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.
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
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
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:
- Wayward - The Keeper’s Door (Crypt of Kyoss) - The most direct route, located in the Crypt of Kyoss in Atrata. This Wayward takes visitors directly to Kyoss’s domain rather than the general Shadowfell.
- Other Waywards can access the Shadowfell, but finding Kyoss within requires navigation of the gray realm
The Journey:
- Find a surviving Wayward
- Pay the price to activate it (often a memory or knowledge)
- Enter The Shadowfell
- Navigate to Kyoss’s domain (or arrive directly via the Keeper’s Door)
- 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
- The Shadowfell - Kyoss’s realm and domain
- Wayward - The Keeper’s Door (Crypt of Kyoss) - Primary way to reach Kyoss
- Crypt of Kyoss in Atrata - Named for the Wayward that leads to Kyoss
- The Obsidian Tower - Kyoss’s dwelling in the Shadowfell
Artifacts and Knowledge
- The Butchered Words of Kyoss - Knowledge given by Kyoss about summoning Orcus
- Xaverine’s Trick - Banishment ritual learned from Kyoss
- Waywards - Ancient portals required to reach Kyoss
People
- Xaverine the Light - Bargained for knowledge, may have lost their shadow
- The Dawnbringer - May seek Kyoss for complete ritual knowledge
- Neil the magnificent - May know of Kyoss through research
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
- The complete summoning ritual (if The Butchered Words of Kyoss is lost)
- The Dawnbringer’s true nature and plans
- The Mastermind’s identity
- How to destroy the Wand of Orcus
- The location of the Hammer of Thunderbolts
- Secrets about characters’ pasts
- The true nature of the Everflames