Nibenay The Shadow king.
Name Gallard
6 th Champion “Bane of Gnomes”
Alignment Evil, Level 29
Home City-State of Nibenay
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How does this sound?
This is totally home-brew.
A little bit about Albeorn/Andropinis
Back in the cleansing wars Albeorn was given the task of wiping out all elf’s beneath the dark sun. Back in those days the majority of elf’s lived in elven city’s.
When Albeorrn started the Jiihad against the entire elven race, the elf’s started to run and gathered up in small clans instead of elven kingdoms. The elf’s was very competent to the desert life - Albeorn army was not. It made the task of wiping out the elves extremely complicated because Albeorn army were to slow and heavy to keep up with the elves.
Therefore Albeorn had to use all his wit to complete the task, he have been granted by Rajaat.
The strategy was clear, he needed to make traps at the rendezvous the elf’s used. He gathered lots of necromancers and got them to make entire legions of undead beings to sit and wait for decades even centuries for any elf runner to come by. Every time an elf runner comes by one of those places, all the undead, golems etc in that area will animate by magic and slay all elven intruders.
Another favorite tactic Albeorn used and still do, is to let elf’s fight each other.
Albeorn/Andropinis have spy’s everywhere to make intriguies in many clans, especially his all time favorite clan “Night runners”, who specialize in murders, assasinations and intrigues.
Albeorn him self takes great joy of seeing elf’s fighting elf’s. Still this day Androponis is having many elven spy’s in the different clans. Andropinis saw the end of the Cleansing wars as a defeat, and he bears grudge. In Balic to day, there are around 10% elf’s. He loves to have elf’s around him, for as much as he hates the race, as much he admire them.
Many of the palace concubines are of elven blood, and he takes great pleasure in abusing them and break them down. None of these concubines have ever escaped the palace and lived to tell about the horrors going on in Mighty Andropinis private chambers.
Andropinis loves going to the Arena of Balic to watch elf’s fighting elf’s. He loves to set up scenes where elf’s are being mutilated, killed and humiliated. In his private chambers in the palace there is a lot of paintings on the walls showing all kind of bizarre complications where beautiful elf’s Are destroyed and torn apart. He is obsessed in many different ways of killing elf’s and have a huge dungeon to torture and mutilating elf’s.
The elf’s are his toy, like a cat is playing around with a mouse.
Rumours says that he have an entire island in the Sea of Silt, where he made an entire society full of mutilated, twisted and amputated elf’s. This place is rumored to be one of the worst, cruelest and most bizarre places in the entire Tyr region.
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Silly question- In the 4th Edition Material, aren’t there some hints dropped that Abalach-Re is of outsider origin? The 4E Dark Sun stuff irritates me so I’d hate to have to go back and look at it, but it seemed to hint at her being some kind of fiend or half-fiend before beginning metamorphosis.
On the subject of Nibenay, after the Pentad novels he starts to seem like an… alright kind of former genocidal warlord that is seeking some sort of metaphysical solution to the problems of Athas? Hammanu kind of comes across in the same light, but with more of an eye towards the actual physical/day-to-day well being of things. Oronis always seemed to be wearing a boo-boo face, cowering in his false utopia trying to make right on what he did, knowing he can’t, and getting his apprentices killed in the process. Given those 3 are the not-undead Sorcerer-Kings left at that point, no wonder things had to be kind-of rebooted. They were too likable and sympathetic, and the Sorcerer-Kings were supposed to symbolize how uncaring and hostile the setting could be.
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This is one of my favorite threads, so I’m going to revive it (hopefully). I sadly almost never looked at the old wizard’s forums while they were active, so I don’t know much about the discussion of Abalach-Re as a ruler, but my two cents on the matter, as the owner of almost every dark sun book ever made, is that I always saw her as secretly extremely competent, with her apparent decadence being a mask. Tecktuktitlay I always saw as a braggadocios coward, but one whose personal abilities are actually fairly strong, he just doesn’t know how to rule a city, a trait her shares with the so called forest goddess.
