welcome to the fungeon

âkalleth is born about 1,050 years before the start of the campaign to a peasant woman who works the fields underneath the floating continent of symbaroum. he grows up in its shadow with his two sisters. when he is about 13, his mother has a doctor examine him because he is spacing out and "feeling" a voice/presence in his head.

there's nothing medically wrong with him, but the doctor has a mage also examine him, and they think he might be an enir, or gate. they take him to symbaroum's capital city of symbar, and after some extensive testing, they're able to confirm this is the case.

symbaroum is technologically advanced (to the point where i like to imagine the game takes place in the far future not a magical alternative world, but i digress) and don't believe in gods but in laws of the universe. these laws, called illam, used to be worshipped as gods. illam don't have desires or personalities, but require their laws to be balanced & maintained. sometimes, in order to assist with this, an enir is born. enir can "hear" or know what their illam requires and fulfill it to the best of their ability. once they get trained well enough in magic, they ascend to an enir-illam, or gate of divinity, becoming a monstrous avatar of their illam to enforce their law and potentially losing their humanity and free will in the process. only one enir exists per an illam at a time, but are still very rare. enir can still die from disease or injury or poison, stop aging at a certain point, so they can live for a VERY long time. as enir-illam they're practically immortal.

after additional testing, they figure out âkalleth is the enir of Death. while being an enir is great news for âkalleth's family- they're instantly elevated socially and move to symbar, living out the rest of their days as low ranking nobles- symbar is less than ecstatic that they have a tie to Death. symbarians are very uncomfortable with death. their entire culture lauds art and science and beauty. âkalleth's family distances themselves from him because they don't want his association with Death overshadowing their lives.

technically, âkalleth is set for life. he's a pseudo-celebrity- has his share of fanatics and detractors and stalkers- can have almost anything he wants. the only thing he can't do is opt out. this is his future. as a young man, he's greatly pissed & depressed about it, so in order to cope, he throws himself wholeheartedly into his role to the point where it's all he identifies as. he has no friends, no hobbies, no understanding of himself beyond being a sort of vessel because he fears he will become bitter otherwise.

he's still icy and muted as a person in his role. he lives, works, and studies in the temple of Death, venturing out in full ceremonial dress to do his illam's bidding (everything from helping local government curb infectious disease to comforting the dying to sometimes assassinating people using magic to chase immortality- it's a mixed and weird bag).

he also allows the magical researchers in the Tower to study him because they've never had access to an enir before. it's at the Tower that he meets murum vull- a nobleman who's father was a research hobbist who poured a lot of money into the Tower, who has become an actual researcher first and foremost. murum slowly melts âkalleth's icy armor and they become close friends and then lovers.

inspired by âkalleth, murum sets his sights on answering the question of what would happen if everyone could hear illam. would enir still be needed? his hypothesis is no, and that by doing this, he might be able to save âkalleth from his fate of becoming an enir-illam. he might be able to give âkalleth the option to choose how he lives his life.

they have some struggles- âkalleth can't give murum the promise of a life together and also (though he appreciates murum's desire to save him) will always put his devotion to his illam first. murum sometimes comes on too strong as a researcher instead of a lover and envies âkalleth's illam to an extent. but they do adore one another- they're completely crazy about one another even if it colors their reputations. they share about 8 years together.

murum makes a working prototype and is able to hear Death the same way âkalleth can. he's got excited backers and funding, and is preparing to improve upon his prototype.

as âkalleth gets closer to ascending to an enir-illam, he spaces out more as he listens to his illam- going into a trance state for longer periods of time. his body starts to show signs, too: skin flaking away like porcelain to show the bone beneath, streaked through with gold. for the first time, âkalleth is afraid and desperate NOT to ascend. his devotion wavers as he weighs it against his true desire to stay with murum.

when murum sees the physical signs, he panics. he takes his prototype and makes a colossal version and tells his backers he's ready to present. the larger version is untested.

the day of the demonstration, murum promises âkalleth everything will change after his presentation and gives him a gold ring, promising him a future, whatever âkalleth wants that to look like. he also gives âkalleth a killswitch to use in case anything bad happens during the presentation. he doesn't expect it to, but has âkalleth stay out in the hallway just in case.

the presentation goes awry when murum pulls too much of the magic weave attached to Death too fast & Death itself spills into the auditorium, taking murum first and then everyone else. hearing Death actually scream, âkalleth uses the killswitch to open a rift to the Void, but the damage is done: murum and so many others are gone, and in absorbing living humans like this Death has twisted itself with mortal greed and has become something half-formed. a new illam: Corruption. Death is horribly unbalanced, & all âkalleth can think about is correcting it.

with the help of the illam of Life's enir-illam, prios (who was in attendance on behalf of his illam), âkalleth comforts the newborn illam and guides it into the Void, sealing it away.

out in the streets of symbar, magic users begin turning into abominations from taking corruption into themselves. the magic systems in place in symbar begin to fail as they, too, become corrupted, and symbaroum begins to fall from the sky.

âkalleth is saved by prios, then spends the next 20 years wandering the ruins, aiding survivors as he can. his physical signs of ascending to enir-illam fade & he can no longer hear Death.

he misses murum greatly and when he meets one of murum's surviving colleagues, midratha, who says she knows how to bring murum and the others back, he immediately agrees to help her. he learns too late that she intends to bring them back from the Void as abominations not to truly save them and he fights her, killing her, but not before she hits him with a subtle spell that turns his thoughts of affection for murum towards Corruption.

his own mind betrays him by enforcing those feelings and he becomes obsessed with bringing Corruption back onto their plane. he begins to think of Corruption as his Master, gives it a name, and is utterly in love and desperate for its touch. when he almost succeeds in pulling it from the Void 500 years later, the enir-illam prios uses the rest of his lifeforce to pull the true name of Corruption from âkalleth's memory, pulling a bunch of memories out of his mind with it, and he spends the next 500 years wandering in a stupor.

after getting his memories back at the end of our campaign, he reasoned that Corruption should be treated like any other illam and that it is his duty to find a way to balance it. it's likely wishful thinking, but he's going to try anyway.