Shift Tome

Shift Tome

The Shift Tome is a book of conjuration and summoning. It holds spells from across the ages, from as far back as the Dawn Era to the present day. Work on the tome began with Piranoth, and when he abandoned the realm of his creation, Piranoth's Steps, to the demons, it fell into the hands of one of his garrison commanders. This garrison commander of the remote outpost of Lyktion was a twisted, depraved warmonger named Baphomet. At the time, Baphomet was already half corrupted and warped by the chaos creeping across a realm that would become better known as the Abyss. In the Demon Spawn War, Baphomet used the Shift Tome to move his forces across vast distances.

The book ended up on Bal-Kriav in the Horgon Era. Tiefling agents, working with information from Dispater, snuck into Baphomet's maze-hold Lyktion and absconded with it.

The Shift Tome holds some very powerful spells that can get its user(s) in trouble. In the Horgon Era, tieflings wizards of Lod Stohl tried to use the book to summon an army from the Nine Hells. This was to be an army of lowly spine devils but instead the wizards were tricked by Dispater. Instead of summoning an army, Lod Stohl was summoned, "shifted" from Bal-Kriav to the Nine Hells. The abrupt disappearance of Lod Stohl from Bal-Kriav caused a split in the earth to open up under where it once was, creating a smoking rift called Ausul Raf.

In 1778, the minotaur wizard Mishat-Kurse used the Shift Tome to shift the city of Huaglim from Azrik to Karnegmoth.

Ukhilgam

Sehkmora, Ukhilgam's First Harpy Queen

Ukhilgam is a sea cliff on the northwestern edge of the Clans. It came about in the Demon Spawn War, when the primordial Ingu'lumin opened his second rift to the Elemental Chaos. When weave spiders shut the rift down, it created the great sinkhole Zurukthûr sending shock waves across the land beneath. This caused powerful earthquakes and the collapse of a 120 mile section of Narbuzad's western seaboard. The land crumbled downward into the sea and into great piles of rubble making it nearly impassible out of crustaceans and sea spiders. The coastal seabed was blanketed with boulders and rocks for 4 miles. This area became a rich reef and into later ages a fishery for anglers out of Spirachiln and Grimmarsveinn. The cliff's large population of harpies, wyverns, and other predators are the greatest dangers for those that fish here.

Ukhilgam's cliff walls tower over the Nielalroch strait. They vary in height with the land behind it, ranging anywhere from a few dozen feet to a few thousand feet. As mentioned, the area is rich in predators, but also rich in wealth. The cliff is dotted with rubies and veins of platinum. Some have taken to scaling the cliffs to cut out gemstones but larger operations create structures descending the cliff with cranes and mining shafts following the veins into the bowels of Unaraggumak.

In 544, the Daklode city Lokumord came under attack by organized bands coming out of Ukhilgam. These raiders were a motley of races - goblins, orcs, ogres, hill giants, and even some dwarves. It was soon learned that these attackers were under the harpy's charm. They were too well organized and commanded to be under just individual harpies, so a force was sent out to gather intelligence. The few that made it back reported that a harpy queen named Sehkmora was the leader. They also said that she was much more powerful than a normal harpy with a priestly connection to Graz'zt and overpowering charming abilities. The conflict with Sehkmora became known as the First Harpy War. To date, Daklode has waged five wars with the harpies and malcontents of Ukhilgam.

Hurguulich

Hurguulich

Shortly after the formation and stabilization of Sphere 411, Io put a young green dragon named Hurguulich in a region that would one day become known as the Aerie of Dragons. Hurguulich was put here along with many other young dragons of different colors, and in time they would spread outward across the world.

Hurguulich was extremely intelligent and cunning, such that she became one of the mightiest green dragons of the Dawn Era. In the Dawn War, she became the leader of all the dragons of the Aerie. She kept the primordials and angelic forces out of this region and even schemed to take on whoever proved victors of the war, hoping that they would be weakened from the conflict. Her designs were interrupted when Maen Grirngrim came to the region and started capturing dragons for use in his necromantic experiments. Hurguulich attacked the chaos archons and other primordial minions but could never make much headway against their seemingly endless numbers. She was ultimately duped into meeting with Maen Grirngrim, convinced by a master diplomat named Rilthang. At this meeting, she was incapacitated with a gas composed of primordial essence and then bound. Maen Grirngrim then used his necromantic skills to turn her into the first dracolich; up until this point she was aligned chaotic neutral.

