Lament of the Blue Bear

The Twelve Tribes of the Uthgardt trace their heritage back to Netherese refugees who fled Runlatha after the Fall of Netheril and the Ruathen raiders who smashed Illusk and then followed Uthgar Gardolfsson into the North. The original twelve tribes included the Black Lion, Black Raven, Blue Bear, Elk, Golden Eagle, Gray Wolf, Great Worm, Griffon, Red Pony, Red Tiger (Snow Cat), Sky Pony, and Thunderbeast tribes. The Golden Eagle and Red Pony tribes vanished into the Underdark centuries ago, but the Blue Bear tribe is the first to go extinct.
Some sages trace the fall of the Blue Bear tribe to the Mark of Zukothoth, the nalfeshnee who was said to have scored a mortal wound against the Bey of Runlatha while the warlord collapsed a cavern atop both their heads with the Axe of Berun. A few scholars blame the introduction of the Hag Curse of Aratanta into the tribe’s bloodline, when the Blue Bears absorbed the survivors of the Royal House of Stoneblade following the fall of Athalantar. Most sages note the proximity of the Grandfather Tree to Hellgate Keep and blame Malar the Beastlord for stalking the Blue Bear totem for centuries, until he slew him during the Time of Troubles.
The truth behind the fall of the Blue Bear tribe can be traced to the fall of Ascalhorn in the Year of the Curse (882 DR). As the taint of the Abyss spread unchecked throughout the once fair forests of the Upvale, it created horrific, twisted abominations of the native flora and fauna in its wake, until the Harpers and their allies established powerful wards permeating the lands about the citadel in the Year of the Fell Firebreak (886 DR),
One such perversion of the natural order was created in the Year of the Giant’s Oath (883 DR) when an eddy of magical chaos enmeshed a colony of red ants, causing them to quickly grow to gargantuan proportions. Barred from the now-miniscule tunnels of their formicary, the giant ants marched into the forest’s depths in search of new home, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
A trace of the tainted Abyssal seed that sparked the colony’s transformation must have remained within the ants, for their march (called the Red Ribbon of Fire) led them inexorably toward the Grandfather Tree and the portals to the Abyss that lay beneath in the Hall of Mists. Upon reaching the arakhor, the giant ants swarmed over the Grandfather Tree before boring into its roots through an ancient abscess in the trunk. The tunneling Abyss-tainted giant ants breached the Hall of Mists, which had lain undisturbed for millennia, and established a sprawling formicary amidst the roots of the arakhor.
In the years that followed, the ants began using one of the portals in the Hall of Mists, which led to the 1st plane of the Abyss, to forage for food for the colony. Such visits by the ants to the Abyss did not go unnoticed, for, in the Year of the Burning Tree (890 DR), they attracted the attention of Arcanrathnar, a glabrezu sorcerer of great power, who had long sought a portal to return to the Realms. Millennia before, in -4,912 DR, Arcanrathnar, then a balor, had been enslaved as a guardian of the second Dlardrageth Armory by his daughter, Lady Sarya of House Dlardrageth, only to be slain by the gold elves of House Ilviiri in -4,452 DR. After being reborn as a lower caste demon, Arcanrathnar had spent centuries clawing his way back up the hierarchy of the Abyss, all the while seeking a way back to the Realms to unleash his vengeance on the daemonfey of House Dlardrageth and gold elves of Siluvanede who had cost him his status in the Aybss.
After following the ants back through the portal, Arcanrathnar emerged from the Hall of Mists to find himself amidst the roots of the Grandfather Tree. The glabrezu sorcerer observed the barbarians of the Blue Bear tribe, who had gathered for their upcoming Runemeet and decided they would serve him well in his coming battles with the scions of House Dlardrageth and House Ilviiri. The demon appeared before the clan’s chief in the guise of the clan’s totem beast, a massive blue bear. The disguised Arcanrathnar then offered to grant the chief’s wish for great power to fight the demons of Hellgate Keep in exchange for his pledge of service when called upon by the ”blue bear.”
