Morkath's Account

Dendri has, I'm certain, given you an account of what happened before. But I doubt very much that she told you the entire truth. She has lied to herself for millennia; why should she not therefore lie to you as well - by omission, if nothing else.
Truth be told, the Oathcircle did not win the War of Binding. All that they were able to do was force a stalemate.
Let me paint you an image of the state of the war when the Oathcircle at last came to Pardatheum. The Hag Queen had voluntarily withdrawn from the world into the Web of Fate; the Kraken-Child was bound in the depths and prevented from continuing her cycle of reincarnation. The Dancer was dismembered and bound to the earth at Caer Daru; the Necromancer undefeated but sealed within his own tower ar Eisenvala. The Godhunter torn asunder by his own servants and his essence scattered to the winds; the Liar, drained of power and bound within the Sarcophagus that lay in Tchokayahattak; the Artificer trapped within his own obsessions; the Enchanter cast down into the deepest hells along with one sworn to his defeat.
The Master of the Pivot had long been thought to have fallen into quiescence of his own accord, and had not been seen in a thousand years or more. It was said that he had seen the devastation of the war, and overcome with despair and regret, had walked into the desert to seek solitude; that he had lain down in the wastes until the sands had entombed him, and as he could not die, had fallen into a deep slumber as close to death as might be possible for a thing such as he. He was not, in their eyes, a threat.
But the Oathcircle were not aware - and I know not if this was oversight on their behalf, or yet another manipulation by one who had concealed information from them - that in defeating the Paragons, they had merely altered the balance of power, and not drained the source of that power. And now, the Master of the Pivot had sole authority over the Fountain of Night.
I have often wonder what would have happened had they simply decided to leave matters alone. Perhaps he would have slumbered in the sands for another millennia or two; perhaps he would have woken of his own accord, or been awoken by another; perhaps he might have remained quiescent even until this day. But the Oathcircle, seeking a permanent solution as they had with the others, were not willing to take such a chance. And so they ventured into the desert of Na'azh, and found the Master of the Pivot.
This is the problem with heroes, my friends - you never know when to leave well enough alone.
He awoke, alone and terrified, and with all the power of the Fountain at his command - and like so many cornered animals, he lashed out, and slew all who had come to find him. And then he became aware that he was the last, and that the world had turned against them. And so he looked into the Fountain, the centre of all things… and he found Truth.
I do not know, precisely, what secrets the Master of the Pivot glimpsed in the depths of the Fountain of Night, now that his vision was unimpeded by the others. But it was enough to drive him to action. He called to the shadows, and the shadows answered; he called to his followers and they flocked to his cause. And when he had an army at his command once more, he marched on Pardatheum to reclaim his Throne.
His intent was known then, for he made no efforts to disguise it: and it was nothing less than the end of all things. He would snuff out all that lived, and burn the souls of every god and mortal alike in a funeral pyre for creation. The final triumph of Victorious Night, unto which even the possibility of the Coming Dawn would be sacrificed - and in this way would all suffering be ended, and all possibility of suffering be ended; all beings would be liberated from the cycle of existence, and vengeance would finally be had upon those forces which had created an evil and imperfect world in the first instance. I do not think that he was objectively incorrect in his understanding, though I am inclined to prefer existence regardless, flawed as it may be. And now that he had access to the full potential of the Fountain, he did have the means to carry out this threat.
He brewed a plague from his own despair, and called it the Utterdark; and he reached down into the Fountain and called to the Children of the Oath, and infected each and every one of them with it. It is a disease of the soul, that corrupts the will and turns it towards malice - its symptoms are myriad, but its sufferers are all bound to walk that same downward spiral of despair and desperation, which leads to the greatest wickedness performed in the name of good.
Those sworn to the Oath of Night are most vulnerable, but no soul is immune. There are many ways to become infected by it - and here, I suspect, Dendri may have withheld certain things, and lied in order to protect you - but now that the well has been poisoned, to drink from the Fountain is a certain cause.
A full third of the Nightbound Souls who had sworn fealty to the Paragons fell almost immediately under his sway, as did countless others. The Draconic Imperium collapsed under the weight of the Utterdark. But it was enough to kindle one final alliance against the Master of the Pivot. The Oathcircle and the Army of the Free; the survivors of the Draconic Imperium; those covenants of the Oath of Night that would stand against him; and many and assorted others whom even if I were to name them would doubtless mean nothing to you. And on that, our Darkest Day, we marched on Pardatheum.
What is there to say of the battle? We fought, and we lost. We could not bind the Master of the Pivot in such a way as to prevent him from drawing from the Fountain; all we managed was to contain him, that he could not expand his earthly influence beyond the boundaries that we had set.
Do not ask me the cost. I do not wish to speak of it, and it would bring you nothing but sorrow. Know only that it was far, far, too high. And those of us that survived - we swore that we would preserve the world against such things. And that, you will now know as the Oath of the Long Watch.
There were, as you may have gathered, certain disagreements on how to proceed. Amuriel wished to rekindle the spirit of the Old Alliance that had brought down the Giants - but the Oathcircle's role in the destruction of Tchokayahattak meant that few would trust her, and she was soon exiled from her homeland of Tzim Tevash. At length she and her followers travelled to the ends of the earth and founded an academy of magic, which became the nation of Ras Amur, and sought to preserve the secrets of the past there. Dendri and Elia chose to roam the world in secret, building secret orders wherever they travelled that were pledged to the protection of the world. And Hassor and I - we sought to rebuild what had been lost, so that when the time inevitably came that the Master of the Pivot broke free of his prison, we would be ready for him. As for Zura… well, that was where the disagreements truly began.
There were many among the Oathcircle who wanted nothing less than the eradication of all the followers of the Paragons, even after Pardatheum. Some blamed the Nightbound for our defeat; others argued that they could not be trusted - and it was true that some of the Heresiarchs were actively making attempts to bring one or other of the Paragons back into the world. Even Hassor and I had our doubts; but we came to realise that we could not continue the war indefinitely. Back then, death was little impediment to the Nightbound, for they would return soon enough, retaining all their memories and skill - and there was a risk that if we pushed too hard then more would fall to the Utterdark. And so we offered a treaty of sorts. The Larian Consensus.
The terms of the Consensus were simple enough - an agreement to limit the escalation of hostilities. No effort would be made to release the bound Paragons, nor to usurp the Oath-Dragons, nor to interfere with the Great Gates; but the Nightbound were essentially free to continue their mission otherwise. Around half of the surviving covenants agreed; the rest, we hunted to the ends of the earth.
We had the agreement of most of the Oathcircle in this matter. But not all. And Zuravatuul was chief among those who opposed it - though not of fanaticism, I’ll note, but of empathy. In deference to what is left of her, I shall admit that her intentions were doubtless good, though her implementation was dismal. She believed that we needed to pick a side - any side - and bring back one of the other Paragons to act as a counterweight; and she was arguing so fervently - and at such length - in favor of a hundred variations on this plan that people started listening to her. Had she continued, she would have broken the Consensus; we concluded that she was becoming a problem, and so we sent her on a diplomatic mission to somewhere far, far, away from Laria, where she could talk the ears off of the snake-people for all we cared. Unfortunately on the way there, she met a circle of druids with whom we had something of a disagreement, and told them everything that they needed to know about the Paragons, the Thrones, the nature of divinity, and whatever else happened to pass so rapidly from her brain to her mouth. And those druids, in time, became the Basilisk Queens. All thanks to your little pseudodragon.
If only that were the greatest of her failings...