Lalali-Puy I’ve always seen as the far less competent of the two between her and Abalach-Re. Her city state is at least as dysfunctional as Draj or Raam, and only it’s geographical location and enslaved spirits keeps it from crumbling in a week. Unlike Nibenay, she doesn’t know how to manage or rule properly, which results in her sticking her fingers into everything on whatever whim takes her. The whole city twists to her whims and is mostly kept intact by family units in spite of her, not because of her. It barely even qualifies as a city. Abalach-Re actually keeps a careful eye on her city, and knows how to remake it if it suits her plans. Lalali-Puy just doesn’t care, and her personality and city state are basically as feral as Draj and it’s ruler. She’s just actually delusional rather than cowardly and stubborn.
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Ok, I was just lurking and reading, but I gotta chime in about this one:
“Unlike Nibenay, she doesn’t know how to manage or rule properly”
I strongly disagree. The core sources clearly show that Nibenay has little to no interest in managing or ruling his city-state. He’s so hands-off and indifferent that his populace regularly (in generational terms, at least) comes to the conclusion that he literally doesn’t exist. THAT is why he’s called the Shadow King. He’s barely existent, like a shadow. His templarate runs the show. He only bothers to make an appearance when the talk of his death or nonexistence gets out of hand, and then only to make a big show before slinking back to his wtf studies.
Conversely, Lalali-Puy’s city-state is actually very cohesive and well-run. Her populace actually LOVES her (whether they should or not, well . . . ). She tales an active role in the day-to-day of her city, the people have a vibrant culture, and their needs are generally met. Out of all the city-states, hers is the only one where you could genuinely make the argument that the citizens are generally happy and content (relatively speaking).
When all is said and done, I would argue that ALL of the sorcerer-monarchs (except maybe kalak at the end, when his obsession overtook his competency) are EXTREMELY adept at ruling. It’s important to remember that these people are actually literal geniuses, the top minds in their field who have had thousands of years of practice at playing Sim City with their citizens. To treat ANY of them as cowardly or incompetent is a disservice. At worst, they’re simply disinterested (like Nibenay) or their priorities have taken a turn (like Kalak, who intended to sacrifice his entire city). Those that take an active role must be understood to know what they’re doing. Hamanu has a very hands-on approach with his city, which is arguably the most well-run of the region. Andropinis likewise takes an active role in the elections of his city. Tectuktitlay puts a lot of effort into reinforcing his divine participation in his cult and city. Lalali-Puy regularly engages and interacts with her citizens. Kalak is specifically said to have been immensely competent, but ultimately has zero shits to give when he reaches the state of lighting his citizen-kindling. Dregoth is hardly ever around, having apparently delegated municipal authority to his seconds, much like Nibenay (the difference being that while Nibenay is a literal absentee father whose existence his citizens frequently doubt, Dreogth is explicitly worshipped as a god). Abalach-Re certainly foments the idea of her own incompetence, but I seriously doubt that is anything other than a smokescreen hiding something else.
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And yet, his city state is actually one of the most efficiently run city states, specifically because of the system that he set up. The ivory triangle box set is clear on that. It is ultimately because of him that his city state works, and, yes, he might no longer be necessary for his city’s functionality, but he clearly showed his capacity to govern and rule.
The fact that Lalali-Puy engages with her citizens does not make her competent as a ruler. Every source, from adventures to the ivory triangle box set, that features her has made it clear that Gulg is a far weaker and less civilized city state than Nibenay, with many of the systems that it runs on being hilariously incompetent or at least inefficient. (her high templar has a wisdom score of 9 in dark sun 2e. 9) The fact that people love her just means she has good PR. And unlike Abalach-Re or even Tecktutitlay, she appears to be actually delusional about her effectiveness, too caught up in being the “forest goddess” and binding her citizens to their own little forest world to bother making a system held together by anything more than prayer.
I don’t remember the exact quote, but I believe that somewhere in the ivory triangle box set, it actually specifies that her hands on approach results in very strange shifts in Gulgan life at times, because she tends to focus on problems in isolation and on a whim. This is why I call her an incompetent ruler. Not because she isn’t smart, but because she runs her city like a cult. Which is the reasoning behind my statement above where I said that if it wasn’t for the geographical bounty of Gulg, the city wouldn’t last more than a week.