During the Runemeet celebrations that followed, the Grandfather Tree, perhaps sensing the corruption that had taken root amidst the Blue Bear tribe, suddenly burst into flame, driving back the assembled Uthgardt barbarians, although the tree itself and the surrounding forest seemed unaffected by the great conflagration. Acting quickly, Arcanrathnar cast an illusion to ensure that one low-hanging branch of the tree appeared to be untouched by the flames. The Blue Bear tribe’s shaman made a small cutting of the apparently untouched branch. Arcanrathnar then cast another spell to make it appear that a shadowy figure of a man in green (an illusion with the appearance of a tree ghost) seemed to emerge from the severed branch and make his way into the forest, leaving a trail of bear prints in his wake.
Following the trail left by the shadowy figure, the Blue Bear tribe made its way northward until the trail of claw prints came to an abrupt end at the center of an ancient ring of standing stones. There the tribe’s shaman planted the precious cutting, establishing the Uthgardt ancestor mound now known as Stone Stand. At the same time, memory of the location of the Grandfather Tree abruptly faded from the minds of both the Blue Bears and Arcanrathnar, thanks to the power of the arakhor.
In the years that followed, thanks to the power of the glabrezu’s wish, the Blue Bear tribe scored many great victories against the remaining demons that had escaped the Harper-erected wards that enmeshed Hellgate Keep and now wandered the northern reaches of the High Forest. Meanwhile, Arcanrathnar stalked the High Forest in search of the scions of Siluvanede who had cost him his status as a balor and the armory that he had been long forced to guard. After finally locating the second Dlardrageth Armory in the Year of the Tolling Bell (899 DR), the glabrezu sorcerer returned to Stone Stand during the Blue Bear tribe’s annual Runemeet celebration. Once again in the form of a blue bear, he demanded payment from the tribe’s chief for the wish he had granted nine years earlier. Over the Blue Bear shaman’s protestations, the chief of the Blue Bears led the warriors of the tribe into the High Forest to the second Dlardrageth Armory, following the apparent avatar of their tribal totem that had emerged in their midst.
After sundering the Eaerlanni wards, Arcanrathnar led the Blue Bear warriors into the depths, wherein they encountered a legion of fey’ri warriors, where they had been imprisoned by Eaerlanni high mages in the Year of the Curse (882 DR). In the ensuing battle, the Blue Bear warriors once again proved victorious, destroying the fey’ri within the armory, but at the cost of many Uthgardt lives, including that of their chief. As the surviving Uthgardt warriors emerged from the armory victorious, they found themselves confronted by the tribe’s shaman who, suspecting the tribe’s chief had been led astray, had summoned a great spirit totem of the Blue Bear and followed the tribe’s warriors into the High Forest. Arcanrathnar and the Blue Bear fought a fierce battle that culminated in the second death of the demon and the mortal wounding of the great spirit totem. Bereft of their shaman, chief, and fiercest brothers, the surviving Blue Bear warriors returned to Stone Stand and tried to recover from their losses.
In the Year of the Sudden Journey (912 DR), the demons of Hellgate Keep began appearing on the slopes of the Nether Mountains, having escaped the Harpers’ wards by means of deep tunnels dug through the earth. In the tradition of their fathers, a new generation of Blue Bear warriors once again began to battle the demons that stalked the region, but without the fearsome prowess granted to them by the glabrezu’s now-terminated wish. In the centuries that followed, the Blue Bear tribe’s warriors continued their never-ending war against demonkind, but without the success of their forebears. Over time, more and more members of the tribe fell victim to the corrupting influence of the very demons they fought, gradually turning many members of the tribe into servitors of their former foes.
Meanwhile, the Blue Bear totem grew ever weaker, as the wound inflicted by Arcanrathnar to the great spirit totem somehow refused to heal. Like all wounded creatures, the Blue Bear eventually drew the attention of a fearsome predator, Malar the Beastlord. For decades, Malar stalked his wounded prey, while the shamans of the Blue Bear tribe increasingly turned to worship of the Beastlord, until Malar finally killed the Blue Bear during the Time of Troubles in the Year of Shadows (1358 DR) and formally assumed the mantle of the Blue Bear.
