Thar Amphala


 * For episode 101 (chapter 8, episode 2) see Thar Amphala (episode).

Thar Amphala is a city in the Shadowfell. It serves as Vecna's base of operations.

Following the completion of the ritual atop Entropis, Thar Amphala was transported to the Prime Material Plane, some distance northwest of Vasselheim.

History
Little is known about Thar Amphala's founding and history before Vecna's involvement. Near the beginning of Vecna's rise to power, he overtook the city to act as the base of operations for his growing army of followers and undead creatures. In the centre he built the tower known as Entropis.

From his new seat of power, Vecna then used an event called the celestial solstice by manipulating magical ley energies which allowed him to open up portals between the Shadowfell and the material plane on a whim. With this, Vecna sent his forces across Exandria to spread his influence, wreak vengeance on past enemies and strike fear into the masses, beginning his rise to infamy.

As Vecna's terror spread from Thar Amphala, those working against him discovered the celestial solstice and reverse-engineered it in order for the Beacon of Arms, the holy army of Pelor led by champion Yos Varda, to invade the ancient city.

During the ensuing battle Yos Varda perished, but not before witnessing Vecna's vampire lieutenant attempt to kill and usurp his wounded master. Kas the Bloody-Handed and Vecna were both destroyed in the ensuing fight, and the victorious Beacon of Arms left Thar Amphala. The Sword of Kas, the weapon wielded by Vecna's lieutenant, had been imbued with a fragment of Vecna's consciousness, and so was buried beneath the city at some point.

Vox Machina first saw Thar Amphala when Vex'ahlia successfully shot an Oracle Arrow through the mysterious Siphon beneath Whitestone, where Delilah Briarwood had attempted a ritual to Vecna some year or so prior. Through it Vex saw the distant outline of the tower of Entropis.

After discovering and tracking down the second Ziggurat to contain a Siphon similar to the one in Whitestone, Pike communed with Sarenrae for more information. Through her goddess's help Pike was able to see the Siphon as a doorway into the Shadowfell, and also saw the vision of Entropis and city around it as Vex previously had. Once Vox Machina discovered the secret behind safe travel through the Siphons, they returned to the one beneath Whitestone and entered, arriving on a pedestal on the outskirts of Thar Amphala.

Using artifacts looted from Vecna's Remnants, Vox Machina entered the Siphon beneath Whitestone and arrived in Thar Amphala. They quickly found that the city's streets were overrun with walking corpses, that its skies were patrolled by horrid shadow creatures known as Gloomstalkers, and that its inhabitants were all insane cultists who had removed either an eye or a hand in worship of Vecma. The party escaped the notice of these monsters thanks to the magic of Vex'ahlia and turned the few that did notice them into allies thanks to the magic of Scanlan Shorthalt. From these dominated allies the party learned that Vecna's plan was to transport the entire city of Thar Amphala to the Material Plane with all of its zombies, necromancers, and gloomstalkers and begin to conquer the entire world from there. Eager to stop him, the party set out to confront Vecna at his home, the obsidian tower Entropis.

A few hours after Vox Machina arrived in Thar Amphala, the entirety of the living populace of the city began to gather around the tower of Entropis in anticipation of the city's transportation to the material plane. Just minutes before the heroes could arrive at the sinister tower, Vecna sent out a telepathic message to each inhabitant of the city, personalized to best motivate them to enact his will. Then, snow began to fall and the sky changed, as the city was no longer in a remote corner of the Shadowfell, but atop the Zenwick Mountains just a few hundred miles from the Dawn Cradle, Vasselheim. The worshippers of Vecna only had a few minutes to rejoice before two members of Vox Machina conjured two massive earthquakes that brought Entropis crashing to the ground and covered the city in dust, scattering Vecna's forces momentarily in the confusion. Yet the very top of Entropis, a massive obsidian hand, was unaffected by the earthquakes and gently floated to the ground. It was here that Vox Machina attempted to ambush Vecna, only for the Whispered One to quickly kill two of their members and force them to retreat to the Feywild.

When Keyleth scried on Delilah Briarwood, she had a brief vision of the Zenwick Mountains, then the city of Thar Amphala, and then Delilah emerging from a tunnel beneath the city before Vecna telepathically interrupted the spell