Aside from the rampant hatred of outsiders, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that her city is either cohesive or well run, in any way that isn’t just a cult of personality. Which is to say she has personal charisma that makes people believe that they are amazing and under the protection of a goddess, but that doesn’t make any of those things true. The same applies to Tecktuktitlay and Daskinor, only many of their citizens don’t even believe their bullshit. Conversely, Nibenay, Hamanu, Kalak, Oronis, Kalid-Ma, Andropinis, Hamanu, Dregoth, and yes, even Abalach-Re (if she would actually focus on it again), have all demonstrated the capacity to actually make and run city states that wouldn’t implode immediately if they died. Borys doesn’t give a shit, and we don’t know enough about how Sielba ran anything to make judgements there.
This is why I consider Borys, Tek, Daskinor, and Lalali-Puy incompetent as rulers, and all of those except Borys have demonstrated major incompetence in general.
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I doubt any of the Sorcerer Monarch’s are incompetent - criminally negligent, maybe, but that’s because of disinterest rather than inability. About Lalali-Puy being a cult leader - big agree. I take that a step further. The Oba is an epic thrallherd. Many of the citizens of Gulg are her believers.
In my conception of Dark Sun, I’ve taken the thrallherd concept to heart. There is only one thing more forbidden in the city states than magic, and that is the practice of thrallherding. Thrallherds cause endless disruption. Slaves runaway from their plantations to join thrallherds. Thrallherds gather cults around them. When thrallherding in a city is suspected, the authorities investigate to find out whether someone is thrallherding or is just popular. To know, they have to see how the guru interacts with the followers. Investigators of thrallherds are always templars of sufficiently high rank to execute a suspect on the spot, because allowing a thrallherd to live is dangerous.
Of course, that doesn’t help when the thrallherd happens to be the Sorcerer Queen. Out it the desert there are dozens of thrallherds, running their own little cults. Here are two 3.5e feats known to the Oba. Adapted from Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander.
Epic Thrallherd [Epic]
Your psychic call to thralls and believers strengthens.
Prerequisites: Twofold Master, Leadership score 25.
Benefit: The Thrallherd gains an Epic version of the Thrallherd class ability. You attract thralls and believers as shown on Table: Epic Leadership. In all other ways Epic Thrallherd functions as the normal Thrallherd class feature.
Normal
The Thrallherd class ability provides no benefit for leadership scores beyond 25.
Legendary Thrallherd [Epic]
You have learned to modulate your psychic resonance to connect with vastly more people.
Prerequisite: Epic Thrallherd, Diplomacy 30 ranks, Sense Motive 30 ranks, must have a cult compound or lands sufficient to maintain the believers.
Benefit: Multiply the number of followers of each level that you can lead by 10. Thus, a Leadership score of 25 would allow you to lead 1,350 1st-level believers, 130 2nd-level believers, and so forth. This has no effect on thralls.
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Agree on the second, disagree on the first. The sorcerer king’s may have been able to scour the world as champions, but that isn’t indicative of their capacity to rule in a functional manner, or heck, even their ability to be functional in others ways. Having godlike power gives you a lot of freedom to be inept and still survive in such a harsh world. None of them would have been chosen by Rajaat if they were hopeless, but after millennia without a proper challenge or connection with their peers, some of them are likely bored out of their minds and looking to stave off ennui rather than create anything functional for the mortals who serve them, or heck, even plan long term. Whether or not this means they are incompetent, is, yes, somewhat subjective, but it certainly gives the appearance of such.
Moreover, and to my point about Lalali-Puy vs Abalach-Re above, sources from the Forest Maker adventure to 4e lore show that Abalach-Re is far smarter and better at planning than she looks. In the one adventure Lalali-Puy appears in (baring Dregoth Ascending. I’d really love to somehow acquire a 2e copy so I can see if she has a role in it like she does in the 3e version), she leaves her most valuable possession out on a table to get smashed! And she doesn’t even come after you for vengeance afterwards.
I like this. How much epic stuff have you made? Because you seem like a bottomless well of epic dark sun rules.
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Still a work in progress. Most of my stuff is not epic. Its just that Dark Sun is the first epic setting for D&D.
