Templar Obsidian Orbs?

¿p.q. estan los orbes de obsidianas?

In Dark Sun, Sorcerer-Kings got their powers to give clerical-spells to their Templars via obsidian-orbs right?

And what happened to the orbs of Kalidnay, Guistinal and Yaramuk?

And any other champions that got an orb that are no longer around.

Also, any orbs in say, Bodach or Waverly?

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No, the Revised Boxed Srt says SMs got the ability to grant spells to their templars from what happened when they were made dragons after their rebellion against Rajaat. The obsidian orbs are used to store and channel life-energy from animals for their “dragon magic”.

FWIW, Bodach and Waverly never had sorcerer-monarchs, as they were destroyed before or during the Cleansing Wars…

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Then any one PC or NPC, that goes on the path of Dragon, will gain the ability to grant clerical-spells to their followers?

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Not if you stick with the Revised Settings’ take - the ability to grant of spells to templars was related to the Champions’ use of the Dark Lens and the power of thr Pristine Tower to kick-start their dragon transformations. It involves “Living Elemental Vortices” which were the last of their kind (and, IMO, the most pointless made up BS ever to grace a DS product…)

TLDR: the writers bent over backwards to make sure that no one else could ever gain the ability to grant templar spells if they followed the Revised Boxed Set’s lore. The current known sorcerer-monarchs are unique in that capacity.

Now, if you only follow the Original Boxed Set’s lore, then the SMs can just grant spells to templars for some mysterious reason. :man_shrugging: Personally, I’d still keep the obsidian orbs as only media for dragon magic, as that’s consistent with obsidian being a magical/psionic conduit material in DS - Nok’s staff, the Dark Lens, shipfloater domes, etc…

If you do so, you could then just hand wave granting spells as a “psionic enchantment” or whatever and say that yes, any high level psion/caster could eventually learn to grant spells to their followers.

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I stick with Obsidian Orbs being used for storing life energy and a psionic/magical focus. Any magic or psionic user can use them although they are typically used by wizards and psions.

I also run with the SMs being the only ones who can grant Templars spells, a consequence of the Living Vortices, but I run with them as something that can be transferred upon the death of a SM (ala Dregoth’s Ascending).

There’s only 15 that survived to current day:
Myron, Manu (Hamanu), and Irikos had theirs bound by Rajaat during their transformation process with Myron’s being freed upon his death and rebound to one of the other SMs after the rebellion.

Albeorn (Andropinis), Borys, Daskinor, Dregoth, Gallard (Nibeney), Inenek (Lalali-Puy), Kalid-ma, Keltis (Oronis), Sielba, Tecktuktitlay, Uyness (Abalach-Re), and Wyan had theirs bound during the ritual to make them SMs and 1st level dragons as part of the deal for the rebellion. Note that Daskinor, Tec, Kalid-ma, and Keltis aren’t named as being in the rebellion in RaFoaDK.

Pennarin didn’t get a Vortice bound to him due to his untimely death at the hands of Rajaat during the rebellion, but Wyan did due to the proximity to the Dark Lens when the ritual was cast. The others were using him as a conduit for the magic and didn’t realize until afterwards that he’d also been bound.

The Obsidian Orbs weren’t what allowed the SMs to grant templar’s spells, they are used as part of the Dragon transformation process to allow them to steal animal life to power their spells.

I do however have Andropinis and his Shadow Templars working on a giant obsidian orb that exists both in Athas and the Black similar to how the Shadow Transformation has a focus that exists in both. Once complete it will form a bridge between Athas and the Black allowing Andropinis to grant his templars spells again.

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Revised Boxed Set’s lore is the key phrase here; but, if you by the books, it’s different?

I figured to OG box-set has them granting Clerical-Spells because, well, they’re immortal sorcerers that figured it out.

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And one thing that strikes me is, if there are no Gods on Athas, why are their priest-spells; I know the answer: because the authors of the OG box-set needed to use AD&D2e’s Priest Spells for something and Sorcerer-Kings can be the new gods.

I’m thinking of how a non-Sorcerer-King, can grant spells to their Templars.

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No. Not in any edition, as far as I know. In the official conversion of Dark Sun by Athas.org, a sigil representing the Sorcerer Monarch is the focus for the Templar’s divine spells. In 2E, obsidian orbs are the exclusive devices of users of “dragon magic” (arcane magic and psionics combined). In 3.5e, there are certain prestige classes, such as the myrmeleon, that use obsidian too defile in advance in order to store spell energy, and thus pretend to be preservers when casting spells.

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Yeah, its definitely a concept driven by game design and not by exiting lore, but game design and lore are both equally important levera building a setting. :man_shrugging:

While I’m not really a “ignore parts of the setting/lore” guy, IF i was going to do a “just the Original Boxed Set” campaign, I’d just not worry about HOW non-SMs can grant spells to their templar-like followers (a templar by any other name, if you will), as how the SMs grant spells is already poorly defined BS at best.

But, i guess that begs the question: “What IS a sorcerer-monarch?” Its entirely possible that ANY immortal rules who can grant spells could be called a “sorcerer-king”.