Morthbrood

The Morthbrood

Location: Abyss / Layer 4 — Grand Abyss

The Morthbrood are the twisted children of Nastrond’s nihilistic religion, a doomsday sect of witches that thrives on despair, ruin, and the promise of Ragnarok. Their dark fane of Dol-Moroth clings precariously to the cliffs of the Grand Abyss like a leech anchored onto rotting flesh. Carved directly from the black stone, its labyrinthine ledges twist along the cliff face, with jagged temples and altars jutting out over the black void that looms beneath. The foul air here carries dark chants and wicked prayers on the wind, and the ever-churning black clouds in the abyss below generate an eerie, flicking twilight.  

The Fane of Dol-Moroth

The structures of Dol-Moroth defy logic—and sanity. Its buildings are carved at impossible angles, their foundations clinging to the cliff walls while their spires dangle over the chasm like jagged teeth. Great chains, slick with ichor, anchor the largest temples to the cliffs, but the constant groan of metal suggests the structures might one day plunge into the darkness below. The Morthbrood watch and wait like trapdoor spiders, cursing any falling petitioners who tumble past, not out of malice, but as an offering to Nastrond. They believe the cries of the damned feed the Spirit of Darkness and hasten the day when the multiverse is devoured.  

Living at the rim of the Abyss of Ragnarok has warped the Morthbrood cultists in body and mind. Their skin bears the mark of the oblivion around them—the colour has drained from their skin, their veins pulse with black ichor, their shadows twist unnaturally, and their husky voices echo even when they are silent. To dwell in Dol-Moroth is to lose ones fear of death entirely, replaced by an ice-cold obsession with hastening the end of all things.  

The Philosophy of the Brood

The Morthbrood’s philosophy is one of absolute nihilism, and their devotion to it is perverse in the extreme. These berks see all of Creation as an abomination, a chaotic mistake that must be unmade to restore the multiverse to a pure, timeless void. Yet they are not mindless destroyers—they are curators of annihilation, choosing their acts of ruination carefully, so that every atrocity aligns with the dark visions revealed to them in nightmares by Nastrond. To them, even their own suffering has a purpose: To shatter illusions and remind them all of their impending oblivion.  

In the Grand Abyss, the Morthbrood jealously guard gates to other planes, particularly to the Niflheim in the Gray Waste, Krangath in Gehenna, Agathys in Carceri, the Shadowfell—all places where despair and entropy reign supreme. The Morthbrood draw power and followers through the three Outer Planar gates, while they use the Shadegate to sneak unseen into Prime worlds through umbral backdoors. The gates are fortified by bound mara, and twisted constructs carved from the living rock. It is said that the Morthbrood also possess a hidden gate to the Negative Material Plane, a secret route they are using to quietly spread their philosophy further through the Inner Planes.  

Lady Mortranna, The Weaver of Ends

The leader of the Morthbrood is Lady Mortranna, an enigmatic woman with a chilling presence (prime human witch [she/her] / CE). Once a powerful witch of the Prime, she somehow tumbled to the dark that Nastrond was her patron and rather than being repelled, threw herself into his worship completely. But as the dark wisdom seeped into her, she turned her magic against her own world, reducing it to ash and rubble before fleeing to the Grand Abyss. Here, she pledged herself fully to Nastrond, a murdered her way to become High Priestess of the Morthbrood.  

Mortranna is a gaunt, spectral figure with jet-black eyes that seem to see beyond the physical world. Her voice is whisper-soft but laden with an unrelenting darkness, capable of sowing fear and despair with just a few well-chosen words. She is known as the Weaver of Ends because of her mastery over unraveling magic—spells that break bonds, dissolve protections, and reduce even the strongest enchantments to nothingness.  

Mortranna’s goal is to prepare the multiverse for Ragnarok, not through brute force but through the slow, insidious erosion of hope and structure. Her sermons from the overhanging temples of Dol-Moroth are chilling: she speaks of a world freed from the shackles of creation, where even suffering itself is obliterated. Under her guidance, the Morthbrood have grown from a scattered cult to a formidable force of destruction, their tendrils creeping across the planes from the Grand Abyss.  

Current Chant

It’s whispered that the Morthbrood is working on a dark ritual within the halls of Dol-Moroth, one that could overcome the binding magic keeping their dark master locked inside his realm and summon an avatar of Nastrond out of the the Abyss. If they succeed, surely even the tanar’ri lords will tremble at the power unleashed beneath their feet.

Sources: Alex Roberts, Jon Winter-Holt, inspired by the excellent ‘Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ by Alan Garner.