So, Sadira’s spells around Rajaat’s prison. Obviously she isn’t sacrificing thousands of people a year to maintain them. Sun Wizard Sadira is crazy powerful, but surely not more powerful than the group of Champions that imprisoned Rajaat the first time. It would seem a stretch if she could do a permanent, zero-cost imprisonment.
Rajaat’s prison held without the Levy all through the Dragon’s Rampage, which was about a King’s Age long. So maybe it’s just… lasting for a while, and in a decade or a King’s Age (depending on how strong Sadira’s spells are), Rajaat will break out unless something is done.
Or… Sadira is hooked up to the sun. Maybe every day, while the sun is up, energy is automatically drawn from the sun through Sadira to the prison. In which case it should be fine… As long as Sadira lives. But she’s not immortal, is she? Even if she doesn’t age in Sun Wizard mode (like how a cleric-elemental only ages in human form, not elemental form) that would only give her about double… not long on the scale of Champions and Rajaat.
Or another option … the Champions thought a Dragon was needed to maintain Rajaat’s prison. Maybe that power being pulled through Sadira will slowly transform her… So she won’t age, but will eventually become something as terrible as Borys. Not a Dragon, exactly, because she’s not a defiler/psionicist… but something unique, more like a sun paraelemental mixed with aspects of avangion and/or dragon.
(And, does Sadira’s sun magic drain the sun the way the PT did? Does every sun spell she casts, every day Rajaat stays imprisoned, pull the crimson sun closer to final death?)
I kinda of figured she hooked it up to the sun in a self-perpetuating way… like, the lock got filled up whenever the sun was out, and ran off that when the sun went down, then refilled with solar power.
Quite possible, but then is it eventually going to mess up the sun like using the PT did?
Also, I’m still wondering how the champions needing a full Dragon to imprison Rajaat works with this. The Champions could already draw on animal life energy and store it in obsidian orbs; what is it about the imprisonment that needs a 30th level dragon to make work, and why could Sadira get around that requirement?
The nature of Rajaat’s new prison is quite different than before. Previously, both his mortal remains and spiritual essence were deposited in the Hollow Beneath the Black, from which his substance could not fully leave while the portal to this dimensional anomaly was sealed by the Black Sphere at the center of Ur Draxa. The sum of supreme displays of psionic enchantments, it was an effective if spectacularly costly prison for Rajaat, until the Black Sphere was destroyed by Tithian and the Dark Lens.
Rajaat’s new prison took advantage of a metaphysical dilemna of the First Sorcerer’s own making. He had placed his essence in his shadow, which gave shape to his form. When that shadow was annihilated, it forced his essence into that which annihilated it: a 1st level light spell cast through the Dark Lens by Rkard.
This new prison does not seem to require fantatastic sums of life energy to maintain a mighty metaphysical prison such as a bubble in the Hollow Beneath the Black. Now locked into a miniature sun, permanancied high level magic now will keep Rajaat imprisoned indefinitely.
I would venture that Rajaat’s new prison is not as secure as the Black Sphere. There he seemed to be beyond conventional time and space, with only the rare folk who had the power to communicate through the Black able to reach him. Now, he exists on the Material Plane, and conventional magic might free his essence. However, even if freed he now seems without a body, his remaining skeletal form being vaporized by Rkard’s hyper-magnified spell.
All this said, I do not think Sadira’s magic reinforcing Rajaat’s new de facto prison requires daily direct empowerments by her person. Most of her magic there are wards anyhow, keeping away others from approaching Rajaat. Her only known spell upon the light prison is a permanancy spell, and by its nature will need no daily reimpowerment.
As I have written elsewhere, Rajaat’s has profound power over the Elements, as when he manifested a Blue Sun upon being freed before. I speculate that he cannot now escape, because he has no body, and will require a body to use any of his powers, including psionics, or his ability to call upon the Elemental Planes. As I and others have conjectured elsewhere, he seems to have bound himself to the very Spirit of Athas itself, and cannot be destroyed while Athas endures, or that connection remains. But to use such powers, he must be incorporated. Until then, he exists as a bodiless contradiction, a living spirit that must exist somewhere, but instead of beneath shadow, he now is tormented by eternal light.
his mortal remains were somehow locked within the Black Sphere at the center of Ur Draxa, while his spiritual essence was hidden away in the Hollow Beneath the Black. This under-dimension, a metaphysical dimension which does not exist, contains Rajaat only by the profound power the Champions used to force the metephysical contradiction to have something exist within the dimension where nothing could exist at all. This sphere of Unreality
Hmm, I’m not sure I completely agree with that. I thought the Black Sphere physically contained Rajaat’s physical remains? (Although they also seem to be in the Hollow, yeah. But the Black Sphere might be a physical manifestation of the Hollow.)
Possibly … but this just feels way too easy to me. The Champions combined couldn’t find a better solution than the one that needed a full Dragon and massive quantities of life energy (and at the point of imprisoning Rajaat, they would have had access to the Dark Lens, it wasn’t stolen until after Borys went crazy), but Sadira and Rkard can do it “for free”?
Now that’s really interesting.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with that either. If it were that simple, why didn’t the Champions completely destroy his body in the first place? IMO completely destroying his body would be likely to lead to a purely elemental manifestation.
“Hmm, I’m not sure I completely agree with that. I thought the Black Sphere physically contained Rajaat’s physical remains? (Although they also seem to be in the Hollow, yeah. But the Black Sphere might be a physical manifestation of the Hollow.)”
The dimensional situation here is indeed somewhat confusing, and perhaps confused (it could be argued). But it is indeed that the Black Sphere was only a mighty caging spell (or series of spells), seemingly appearing as stone and invincible (see Valley of Dust & Fire)immediately beneath which was a sphere of the Black (which we may imagine as a portal to it). I reference Cerulean Storm, where on p. 297 we read: “‘Crawl,’” urged Sacha. ‘The Dark Lens has drawn away the magic of the caging spell. Touch the Black, and Rajaat will be free!’" Clearly this was the nature of the Black Sphere, being not a physical black shell encasing Rajaat’s body on the Material Plane, but rather a gateway into the Black itself, through which was the only way to reach the Hollow Beneath the Black. Indeed, it seems like his body was physically contained inside it, but it is clear that both body and essence were deposited in the Hollow Beneath the Black.
Possibly … but this just feels way too easy to me.
Agreed. It does seem comparatively easy. I have a reputation for keeping the inchoate R&FoaDK at arm’s length, but in her version of the ambush of Rajaat, we are reminded that in any event, the subduing and imprisonment of Rajaat was likely no easy or certain matter. They may not have even had a firm plan, or known what might or might not work against their former master. Lynn Abbey suggests it was Gallard who proposed imprisoning Rajaat in the Hollow only after they discovered they could not destroy his body, necessitating that they deposit him in the most powerful and secure prison they could imagine. A prison not even on the Prime Material seems wise.
As to how easy it was to re-imprisoned Rajaat, you can address that concern to the writing of Mr. Denning. I would venture to remind you however that it was but a simple 300 page fantasy adventure book, with certain limits to how in-depth and challenging they can be realistically written. I would also venture to remind us that other mighty figures like Kalak, Abalach-re, the Dead Lords and the Dragon himself were, to the minds of many, rather easily dispatched. I don’t mind at all, myself. There are too many here on these boards that elevate Champions to the level of demigod or higher… they can be defeated and even killed, sometimes even by mistakes like any other mortal.
In Denning’s defense, I observe that it was Rajaat’s choice to sequester his essence into his shadow (a trick he surely learned in his long imprisonment in the Black). His body may have normally been all but indestructible, but I argue that it was his essence and not his body that was tied to the Spirit of Athas by his great defiling of the world core in the depths of time, and it is this essence that is so invulnerable, and not necessarily his body. His body boiled away with the hyper-magnified light spell, and forced his invincible spirit to reside in blazing light, as soon as his shadow burned away. It was Rajaat’s own folly that made it easier than it could have been.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with that either. If it were that simple, why didn’t the Champions completely destroy his body in the first place? IMO completely destroying his body would be likely to lead to a purely elemental manifestation.
Lynn Abbey’s conjecture that Rajaat’s body would ultimately always regenerate seems plausible, for surely the Champions would have tried burning, disintegrating or any way annihilating his body upon their Master’s defeat. This failed, necessitating special arrangements be made for a suitable prison. As I mentioned above, it was Rajaat’s own folly to place his essence in his shadow, thereby taking away the everlasting nature of his body while he remained in this state.
