Twilight Monastery
The Twilight Monastery is a monastery located in the Neverwinter Wood that is dedicated to Mask, the god of thievery, shadows, and intrigue.
Though originally founded to teach its students in the ways of Mask, the Twilight Monastery's teachings have grown more agnostic over the centuries, attracting a wide variety of individuals wishing to be trained in the Way of the Shadow.
From 1494 through 1496, the monastery was coopeted by the aboleth S'gothgah and its resource were used to spread terror across the northern Sword Coast before the monastery's leadership was killed or freed from the Banesmark by the Heroes of Saltmarsh.
Purpose / Function
The Twilight Monastery was originally established to allow worshippers of the god Mask to home their craft in stealth and thievery, though as the monastery grew, so too did its repertoire of skills.
Officially, the monastery was simply a place for acolytes of Mask to practice their faith, and the monastery took no blame in any actions its adherents did using the skills they learned there. However, over time the practice of study for its own sake, in combat, poisons, stealth, and so on, became the dominant purpose of the monastery. This shift was accompanied by a growing agnosticism towards Mask, who was never outright excluded or scorned in the monastery's teachings but was increasingly out of focus.
Alterations
Though initially small in size, the Twilight Monastery has ballooned over the centuries to four stories, with an extremley expansive lower level with an internal garden.
The most notable feature in the monastery is how each room is magically enchanted to bestow upon it mind-altering or room-shaping effects for the purpose of the twice yearly Twilight Monastery Initiation Ritual.
Additionally, a few of the monastery's rooms remain magical year round. One such room is the monastery's prison, a pitch-black room with no sense of time or place designed to drive its occupants mad, and a large teleportation room used only for initiation events, which teleports those that enter to their idea of "home." Should two or more people enter at the same time, the teleporter will randomly choose one one of the entrants' ideas of home.
Architecture
Due to the strange way the monastery has grown over the years, it's architecture is nigh uncomprehensible to those that are not members, a helpful tool to discourage would-be thieves and infiltrators.
Additionally, the monastery is invisible on the outside facing walls and magically enchanted to block sound from escaping, making it extremley difficult to find the monastery in the first place if you did not already know where it is.
History
Though built to worship Mask, for centuries, the Twilight Monastery has grown more and more agnostic in its mission, though it never spurned its patron god.
In the late 1480's through the early 1490's, one of the future Heroes of Saltmarsh, the changeling monk Lyra trained at the Twilight Monastery under the tutelage of the Shade of Luck Brenvark Coldscar. Though her training was extensive, her constant time away from the monastery traveling with Brenvark meant that she never qualified for the monatery's initiation ritual before she left in 1493.
In 1494, the Bane worshipping aboleth S'gothgah discreetly contacted the monastery's Grand Shade, though the Grand Shade was unaware of who the voice calling her was, referring to S'gothgah as the Whisperer.
Under the guise of the Whisperer, S'gothgah lured the Grand Shade to him and inflicted her with a Banesmark, binding her to his will. Under his control, the Grand Shade began twisting the monastery's resources to serve S'gothgah through orders to the monastery's followers and the strategic application of Banesmarks on various Shades. Though S'gothgah could not control every member of the monastery, the Grand Shade summoned all members of the monastery to return to enforce discipline and this new direction upon them, though the shapechanging and elusive theif known as the Mask ignored the summons and Tig's summons were intercepted and destroyed by Brenvark, fearing for his apprentice's safety.
During this time, the Grand Shade arranged for S'gothgah to be covertly moved and set up in a tank in the monastery's library, where S'gothgah found the information he was looking for: a forbidden spell called the Feast of Corruption, which utilizes fear, panic, and discord in a localized area to magically enhance the growth of a creature kept in the spell's center. Though the Feast of Corruption's radius was limited, S'gothgah began privately finding ways to alter the spell to increase its effective radius to fulfill his mission to artificially speed the maturation of a kraken and then use it's body as a host to become an Avatar of Bane. Following the discovery of the Feast of Corruption, S'gothgah was moved from the monastery and returned to his base in the Styes
By 1496, S'gotgah's control over the temple was complete, and the Grand Shade began dispatching members of the monastery to fufill the aboleth's goals of sowing chaos. Shade of Infiltration Bo Latarn was dispatched to the hill giant tribe of Chief Guh and convinced them to settle near Leilon. Meanwhile, other members of the monastery were dispatched to eliminate key individuals or inflict others with Banesmarks, sowing instability in the Styes, Neverwinter, Focosgost, and beyond.
In late summer of 1496, members of the monastery launched the false flag Attack on the Neverwinter Gala, posing as members of the Free Focos Movement and temporarily killing Lord Dagult Neverember's court wizard Brisk. This action also raised the attention of the Mask and the Heroes of Saltmarsh, prompting the former to covertly return to the monastery and investigate.
In Uktar of 1496, the Mask and the Heroes of Saltmarsh arrived at the Twilight Monastery during the Initiation Ritual. The Mask, seeing how far it had fallen from the diety Mask's beliefs, inteded to rob the monastery as a form of worship to their god, in addition to securing a Forget-Me-Not. The Heroes of Saltmarsh wanted to investigate the Banesmarks and the monastery's connection to it, while Tig, now going by Lyra, wanted to rescue her now-imprisoned mentor Brenvark.
During their break-in, the Heroes passed the Initiation Ritual, which gave them access to confront and then fight the Grand Shade, though not before Lyra was killed. Before dying, the Grand Shade revealed S'gothgah's plan to utilize the Feast of Corruption, but was unaware that the aboleth had procurred a kraken and was unsure if the aboleth was using multiple Feasts of Corruption or had enhanced the range of the spell. The Mask and the Heroes escaped using the teleportation room, though due to Lyra not mentioning the plight of her mentor, Brenvark was unknowingly abandoned.
Following the Grand Shade's death, leadership at the monastery fell to disarray, though S'gothgah had enough influence amongst the Shades to keep the monastery in his grips for a few months longer. A few members of the monastery were ennact some last few key assassinations and false flag operations to keep tensions in the Neveren Alliance high, while others were moved to the Styes, including Brenvark, who was inflicted with a Banesmark.
Following the Attack on the Neveren Trade Fleet, which resulted in the death of S'gothgah's kraken and the capture of the Sliver of Bane, the hold of the Banesmark over the leadership of the Twilight Monastery was broken. Members of the Hand of Mana visited the monastery in the early months of 1497, officially erasing any last traces of the Banesmark from its members.
Left rudderless following S'gothgah's absence, the Twilight Monastery threatened to fall apart entirely until a relatively unknown acolyte named Denth Calmhand took control of the situation, forcing a sense of normalacy on the monastery and fully devoting its members to self reflection and study. Following the heist by the Heroes of Saltmarsh and the Mask, the god Mask's blessing seemed to have finally been withdrawn from the Twilight Monastery, and so the monastery fully embraced a more agnostic approach.
In 1517, the newly reforged Twilight Monastery would compete at the 93rd Annual Tournament of Ki for the first time since the Banesmark Crisis, a major step towards reclaiming their former glory, though they would ultimatley lose to the Coldscar Monastery, founded by the Twilight Monastery's once-acolyte Lyra.
Alternative Names
Shadow Monastery
Type
Monastery
Parent Location
Ruling/Owning Rank
Related Tradition (Primary)
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