Koshmar

"The lights shall go out, little ones, and you shall die." - Koshmar before the genocide of the Council of Dreams.

"She created a loop... The dreamer and the dream. Nightmares gave her power, and by chasing the Kalashtar out, her power only grew..." - Staxxis, the last surviving Guardian of Locke .

At a Glance
A Kalashtar spirit (and later Demigod), Koshmar was the maniacal nethermancer responsible for the darkness that encroached the astral Realm of Dreams during the Time of Great Peril. By trapping the realm's deity Rem in an unending nightmare, Koshmar was able to envelop the dreamscape in a warped and twisted landscape while hunting her own race to extinction. Her assault on the Council of Dreaming destroyed Locke's Haven and the Guardians of Locke and forced the Kalashtar to flee to the mortal realm, leaving control of the realm in her clutches. In time, Koshmar would pierce the astral realm and enter the mortal plane to pull unwitting dreamers into her hellish nightscape, all part of a plan to bolster her power in the mortal realm.

History
Born to a small Kalashtar family, Koshmar would spend her adolescence in the Council of Dreaming listening to the races of the Dreamscape give tribute (in the form of stories and dreams) to their deity Rem. Enthralled with these tales of the strange or daring (many taken from peering into the minds of mortals), Koshmar grew attentive to the goings-on in the world around her. Blossoming into adulthood, Koshmar's attention turned from the stories themselves to the charisma of one of Rem's tribute attendants, the Phaerimm administrator Caligosh. Taking note of the attention, Caligosh remained focused on her duties but despite their age and race differences, a mutual chemistry drew the pair together and Koshmar and Caligosh soon began a romantic partnership. It would not be long before the relationship would soon come under public scrutiny from both Koshmar's family and the Council of Dreaming. Believing the romantic affair to be a distraction from the religious tributes, Caligosh decried the relationship to save her reputation -- spurning Koshmar in the process.

Disowned by her friends and family, Koshmar fled into the dark halls of the Council and was found by a Shum-Gorrath, a non-judgmental and compassionate Beholder. Befriending Koshmar, Shum-Gorrath comforted the wayward youth and the pair became close friends, telling stories about their races and growing to adulthood together. As time passed, the discussions deepend and Koshmar found approval for her contrarian behaviour while Shum-Gorrath had someone to speak to about his tribe's expectations for him. Revealing that he was groomed to be a warrior, Shum-Gorrath explained that the Beholders feared and distrusted the Kalashtar because of a hidden group of Kalashtar who supposedly watched over the Council of Dreaming -- not knowing that this information would later seal the fate of the entire realm.

As Koshmar and Shum-Gorrath's friendship matured, so too did Koshmar's attempts at romance sour. Unable to find companionship amongst her people and with Shum-Gorrath's tribal duties drawing him away, adding pressure began to mount on Koshmar and began to drive her subconscious desires to masochist scenarios. It was during this time that Shum-Gorrath took note of Koshmar's growing darkness, seeing the soft-shadow spirit he once knew gradually being replaced with a harder-edged creature of wrath. Perceptive of the transformation, Shum-Gorrath began to overwhelm Koshmar with compassion in the hopes of softening her demenor and while effective at first, Koshmar's laughing, jovial spirit continued to draw on the darker core of subconscious energies in the Realm of Dreams. Set on a downward spiral, the breaking point came when upon attending the Council of Dreaming, Koshmar and Shum-Gorrath were turned away. Deemed "troublesome" by other sprites for the pair's playfulness, Shum-Gorrath watched Koshmar walk away with a smile, but not the one worn by his old friend.

Genocide of Dreams
When a netherstorm appeared on the horizon, it came to the Guardians of Locke current agent Remington to dispel the storm before it reached the Council of Dreaming. Entering into the arcane torrent, Remington began to twist the storm away from the center of the dream -- realizing too late that the storm wasn't a natural anomaly. Attacked from behind by the now-enraged Koshmar, Remington's body dropped into the sea as the hidden Guardians of Locke watched in horror through their scrying orb. Racing from Locke's Haven to reach the Council of Dreaming before Koshmar, they were caught off guard by a series of arcane caltrops that Koshmar had laid in awit, using the information provided by Shum-Gorrath to prepare a counter-attack. Blown to ashes by the arcane explosion, the Guardians were thrown into disarray, leaving only the crippled Staxxis as the last guardian.

Descending upon the Council of Dreaming, Koshmar entered the amplitheatre of Rem where the Dreaming Goddess slept-but-watched. Pushing through the lines of tributees, Koshmar approached the dais with confidence, striding towards an audience with Rem. Regailing the goddess with her tale of how she had killed the Guardians of Locke, it was within her words Koshmar wove a poetically-laden curse that went unnoticed by Rem who focused on the horror of the Guardian's defeat. Enraptured by the tale, the curse took effect and Koshmar was able to subtly release the curse, driving Rem into a nightmare-sleep. As the races of the Council bore down on Koshmar she transformed, emboldened by her victory and now summoning the darkest nightmares of the Realm of Dreams, began to slash through the devotees with the ferocity of a true creature of darkness. As Koshmar began to commit acts of gore and carnal destruction, a horrified Caligosh attempted to escape but found Koshmar's shadows blocking the Council.

The Genocide of Dreams had begun.

Times of Great Peril
By the era of the Time of Great Peril Koshmar had driven her fellow Kalashtar to near-extinction, forcing them to take refuge in the mortal world. Empowered by her success, Koshmar's power grew and her shadows had washed over the majority of the Realm of Dreams, tainting the plane into a hellish and twisted nightmare. Amidst this corruption, the last guardian Staxxis remained in Locke's Haven while pockets of survivors were pushed out to the Forbidden Edges where they began to fade from existence. Some creatures opted to serve under Koshmar, spared by their providing tribute to the "Shadow-Fiend". Shum-Gorrath survived and retreated with his brood to the ruins of the Dreamscape's cities.

Koshmar would later be confronted by a group of heroes who were able to weaken her enough to allow Rem to return to power. Koshmar's spirit was reduced to a black sphere, but unable to eliminate all the fears and nightmares in the world, Koshmar was able to endure her defeat, biding her time until she would again burst forth.