As a dracolich, Hurguulich proved to be very difficult to control. Her great power and heightened mental prowess made her a constant threat to Maen Grirngrim and his minions. She knew that she was under the control of her creator, yet cunningly found ways in the logic of his rules which allowed her to bring harm on his minions while at the same time keeping to the wording of what she could and could not do. When the Golden Seven did battle with Maen Grirngrim, they did it against a primordial with only the remnants of his army. Hurguulich had strung out his army over fifty miles with her magic and deadly clouds of poisonous vapor. By the time they arrived to the battle site, they came disorganized and in small groups and became easy pickings for the army of the Golden Seven.

Hurguulich was never seen again after the death of Maen Grirngrim. The Golden Seven, angels, and even the gods searched far and wide across Bal-Kriav, but found no trace of her. In the Second Epoch, Sammaster found a powerful source of necromantic energy in an ancient dragon burial ground. Sammaster employed an army of ghouls, ghasts and grave golems to excavate an area of Viing Qeth. He left the place with dozens of mottled green and black scales. These are said to have come off Hurguulich while she fought to free herself from the clutches of Maen Grirngrim.

Mark of Talos

Birth of Talos

The Mark of Talos is a vast crevasse that begins in Badmaer and ends many Underdark regions beneath. This unusual area was created in the Dawn Era with the birth of a primordial storm giant named Talos. He was primordial blessed on an altar of gloomstar and then barraged for twenty days by lightning storm. The continuity of this lightning storm came from 26 primordial minions having the powers of a arcane hierophant. The lightning pulverized the ice and stone of the surface and then took on a life of its own as Talos grew from a baby to a over-sized adult storm giant. As he grew, the living lightning storm around him carved out a canyon with the altar buoyed aloft by continuous stream of electricity. As he grew over twenty days, the storm continued to burn and disintegrate a path downward. As it plunged further and further into the deeps, energy from the storm was absorbed by Talos leading to the narrowing of the canyon and then many smaller crevasses leading even deeper in into the Underdark. On the last day, the living lightning storm was absorbed by Talos giving him his awesome lightning powers. During the storm, Talos was fused with the altar of gloomstar. Some theologians says that Talos's great regenerative power is because of the gloomstar fused into his bones.

The Mark of Talos ranges from one mile to four miles in width at the top, but as it goes down it narrows to shelves of stone several hundred feet in thickness. On each of these shelves are a number of smaller crevasses that continue into the deep regions of the Underdark. By way of the surface, a huge flying creature could descend downward through three Underdark regions. The Mark of Talos is 28 miles long at its top, narrowing to a crack of several inches width at twenty miles down.

The entirety of the canyon and all the smaller ones beneath are a Focus for Lightning. This makes all electrical spells 25% stronger and their DC increased by 4.

