wizards of the Age of Arcanum. The elemental power permeating the mountain also gave the mountain the ability to collect and store magical Ether, which formed the foundation of the deal wherein the Gau Drashari allowed the wizards to take the top of the mountain as a flying city.

Exandria Unlimited: Calamity

When Vespin Chloras released Asmodeus from his prison plane, Asmodeus plotted to corrupt the Replenishment, whereby Avalir released massive quantities of stored Ether into Domunas, to instead release Ka'Mort and Rau'shan back into the world, so that they would join the Betrayer Gods in an attack on Vasselheim and ultimately a renewed war against the Prime Deities and the mortals of Exandria.

The oracle Karwen prophesied that if Rau'shan ("crowned fire") and Ka'Mort ("throned earth") were able to join that war, Melora and Pelor ("Mother and Father") would fall to the Betrayer Gods ("their imprisoned kin"), and Exandria would be hopelessly lost to unending horror.

The Ring of Brass foiled Asmodeus's plot. Laerryn Coramar-Seelie used the Astral Leywright to bind Ka'Mort and Rau'shan to a surging ley line during an Apogee Solstice, when the barriers between the planes are thinnest, and fire the Primordials away from the Material Plane, scattering them across as many realms as possible, thereby disenchanting and undoing them. The resulting catastrophic eruption also created a plume of ash that covered Exandria for a hundred years.

Campaign Three: Bells Hells

Fan art of Ashton in his "titan" form, by Tyler Walpole.

Even after being destroyed, a fragment of this primordial titan remained in Exandria, a shard inside the Necropolis of Toramunda. Around the beginning of the 9th century after the Divergence, Efterin of the Hishari, guided by the knowledge granted by the Great Tree of Atrophy, found the elemental relic and brought it back to Issylra, using it in a ritual that destroyed the village and most of its people, while the shard itself ended up inside his child, Ashton, transforming him into an earth genasi. Evontra'vir prophesied that both the shard of Ka'Mort and the spark of Rau'shan would be needed in order to defeat Ludinus Da'leth.

After Ashton tried to absorb the power of the Emperor of Fire, the elemental spark rejected him, but the process itself awakened his connection with the shard of the Empress of Earth.

Before leaving Vasselheim, Ashton, Fearne Calloway, and Laudna visited the Titan's Block to see if the former could commune with the dead primordial. The barbarian underwent a trance for a couple of minutes that caused the earth titan's body to shake for a moment, and he sensed a presence near him. In that time the remaining spirit of the titan acted as a gateway, allowing Ashton to communicate with some sort of collective primordial mind, and eventually with Ka'Mort herself, who was revealed as the "specter" near the genasi; like the other titans, the Empress of Earth told him that their time was gone, but his wasn't, and after showing him visions of the cycle of destruction and rebirth caused by fire and earth in ancient times, she explained that Exandria would keep changing, warning him that the people would have to become stronger in order to survive.

Relationships

Rau'shan

Fan art of the legacy of the Emperor and the Empress, by Sech Bravo.

Empress Ka'Mort's relationship with Emperor Rau'shan seemed to be one of partnership, and according to Orym, legends describe them as mates. They were defeated and sealed in the same place, and when the Astral Leywright caused their destruction, the two titans reached for each other before being sundered. After Fearne absorbed the power of Rau'shan, her touch awoke Ka'Mort's power inside Ashton.

Appearances and mentions

• Exandria Unlimited: Calamity
  • "Excelsior" (E3x01), mentioned only (first mentioned)
  • "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02), mentioned only
  • "Blood and Shadow" (E3x03) (first appearance) (in a vision)
  • "Fire and Ruin" (E3x04)
• Campaign Three: Bells Hells
  • "For The Tempest" (3x68), mentioned only
  • "Mist and Whimsy" (3x71), mentioned only
  • "Phantasmal Parley" (3x72), mentioned only
  • "Roots Between Worlds" (3x74), mentioned only
  • "An Ancient Flame" (3x75) (in a vision)
  • "A Gathering of Heroes" (3x76), mentioned only
  • "Fractures" (3x78) (in a vision)
  • "To Hurt Is to Heal" (3x79), mentioned only
  • "A Test of Trust" (3x80) (in a vision)
  • "Collecting Legends" (3x105), mentioned only (indirect)
  • "Campaign 3 Episode 110" (3x110) (as a specter)

Quotations

• (to Ashton) "You are my memory. We [the titans] are lost. You are not."

Trivia

• The deal the Gau Drashari struck with the wizards on the creation of Avalir was called the Pact of Crown and Throne. Avalir was called the City of Crowns, and Cathmoíra the City of Thrones. But "crown" and "throne" also appeared in Karwen's prophesy to refer to Emperor Rau'shan and Empress Ka'Mort.
• Just as Ka'Mort and Rau'shan, bound together, became magma, there was another Primordial called the Molten Titan who was defeated late in the Founding and also sealed beneath the earth; that event created the Daggerbay Mountains of Tal'Dorei.
• Ka'Mort and Rau'shan are two of three entities known to be defeated by Pelor and sealed beneath a mountain; the other was Tharizdun, beneath Gatshadow Mountain.
• The town of Kamordah in Wildemount was loosely named after Ka'Mort, due to the geological activity in the area.

References

Art: