What Once Was, Part 1

Once upon a time there was a powerful Goddess of Magic known as Mystryl. Mystryl had a long and painful history of dying and being reborn, however regardless of her form she always inspired greatness in her followers and soon a proud and devoute group of worshipers were formed. After Mystryl's last death, her reincarnation didn't occur right away, unwilling to sit and wait her followers began their journey to find a means of ressurrecting their goddess... they became known as the Hunters of Hope.

Their journeys were long but all awhile their goddess hadn't arisen, as each day passed they became more certain that they must succeed in their task to prevent her memory from disappearing completely.
Finally, they found what they were looking for, a sign that their goddess wasn't infact dead, but contained... waiting to be resurrected once again. This containment was in the form of a spelljammer ship, a vessel of emense power with the ability to sail the cosmos like boats sailed the ocean.

The ship was teaming with Mystryl's energy, granting it unique abilities, but paramount of these was time travel. Wasting no time the Hunters of Hope, leading the followers of Mystra, set out on their journey. Their first stop? Well, if the Hunters were going to navigate the vastness of time in search for magical items powerful enough to revive their goddess they would first need a map.. specifically, the Map of Time, which was intrusted to the current God of Time: Labelas Enoreth, the Lord of the Continnum.

While an ally to their fallen Goddess, Labelas was a stout believer in keeping History, and the part it plays in Time, unchanged and unabridged. Never would he willingly hand over the Map of Time knowing the Hunters plans, and so.. they didn't ask. The Hunters quickly put into action a plan to steal the map as it was originally placed in its vault. Navigating their way through the giant clock of a dungeon, the Hunters found themselves laying in wait for the object to be placed. Their hiding however did not go as planned as they were spotted by Labelas, who called for them to speak in private. After sharing their story and goals, Labelas understandably refused to allow them to take the Time Map but handed them his personal weapon, the Timestave.

While not what they were hoping for, The Timestave was both a generous and double-sided gift. It would allow the Hunters to seek out ripples in time, often brought about by other time travelers, the Hunters would then head off these other travelers and stop them before they could effect the past, thus doing Labelas' job for him and providing the Hunters with powerful magical items that these travelers no doubt had on them in the hopes of accomplishing their task.

After using the staff to track down the time incursions several times the Hunters began seeing a pattern of travelers without items of power, and while they were assisting Labelas with his tasks they were no closer to achieving their own. Still, the Stave was a powerful item and no doubt it would continue to serve a purpose. The Hunters needed a more direct approach to achieving their goal, and they knew just where to begin... Sigil, the City of Doors.

Sigil offered the Hunters a unique method of interacting with large groups of people from all over the Axis. As the leading trading hub it would provide value and resources that no other place could begin to compete with. However, Sigil in recent times has become an unwelcoming destination for those not in the know or holding great power, so the Hunters figured why deal with that mess when they can just go back into time to the very beginning of Sigil and begin setting up their society of Planeswalking looters.

As they arrived in the newly formed Sigil they found the city in vast disarray, no order or leadership could be seen of this place and most of the town consisted of shanty towns. After some research the party found that there was a vast magic binding cast over the city and that the portals led here but wouldnt lead to their intended target destinations, moreover they found that violence was apparently forbidden aswell as any creature performing a hostile action was banished to a random plane. It was clear that the Lady of Pain hadn't been banished here yet, bringing her own brand of order with her, and that this town was most inhospitable for their current goals. Still, the Hunters didn't stand for simple defeat and began to establish a few elements for the town, most notibly a temple who trained its followers to fight the Far Realm.

Upon returning to the City of Doors several years later, but just a blink of the eye for the Hunters, they found much had changed and that the ground work that they had established had already started growing into serious elements. They found the portals had been stablized and that the town was more or less being ruled by a rather powerful Lich. Upon more communication with the townsfolk, and even with the Lich himself, who went by the name of 'O', they found that the stability of the town, in the portals and structure of the town was thanks much to his, and his fellow Red Wizard's of Thay's doing. Unlike other Liches the Hunters have heard tails of, O seemed to be a generally decent being and eventually they struck up a deal with him. They would inform O of the Lady of Pain's exact time and place of her banishment, and in turn he would absorb her powers and place into action the design that the Hunters had for Sigil, specifically a magic tax upon all the portals that would instantly take a small portion of power from everything and everyone entering the City of Doors. O agreed to the terms and it wasn't long before he had the power of an Overgod.