In addition, as the Blue Bear totem’s protection of the Blue Bear tribe diminished, the long-quiescent Hag Curse of Aratanta began to afflict the birth of nearly half the daughters born to the tribe. While most such hag-children were immediately slain, at least one hag-child survived her birth in the Year of the Trembling Tree (1223 DR), when her father, Chief Berdarn Hagara, left Tanta Hagara at the edge of the High Forest, unwilling to kill his only offspring. By chance, the annis foundling was captured by a demon-led ghoul pack and brought back to Hellgate Keep, where she was raised as a ward of the marilith Mulvassyss the Sceptered, alongside Kaanyr Vhok the Sceptered One, the marilith’s cambion son. In a never-ending bid to gain advantage over her rivals, Mulvassyss the Sceptered had bartered for information with Arcanrathnar, once again reborn in the Abyss, and, in the process, learned of the portal to the Abyss that lay within the depths of the High Forest, although the exact location (other than beneath a massive tree) was a mystery to the twice-killed demon. Mulvassyss recognized that Tanta Hagara could prove useful in locating the portal, and so let the annis live.
In the Year of the Fist (1311 DR), Mulvassyss the Sceptered ordered Tanta Hagara to return to the tribe of her birth and seize the position of shaman of the Blue Bear tribe. Believing the stunningly beautiful, barbaric hunter goddess with sky-blue skin and the ability to shapechange into a blue-furred bear to be an avatar of their demonic bear spirit, the tribe quickly adopted her as their leader in all but name, as Chief Hlutwig Long-throw fell under her control. The gigantic hag then directed the Blue Bears to start looking for the long-lost Grandfather Tree (and thus the portal that lay beneath). Ironically, by using the members of the Blue Bear tribe as her proxies in the search, Tanta rekindled a desire to reclaim the ancient ways among a sizable minority of her followers.
Two years later, in the Year of the Shattered Oak (1313 DR), as the cruelty of Tanta Hagara became increasingly apparent, the Blue Bear tribe split in twain during a clash so bloody that both factions were forced to withdraw to avoid annihilation. After the battle, the surviving rebels formed a new tribe—the Tree Ghosts—and abandoned the corrupt Blue Bear totem to worship the nigh-mythical woodland spirit they believed inhabited the Grandfather Tree. Both the Blue Bear tribe and the Tree Ghost tribe continued to roam the North seeking the long-lost ancestor mound, but to no avail.
After more than six decades of fruitless searching, Tanta Hagara was no closer to fulfilling the command of Mulvassyss the Sceptered, when the power structure of Hellgate Keep changed overnight in the Year of the Sword (1365 DR). Imprisoned elven spies slew Grintharke the balor and all but seven of the true demons of Hellgate Keep with the shattering swords of Coronal Ynloeth. Emerging from the chaos were three mariliths, who agreed to a truce and formed a triumvirate to rule over the Keep.
Within the course of a year, the Marilith Triumvirate fell to infighting, with all of them plotting against each other. Within a short time, Ssaarn of the Five Hands and Mulvassyss the Sceptered conspired to bring about the assassination of their third, Amassyra the Tricoil. Once Amassyra was eliminated, the two surviving mariliths split the Keep’s rule. In an obviously uneven split of the Keep’s resources, Ssaarn took command of the demons and the undead, and Mulvassyss was left with the cambions, captive orcs, humans, and others. Mulvassyss was in no position to challenge her more powerful rival, who had the backing of the bar-lgura, even with the support of her crafty son Kaanyr Vhok, the cambion commander who had successfully slain the Tricoil. While the Keep stayed internally peaceful for the rest of the Year of the Staff (1366 DR), Mulvassyss and Kaanyr plotted their revenge on Ssaarn, and Kaanyr further plotted how to remove his mother from power once she led the Keep.