Now that’s really interesting.
Indeed. I conjecture an intrepid high-level adventuring party could get to the location of Rajaat’s new prison comparatively easier. There is no Ur Draxa and all that came with it to guard his new prison anymore. Sadira’s spell complex of wards, however elaborate and powerful, could most likely be undone by one or two well-placed disjunctions or the like. Perhaps trigger spells would instantly bring Sadira there in full-wrath, but a well-informed team would make the attempt at night, and even if they did not, Sadira is not all-powerful.
I am unclear what would happen if Rajaat’s sun prison were undone. Without a body, perhaps he could weave a new body of water and mists from the Cerulean Storm, or perhaps he would need to possess a mortal body. I am not clear. Alas, since Dark Sun is “problematic” in Current Year, I fear Troy Denning may never get the chance to tell us Rajaat’s ultimate fate, and reveal to us the answer. I certainly do not prefer Lynn Abbey’s version, being far too rushed, sophomoric, and a sudden and unwelcomed book-end to an entire campaign setting.
Hmm, I’m not sure I agree. I mean, yes, there’s definitely a caging spell involved - but I don’t think that’s all the Black Sphere is. I think the Black Sphere is physically obsidian, more or less the ultimate form of the obsidian orb ‘technology’ used by both Green Age psionicists and dragons/sorcerer-kings (and also by Nok, in Ktandeo’s Cane). It contains or is enchanted with the caging spell, sure, but obsidian is known to work well with dragon magic (which the caging spell would be).
There may also be a connection between obsidian and the Black, given that the shadow giants/shadow people use obsidian orbs to incubate their young. So the Black Sphere probably is a gateway to the Black … But IMO it’s also a gigantic physical obsidian orb.
I think Rajaat’s bones were physically encased in obsidian (probably conjured in molten form by the Champions) but also inside the Hollow, because the interior of the Black Sphere was the Hollow, essentially.
Oh, sure. But I don’t think anything in the text of Cerulean Storm really requires that the new imprisonment be permanent and consequence free. Sadira probably wouldn’t know in the first few weeks … I’m not sure the Champions knew until the Dragon’s Levy was instituted post Rampage.
Also I just personally like the idea of the imprisonment’s power needs slowly transforming Sadira, until she becomes a kind of paraelemental analogue to the Dragon… she’s taken on the Dragon’s role, in a certain sense. It feels like that should have consequences.
Hmm. I’d say that’s almost the same outcome long term as the prison needing maintenance, then … Sadira presumably isn’t immortal (I guess?), and even if it’s tried while she’s still alive she’s a lot more defeatable than Borys was, so Rajaat is probably going to get out at some point.
Sadira’s sun wizard form casts at 18th level, so her spells should be reasonably dispellable by a high level but not epic/advanced being character.
I think so, yeah. I think he’s partly a water elemental or rain paraelemental entity now. I don’t think his original biological body is all that relevant anymore … in Cerulean Storm he built his elemental form around his bones, but he didn’t have any living flesh.
(In RAFOADK his form is definitely some kind of elemental storm, but I know that’s considered an iffy source …)
Evaporating his shadow with a Dark Lens powered Light spell worked, but I think if the Light spell had worn off before Sadira could make it permanent, Rajaat would have been free again and able to function in shadow mode, and would very quickly have recreated an elemental body.
I think the same thing would happen now if the wards and Permanency around the Light spell were dispelled/disjoined.
To help ground the matter, as far as the nature of the Black Sphere goes, all we know are from two primary sources, Cerulean Storm and VoD&F. Lynn Abbey’s account I take less seriously, and though it is very interesting, her metaphysics on the nature of the Black and all the other planes of Athas are often clumsy and inchoate, as she herself admitted.
