A dynasty of undead monarchs stirs beneath the mountain — the seals are broken, and the dead do not rest.
A millennia-old royal dynasty refused to accept death and entombed themselves with their entire court — guards, advisors, servants — all bound by a blood compact to serve their liege even beyond mortality. The tomb was sealed and the location forgotten until a mining operation punches through the outer ward, releasing a wave of spectral energy that corrupts the nearby town of Duskhollow.
The adventure takes the party from the sunlit ruins of an old monastery above, down through progressively deeper vault levels, each guarded by a distinct branch of the undead court. The final confrontation with the Ashen King forces a choice: destroy him and risk destabilising the whole necromantic lattice holding the mountain together, or find the long-lost Edict of Ending to sever his tether to the living world without triggering a cave-in.
The Ashveil dynasty ruled the mountain kingdom of Valdruun for three hundred years before a plague wiped out the entire royal bloodline within a single winter. Rather than accept extinction, the last king — Maeror the Undying — performed the Rite of Ashen Binding, sacrificing his court's natural deaths to anchor their souls to the physical tomb.
For eight centuries the tomb held. The necromantic wards were keyed to the bloodline, but with no living heirs left to renew them, the seals have been slowly degrading. The recent mining collapse was the final fracture. Now the Ashen King dreams restlessly of his lost kingdom and reaches through newly opened cracks to reclaim what was his.