Vile was born almost three millenia ago in an insignificant human village nestled in the mountains of the northern continent.  They were a simple people, worshipping totems instead of gods, considered primative by their neighbors, the Mageocracy of Zaern.  However, they were allowed to live because their blood was strong and the Mageocracy could lure away their most promising magi.
        Born to the priestess of his tribe and her highest concubine, the child's birth held mixed portents.  Great power would be his, but none amoung the simple folk could comprehend what his life would mean.  On his passage into adulthood, he was given his adult name "Of the Serpent" or Vile, the word not yet having today's meaning.  The villages wisest magi began training him, his impatience growing as he surpassed one teacher after another.  When the village ran out of teachers he was sent to train under the Dreamer, an ageless mage living in the mountains.  He joined two others, Dalyn and Rol in her hidden vale.
        Under the Dreamer Vile's powers continued growing at a maddening rate.  While on a mission, agents from the Mageocracy appeared to him and tried to convince him to join their legion. They spoke of power over life and death, over creatures from other realms, over the flows of magic, and over the soul itself.  He heard them out and thought for a long moment, then lashed out freezing them solid in a wave of cold.  Thinking for a moment longer, he collected their books and their things, bringing them back to the Dreamer.
        "I wish to learn of the Soul," he said to the Dreamer.  The Dreamer simply shook her head and refused.  His rage swelled up for a moment, but he let it subside.  Many months later, as he began to approach even the Dreamer in skill, he uncovered a crystal orb deep within her study.  "Tell me of this orb," he demanded, his head and heart filled with the power that he had gained.   "It is of the soul, and it is not for you," she reached forward to snatch it away from him and his instincts for magic finally came to a head.  He understood the orb.  Focusing, he trapped her soul within the orb, then collected his things and hers.
        But as he began to leave, Rol returned to the tower.  Rol looked around and could feel the Dreamer screaming out her pain and rage from within the orb.  Rol prepared a spell of protection as Vile wove darker magics.  Rol's voice caught in his throat as Vile spoke the Curse of Bones.  Rol screamed in pain as each bone in his body shattered into a thousand needle-like shards, then fell backwards, his body tearing apart as he fell down the mountain.

        Traveling for many weeks, Vile wandered in the mountains as his food and water ran out.  For the first time in his life he was free and now had no idea what to do with it.  He stumbled upon a young dragon of flame, making a sport chasing and devouring mountain goats.  It started towards him, but hesitated feeling the power rolling off of him.  The dragon, instead offered to take Vile to see his master, the Lord of Serpents, who could teach him great things, make him a great man.  Vile, more of boredom then temptation, accepted the offer.
        He was taken to Oroth's court, a place in another realm, where dragon's flew and regiments of damned souls marched here and there training for some inevitable war.  The dragon lead him to the grand palace at the center of the realm, an otherworldly place of grey stone and magnificent spires.
        Standing before Oroth, Immortal Lord of Serpents and Corruption, Member of the First Race, listening to a god's voice purr of power and endless life Vile realised something suddenly.  He never wanted to serve anyone, ever again.  He turned to leave, but Oroth's power held him there.  Vile's anger grew and with it, his power.  He focused, snapping the bonds of magic around him and striking at the dark god.  A brilliant sphere of light emerged from Vile's hands, rushed forwards, hovered for a moment as Oroth brought up his hand, then slammed back into the his own chest.

        He awakened much, much later, having been nursed back to health by the elves south of his land.  They cared for his broken body and slowly brought him back to some semblence of health.  His connection to the source had been burned and shredded with that great blow and he felt the weakness within him.  He taught several of the village children basic magics in exchange for the elves assistence but he could not wait long to begin moving agin.
        Disguising himself by magic, he rode to Zaern and asked for tuteledge.  The greatest mage in their realm, Kolath Demonhand, accepted him.  Facing the tests of magic and thought, Vile slew Kolath's old apprentice, as was tradition, and proved his knowledge of magic and reality far beyond his training.  Vile settled into his new life, trying to find a way to get back what he had, that connection to the Weave that once pumped life through his veins and now seemed sad and crippled by comparison.
        Kolath taught him the secrets of death magic and summonings.  Vile was an apt student and began formulating a plan.  Kolath began to trust him and perhaps even appreciate him, but it was not to be.  During one of Kolath's ritual summonings, Vile stepped in and warped the magicks.  As the summoning circles crumbled and a daemon emerged from the gate, Kolath realized the extent of his errors.  The daemon reached forward and tore apart Kolath's body, dragging him back down into the pits for his crimes against their kind.

