I was wanted to use him in my current 3.5 run and was looking for some good fluff on him if anyone could point me in the right direction. I know his basic stuff from the time line but wasn’t sure if there was anymore detailed information on him and Kurn. Stats would be cool, but not actually necessary, I don’t foresee him scrapping with my PCs.

Also any extra info on the Oba of Glug or Hamanu info would be awesome as well.

You can find details on Oronis in the revised DS boxed set. Basically, he was one of Rajaat’s champions – Keltis, Lizardman Executioner – that later repented & managed to reverse his dragon metamorphosis. He invented the avangion metamorphosis spells & became Athas’s first avangion. He reformed Kurn into a free city, but hid it from the outside world through powerful illusions – and this was aided by the fact that his neighbor Daskinor effectively stopped the Dragon from coming up North. There’s also speculation that Oronis time travelled back to the Green Age & had some contact with the Kreen Empire & the Kreen leader known as the “Great One”. A lot of the details of the history of avangions on Athas apparently weren’t straightened out. There’s some details & speculations in these threads: http://arena.athas.org/forums/the-pit/topics/av…
http://arena.athas.org/forums/the-pit/topics/av…

Hamanu gets a lot of good detail in the Lynn Abbey novels, especially “Rise & Fall of a Dragon King”, although it’s apparently not considered “canon” and it kills him off in the end. Even so, they’re interesting because they show Hamanu in a bit more positive light as opposed to the way he appeared in the Prism Pentad novels & the “Dragon’s Crown” adventure where he’s protrayed as arrogant, warlike & utterly evil. Abbey had Hamanu forging a tentative alliance with local druids and made it clear that he was resisting his dragon metamorphosis, although he also had a bad temper and was occasionally malicious.

Lalali-Puy never got too much detail, although you can find a bit in the “Ivory Triangle” boxed set and the “Asticlian Gambit” adventure. The AG adventure is cool because the characters get captured, brought before the oba, and then set out as prey for Gulg’s Red Moon Hunt. They escape to Nibenay and the Shadow King decides to use them as pawns against Gulg and teleports them into Lalali-Puy’s dungeons to retrieve an artifact (if I remember correctly).

One angle that was mentioned in the revised boxed set is that Lalali-Puy welcomes the Cerulean Storm and hopes that its rainfall will return the Tyr Region to a forest. Since she sees hersself as the “Forest Queen”, she hopes that by promoting this she can increase her power. She’s apparently even made overture to the local druids & Veiled Alliance. I’d suspect that this is a power play of some sorts, and if I had to guess I’d say she’s trying to expand her collection of “trees of life” to power her spells.

I like the idea of Hamanu being more of a not so bad guy. I like the portrayal of him keeping his city safe and being interactive with the city as an actual leader and the fact that he always marches out with his army.

My idea for the Oba was really to get her pitted against Oronis by trying to find a way to go through with the avangion metamorphosis as a power play to become the new savoir of Athas…but really because she desires power and loves the adoration of her people. I know Oronis did his best to make sure no one else would become an avangion because of what happened to his friend that also became one.

How did Daskinor keep the dragon from coming up north? Just being paranoid and attacking it?

Oh have no doubt, the monarchs are Evil just not dumb.

As for Daskinor, The Dragon found out about an ambush against him, so yes Daskinor was paranoid and planned on attacking.

“Oh have no doubt, the monarchs are Evil just not dumb.”

On a world without gods like Athas, I think good & evil are more just a matter of perspective. The Veiled Alliance definitely sees the sorcerer-kinds as evil, but the Order sees them as basically neutral, and the residents of some of the city-states see their sorcerer-king as “good” (definitely in Urik & Gulg, but probably in Balic, Nibenay & Draj to a certain extent too). While the SKs certainly did some bad things in the Cleansing Wars and continue to rule their cities in a rather brutal manner, they did stop Rajaat and they’ve done a decent job of stamping out rogue defilers, restoring the plant life in their verdant belts, and keeping their cities safe from the monsters & bandits of the open desert.

Keep in mind that people on a harsh desert world like Athas would probably have a much looser conception of good & evil than the typical D&D player living in a comfortable, middle class environment on 21st century Earth. Even in the past on Earth, a brutal tyrant that ruled with an iron fist was often revered by their people as long as they were succesful in battle, brought in a good harvest, and maintained law & order in their kingdom. If he did all that but still occassionally threw some people to the lions (like Marcus Aurelius), he was still seen as a good king.