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Of Masters and Deceptions - Behind the Hulean Wars - part 1

by LoZompatore from Threshold Magazine issue 27

An Entropic perspective of the Great War between Hule and the Known World

by LoZompatore

Michele “LoZompatore” C. played BECMI for most of his life, starting way back in 1987. He likes, most of all, mixing and matching canon and fanon material about Mystara to see how many new adventure hooks can be churned out. In the little spare time he has away from Mystara he helps other guys in designing oil and gas pipelines around the (real) world.

Note from the author

This is my personal attempt to establish a backstory for the Great War between Hule and the countries of the Known World, trying to give some motivation to the actions of the Master of Hule in the decades before the conflict erupts. I also provide some fictional background for some magical items, namely the Crystal Casket in Greatrealm’s temple described in adventure module X5: “Temple of Death”, and the Soul-Gem of Thanatos/Dagger of Cymorrak described in module X10: "Red arrow, Black Shield''. I promoted all of them to artifact level magical items, tying their origins to the actions of specific Immortals. All of this in the attempt to merge X10 war events with earlier information provided in X4 and X5 modules and to motivate the  progress in Hulean land acquisitions between AC 950 and AC1010, providing some rationale for  borders' inconsistencies among canon sources (mostly X5, CoM, RS, SC and PWA III maps).

Prologue

Estates of Entropy, Immortal City of Pandius, AC 1010 

Woer the Shifting, exalted lords of all baldandars of Mystara, walked unimpeded across the entrance of the Crumbling Archives of the Sphere Entropy. He was there to file his testimony over the deeds of his revered Master and Immortal patron, Bozdogan the Trickster.

As he walked along the four huge smoky blackstone statues of the entrance - he knew too well they were guardians in disguise, and approved their demeanor -  he could not refrain from thinking about the futility of his task. 

The Archives were mostly an unorganized collection of sparse deeds related by those Entropic Immortals whose egos wished some form of self-gratification. Nothing to compare with the Chrestomathies of Knowledge in the Quarters of Thought, or with the Chronicles of Omnia managed by the Sphere of Time. As expected, many of the Entropics simply didn’t care about any form of organized storage of information. A few of them actually petitioned for the (possibly violent) destruction of the Crumbling Archives, to be substituted with a repository of cursed weapons, or with a breeding pool for experiments on lifeforms, a gladiatorial arena, a smoky observational vortex to Mystara, or whatever came to their deranged minds. 

But the Hierarchs of Entropy - most of them, and Nyx at least - always rejected such projects: sometimes a research in the old documents proved useful and inspirational to some scholarly Entropic Immortal to improve the spreading of chaos and destruction in the world below. And, so, the Crumbling Archives still stood - in the immediate, at least.

His master’s Bozdogan apparently belonged to the same school of thought of these Hierarchs - thought Woer while crossing the two lines of spiked columns in the long, dark, gothic hall leading to the Acquisitor. After all, the baldandar’s task was not much different from what the hundreds of clerics in Hule and elsewhere were doing every day, painstakingly recording and archiving the effects on the mortal world of the mischievous actions of their two-faced patron.

Nevertheless, Woer felt there was something more subtle in this pilgrimage to the Archives on Pandius. When granting him the Sigil of Admittance to the library Bozdogan gave Woer quite precise instructions on what to do. 

But the baldandar’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud lamenotus voice.

“Whaat are yoou doing heere, servaant of the Greats? Whyy are yoou interruptiing myy deep, inconsoolable sorroow?”

Woer looked around. He had reached the poorly-lit round hall of the Acquisitor, its nest barely visible in front of him but clearly empty. He was too deeply absorbed in thought and, in places like this, it was a serious mistake. Before he had time to complete an arcane scan of the surroundings Woer felt a warm, foul breath on his head. His shoulders were stained by drops of venom dropping from the wide-open stings of the creature hanging over him. Such was the attitude of  Sabakhu the Acquisitor, the exalted Only One Book Worm of the Crumbling Archives.  