And the best epic setting. Seriously, epic transformations, 10th level spells, high level characters not showing up EVERYWHERE like in FR…I love Athas’s epic systems so much from both a mechanical and world building perspective.
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When you get to epic levels on Athas, you are a mover and shaker. Ironically, I think the best kind of Athasian campaign is probably before the assassination of King Kalak. Instead of Rikus, Agis, Neeva, etc, make them bit NPCs with the PCs in the driver’s seat. Just as the PCs become epic, BOOM, they assassinate Kalak. Of course, now they have a city to take care of. The treasury is empty (and possibly the pittance that remained looted after Kalak was killed). If the PCs freed the slaves, they have upended the social system of Tyr. If they didn’t free the slaves, they face a slave revolt. They need to restart the iron mines, which is dangerous work best suited for slaves. Do the PCs engage in lustration, that is de-templarization of the government? Is Sacha and Wyan still around? Are they capable of granting spells to templars? If so, bullying them into doing so might make the PCs that control them strong enough to run the city. But what will they demand in return? Etc etc.
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This. Athas has a lot of social struggles and world altering kingdom building at the highest levels. ironically, this makes it surprisingly like how 2e was designed for PC retirement, only at level 21 rather than 9. This does limit the game in some ways that can be annoying. My one epic dark sun game actually became a plane hopping game thanks to the planar gate, and ended up in Faerun more than once. It’s fascinating to see how incredibly powerful individuals from different worlds interact, and how beings that are used to being many of the strongest people around find themselves suddenly facing the knowledge that Athas is one small corner of the multiverse, and conversely, that beings from such a small, hidden world can gain such incredible power.
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‘Heroic’ plotline for plane hopping Athasian PCs. The Shadow King is able to translate a small number of individuals to a world called Toril. The Shadow King has identified an individual there called Elminster that has contained within his body the essence of magic. You mission, should you choose to accept it, is to capture Elminster and return with him to Nibenay. Thereafter the Shadow King will rip the essence of magic out of Elminster and allow the weave of magic to spread all over Athas, ending the problem of defiling forever, and setting Athas back on the track to mend its ecology.
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Lol! My Pc’s were anything but heroic. I mean, one of them was an Athasian Dragon. The most positive alignment in party belonged to a mind-controlled intelligent psionic staff that could turn into a gigantic sand serpent and was taken off the corpse of a Pyreen. I believe it had the only good alignment in the party, and wasn’t even a true member. Despite that, it was listened too amazingly often, and probably the only thing that kept the party alive several times (mostly due to pointing out that murderhoboing tends to get you killed when you are no longer the biggest people around, but also because it could heal people.)
That is a really neat plot line, however. My group would have probably just fought over the Silver Fire instead of using it to help Athas though.
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After the events of the Pentad, Nibenay has chosen to take a more active role in his city per Wanderer’s Chronicle. Prior to that, I agree. He was very hands off with the day-to-day stuff.
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This awesome thread has been resurrected several times, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I do it again. A lot of things I wanted to ask about have been touched here, so I thought it’d be better to give this thread an Animate Dead rather than starting a new one.
I’ve been trying to find some information that’d help me flesh out Yaramuke and Sielba. I know actual lore is pretty scarce, so I think this is a perfect place to ask. All materials I can find say more about sacking of the city than the city itself. If you were to speculate, what else could we say about her? What was her government style? What was Yaramuke like in term of culture and lifestyle? Please feel free to speculate - or to point me to actual materials if you know any!
I think we’re over-estimating the SM’s cunning while downplaying the importance of obsidian. It’s the second best weapon material; on top of that, it’s much simpler to work with than metal. Whoever controls it, controls the warfare in the region. That makes the quarries an extremely strategic resource.
To make matters worse, one of the sides is Hamanu, the self-styled warrior SM. Sielba challenged not only his power, but the legend he built to legitimise his rule. If she took control of the quarries, he’d become a toothless warrior-king who can’t even arm his armies. To Hamanu, this was personal.
Finally, we don’t know how long this conflict lasted. When I first read it, I imagined it spanned centuries. That’s a lot of time to grow to hate someone who’s basically challenging your right to rule.
