Champions of the Resolute Tower

Overview
An adventure party of powerful mercenaries who wandered Skrumbard and Gentaria from 5E 525 to 5E 532, and were most notable from repelling an illithid invasion of Skrumbard. They separated after discovering Vanessa Wenchcombe was manipulating them for her own ends.

Members
The members of CotRT were incredibly powerful, in no small part thanks to their artifacts or secret identities as powerful magical creatures. They were:
 * Vanessa Wenchcombe, the Vricignu and Fleshmoulder: a powerful necromancer with a human appearance but a true identity as a powerful lich using the party for her own goal: the defeat of a rival spellcaster, Blightshaman Okrofium.
 * Sorrel, a former cultist of Serrerofen who attempted to exploit his former god's power for good ends
 * Irevenei, a powerful sorceress of brass dragon ancestry with upper-crust tastes and a lust for battle.
 * Danore, an old steel dragon in the guise of a wandering human skald. Skilled with both a blade and magic, he took his goal of learning more about the human condition very seriously.
 * Aloth Frostmail: a high elf born with out-of-control elemental magic bursting from his body, he wields waves of cold energy on the battlefield and an enchanted longsword made from frigid black steel
 * Kiree the Divine Soul, a dual-hammer-wielding woman with celestial ancestry, devoted to smiting evil and protecting the weak. A quintessential good paladin supplemented with basic sorcery, she was assigned to the group by Skrumbard's government but grew to care for them all the same.

Dissolution
When preparing in Misthold in 5E 532, a barmaid noticed Vanessa dropping her illusory mortal appearance before entering her personal demiplane (an adaptation of Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansion). When informed, the party realized her status as a lich but elected to give her the benefit of the doubt based on their previous adventures. Irevenei was unconvinced and searched Vanessa's room. Upon finding and reading her experimental journal, she flew into a rage and had to be restrained by Aloth and Danore.

Already on a mission to trap and seal Okrofium in an spatially-anchored demiplane, the group devised a plan to turn the ritual upon her after completing it. The battle with Okrofium was one-sided, and they managed to hurl Vanessa's spellbook (which also functioned as her phylactery) into the portal with him.

Infuriated, Vanessa turned on her former allies, bringing all her magic to bear. Thanks to Danore's and Kalarim's alterations to the spell they were able to complete the new spell and confine her to Granitespire Castle, confining her to the grounds of Granitespire.

The spell bound each member together, irretrievably altering their souls so that, while even one survives, the liches remained bound in Misthold. Even then, effects of a deeply personal nature must be gathered in order to ensure that no lingering souls keep the liches sealed; if possible Vanessa would destroy those items personally.

Fates
The group dissolved after imprisoning Vanessa. Originally intended to be a temporary break, the group separated permanently, each carrying a heavy burden—they had inextricably tied their souls to the demiplane portal; in order to keep Vanessa sealed they had to suffer two necromancers battering their souls with unrelenting necromantic magic which twisted their bodies and minds. Most were eventually broken by the strain.

Having lost her spellbook and bound to Misthold, Vanessa elected to remain in Granitespire and further her plans to use Gentaria's populace for her undead hordes. Given time and numbers, she believed she could defeat Okrofium fairly easily, as well as re-scribe the knowledge she had lost. Drawing on the power of an entombed Empyrean corpse Okrofium kept beneath Misthold, she created the undead menace to serve as her eyes, ears, and infantry while she experimented to create the more powerful units in the army she required.

Sorrel returned to his home village of Eoshiran, and continued his worship of Serrerofen, falling deeper and deeper into forbidden arcane knowledge. He came to realize that Lake Jubilance would serve as a perfect hiding place for his masssive, slimy dread lord while he gathered strength. The combination of the magus seal's corruption and Serrerofen's influence pressing against his mind slowly drove him mad, transforming him into a magical creature that began to charm the other people of the town to his master's influence, making him grow stronger. By Dead Freeday, Serrerofen's avatar had taken up residence in Lake Jubilance, and protected the town from undead in exchange for regular sacrifices to fuel his power directly.

Having taken the most damage in the battles against both liches, Irevenei traveled to Caelenor to seek treatment and recover. While her injuries were severe and clearly magical in nature, she showed some hope of recovery. Dead Freeday interrupted her plans, and the collapse of society left her destitute and helpless. Eventually she found herself absorbing heat instead of emitting it, and her curse combined with the Odnt Ice Sheet to create the Frost Line in Gentaria. A superheated, tortured husk, she roams the ruined capital of Gentaria even today, hoping for death but flying into an involuntary rage and transforms into a twisted facsimile of a dragon when threatened, a curse which ensures that she survives—a part of the curse Vanessa placed on her.

Danore, disilusioned with adventuring after being lied to for so long, elected to shirk his draconic responsibilities and retire. He founded the Stunted Satyr with the gold he earned adventuring, and had enough money left over to stock and furnish it far beyond the means that a normal tavernkeeper on an isolated road should possess. Hoarding liquor and fine food, he keeps an ear out for anything unusual. The events of Dead Freeday disheartened him, but, despondant at the loss of his friends, he remained in his tavern for the next thirty years without major incident.

Aloth took his role as a part of the magus seal very seriously, and vowed to travel far from Gentaria to prevent it from being abused. But his tempestuous mind allowed Vanessa to subtly influence him, and over time she transformed him into a sullen, taciturn shell of his former self. Still devoted to guarding the magus seal and nothing else, he wanders the wilderness and does little more than slay those who approach him.

Kiree returned to her temple to Matron in Mochabara and elected to store her treasures among other items in the vaults of her goddess. This plan worked for some time, but Alshfloaxe the White took advantage of Dead Freeday's chaos to claim Mochabara as his own. Kiree was killed during the battle as he emerged from the ancient prison beneath her temple, and over time the magus seal transformed Alshfloaxe into a death tyrant, more powerful in death than he ever was in life.