The quick-thinking ability for which the baldandars were renowned was not necessary to Woer to realize that the giant black spider was at an advantage, and that a swift attack would ensue if Bozdogans’ envoy did not provide a satisfactory answer. Any aggression was formally prohibited in the Archives but, as the building was shielded from external scrying, the disappearance of some minor visitor when no other witness was around was not unheard of. And Woer noticed the Archives looked pretty deserted at that moment.  A little mix of adulation and threat was perhaps the best course of action, he thought.

“I salute you, mighty Sabakhu, Chosen by Entropy, first among the scions of great Aracne, Mistress of the evil spiders of Mystara! I come on the orders of my Master Bozdogan to express his deepest condolences for your recent loss. He desires to pay homage to your office with a little token written by His own hand, which I am commanded to recite by heart in front of you. My powerful and generous Lord wishes this narration could help you to alleviate your deep melancholy!”

“Reaaly is sooo? And hoow do yoou belieeve to succeeeed in thiis, laackeey of Bozdooogan?” - the poisonous stings moved still closer to Woer’s big head. The baldandar wished there was no need for a fight, as the killing of that arrogant spider would vanish any chance Woer possibly had of  archiving Bozdogan’s report. 

“O Elevated among spiders, I am confident you will enjoy learning about how my Master fooled a puny bunch of Immortals of Life and promoted his Champion in the mortal world, causing every sort of trouble to the people of Mystara. His deeds resounded so deep in the Pits of Entropy that even mighty Thanatos was so impressed to make a deal with my Lord!”

“Alaas, nothiing and nooo-one will eveer bee able to confoort me afteer the deeath of Aketheti, myy belooved sisteer!”  - Nevertheless, Woer’s arcene senses perceived a small relaxation of the stings, a small movement of the spiders’ body in the web. Perhaps in a more comfortable position. Perhaps it was a glimpse of curiosity. The baldandar quickly decided silence was the best course of action, it was important to let the spider talk -  “Wee weere soo similaar, shee loveed boooks and scrools sooo much. Wheen the Greeats promooted mee to thiis hiigh offiice I waas only glaad entruustiiing her the manageemeent of the Greeat Libraary of Edaiiro. Sooo muuch to coonfuuuse, soo muuch to deeeleete. And noow, a buunch of filthyy humaans stolee her awaay froom mee! Myy oown mootheer waas humiiliated! Teeen centuriees uupsiide doown in three boooiliing oooil wouuuld noot bee a reeetriibbuttion goood eennouugh floor theem ”

This was an opportunity to take, Woer thought . “I know that eight years of mourning are nothing but the blink of your eight eyes, Noble spider, for your strapping race is gifted with the long and fruitful lifespan you cunningly stole from the despised planar spiders. Your wound is still fresh, I concur. But as a partial solace you have my Master’s personal assurance that Entropy will soon take care of those desecrators.” This was actually a little outstretching the will of Bozdogan - Woer pondered - as his Lord could not care less about the murderers of Aketheti. But, in truth, who will never be affected by the forces of Entropy, sooner or later?  

“Moreover, I am more than persuaded that your own mother, the ineffable Aracne Prima, is right now plotting her own subtle revenge for the early demise of such a gifted daughter. My Master is pinning down the Champions of Life in the west, while you certainly noticed how the east ended up pretty… uhm… empty after the recent events. Right now Norwold and the Isle of Dawn are ripe lands for the just vendetta of your kin. Bozdogan is aware of this and just wishes to help a trusted ally with his own insufficient wisdom. The advice of one of the Greats is at your disposal if you just let me tell His tale to register. And, if I may suggest, should you ever find some valuable advice for your Mother to report, you will be the only one to whom Her gratitude will be shown. My Lord would never deprive a clever mind of its proper reward”.

Woer almost smiled at the double meaning of his last sentence, but he made an effort to assume as contrite an attitude as possible. Let greed and personal ambition carve their paths in the mind of the spider, thought the baldandar. You, just like me, live for the commendation of your Master. If this will not change your mind about the awful reception you reserved me then nothing else will do. And my dear, foul librarian, if you insist on playing the current game you’ll discover that I’m not so easy to kill.

After quite a silence the stings were withdrawn, to Woer’s relief. 