As for how Yaramuke was destroyed, I support the simplest theory: Sielba overcommitted and suffered a decisive defeat, leaving the city-state unprotected. Hamanu sacked it simply because of his (self) image. He’s the warrior-king. That’s what warrior-kings do.
Again, I have to play a devil’s advocate. The City-States are desperate places drifting from one crisis to another. If it’s not draught, it’s a natural disaster; if it’s not a disaster, a neighbour is invading because they suffered a draught and/or a disaster. The true test of an Athas ruler is their ability to confront these sudden crises, not intelligence or skill in intrigue. Planning ahead is worthless when a sudden drought ruins all your plans.
This is why I consider Abalach-Re a blatantly incompetent SM: Because she has to resolve to so much scheming and intrigue. Her authority is low; the morale in her city is rock-bottom at all times. That makes Raam weak at its core. In face of a crisis, it’ll be rife with unsolved problems that undermine its strength.
In this context, Lalali-Puy actually becomes one of the most competent SMs ever. You simply can’t underestimate the importance of high morale and public trust at times of crisis.
This is true for every single City-State. They exist because they happen to be in fertile regions. If not for geographical bounty, they’d never be built. Every SM’s rule lives and dies by the fertility of the land - which is why all of them make defiler persecution a rule.
Sorry, but this is simply not true. No SM (save Oronis) can ensure the fertility of their lands or save their city if it becomes defiled. However:
This would be a fair point, if not for one thing: She runs her city as a quasi-druidic environmental cult. Lalali-Puy’s entire government is an extensive ecologic program. Glug doesn’t ‘happen’ to have a geographic bounty - it has a queen who ensures her city has a geographic bounty.
Aside (perhaps) from Oronis, you don’t get an SM with more foresight. Her policies revolve around keeping her population fed, rich in base resources and capable of surviving in the long term. If it means sacrificing what other SMs consider ‘power’, so be it.
Fully agreed that she’s delusional and her policing is chaotic at best. However, her long-term government style leaves her people stronger, fitter and more likely to survive - perhaps to the point where she can afford whimsical leadership.
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There are no materials describing Yaramuke to my knowledge. The government type was likely Oriental Despotism.
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I would say that the use of trees of life, brambleweed and other defiler fuel, that all SM’s preserve their land to a certain extent… not just in Gulg. Otherwise, I agree.
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In my world, Yaramuke was a large walled circular city. What we see in Black Flames is the inner city, while the outer city contains many circular buildings similar to the tulou, each ruled by templar. Sielba and many of her templars were thrallherds and the outer city was off limits to outsiders much like Gulg. Outsiders had a separate foreigner tulou that allowed merchants and visitors. Each internal tulou was dedicated to a craft or profession, similar to how Eldaarich has it’s villages set up. External villages were also similar to tulou but were primarily farmers.
Culturally most templars were soldiers, since few were needed as police or run the city. People were happy to serve and were very communal. Property was all owned by Sielba, distributed by templars, and replaced as necessary. Outsiders were distrusted since they did not have the good of Sielba and Yaramuke as their primary motivation.
Yaramuke’s downfall was actually due to the schemes of Abalach-Re, she convinced some of the war templars to move on the mines at “Sielba’s” direction for the good of the city. Abalach-Re’s motivation was actually due to Sielba’s relationship with Dregoth nearly 200 years prior (she can hold a grudge and Sielba was more difficult to get to than Dregoth).
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In my campaign Sielba has been restored to life. She was never technically dead Hamanu simply seperated her soul from her body leaving her helpless. Now that she’s back I describe her as the wandering Porcelain Lady. She wears the attire of a Geisha with perfectly coifed black hair and stunning Porcelain skin. Although for battle she prefers to wear red tresses for the blood she’s about to spill. I based Yaramuke off of japanese buildings if those buildings had stone instead of wood as the building material. In my campaign Sielba was the one who poisoned the waters to prevent Hamanu from claiming her city as a second base. Now that she’s been resurrected she’s undone the curse upon the waters and during a large conflict she orchestrated she freed the descendants of her city who were mostly slaves in Urik. The “purebred” Mukians will form the backbone of her restored city with everyone else as a second class citizen.
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