The Undead Powers of the Dead Lands
Qwith-
I have heard both good and bad things about Qwith. I am unable to verify any because my meeting with her was far too short. I, personally, chose to believe the good things. So who is Qwith? I do not know. It is rumored she was the first person to study the Grey under Rajaat's supervision. It is also said that Qwith betrayed Rajaat in some way. The stories all differ from this point, so I will persue the one that I find the most logical. Qwith does all the experimenting she can with the small amount of access she has to the Grey. She realizes she needs a much larger source to draw energy from, one that will provide her with ample power. She also realizes that the gate she opens will be large enough to leak great amounts of negative energy over the country side, meaning death, disease and hardship for all the beings who live in the surrounding area. Qwith decides not to go through with the rest of the experiments. She openly defies Rajaat, and for this she is punished with death. But let it be known that Rajaat would never just kill someone, he would make them suffer. So Rajaat trapped part of her essence in the Prime Material Plane, just as she was dying. With one part of her self in the Grey, and one part in the Prime, Qwith became one of the walking dead. Days later, Qwith's position was given to one of her underlings, Gretch. Gretch was evil and power hungry, making him the ultimate candidate for the task. Gretch opened the Gate without hesitation, which spilled enormous amounts of negative energy across the land. People started dying, crops failed, disease went rampant. Gretch had to be stopped. Qwith wasted little time feeling sorry for herself. She found her way to Gretch's keep, and there a huge battle ensued. For all Qwith's power, she could not stop Gretch, as Rajaat had bestowed on him the power to use the Grey to power his spells. With the Gate to the Grey nearby, Getch easily outfought his foe, sending Qwith into a state or torpor. Many months went by, and the Gate tripled in size, but Qwith finally awakens and searches for aid to battle Gretch. She finds a small group of druids who made their home in a thick forest. They were extraordinarily powerful, and put their feelings aside for the Undead to help Qwith. She tells them her plan to stop the Negative Energy leak. Meanwhile, a huge surge of Negative Energy gushed from the Gate, and the Grey's power would soon envelop all of Athas. With her strong magic, Qwith teleported each of the Druids to a seperate, remote location. The youngest, most powerful of the seven druids, Nommam was teleported the farthest north, he was to be their last, best line of defense. With each of the Druids in place, they began their casting of arcane spells. Their objective was to make themselves into elemental magnets. If they could do this, it would be possible to send a wave of elemental power through the conduit that connected the Prime to the Grey. This, they hoped, would form a "clot," stopping the Negative Energy from leaking into Athas. It was a desperate move, but the times called for it. The Druid's magic worked, each became a magnet for the elements, drawing each one through the Grey, but their plan didn't work exactly as they had planned. Unfortunately, they weren't strong enough to pull out the amount of energy that was necessary to plug the Gate. When the elements combined with each other and mixed with the Negative Energy, the mixture was hideous: Liquid Obsidian. The black solution took on a life of it's own, crawling across the land, melting people, incarcerating structures, and the flood of ash that spewed from the conduit killed all the winged creatures who could have otherwise escaped Obsidian Wave. Horrified with what was now happening, Qwith put all her strength into finding more druids to help the first seven (three of which had died at that time, only Nommam was holding the connection without harm). Months later, as the obsidian had covered everydruid but Nommam, Qwith finally found who she was looking for. She found a Guardian of the Land who could help the last Druid strengthen the connection. With their combined efforts, the Obsidian Wave died down, and eventually stopped it's movement altogether. Unfortuantely, Qwith still cannot rest, and the feelings of guilt she feels for causing so much destruction may keep her Undead forever.