“Weeell, it happeens thaaat toooday is quiiite a deead moorning, eheheheh. I belieeve I coould spaare soome tiime froom myy otheer impooortaant duutiiees to listeen to theee taaale of yooour Maaaster, aafter aall” 

Sabakhu carefully moved his boated figure from the web above Woer to the silky nest just in front of the baldandar. The huge spider assumed what to him was perhaps a comfortable posture. His front legs took a thread of silk just extruded from his spinneret and, with an amazing speed, wove it into a continuous sheet. Woer knew that the apparently uniform parchment would include tiny bumps, holes and reflections forming letters, words and sentences, a pattern visible only to those knowing how to read the fragile document. An almost useless prudence in a place of unearthly powers like Pandius but, still, clarity of understanding was not within the aims of Entropy.

“I will liiisteen, I will reegisster, I wiiiil aaarchiivee. Buuut bee caarefuul noot to booore meee, seervaant of Boozdoogaan. This woouuld bee aa criimee agaaiinsst yooour maaastteer aand  yooour liiiffe aaas weeel.

Well. at least we are a step further, thought Woer, not  with some inner satisfaction on how he managed to persuade the unpredictable Librarian in doing his biddings. And so he began relating the story, just as Bozdogan impressed it in his mind.

A Champion of Bozdogan is Born

“This is a story that spans people, regions and centuries, for Bozdogan is not a Lord who drops  his threads before the web is fully ready to greet its victim. By the time we follow the mortal course of events the horde of Chief Wogar, a great humanoid king from Urzud, had just finished slaughtering the Oltecs and elvish clans of southern Brun and was ready to enter the land of Huyule. What glorious days of carnage were these! We should take them as a model, for seldom a minion of Entropy managed to replicate the deeds of king Wogar Wolf-Tamer.”

Wogar and his horde were committed on their holy Quest for Steel of retrieving the Blue Knife, a mystical weapon sacred to all humanoids that was stolen centuries before in the barbaric city of Urzud. Decades before voices about the Blue Knife reached Urzud from the west, and so Wogar’s immense horde of orcs, ogres, goblins and kobolds - which he called ‘The Wolf-Riders’ or, simply, ‘The Tribe’ - slowly moved toward the sunset, ravaging all the lands along the course of the Yalu river. 

Then, in the middle of the difficult crossing of the desert region of Khuzud just north of the Dry Flats, Wogar was betrayed by his Ogres. Here the Ogres killed the personal Great Shaman of Wogar and stole his sacred gri-gri, which was the only item able to detect the Blue Knife - at least, the horde widely believed this. 

After the battle of Khuzud the Ogres fled to the western wilderness, disappearing among the dozens of barbaric people living in the region. Although he lost contact with the Ogres, Wogar swore to chase them across the whole world, crushing everything that stood in between, until he managed to get the gri-gri back.

It happened that the Ogres found a suitable hiding place among the fertile plains of the Huyuleans, a land that was well protected by a dark forest to the west, an impassable mountain range to the east and by large elvish clans to the south. The puny Huyuleans, well, really were no match for them and were quickly enslaved. The Ogres planned to create their own dominion there, conquer the gobliniod tribes to the south west. They would become strong enough to face the fury of Wogar’s Horde when he finally found them. Unfortunately for them, their plans were cut short in a mere few years, when raiding parties from the goblinoid tribes met with Wogar scouts in the fallen lands of the Dravi, revealing the current location of the Ogres.

Wogar did his best to take by surprise the Ogres marching from the least obvious direction - the civilized lands of the Oltecs and elves. He planned to cut a path for his soldiers thanks to the use of the stealth and velocity which made his wolf-riders dreaded and respected all around the western Brun. But, then, those pesky humans and elves efficiently opposed the trespassers and so Wogar was forced to ally with the goblinoids and eradicate most of the ‘civilized races’ before he could proceed. It was a bloody campaign that took years to complete, after which the Oltecs and the elves were no more. Served them right, anyway. 

This delay allowed the Ogres to leave Huyule and flee eastward, across the Black Mountains, dispersing again in the immense prairies that laid further east. The Huyuleans enjoyed a short, illusory, independence before the Tribe of Wogar was over them. Wogar seized the human capital city of Khuur, slaughtered his way through the overconfident human defenders and entered the great mud and stone castle used as headquarters by the Ogres. As expected, he did not find any hints about the Ogres, the gri-gri, the Blue Knife and the route to be taken next.