        Using the knowledge he gained from Kolath and the Dreamer, Vile began summoning daemons from the depths and forcing them into his service.  Distilling their energies down to their purest form, he could regain a part of what he had lost, if only for a few days.
        He made a friend, his only true freind, Vladimir, just after he had constructed his tower.  He only trusted Vladimir with the secret of his true plans, summon a god and drink its essence.  Vladimir knew it was madness, in his heart, but couldn't help but hope it succeeded.  In return Vladimir revealed his secret, he was Vladimir Oathbreaker, a rebel amoung the First Race.  He fought day and night to bring down the other Elders, to give "true free will" to the lesser races.  But he was always their to help Vile, hoping beyond hope that those amoung the first that had ascended to gods could be brought down and destroyed.
        Apprentices, learning of his victory over Kolath (now exaggerated to a titanic battle over the whole of Zaern), began seeking him out.  At first he turned them away, then he began building his own army and sharing his secrets.  With knowledge of the Dreamer's elemental magics and the Zaern's dark invocations he became a truly unique and valuble teacher.  Students from all over the continent began pouring into his tower as he grew more of it time and again to meet the demands for space.  Eventually, he was forced to have his older apprentices teach the middling students and those students teach the beginners.  His tower became a small city, dedicated to the teaching and study of magic.
        As the years wore on, Vile spent less time in his tower, staying their only to perform the most delicate summonings.  He wandered the lands and the myriad realities, collecting the pieces needed for his grand scheme, one by one.  Items of power, ancient texts, True Names.  The final piece fell into place, the Chalice of Tralan, an item of the First Race, a mystical amplifier unequaled before or since.
        Vile returned to his tower, an prepared to play his trump card.  Everything was perfect, the stars were aligned, the sun was eclipsed, the Chalice was in his hands, the circles were drawn to perfection.  As the ritual began, every corner of the world lightened as their shadows were drawn towards his tower.  They coelessed as the last words of the ritual, the True Name of the god Xaod, drifted out on the winds.  And it was done.
        Xaod, the god of shadows and stone, stood before Vile in all his dark majesty.  It was only then Vile truly realised the gravity of his error.  Xaod lashed out, but he stayed held by the circles.  Vile and Vladimir fought Xaod, attempting to steal his essense, but even they could not take on a god.  The stalemate held for many days.  The heavens spun out of control, the shadows collapsed, stone began loosing its form.
        They came to another plan.  With their combined will and a powerful ritual, they attempted to banish him.  For a moment, Xaod's form flickered, then split.  His divine essence was divided in two.  One shard went spiraling through the planes, the other remained in Vile's tower.  With a soul-wrenching scream, Xaod went mad.
        His madness spread as his shadows could not.  Some of the circles shattered, allowing his energies to spread out over the plains.  Vile's tower shattered, and madness made flesh rained down upon the world around his tower.
        The world reeled.  Oroth and his general Maw took this opertunity to strike.  Their armies, physical and spiritual poured forth as they unleashed foul magicks.  As the chaos and madness spread, the elves' forest burned, the human's cities dissapeared as though they had never been.  Silak Takur, Lord of Destruction, Keeper of the Void, lept at the opertunity.  His priests prayed and gates to the nothingness opened, annihilating all in their paths.
        Vile did what he could, with Vladimir's help, to stop the damage.  Vile's apprentices divided, some staying loyal to Vile, some turning over to Oroth, some succuming to the madness and joining with Xaod.  Nations collapsed, and the land itself was a casualty of war.  The forces of good, and even those of evil, aligned trying to stop the damage, but Xaod's maddening influence consumed whole cities and reworked the landscape for weeks travel around the tower.

        Vile created a ritual a way to banish Xaod and his allies to another place entirely, a prison plane created for them.  He entrusted it to Vladimir and made a last desperate strike against Xaod.  In the battle, Vile's magics annihilated swathes of Xaod's essense and tore at its power, but Vile did not have the power to take on a god.  He sacrificed himself, through the Chalice, in one last desperate attack, shattering Xaod's power and leaving it shocked.  But it yet lived, although its influence was abated.  Oroth and Maw still ravaged the plains as Silak Takur's monstrosities destroyed everything they touched.

        Vladimir took the ritual and gathered the high-priests of the good gods, Vile's loyal apprentices, the metallic dragons, and even Dalyn, the new Dreamer.  They stood in a great stone circle, focusing the energies as the ritual built up.  As Vladimir spoke the words of the ritual, the spirits were sucked from each other participants in the ritual, one by one fueling the massive process.  A prison formed around Xaod, Oroth, Maw, and Silak Takur.  The energies of those who sacrificed their lives locked the deities in an eternal prison, a threefold barrier keeping them locked away, apart from the world.

        Searching for Vile's Book of Names, a party of adventurers found their way to Vile's tower (WoS2).  They ascended the tower, finding the remains of Xaod's creations along with those things left when the apprentices fled.  In a room they found a book and a bag of glittering dust.  A powerful spell, an ancient contingency plan, grasped ahold of Gerald as he was pulled into the ritual of the book.  Vile's shade appeared before them, and offered to remove their compulsion in exchange for their assistance in getting to the subbasements where his clone's would be kept.  They agreed.
        He reanimated a body, broke their geas, and used his magics to return them home, following them out of the wasteland.

