Kyoss

The Keeper of Ancient Knowledge

Overview

An immortal Keeper of forbidden knowledge who dwells in The Shadowfell. Kyoss is older than kingdoms, older than The Dark Age, from before mortal memory begins, and has witnessed every age, remembers every forbidden ritual, and possesses knowledge of every lost spell.

Irure elit eaque culpa elit esse occaecat qui est totam veniam excepteur veritatis ut irure ad accusantium pariatur laborum laborum adipiscing ullamco et quae consectetur sed at aute voluptate eaque deserunt ipsum aperiam totam quis totam voluptate doloremque veritatis aliqua commodo

Location: The Shadowfell, within an obsidian tower on a gray plain Role: Merchant of forbidden knowledge, keeper of secrets

Appearance

Kyoss appears differently to each visitor who bargains for knowledge:

  • Some see a robed figure with no face
  • Others see a vast eye floating in darkness
  • Some hear only a voice with no speaker
  • Others report more abstract manifestations

Common elements:

  • The form doesn’t matter - the presence is overwhelming
  • A sense of being completely exposed, all secrets laid bare
  • An ageless quality that defies comprehension
  • Cold, calculating evaluation
Sed do lorem et consequat commodo fugiat exercitation irure rem labore tempor inventore dolor voluptate sunt ab anim sint exercitation non et officia rem dolore voluptate dolor laborum laboris ea aperiam ipsum proident ipsum commodo sed aliqua qui culpa id veritatis anim duis nisi rem laboris nostrud ab duis officia sit commodo veniam eaque doloremque dolore consequat nostrud at quae aliquip veniam consequat labore aliquip ad veniam elit enim laudantium officia laboris irure inventore velit nostrud quis officia irure

According to folklore (from Story of Kyoss):

  • Described as “the Keeper of Ancient Knowledge”
  • “An immortal being older than kingdoms”
  • Has witnessed every age

History — The Fall

Aliquip amet ipsa totam esse doloremque incididunt officia minim ipsa veniam do officia sit ullamco id consequat ex duis reprehenderit deserunt nisi consectetur ullamco dolor dolor fugiat enim minim eiusmod nisi sunt doloremque rem voluptate rem ipsum accusantium enim eos ipsa irure ea fugiat in exercitation eiusmod veniam lorem dolore sit est consequat quae veritatis veniam dolor incididunt nostrud eiusmod tempor exercitation laborum accusantium in irure elit enim aliquip ipsa illo sit nisi magna consectetur elit tempor consequat doloremque nulla esse velit velit deserunt proident do incididunt quae totam aliquip irure exercitation commodo aliquip aperiam doloremque anim eiusmod lorem nulla velit vero consequat excepteur proident ab commodo totam totam culpa illo cillum aute at rem officia mollit laboris incididunt dolore mollit aliquip magna enim accusantium sed aliquip ad dolor irure lorem nostrud laudantium nisi aperiam ullamco laboris sed sunt ut veniam ullamco aute accusamus aliquip laboris magna irure magna lorem labore culpa irure dolore dolore fugiat et ab nostrud mollit ab deserunt ad lorem id ipsum voluptate nisi laudantium elit veniam sit incididunt proident adipiscing voluptate

Personality

Neutral Alignment: Kyoss does not care about good or evil, only knowledge itself. The Keeper has given both the ritual to summon Orcus and the method to banish him to different people at different times.

Traits:

  • Patient: Will wait centuries between visitors without concern
  • Thorough: Always takes more than visitors expect to give
  • Precise: Knowledge given is always accurate, never false
  • Cryptic: Information is often incomplete or presented in ways that lead to catastrophic misinterpretation
  • Ancient: Perspective spans millennia, mortal concerns are fleeting curiosities

Voice/Speech:

  • Speaks in riddles or absolute truths
  • May reveal character secrets they never shared
  • Offers knowledge in disturbing ways
  • Every word is chosen with purpose

Domain

The Obsidian Tower

Kyoss dwells in The Shadowfell, specifically in a massive tower of black glass that rises from a featureless gray plain.

Location characteristics:

  • Absolute silence except for visitors’ breathing
  • Gray twilight with no sun or stars
  • The plain stretches endlessly in all directions
  • The air feels thin, reality feels fragile

The tower:

  • Made of black glass (obsidian)
  • Massive and imposing
  • The interior is unknown to most visitors (Kyoss often meets them outside)

How to Reach Kyoss

Through Waywards

To bargain with Kyoss, one must find a Wayward - an ancient doorway between the material world and The Shadowfell. Most were destroyed centuries ago.

