So a blog I frequent does a weekly deal where they do a write up fleshing out a set of worshipers for an otherwise obscure or underused god. This week he wrote about Alazhra and inspired me to do a write up of my own. I enjoyed what I produced so much that I decided I might post it here and see if you guys enjoy it too.
The Black Sisters of Mahl Bathahn
The Black Sisters are an amazingly large coven of Night Hags, operating together in service of Alazhra within the Shadow Caverns of Nidal. It is unknown exactly how many Night Hags live in the massive city structure of Mahl Bathan, but the number is conservatively estimated to be in the hundreds. Mahl Bathan itself is a sprawling temple complex within a massive cavern, surrounded by the insanely twisted living quarters of their Derro servants. Together they live in a symbiotic relationship of amazing stability, considering the evil nature of the creatures involved. Together, the Black Sisters, and the Pale Shadows (as the Derro refer to themselves), tend to the Fields of Night, a stunningly massive complex of gardens, dedicated to growing one of the rarest plants in all of the underdark, the Mindcap Mushroom. Treasured for its unique alchemical properties, as well as its mind rendingly powerful hallucinogenic qualities, the Mindcap is tremendously rare because it can only grow on a living sentient creature. As such, the Fields of Night are not filled with soil, but rather with the sedated bodies of hundreds of thousands of slaves and captives. The Pale Shadows use their alchemical skills, bolstered by the dark magic of the Black Sisters, to maintain the bodies of their captives for years. The Black Sisters, however, are not interested in the Mindcaps because they are focused on harvesting something much more valuable from the Fields of Night, the dreams and nightmares of the sleeping beings.
The history of The Black Sisterhood is truly ancient, dating back to the Age of Darkness. Freed from countless ages of imprisonment, Zon Kuthon had returned to the world, and his followers were beginning to carve out the mighty kingdom that would in time become Nidal. And yet, the wilderness was dark, and filled with all sorts of terrifying creatures, and no place more-so than the sinister Uskwood. Deep in its center, a coven of three night hags had taken up residence in a small cave near an icy pool. All three were devout worshipers of Alazhra, and the eldest among them was a powerful cleric of the dark goddess. For a century they dwelled in the damp cave, picking off travelers, and learning how to strip their dreams, nightmares, and even occasionally their souls, to be used as currency in the lower planes. However, victims were difficult to find in these dark times, and the Hags were hesitant to travel far from their cave, for fear that they would run into Nidalese Soldiers and they were unwilling to attract the attention of the torturous clergy of Zon Kuthon who invariably accompany Nidalese forces. One dark night, however, a band of Derro scouts searching for a new path out of the darklands climbed up from the depths of the caverns the Hags called home. The Sisters fell upon them and captured them all, but to their dismay they found their minds already twisted and somewhat immune to their dark harvesting methods. The Derro managed to strike a bargain with the Sisterhood, agreeing to share the bounty of slaves and captives they planned to take from the surface, if the Hags would in turn allow them safe passage while denying any others who would seek to use this path; and agreement which served the hags needs quite well.
In the ensuing decades the Derro exploited their access to the surface world to take thousands of captives back to the darklands to be test subjects in their twisted experiments. One Derro, however, took a particular interest in the hags captives, whom they maintained in a state of constant nightmarish sleep until they died. This Derro was obsessed with Hallucinations and Fungi, and in particular the rare Mindcap Mushroom. He entreated the hags to allow him to experiment with the sleeping bodies, and in return he developed methods for feeding, maintaining, and otherwise extending the lifespan of their sleeping captives. In return he was allowed to develop methods for growing and harvesting Mindcaps from their bodies. Together they were able to gather an extraordinary amount of their valuable commodities; dreams and souls for the hags, and Mindcap Mushrooms for the Derro. With the influx of wealth came the ability to expand, and so they did. They retreated back down into the area just above the darklands, to a massive cavern system more appropriate for their needs. More derro were recruited and put to work, and likewise, more Night Hags were birthed by the sisters who took the unprecedented step of raising the daughters themselves in order to steer them towards the worship of Alazhra.
Over centuries, and then millennia, the city of Mahl Bathan grew in the lightless depths of the Shadow Caverns like an abscess in the earth. A great history of wars, betrayals, plots, pacts, and demonic deals of the darkest sort passed unseen beneath the feet of mortal men as the world above slowly brightened and grew and changed throughout the two score centuries. Today Mal Bathon sits in a state of some stability, firmly allied with the Umbral Dragon Visceroth who oversees the slave trade through the Shadow Caverns in the name of Nidal. This, combined with the great number of Derro, Shadows, and Daemons they have bound to their service, the Black Sisters are a force to be feared by those who know of them. And among the slaves of the Darklands, there are few fates more feared than to be delivered into the Black Sisters dark embrace to become fodder in the Fields of the Night.