Dusk Lord's Passage

The Dusk Lord's Passage was the name given to a portal linking the Lost Refuge in the Vast Swamp in the Material Plane to its counterpart, the Shadow Citadel in the Shadow Swamp, in the Plane of Shadow.

Description
On the Material Plane side, hovering at the center of the Great Hall in the Lost Refuge, the portal appeared as an orb of swirling shadow, some 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide. Like an umbral cyclone, it stretched forth massive and branching black tendrils to all parts of the hall. These seemed to writhe and twist constantly, yet remained mostly in the same place. It was as if they sucked the very light out of the air, and they obscured sight through them.

On the Plane of Shadow side, hovering at the center of the matching hall in the Shadow Citadel the portal was just a brightly glowing white orb, with no tendrils.

Function
The portal was a rift or tear through the fabric of the planes. It dragged matter from the Shadow Plane to the Material Plane.

Its functioning was simple: one who stepped into it on either side was instantly whisked to the same location on the other plane. However, it only worked intermittently, every 6 to 18 seconds or so.

Legends
Legend had it that the Dusk Lord of Sessrendale, after fleeing his fallen homeland in 1232 DR, took refuge in the Vast Swamp, and thereafter journeyed into the Plane of Shadow at the end of an unnaturally long life. Finding the portal in this keep to be a planar rift to the Plane of Shadow, the Sharran cultists dubbed it the "Dusk Lord's Passage" based on the legend, but this attribution is unproven. Believing it had once been used by the Dusk Lord, they estimated it had been closed over a century before.

History
In the Year of Lightning Storms, 1374 DR, the black dragon Despayr discovered the Dusk Lord's Passage in the Lost Refuge. Esvele Graycastle sent to him the shadar-kai kithlord Thieraven with the secret of opening the portal, which he did with Despayr's aid. The Sharrans made their base there, and Despayr moved his lair into the Plane of Shadow. Using the portal, the Lost Refuge became a waystation for the cult's activities in Cormyr, for clerics travelling to and from the Plane of Shadow, obtaining shadar-kai reinforcements and permitting them respite from their shadow curse in the Shadow Plane, for the kidnapping operation at the false Temple of Mystra in Wheloon, and for lizardfolk captives to add to the undead Shadowscales' numbers.

Finally, in early Eleint, a group of adventurers in service to Mystra investigating the false temple and Sharrans' activities assaulted the Lost Refuge, defeating its Sharran defenders. They then went through the Dusk Lord's Passage into the Plane of Shadow and ended the Sharran threat.

In the following week, War Wizards came to the Lost Refuge to deal with the Dusk Lord's Passage.