“A short distance ahead, two or more paths emerged from the silent forest and joined this one to form a circle of polished jet. In the middle of this plaza, a dull, black sphere hovered in the center of a sable-sheened basin. The orb was pulsing madly and spinning in all directions at once. Torrents of dark energy poured from it into the holly below, then came billowing out to gush towards the Dark Lens in a roiling stream.” -The Cerulean Storm
“The Black Sphere: In the exact center of the Dragon’s sanctum is a strange monument or marker known as the Black Sphere. Only the Dragon and the Dead Lords have ever seen it; the Dead Lords know nothing about it, and the Dragon never discusses it. The Black Sphere appears to be smooth, black stone, 12’ in diameter. It hovers four feet above the floor of a shallow pit 30’ in diameter and 10’ deep. The sphere’s equator is level with the ground beyond the depression. The Black Sphere is the only structure in the Dragon’s Sanctum. It radiates intensely powerful magic of all schools. No attack of any kind can harm it.” -Valley of Dust and Fire
Though I appreciate the notion that the sphere might seem to be obsidian, it seems not the case. Though it appears as “black stone” this casing or “caging spell” is entirely dissolved by the mere approach of the Dark Lens, suggesting its entirely mystical nature. I imagine it similar to a “stonewall” spell, but simply black stone, smooth and spherical (and floating!). Once this magical caging spell is dissolved, all that remains at this point is a sphere of the Black, which Tithian must merely touch (with he himself holding the Dark Lens) to destroy the artificial dimensional anomaly altogether. What is released in the aftermath is Rajaat, both body and essence.
The idea that Rajaat’s body was encased in a type of mystical stone, and his spirit banished to the Black, more accurately comes from Lynn Abbey. These were embellishments which confuse the issue. That said, in practice, it is perhaps easier to conceive of the notion that Rajaat is entrapped in the Black Sphere itself.
I take it that Sadira is not ageless. She may be ageless while under the Dark Sun, but she at least will age at night, and though she might have an extended lifetime, she presumably will eventually die from natural causes. Her permanancy spell should last many centuries, even millennia, and can simply be renewed by yet another permanancy. But she likely would worry about the fate of posterity, and her mind work on some final solution regarding Rajaat.
Ultimately, it is clear that Rajaat’s new prison is far more vulnerable than before…
Admittedly, Rajaat’s exact metaphysical situation is confusing to me. By keeping his essence in his shadow, arguably this was like keeping the core of himself in the Black. Presumably, this relationship was burned away when his shadow dissolved along with what remained from his original body. Is he now utterly severed from the Black and shadow, and now locked totally in light? Many questions of this sort, and I admit I am uncertain as to their answers.
Hmm. I’m not sure I entirely agree, but I also think we may be describing basically the same situation in different words.
IMO, while the imprisonment spell is fully active (before Tithian brings the Dark Lens nearby) the Black Sphere is both a physical sphere of stone (obsidian?) with Material Plane solidity/reality, and a piece of the Black, containing the Hollow and Rajaat. It exists simultaneously on both planes, and/or it is a place where both planes are one (perhaps like a wormhole?)
Once the Dark Lens gets close, the spell’s enormous magical energy starts to get released. I don’t think the disappearance of the stone part of the sphere means it was never really physical stone in the first place; I think it was disintegrated by the energy released, and/or the spell that created it dispelled.
This is why I think we may be describing the same situation in different words … I’d say a wall of stone spell is physically real stone on the Material Plane while it exists, even though it can be dispelled.
A wall of stone spell is a fairly close analogue to how I imagine it working … After Rajaat proved to regenerate through whatever damage the Champions inflicted to his body, they conjured obsidian (probably in molten lava form initially) around him (burning away any flesh that might be regenerating on his bones) and then magically shaped that cooling lava/new stone into a perfect sphere, then enchanted it with an insanely powerful dragon-magic spell of imprisonment that created the Hollow within.
Its being obsidian isn’t clearly stated, but obsidian is so important for so many things in Dark Sun (guardian/mind lord orbs, dragon magic, Ktandeo’s cane, the Dark Lens, shadow giant/shadow people incubation) that I think it probably is.
While there’s canon problems with a lot of RAFOADK, especially on the timeline side and about Kalak*, I actually think the stuff about the Black and Hollow etc. fits very well with the hints in the Prism Pentad. IMO the shadow people incubation first in the Dark Lens, and later in obsidian orbs, is a big hint.