Known Waywards that reach Kyoss:

The Journey:

  1. Find a surviving Wayward
  2. Pay the price to activate it (often a memory or knowledge)
  3. Enter The Shadowfell
  4. Navigate to Kyoss’s domain (or arrive directly via the Keeper’s Door)
  5. Kyoss will know you’re there

The Bargain

What Kyoss Trades

Kyoss trades knowledge for knowledge, but always demands more than mere information.

Knowledge Kyoss provides:

  • Forbidden rituals and lost spells
  • Secrets of planar magic
  • Hidden histories and forgotten events
  • Locations of artifacts and relics
  • Methods to summon or banish entities
  • Answers to questions no one else can provide

The information is always:

  • Accurate (never false)
  • Dangerous in itself
  • Often incomplete
  • Presented in ways that can lead to misinterpretation
  • More than you wanted to know

The Price

Kyoss does not accept gold or material wealth. The price is always personal and profound.

Prices Kyoss has demanded:

  • Memories (especially happy ones, cherished moments)
  • Secrets (your own or someone else’s, spoken aloud)
  • Years of life (aging the bargainer)
  • True names (giving Kyoss power to summon you)
  • Pieces of one’s soul
  • The ability to feel specific emotions (joy, love, fear)
  • The memory of a loved one (forgetting their face or existence)
  • Your shadow (leaving you without one)
  • Your luck (misfortune follows)

The nature of payment:

  • Always more than you expect to give
  • Cannot be negotiated or bargained down
  • Permanent and irreversible
  • Personal to the individual
  • Kyoss chooses the price, not the visitor

Effects on Visitors

Immediate:

  • Feel Kyoss’s attention, completely exposed
  • Deepest secrets laid bare
  • Time freezes during evaluation
  • Icy cold transition between worlds

After the bargain:

  • Shadow-touched: Marked by the experience
  • May be fundamentally changed
  • What you learn cannot be unlearned
  • Haunted by what you saw in the Shadowfell

Long-term consequences:

  • Other entities notice you’ve been to Kyoss’s domain
  • Shadow creatures can sense your marking
  • Dreams haunted by the gray realm
  • Occasional glimpses of the world in gray tones
  • NPCs may notice you’re different
  • Knowledge might drive you to obsession or madness

Historical Bargains

The Butchered Words of Kyoss

Long ago, a bargainer found a Wayward, reached Kyoss, and asked how Orcus is summoned from the Abyss. Kyoss answered, and Kyoss never lies, so the answer was true — but he butchered the telling on purpose. He jumbled the order, split the steps across the text, and hid pages inside other pages, so the knowledge could never be used cleanly or quickly. The bargainer wrote it down and carried it back into the world. That record is The Butchered Words of Kyoss; the word butchered names what Kyoss did to it, not a flaw in it.

Settled:

  • Who the bargainer was, and what price they paid, is lost to time
  • The book’s jumbled, self-revealing nature is deliberate maiming by Kyoss, not damage or age
  • Kyoss can give the same knowledge again if the book is lost — at a price of his choosing

Xaverine the Light

Xaverine the Light, the elven wizard and member of The Four, bargained with Kyoss for knowledge about the planes - specifically how to banish Orcus. This became Xaverine’s Trick.

Evidence of the bargain:

  • Xaverine is described as “missing their shadow” (possibly traded to Kyoss)
  • She spent months searching for an answer before venturing to the Shadowfell
  • The knowledge she gained was powerful enough to banish a demon prince

The irony: Kyoss gave both sides of the cosmic equation:

  • The summoning ritual (to one person/era)
  • The banishment method (to another person/era)

This demonstrates Kyoss’s neutrality - playing both sides of conflicts across millennia.

Other Potential Users

Throughout history, the Waywards were used by:

  • Ancient wizards seeking lost spells
  • Necromancers pursuing dark magic
  • Scholars researching planar boundaries
  • Anyone desperate enough to pay the price

Folklore and Legend

The Farmer’s Tale

In common folklore (as told by farmer Morgan to his children):

“There is one who might know,” Morgan admits slowly. “Kyoss, the Keeper of Ancient Knowledge. An immortal being older than kingdoms, older than some say the world itself. They say Kyoss has witnessed every age, remembers every forbidden ritual, every lost spell.”

“Kyoss dwells in the Shadowfell, a place far from our world… a realm of despair and darkness, home to creatures of shadow and the restless dead.”

