Pickaxes & Loincloths

Pursued

There you are, waiting for the “The Chief” [party selects someone] to make the break and get a chance at freedom.  This escape attempt had been in the works for over a year now.  All except one of you are in position.  Even if you have to leave “The Quiet”[party selects someone] behind, you know that you can pull this off, hell you  rehearsed it 22 times now, it will go-off without a hitch says “The Planner”[party selects someone].   The Quiet only needs to do one or two things to get the dwarf “Tang”, today’s water bearer, to switch positions with him.  The choices are to take care of him in the most humiliating fashion or murder him.

This serious desire for freedom all started after diggers found Zugg’s Gullstones, a name given for a time in the God Era when a slave force of Zuggtmoy was put to work in mines surrounded by the stuff.  This caused many to perish, but others to mutate into the first fomorians. The slaves got to calling these rocks Zugg's Gallstones, or at least that is the tale spun by “The Brain”[party selects someone].   After finding this stuff a pond was drained and then its spring was damned.   This was done with some trepidation since once that stuff was left to dry, if The Brain’s story is true then miners are going to die or be contorted into something hideous looking.  One of your present crew was so bold as to stand out and contest “Ole Stunty’s” (the goblin mining master) order.  This back talk was not something his enforcer, a deformed cyclopean-looking war troll named Naxor, was to let go, so on the nod of Old Stunty, the troll severed off the arm of “The Tool” [party selects someone].   The Tool would have died if not for the healing herbs and skills of “The Hand” [party selects someone].  The Tool was saved, though armless he would be useless as far as the slave masters were concerned.  You were not benched until some cooking or cleaning job opens up.  Most likely he would be armed and send forward as cannon fodder in a wave attack against the Mizagûm.  Luckily, “The Tinker”[party selects someone] called upon a close contact at Brachypelma to patch him up.

Singing then begins from up the southeast passage as you swing your pickaxes into the precious rock seams.  This is it, the signal that The Quiet made whatever choice needed to join the escape.  With one great blow, the Chief smashes a dam engineered for an easy break.   Water gushes into the chamber, with each of you stepping up into hidden grooves and footsteps and making your way for the broken dam.  The neogi overseer tries to signal the alarm, but is swept down the passage along with other hapless miners.  The south passage is above the torrent of water.  Miners run down to gawk at the escape artists.  One even jumps in and with powerful strokes makes it to the last of your group, grabbing onto their leg[party determines who is the last in the line].  The rest of you head north bolting up a draining passage.

Damned Marines

Damned Marines

These units are long-dead marines of many nationalities - Ivory Asylum, Paradomea, Council of Bile, and any other who happens to fall victim to death ships of the Armada of the Damned. There have even been times that Grimsuvelth Trawlers sailed with the fleet, crewed by skeleton, zombie, and wight hill giants.

The undead marines of the Armada are just like their living counterparts as far as acting like marines - they are boarders of enemy vessels or used in amphibious assaults on coastal dwellings. There can be as many as 50 of them on one death ship if it is a warship or none if the ship was once a merchant or fishing ship. Across all 31 ships of the Armada of the Damned there could be as many as 400 under normal conditions. In times of great wars among naval powers, like in the Black Tide War, there have been as many 800 dead marines. This usually comes about from the ships being added to the Armada being warships won in battle with weaker non-combatants often falling first in battle.


One of the most harrowing sights of these marines is seeing them use their innate power to walk on water. They run across the waves as if it were land, storming a town and running off with future shipmates, all before the hapless settlement can muster a defense. Fortunately for the coastal holds of the Pearl Sea and the Sea of Mourning these raids are extremely rare with the Armada of the Damned resting in the deeps.

- Phoslomor, cartographer of the Third Epoch, excerpt from the book "Phoslomor's Survey of Midrêth, Ch. 4-1"

Otriring

Otriring ruin

Otriring is a vast cavern network near the center of Huzar-Arân. In the God Era, Set created the Khazarkar race and sequestered them in this area. He used life energy and powerful magic to bring the Underdark area to life as if it were a surface area basking in the rays of Merioss and Juniger and experiencing weather and the changing of the seasons. This artificial environment along with efreeti educators allowed the Khazarkar civilization to rapidly advance and catch up with the other advanced races of Bal-Kriav. In 255 LC, Set's use of Moradin's Surveyor to create life was found out. Moradin, a true God of Creation, went to the Quara'tun Council of Gods and had Set charged with theft and the illegal use of the powers of creation to create a race that would help him gain Divine Power. Set was ordered to give up the artifact Moradin's Surveyor and have his people abandon Otriring.


They are to go elsewhere and eke out a living without divine help, like all the other mortal races.

- Io, to Set, reading out the courts decision - "Direct Assistance to Mortals is Forbidden"

So that Otriring would not be re-inhabited by others seeking to benefit from its artificial environment, the life energy in the area was accelerated so that things here grow extremely fast resulting in accelerated aging such that one would age a life time in a matter of days. This results in anything living in Otriring to grow and age faster, reaching adult hood in two or three days, yet dying a few days later. This area is so dangerous that anything can succumb to its super-charged life energy - including the Higher Powers. Undead that enter the region find themselves withered away in a matter of hours or seconds for the weaker ones, and constructs which are themselves touched with a bit of life energy, break down after a few weeks. After death it does not end for the living, for they are reborn in hours and continue the cycle. This endless cycle of rebirth led to some calling the area Phoenix Gut.