Ark of Devgwer

Raptor Calvary

When the primordials were defeated in the Dawn War, some of those captured were imprisoned on the Prime in powerful warded vaults. This was necessary because moving them across the planes was just too expensive and time-consuming for the Nawirrûs Covenant; especially when they were now facing another threat from the demons in what became known as the Demon Spawn War. In the Horgon Era, a primordial engineer named Devgwer escaped his vault on Gatheghu. He was bound to the land with angelic runes so that he could not leave, so he devised a scheme to stay with the land while cutting it free of the continent. He put Cari'phis Icicles, powerful magical devices used to convert rock, sand, and earth to ice, across the northeastern part of Vhurghad. When these were activated, they turned the ground into a deep seam of ice forming a great half-circle all the way to the coasts. He then hired on storm giants, paying them with angelic and primordial spoils hidden away and left behind from the Dawn War. The storm giant workers were put to work with Mauls of the Titan (primordial relics first created in the Dawn War). These magical hammers were used to shatter an ice seam that stretched for three hundred miles. It was not necessary to shatter all of the ice, only crack it enough for it to weaken under pressure and heat. Two months later, part of Vhurghad's landmass broke free of the continent and began drifting out to sea. Devgwer rode this newly created island, the Ark of Devgwer, eastward into Nielalroch's powerful ocean currents and waves. The gap in Vhurghad's coastline became known as the Devgwer Rip. As the Ark of Devgwer moved across the ocean, parts of it broke free leaving a string islands that stretch from the Devgwer Rip to the mouth of Tarag-Khâlu. When the remaining Ark of Devgwer reached the continent Brucrumus, it smashed into sector Ara'phis of the Troll Bogs. This created an uprising of the land that is now called the Devgwer Humps. Devgwer was not the only thing riding on this short-lived island. On an island of nearly 10,000 square miles, thousands of dinosaurs were brought to the shores of Brucrumus with the Devgwer Humps and the Tiyalashe plains becoming their new abodes, and hunting grounds.

Varous holds of the Tarag-Khâlu Enclave employ dinosaurs as pack animals and steeds. Some even use raptors and like meat-eaters but this practice is rare. It comes with costly upkeep with the beast's high meat requirements and dangers of predatory instinct like when the mount turns on the rider to sate its hunger.

Plague Gullet

Otyugh

The Plague Gullets were birthing pools for otyughs, deadly molds, and other horrors that thrive in areas of rot and decay. The first Plague Gullet came about in Andibutt's sewers. This city was a refuge for mortals fleeing the primordial invasion of the Dawn Era. The primordial lord Mephirouth sent his agents into the sewers beneath this city and begin the process of turning this cesspool into a spawning area for his distasteful minions. These included those previously mentioned along with rats in the millions, hordes of dire rats, rat swarms and plague spewers. Andibutt suffered many years of plague and death from the sickness brought forth by all the carriers of disease coming up from Andibutt's Plague Gullet. Ten years after Mephirouth began his misdeeds, Andibutt was abandoned and then set on fire by forces of the Nawirrûs Covenant. There now being no hosts left in the area, Mephirouth lost interest in the place and moved on. He left behind his minions where many turned to preying on each other or perishing from starvation.

The second Plague Gullet formed in the triton stronghold Natar. This bastion served as a training area for angels and other water-breathing Nawirrûs forces. Here, the tritons trained those who may be able to breath underwater and get around, but were not skilled in underwater combat like those born to the element. Natar was built half underwater in the deeps of Nielalroch and half into the open chasm Irôchâr Plunge. Like at Andibutt, nefarious agents of Mephirouth came and polluted the area such that it had to be abandoned for nearly five centuries. Today, Natar is a powerful triton city-state.

Springs of Sehanine

Cresting Vats

In the Second Epoch, the High Wood Quake devastated an area of northern Voternil. This resulted in the desertification of a slither of the Taurquion forest and the creation of the wasteland Baranarth. In 1562, priestesses of the god Sehanine, traveled to the Elemental plane Cresting Spires and brought back three clusters of Cresting Vats. They were able to do this because of a deal struck between Sehanine and Poseidon. This deal stipulated that water would flow from the Cresting Spires to wherever the Cresting Vats were put on Bal-Kriav. One of the points of this contract also said that from time to time water elementals would come through the vats and that no measures should be taken to restrict their occasional use of these inter-planar gateways.

On Bal-Kriav, Sehanine's priestesses placed clusters of Cresting Vats in and about the wasteland Baranarth. There goal is obvious, to rejuvenate the wasteland and perhaps in a thousand years return it to the verdant forest like it was before the High Wood Quake.

Cresting Vats are primordial devices built in the Dawn War as a means of getting troops and elemental water to other planes and worlds. They come in pairs with one permanently fixed on the plane Cresting Spires and the other somewhere else. On Bal-Kriav, the three clusters of them in the High Wood Country are collectively called the Springs of Sehanine.