Lore · Continents & Moons

Befallen

Somewhere in the West Commonlands, a hidden door glows with an unholy light at night. Behind it is Befallen, and nobody agrees on who built it.

Painting of a ruined hillside keep at night with fist banners and a lich in a green-glowing doorway

Whose ruin

Befallen lies on the edge of the West Commonlands, beneath the last sandy reach of the Desert of Ro, a compound of azure marble in ruin. Scholars of different cultures have argued over its origin for generations.

The Teir’Dal claim it is a remnant of Takish Hiz, the great Koada’Dal city of the Elddar Forest, buried when fire turned the forest into the Desert of Ro. Others say it was a forgotten citadel of the Knights of Marr, raised when the corruption of Freeport began to surface. Whichever is true, only the voiceless undead live there now.

Marrsfist Keep

The EverQuest RPG gives the knights’ version in detail. The Order of Marr’s Fist, under High Lord William Taros, built the Chapterhouse of the Fist there. A developer, Jindrack, wrote in 2008 that its original name was Marrsfist Keep.

The order already held Freeport and wanted a western base to pacify the Commonlands. From its two strongholds it secured roads from the Ocean of Tears to Kithicor Forest, eliminated bandits and drove the Deathfist orcs to the brink of extinction. Dangerous things it found were stored deep in the chapterhouse, among them an ancient elven weapon called the Thex Mallet.

Lucan’s trap

A 2006 developer post ties the keep to the fall of Freeport. Near the end of the Age of Turmoil most of the Knights of Truth and priests of Marr rode out of Freeport, leaving a meagre detachment behind. The crusade was said to be a trap the Overlord, Lucan D’Lere, had set at Befallen, though rumours in the Militia House claimed the knights only played the victims to hide a secret crusade.

The same history says the Dismal Rage helped Lucan rise to supreme commander. The knights survived, and re-emerged as the Order of Marr at the Battle of Defiance. The keep did not.

Betrayal and the undead

After decades of success came the wanderer. A patrol found a sick, starved, half-mad man named Gynok Moltor in the western Commonlands, claiming gnoll shamans had cursed him into exile, and brought him back to be nursed. They did not know he was a thief and smuggler who had blackmailed his way into power among the merchants of Qeynos, and his betrayal inside the keep was the worst thing he ever did.

The dead stayed on after it. Befallen became the domain of the lich Marnek Jaull, whose servants hold its lowest level, and its current holders are said to be new followers of the Burning Dead hoping to wake him. Necromancers and shadow knights come to study the undead, and Lanys T’Vyl came seeking the Abhorrent Bracers of Darkness.

Three keys and a train

On classic servers Befallen was a low-level dungeon with an attitude. The hidden entrance in the West Commonlands took finding, three keys opened its deeper doors, and its narrow halls produced some of the most infamous trains in early EverQuest.

It also held the Thex Mallet quest, so the treasure of the old keep became a reward for players who cleared it.

Legacy

Befallen links three stories at once: the elven past, the knights of Marr and the rise of Lucan in Freeport. Whatever stood there first, it ended as a place where knights were lured to fail.

Read it with Lucan D’Lere and Freeport, the Marr twins, and Lanys T’Vyl.

Where the sources disagree

The Teir’Dal call Befallen a Takish Hiz ruin; the RPG and a 2008 developer post make it Marrsfist Keep, built by the Order of Marr’s Fist.

Vhalen’s 2006 post reports both the claim that the crusade was Lucan’s trap and a rumour that the knights only played the victims to hide a secret crusade.

Sources

[1] Library of Erudin: Befallen (zone) · [2] Project 1999 Wiki: Befallen