Urbeth

The Door to Menzoberrazan

Urbeth is the desolate and abandonned port of Tharsult, an island overrun by a variety of powerful monsters in the Shining Sea. It has a pathway leading directly to a large mountainside cavern that serves as one of many entrances to the Underdark.

Children's storybooks all around the Shining Sea have it that the Goddess Lolth once lived on this island. Scholars have deemed this to be untrue, but a handful of adventurers and merchants know better. This cave is actually one of the few remaining paths leading directly, after usually a month of travel, to the drow city of Menzoberrazan.

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1495 after the Great War:

The Golden Company delves within the caverns, led by a a merchant and a member of the leading House Baenre named Dwilisith Baenre. Discovering that the group is looking for an artefact related to her beloved goddess Lolth, she offers to the group to speak with the Matron-Mother of her House, who might be able to arrange something in exchange of their help. Drow people, and mainly the ones from Menzoberrazan, are usually wary of just about anyone, which leads Dwilisith to kidnap one of the members of the Golden Company, the bard Mr. Mind, before replacing him with a doppelganger. The scheme is rapidly discovered, leading the Golden Company toward trying to forge new alliances with other Houses from the underdark. But words move fast in the sprawling metropolis, and soon everyone who's someone knows that a party of adventurers has been asking around, trying to broker deals with anyone who would listen.

This leads just about every family to be extremely wary of any interaction with the group, as they could have brokered deals with just about any family. This leads an angry Golden Company, infuriated by the kidnapping of Mr Mind and the murder of three of their members, the dwarves Glorifrad and Yarpen, and Zibeline the tiny wizard, which they highly suspect was sanctioned by House Baenre. The adventuring party frees prisoners from the dungeons of House Baenre, with the help of Emmezel, a wychlaran sent by Iggwilv. With a new common enemy in mind, some of the hardiest prisoners, Loolna, Halkas and Baphomet, all adoptive brothers and sisters of Emmezel, join the Golden Company to take down House Baenre once and for all. The group eventually finds an ally in the House Devir, which once was a prominent powerful house that had fallen to the ranks of minor house. The house, known for its guerilla warfare tactics, organises a massive coup against the upper Houses, in which they would send their warriors, alongisde the Golden Company, to bombard the buildings in the High District with large patent-pending explosives. Unbeknowst to the adventuring party, the leader of House Devir, helped by a powerful necromancer named Syluvan, used the distraction to sneak their way through the many tunnels that lurk beneath the city and access the Threads of Fate, most commonly known as a pocket dimension of the Abyssal Layer where the Goddess Lolth resides.

Lolth, believing ambition to be the most valuable quality one could have, accepted to let her follower use the Threads of Fate once, allowing the leader of House Devir to change one thing about the past or future. This is when she took control of the city and took any form of power from the other houses. But she would not erase the memories of what had just happened, as she wanted these houses to know true failure.

The Golden Company, not knowing what would become of them once they had served their purpose, were told they would now be seeing Lolth, the Queen of Spiders. Fully aware that this could mean the end of them, the Golden Company decided to leave through arcane means, accidentally leaving one of their members, Aoth, behind.