Years ago a fiery cataclysm struck what is now known as the Field of Bone, laying waste to the land and reducing most of it to dust, including the city of Kaesora, once the home of the ruthless Venril Sathir.  Now nothing remains of its once-opulent churches and passageways save spiders of enormous size, armies of the roaming dead and Venril's servant, the vampire sarnak Xalgoz.  In undeath, Xalgoz continues his master's plans for domination of the iksar race and the continent of Kunark, performing wicked experiments and adding to the numbers of his armies.