Atop the minatory spire of Doomcrag, overlooking the ruins of the once great Ayleid city of Erokii, Abagandra, the Lightless Remnant, casts its claret flush.

Originally Lattanya, the Light of Life, the relic was forged by the greatest of the Ayleid sorcerers and brought to High Rock by the migrating Mer, either by design, mistake, or fate.  The early Ayleid settlers suffered from disease and starvation in the barren wilderness, but the Remnant of Light healed their sickness and cured their hunger by bringing life to the infertile highlands.

However, the ancient Elves and their magics were not welcomed by High Rock’s original inhabitants who saw them as invaders and many a bloody and brutal conflict was fought.  High were the casualties on both sides, giving rise to savage dispositions, and the relic became tainted by the barbarity and bloodshed that surrounded it, eventually changing into the Abagandra.  Now it spread sickness instead of remedy; decay instead of growth.

Those who sought the relics catholicon would only find the torment in feral undeath or the curse of vampirism.  Unable to destroy the Remnant for fear of it unleashing its corruption across all the land, the relic was locked away atop the spire, behind tight guard and cunning trap.  Eventually the Alyeid civilization withered as all must; Erokii, the greatest city in northwest Tamriel fell to ruin and Abagandra became lost to myth and superstition.

That was until an Argonian necromancer named Reezal-Jul appeared with a shard of the relic and convinced the Rivenspire nobles, the vampire Count Ravenwatch and Baron Montclair, to use it on the Baron’s dying wife.  The shard seemed to have a propitious effect upon the Lady, but not enough to fully cure her.  The Argonian persuaded Montclair and Ravenwatch to ascend the cursed Doomcrag to find the fabled relic and imbue the Baroness with its full power.

The nobles were deceived however, for the moment Ravenwatch came into contact with the Lightless Remnant, his vampiric blight intensified the relic’s corruption and the ailing Baroness was turned wild bloodfiend, whilst Reezal-Jul, Montclair, and his daughter were turned full vampire.  Abagandra fed upon the maddening grief of the Montclairs and worked through them to threaten the entire population of Rivenspire.

Count Ravenwatch eventually returned to the Doomcrag to sever the Montclair’s connection to the cursed relic.  The vampire Count’s former ‘master’, the Daedric prince Molag Bal, agreed to take Abagandra safely from this realm into Coldharbour, upon a single proviso, that Count Ravenwatch would go with it.

S.K