        Vile then created a strange "tower" in the Windknife mountains, a windowless cube of basalt, alone on a mountain top.  He once again began accepting apprentices after a short time of recooperating.  Gerald was first amoung them, and other's joined as word leaked out that a mysterious archmage appeared in the Windknife mountains.  He kept his true identity well hidden, however, to keep the Banished Ones off his back, along with those who might remember his original blunder.
        He assisted in small ways, helping contain the Sceptre of the Skies, an artifact capable of destroying worlds, and training the party in the mystical arts.  But he stayed out of earthly affairs as much as he could.
        Shortly after his life returned to a semblence of calmness, Oroth began fitting the pieces together to break from his prison.  A fragment of Dark Prophet, the Avenger, had been searching for him all these years and felt his presence again, engaging him in a short combat.  Vile realised there wasn't the slightest chance he could have a normal life again.
        The preperations were made for the battle at the Swamp of Isgor (Wos8) and he chose to do everything in his power to help them.  He girded himself in his mystical armor once again and took up the Sceptre of the Skies.

        At the battle itself, Vile flew into combat, only to find the Avenger waiting for him.  They began an aerial duel as the battle raged below, with dragons and dracomen fighting against Knights of the Star and Desert Runners.  He slowly realised what he couldn't defeat this being, it had anticipated every move, every spell.  It had waited over two thousand years for this moment, and he couldn't prevail.  So he did what he could to stop the madness and make the world a better place.
        He let himself be consumed by the Sceptre of the Skies, calling down a bolt of lightning that engulfed both him and his adversary, blasting them both out of existence.  Where that bolt touched the ground still boils and churns with lava, remnants of a mystic spark too powerful to put out.

Game Statistics:
Young Vile (during training with The Dreamer)
Invoker 14
Str: 12  Con: 15  Dex: 16  Int: 18 Wis: 16
Mentality: Truly hungers for knowledge, Impatient with Teachers, Feels superior to almost everyone else
Abilities: The Spark (opponents -2 to save vs. spells (plus invoker), when angry reroll 1s and 2s for offensive spells)
Important Items:
Staff of Flames (adds 3 levels to fire spells, memorize 1 more fire spell a level, +6 saves vs. fire),
Cloak of Winds (+2 AC/+4 vs. missiles)

Shattered Vile (after battle with Oroth)
Invoker 16
Str: 9  Con: 9  Dex: 15  Int: 17  Wis: 15
Mentality: Massively depressed, Deep gnawing need to regain power, paranoid (Oroth and Dalyn, the Dreamer's other apprentice)
Important Items: none

Vile in Zaern (during training with Kolath)
Mage 21
Str: 9  Con: 9  Dex: 15  Int: 17(+1)  Wis: 15
Mentality: Willing to do anything, still feels deprived of his spark, hates Kolath with a passion
Important Items:
Crown of Stars (adds 1 to casting level, +1 Int, -1 damage per die from all sources),
Blade of Venom (+3/+3, deadly venom with each hit)

Vile the Master (between Kolath and first death)
Mage 28
Str: 9  Con: 9  Dex: 15  Int: 18(+5)  Wis: 16(+3)
Mentaility: Mad with power, thinks he can do anything, collecting the items to summon a god
Abilities: Daemonic Essence (Permanent +1 to Int and Wis, half damage from all physical attacks, immune to poison, takes triple damage from holy water)
Artifacts:
Chalice of Tralan (always adds +25% to casting level, once a day can supercharge a spell to truly horrific amounts)
Important Items:
Vile's Circlet (+2 AC, stores 21 spell levels),
Necklace of Dragon Bones and Illithid Skin (+2 Int, +1 Wis),
Celestial Robes (+1 Int, +1 Wis, level% spell relfection),
Serpent Skin Armor (mage armor, AC 6 base + 4, +2 to all saves, shapechange 1/day),
Crown of Stars, Blade of Venom, Vile's Book of Names

Vile the Fallen (after ressurection)
Mage 28
Str: 9  Con: 8  Dex: 15  Int: 18(+2)  Wis: 16(+1)
Mentality: Just wants to sit back and study the world, feels obligations to clean up his mistakes
Artifacts:
Sceptre of the Skies (Throw Lightning Bolts (20d6 1/day, 10d6 1/3 rounds), Fly at will, Can possess anyone with under 35 Int+Wis, any storm powers you could want, can change weather patterns subtly over whole continents)
Important Items:
Serpent Skin Armor (damaged: no longer can shapechange 1/day)
Vile's Circlet, Dagger of Venom, Neckace of Dragon Bones and Illithid Skin