*And I don’t think those canon problems are Lynn Abbey’s fault. The Prism Pentad implies a timeline much more like what’s in RAFOADK, with the Cleansing Wars ending 1000 years ago not 2000, and lasting probably a couple centuries at most not 1500 years (the Green Age temple in UnderTyr is 2000 years old). And Nok does say Kalak isn’t a dragon yet … I’d argue that RAFOADK is actually decently consistent with the Prism Pentad, more so than the Wanderer’s Chronicle timeline and Athas.org timeline is, but that the background hints from the PP used in RAFOADK weren’t taken up in the Wanderer’s Chronicle and later game material.
From a 1995 perspective, before Athas.org’s timeline became “the standard”, I think it was completely reasonable to choose the numerous timeline references in the PP over the Wanderer’s Chronicle timeline (which has other problems anyway, e.g. with regard to Dregoth being a dragon too early).
I don’t think there are clear answers, but I think that’s partly because Cerulean Storm is working off of a model somewhat different from the standard D&D idea of planes as separate realities that are both clearly separate from one another and more or less equally “real”.
I read Cerulean Storm as saying that the Black essentially is shadow - where a shadow is, the Black “overlaps” or is one with the Material Plane. The Black isn’t “another plane” off somewhere in the metaphysical distance, it’s immediately present anywhere light casts shadows. (And apparently also in obsidian, given the shadow-people-incubation thing.) The Black isn’t really a place of its own with coherent dimensions, other than where shadows (and obsidian) are.
And the Black is also “what separates everything that exists from everything that does not”. Shadows are absences. Sadira can simply burn away shadowpeople with raw energy. The Black isn’t physical existence in the way the Material Plane is.
So imprisoning Rajaat “beyond the Black” in the Hollow means sending Rajaat outside existence. The Hollow has no dimensions, as we’re told in the prologue to Cerulean Storm, because it essentially is nonexistence. It’s called “the languid albumin of nothingness”, in the analogy where Athas is an egg. The Hollow is nothingness, nonexistence. But Rajaat - who exists - has been sent there, and being indestructible, continues to exist. So the result is Rajaat existing in a non-dimensioned void containing nothing else, not even clearly defined “space” around him.
When Rajaat is freed, then, on this model, he returns to existence. His placing his essence in his shadow means IMO that he’s essentially in the same situation as the shadow people - existing primarily in the Black rather than fully in ordinary Material reality (although unlike the shadow people he also has a separate physical Material body).
Rajaat’s second imprisonment is IMO one of the weaker/less clearly written parts of the PP*; but I think what is happening is that his shadow is destroyed by the Dark Lens powered Light spell. If he were just a shadow being, like the shadowpeople, he’d be dead. But he’s more than that, and he remains indestructible. He’s pushed out of existence, without an anchor in or connection point to Material reality, and the changes he is making to reality largely collapse (e.g. the sun turns red again). He continues to exist, but temporarily unable to act or affect reality while the sun spell is in effect… Then Sadira makes the sun spell permanent.
So, in that model, Rajaat is still at least partly a being of shadow. He’s not “in” or “of” light now the way he was in shadow. But his shadow nature (or the shadow part of his nature) is unable to manifest as long as the Lens-empowered sun spell continues. Arguably, he’s not exactly in the sun spell the way he was previously in the shadow; he’s not exactly anywhere currently, with no active manifestation or body - shadow or physical. IMO, the sun spell may be more a lock on a door (keeping him out of the Material Plane) than a prison cell.
*The two parts that I find unclear (besides the weird plot setup to have Rkard responsible for the key bit, which strikes me as very contrived) are the connection between Rajaat’s shadow nature and his elemental nature / why the Cerulean Storm persists and remains real while Rajaat’s other changes to reality (like the blue sun) collapse; and whether Rajaat is “in” the sun-spell or merely shunted out of reality by its destruction of his shadow holding his essence. I think there are perfectly good answers to both, but the way it’s explained in the book seems inconsistent even if it’s actually not.
(My thought is that probably Rajaat’s storm-body and/or what becomes the Cerulean Storm, is real elemental water [or paraelemental rain] and so it continues to exist, but no longer under Rajaat’s control; while the other changes were actively maintained by Rajaat magically. Rajaat’s shadow containing his essence was like a keystone: when it was destroyed, the pattern of Rajaat’s changes to reality fell apart, but those pieces of the pattern that were physically real [the raw elemental water, storm, etc.] remained.)