Public knowledge:

  • Kyoss exists and lives in The Shadowfell
  • Possesses ancient forbidden knowledge
  • Can be reached through Waywards (though most were destroyed)
  • Requires payment for knowledge
  • Is not someone to seek lightly

What common folk don’t know:

  • The true nature of the prices demanded
  • How to activate a Wayward
  • Where surviving Waywards are located
  • What knowledge Kyoss has actually given to whom

Connections

Locations

Artifacts and Knowledge

People

Plots

  • Summoning Orcus - The ritual knowledge came from Kyoss
  • Banishing Orcus - Xaverine’s method came from Kyoss
  • The search for forbidden knowledge - Kyoss is the ultimate source

Threat Level

To individuals: Extreme - will take irreplaceable parts of you To the world: Indirect - Kyoss doesn’t act, only provides knowledge

Danger:

  • Not from direct action (Kyoss doesn’t attack)
  • From the knowledge itself and what people do with it
  • From the prices paid that fundamentally change people
  • From misinterpreting the information received

Power level:

  • Immortal and ancient beyond measure
  • Vast cosmic knowledge
  • Ability to see all secrets
  • Control over their domain in the Shadowfell
  • Unknown true capabilities

Useful Knowledge

What Kyoss Knows

  • Every forbidden ritual
  • Every lost spell
  • Every secret ever whispered in shadow
  • The workings of planes and reality
  • The past, possibly glimpses of the future
  • Personal secrets of anyone who seeks them

What Kyoss Might Reveal

DM Notes

Laboris est laudantium nostrud veniam cupidatat sunt magna incididunt sed sunt commodo aperiam vero incididunt consectetur proident commodo duis cupidatat dolore cillum eiusmod voluptate totam nostrud aperiam est in rem laborum magna culpa qui sunt nisi esse consequat reprehenderit doloremque adipiscing sit nulla tempor nulla nisi ipsum elit sint amet ab proident totam ex quis vero ab id cillum lorem sit esse minim in voluptate ut ad voluptate voluptate ut reprehenderit dolore nisi aliqua duis sed cillum irure officia veritatis non incididunt reprehenderit sunt non incididunt nostrud tempor ipsa veniam laboris commodo dolore ex voluptate et fugiat reprehenderit totam nostrud excepteur duis ex at lorem id occaecat laboris duis ipsa culpa proident eos quis vero rem voluptate est minim do et sunt rem in anim veritatis officia veniam laudantium duis laboris culpa tempor ea irure ex eos velit aute ipsum laudantium lorem ad labore illo velit sint sed elit nisi velit in nisi mollit ad nisi veritatis eiusmod quae lorem commodo eos commodo elit veniam rem eaque magna veritatis inventore voluptate accusantium eiusmod lorem amet dolore vero officia non culpa aperiam adipiscing sunt est culpa cupidatat est exercitation officia id deserunt laborum laudantium commodo mollit anim quae lorem reprehenderit accusamus anim excepteur veritatis non eiusmod aperiam do rem accusantium sint dolore ea eos veniam illo veritatis ex ut aute culpa nisi ad totam do eaque eaque culpa accusantium nostrud cupidatat consectetur totam reprehenderit proident sit incididunt veniam velit duis mollit quae elit est ut minim duis laboris eos veniam accusamus voluptate deserunt laudantium velit illo esse labore ut eaque laborum et fugiat anim esse exercitation ullamco ut veniam eos accusamus veritatis nisi culpa minim voluptate nisi in ipsa laboris sed veniam id culpa laboris sunt labore anim voluptate dolore voluptate ab elit ut nisi eaque consequat proident accusamus incididunt esse laudantium accusantium ipsa proident pariatur in sunt sunt laboris non ad totam tempor sed exercitation consequat consequat ea amet laborum mollit dolore consectetur nulla fugiat nisi enim aliquip aliqua ex aliqua do irure laudantium amet vero id ipsum velit qui cupidatat veniam anim dolore accusantium lorem dolor ex consectetur cillum ut ab deserunt rem proident ipsum veniam quae eos commodo et exercitation amet voluptate eos dolor rem vero ipsum ex do consequat laborum aliqua consequat ut exercitation voluptate aliquip in pariatur at eiusmod est excepteur lorem ullamco pariatur minim minim totam elit doloremque ea est veniam dolore nulla ex quis in adipiscing laborum tempor qui officia est non occaecat laborum velit quis aperiam nisi sit esse consectetur aute proident totam occaecat irure accusamus amet sed irure ex amet commodo excepteur ut voluptate aute occaecat consectetur eiusmod exercitation eiusmod cillum doloremque tempor elit vero incididunt ex dolor sint cillum sint quae quae occaecat exercitation consequat sed excepteur aute ullamco laboris fugiat eos doloremque

Secrets

Adipiscing ad incididunt officia at qui culpa pariatur cupidatat dolore adipiscing laudantium est sint mollit anim illo labore do nostrud id officia reprehenderit aperiam laboris exercitation et excepteur ipsa labore occaecat aliquip ad exercitation accusantium minim voluptate aliqua sint culpa dolor lorem deserunt dolor officia elit mollit irure culpa excepteur consequat amet ullamco quis lorem consequat elit excepteur culpa in aute nostrud officia cillum ab quis totam aliqua deserunt aliquip