The Khazarkar civilization thrived in this area for three centuries. There ancient ruins are scattered all over the area.

Abyssal Hegemony

The Abyssal Hegemony were the forces of the Abyss that opposed the Quara'tun Covenant in the Demon Spawn War. The leadership that made up the the Abyssal Hegemony was in no way organized on a hierarchy like its opposition. It was instead one of chaos with individual commands that worked in the interest of some demon and only allied with another if it served their self-interest; and woe to the "ally" if at the end of the battle they were badly beaten, for they would most likely fall victim to the superior might of their former ally.

Some of the demons that were part of the Abyssal Hegemony's leadership became demon princes during the Demon Spawn War or some time after it.

Megrlof

Megrlof

Megrlof is a half-submerged giant built ruin. It rests in the waters of Allof Stond, yet this was not always so. Before the Allof Stond War, it was a lake of molten lava and Megrlof was a seemingly impregnable bastion with fire giants patrolling its great walls.

In the First Epoch, fire giants built Megrlof as a base to help guard and spread the lava of Ofli Hrolmir, and indirectly the expansion of Surtur's Artery. They did this in such a way as not to be too upsetting to the locals. For a time they had good trade relations with the Underdark city-state Hlothrabatta and the surface empire Melephaeusan.

Megrlof was abandoned at the end of the Allof Stond War. As terms of the surrender, the city was abandoned; this was not a bitter pill to swallow since the fire giants were none to happy with the cooling of the area from the lava lake Allof Stond being cut-off from its source of lava. On leaving the city, the people headed south to Trelshum and Thrammaer where they split up as refugees among the various holds of those areas.

Bullywug

Bullywug skirmishers

The Bullywug race is an ancient one dating to the Dawn Era. They were created in the Dawn War as amphibian soldiers to dominate wetlands, rivers, and other freshwater bodies. They were considered one of the weaker elements of the primordial armies. Many leaders of bullywug units viewed them as untrustworthy, sometimes unreliable, and at least 10% of them were insensitive to the deaths of those around them. These traits got worse over time, such that by the end of the Dawn War most of them had changed alignment entirely from chaotic neutral to neutral evil.

In some areas of the realm, bullywug will play the role of paying homage to the slaadi or possibly even a nearby dragon. Sociologist that have studied these groups say that they do this only out of their own selfish interests and will eliminate what they one idolized if given the chance. They were so widely used that after the primordials were defeated, bullywugs found themselves scattered all over the multi-verse. Since they were considered a minor threat and possibly even an ally in the Demon Spawn War, the Quaratun Covenant saw fit to allow them to permanent status on the Prime.

Bullywug are limited in their movements and habitats. This comes from the fact that they have to be immersed in water once per day or suffer dehydration. In severe conditions, they have been known to dig underground and enter a state of hibernation. This can last months or even centuries, ending only when a favorable environment exists. When the Nermanis Sea receded and then disappeared, thousands upon thousands of Kazrâ's bullywug dug holes and went into hibernation. Kazrâ became a hot and arid desert - possibly entombing the area's bullywug for all eternity. In the Cinazan Front, one Athirbêni general came up with a plan for digging them up and transporting them to Gimirkazân where they would come out of their sleep and then be pressed into military service. This never came to fruition with the rapid advance of the Horde of Chaos which put Kazrâ far behind enemy lines.

Bullywug are scattered all over Bal-Kriav, with most either where they were left after the Dawn War or several hundred miles away along the path of some waterway.

Crulock Globes

Crulock Globe

Crulock Globes are gelatinous globules of Nature Energy. They were created by the primordial lord Mephirouth solely for the purpose of accelerating the fungi growth around Crulock. The energy of one of these globes covers a 100' diameter, providing sustenance to plant-life and plant-based creatures. Plants in the area of a Crulock Globe grow five times faster, two to four times larger, and provide three times the bounty of any fruit, toxin, or substance they produce. Handling a Crulock Globe is dangerous to any creature but the myconids. This is because Mephirouth made these globes as vessels of disease. Fortunately, for those in the vicinity of them, only touching them exposes one to a virulent disease that can wipe out a community in weeks.

Late in the God Era, myconids collected hundreds of Crulock Globes from the Crulock ruins. Up until that time, no other creature had survived exploration of the disease infested ruin. They carried them to Wyzbrack and over a few decades turned a dark and barren swamp into an oasis of life. The myconid population rapidly expanded under an umbrella of nature energy. This ended with the arrival of the kuo-toa who wiped them out, yet they did not touch the Crulock Globes. It is said that priests of Blibdoolpoolp warned them of agonizing deaths to any that touch Mephirouth's creations. A few fools touched them, resulting in death by diseases that each time were different and nearly impossible to cure.

Patient 1 is drying out. There can be no other fate worse for a kuo-toa. Copius amounts of water and even submersion do not help. Two attendants have also contracted Mephirouth Touch and are only a week behind Patient 1. They are to be netted down in the marsh and left to perish by disease or any predator foolish enough to make meal of them.

- Gragadpon, kuo-toa medic of Dilkuglapgon - "Mephirouth Touch"