The Raven Queen

Master of the skein of fate and the mistress of shadow, the Raven Queen is the goddess of death. Her gaze follows and marks the end of each mortal life, watching over the border between life and death and ensuring the natural transition is undefiled. Many funerals ask her blessing to protect the deceased from the terrible curse of undeath, a fate which was very common, especially in the Shadowfell, before her ascension. Those who study ancient lore believe that the Matron of Death was once mortal herself and is the only known mortal to have ascended to godhood. Her rise instantly obliterated the previous, nowforgotten god of death, and the other gods quickly and fearfully destroyed the secrets to the rites of ascension.
In the material plane there sits a huge mountain to the south of Apollo’s forest named Mount Raven after its namesake in the Shadowfell. In the Shadowfell the top quarter of this mountain is a glassy fortress of black ice which absorbs the light around it. Atop a throne of smooth black opal sits the Raven Queen, lost in a deep trance of recollection and sorrowful emotion. Since achieving divinity, the Raven Queen has filled her realm with shadows and memories, obsessively collecting such essences from remnants of dead gods and mortals that were strewn throughout the Shadowfell. From these metaphysical fragments she formed her new home, her glassy castle that the Shadar-Kai of El'Keleth call the Fortress of Memories.
The fortress is a mournful place, filled with incessant echoes of the past. Flocks of ravens that act as her eyes and ears darken the skies around it when they emerge from within, bearing her cryptic messages and omens far and wide across the multiverse. It is these ravens which carry out her commandments to the Shadar-Kai. An important historical moment or an emotion filled memory to capture for her. Scattered within the Fortress of Memories are these trinkets and items that the Raven Queen finds irresistible, memories plucked from people's pasts that have been invested with deep feelings of pain, sorrow, longing, guilt, or remorse. These items are brought to her as gifts from the shadar-kai. These trinkets can include furniture, clocks, mirrors, jewels, and toys among many other things. Also appearing in the fortress are ghostly visions of people, places, and pets. Any of these things can spontaneously appear around her lair, every object and apparition being a metaphoric representation of some story- great or small- that was saturated with raw emotion.
The Raven Queen worms into the unconscious minds and memories of her visitors, bringing forth visions from the deepest reaches of their psyches. Some of these visitors are the unwitting souls of departed people who have been pulled into the Raven Queen's clutches, others are astral travellers who are caught and trapped within the Shadowfell by her magic- but a rare few come of their own volition, seeking knowledge or freedom from a dark past.
Upon her ascension, the Raven Queen drew power from many of the Shadar-Kai, only her most trusted advisor, and rumoured lover, Krenral Gell was spared. After becoming the goddess of death, she gifted to him a spear of unmatched power and grace, Guenhyvar, the elven word for shadow. Its haft surrounded by a black mist and the blade crafted from a shard of black obsidian she chipped away from her own throne. This weapon has been handed down from father to son for generations. Its wielder expected to rally the Shadar-Kai to her heel to serve her in their endless cycle of life and servitude. Their lives a singular focus of martial and spiritual training so that they may better serve her insatiable craving for emotion.
The Raven queen will regularly send a raven to the door of a home in El'Keleth and to be chosen is a great honour. When a raven arrives, the Shadar-Kai will follow it, often through a Shadow Portal and into Eternium, where they are tasked with collecting the raw sorrowful emotion of an event. An assassination, the death of a child, or a betrayal of a spouse are just a few examples of this. They return with a trinket to signify the event for the Raven Queen and deliver it personally to her fortress.