Word of the changes in leadership in Hellgate Keep trickled out slowly to other ears. After a mad wizard of the Fallen Lands unleashed his monstrous army on Hellgate Keep in the Year of the Shield (1367 DR), Ssaarn sent out her demons and undead creatures to engage the enemy, since the demons’ deaths inside the wards would be their final ones rather than merely a return to the Abyss. During the fray, Kaanyr Vhok and a small troop of human slaves escaped the Keep and entered the High Forest to meet with his ward-sister (Tanta Hagara). Despite the damage to the main gates of Hellgate Keep and the loss of much of her army, the Keep remained in Ssaarn’s hands, and the mad wizard’s armies were routed. Taking advantage of her rival’s forces weakened position, Mulvassyss the Sceptered quickly slew Ssaarn and conquered the Keep, cementing its rule under one leader again after four years of strife. As her son Kaanyr Vhok brought the Blue Bear tribe and Tanta Hagara (and the tribal chieftain Tanta Hagara controlled as a puppet) under his direct control, Mulvassyss expected to have more breeding stock to continue creating more cambions and tieflings so as to strengthen Hellgate Keep once more.
In the Year of the Banner (1368 DR), Kaanyr Vhok led the annis and her barbarians into the Keep, as the next step in Mulvassyss’s plans for conquest. However, the marilith had not counted on her son’s ambitions and was quite shocked when, while she was welcoming her son and formally greeting her long-time long-absent ward, Kaanyr Vhok treacherously slew her with the very weapons that once slew Amassyra the Tricoil. The puppet chieftain of the Blue Bear tribe, Hlutwig Long-throw, whose mind had long since snapped and whose body was by this time a withered husk, died in the confusion in the reception chamber, trampled beneath the feet and claws of the assembled forces.
Upon seizing control of Hellgate Keep, Kaanyr Vhok and his lieutenants decided to implement a number of Mulvassyss’s plans, including introducing the Blue Bear barbarians into the breeding stock of Hellgate Keep and creating more tiefling troops. In a solely political move, Kaanyr Vhok and Tanta Hagara were wed to cement the alliance and keep the Blue Bear tribe, which saw Hagara as its remaining bastion of leadership, in line with Hellgate Keep.
While internally Kaanyr Vhok controlled the Keep’s forces, he allowed Tanta Hagara to be perceived as the leader of the Keep. The Blue Bear tribe members outnumbered the cambions, tieflings, and the few lesser demons left by three to one, though their power was insignificant save in those numbers. Thus, Tanta Hagara stood as the “leader” of Hellgate Keep while her husband (and ward-brother) plotted deeper plots. While the Blue Bear tribe was swept up into the machinations of Hellgate Keep’s rulers, the Tree Ghost tribe finally rediscovered the site of their original ancestor mound on Shieldmeet in the Year of the Banner (1368 DR), thanks to the unwitting actions of the legendary adventurer, Mintiper Moonsilver. Unbeknownst to the Tree Ghost Tribe, their discovery occurred after Mintiper accidentally destroyed a portal to the Negative Material Plane in the Hall of Mists beneath the Grandfather Tree in the Year of Moonfall (1344 DR) by trying to throw three of the Nether Scrolls through it. The elimination of that portal, mitigated the threat posed by the giant Abyss-tainted ants to the very life of the arakhor. Coupled with the Tree Ghosts rejection of the corrupting taint of the Abyss, the Grandfather Tree finally let the Tree Ghosts “find” their way home. Despite the presence of her spies among the Tree Ghost tribe, it was several weeks before Tanta Hagara learned of her rivals’ success. By the time word of the Grandfather Tree’s rediscovery reached Hellgate Keep, the annis was preoccupied with fortifying her own position as the newly installed leader of the ghoul-hold of Hellgate Keep. Nevertheless, Tanta Hagara continued her efforts to locate the ancient temple that lay beneath the forest giant as her agents chased down rumors of portals and items of great power spread by the Harpers.
Tanta Hagara’s efforts to locate the Grandfather Tree and the Hall of Mists came to an abrupt end in the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR), when she was slain and the Blue Bear tribe all but destroyed by the allied forces of the Mistmaster, the Lord’s Alliance (including troops from Everlund and Triboar,), and the creatures of the High Forest in the War of the Mists. What might have come to pass had the annis succeeded in her quest to enter the Hall of Mists remains a mystery thankfully left unanswered.
In the aftermath of the War of the Mists, all that remains of the centuries-old Blue Bear tribe is the reborn Tree Ghost tribe and a handful of tanarukk younglings, conceived during the brief window when Tanta Hagara ruled Hellgate Keep.