Undeterred, Wogar decided to stop there and hold court in the dark recesses of the castle of Khuur, until a new omen would show up. Following the example of the Ogres before him, he accommodated his horde in Khuur and in the Hunting Fields east of it. The Huyuleans, the demi-humans and all humanoids who fell in disgrace upon Wogar were corralled west across the large Bolu river, in the shantytown of Kizil built around the ancient Temple of Chaos. Here raided food, slaves and gold were collected before being brought to Khuur on the Three Bridges crossing the large Bolu river. For six long years the Tribe oppressed the people of Huyule.

Among the human slaves living in misery in Kizil there was Hosadus, a pious priest of Bozdogan whose edge more than once eased the suffering of his people under the rule of the Ogres. The man took a very low profile, hiding from the attention of Wogar’s officers, because for five years he acted as an interpreter between the Ogres and the goblinoid tribes of the south west, and he feared torture an retaliation by the disappointed Tribe. We may speculate that Hosadus was the one who persuaded the gobliniods to reveal the position of the Ogres to Wogar, but facts are uncertain about such early times in the life of this man.

Anyway, while hiding in a derelict granary of Kizil, Hosadus had the opportunity to hear no less than Hexka, the old shaman of Wogar - the one who inherited the position from the slaughtered Great Shaman in Khuzud - talking to her personal guard about the Blue Knife. The shaman was there to empty the granary of its last supplies, in preparation for some unexpected extra sacrifices: in the last group of Huyuleans fugitives caught in the Hunting Fields by Wogar wolf-riders, all the humans had blue eyes. 

This - the shaman continued - was definitely a sign from the Immortals about the sacred Blue Knife: the humans were fleeing to the eastern mountains so, possibly, the sacred item laid in that direction. To appease the Greater Powers the humans were going to be sacrificed that very night at the attendance of Wogar himself; then the haruspices would be taken from their bodies  to get further insights on where the scouts should go next. The extra supplies were needed for the ensuing banquet at Wogar’s court.  

Hearing all of this, Hosadus came up with a daring idea. That late evening he showed up, unarmed and in plain sight, to the goblin guards at the Slaves’ Bridge. He said he was a priest of Bozdogan, the last of the Ogres interpreters and that he had an important omen to show to Wogar himself.

The guards at the bridge were amazed and puzzled by the foolish bravery of this worthless human; for a while they thought about killing the man outright and throwing his body to their wolves. But something in his confident demeanor and the fact that he was the follower of an Immortal exerted some leverage on their superstition, so they immobilized Hosadus and brought him to Wogar’s court.

There, Wogar was supervising the last preparations for the human sacrifice: he was old for a goblin but still an impressive figure: almost as tall as a hobgoblin, muscular and somewhat furry, covered in blood-red armor (part of the colour was actually made by old blood stains of his enemies) and surrounded by his three giant dire wolves Khalp, Ghelf and Tramk - the Hunter, the Stalker and the Ambusher. A dark black cape made with the skinned fur of fearsome Javraga, the ferocious mother of the three wolves, was pinned on the  shoulders of Wogar’s armor. The yellow eyes of the king had a steely glance that, alone, was enough to instill discomfort even in the most seasoned veteran of his personal guard. In truth, he was a  dreadful sight to behold for anybody.

Once Hosadus was announced, Hexka swiftly approached him, eager to add this foolish human to the group of sacrifices. But, somehow, Hosadus managed to keep his nerves and plainly said in the goblin language Move not, Hexka, for I was sent by the Immortal Bozdogan to collect his human heralds. You captured all of them in the Fields, proving yourself worthy of His help, so He sent me to finally show where you will find the sacred Blue Knife. Oisz Yldah!

The last two words were the final commands of a spell Hosadus carefully prepared before showing up at the Slaves’ Bridge. He was aware that he would be very likely immobilized, and that Wogar’s court would be filled with weapons of all sorts. The magical words animated a sword nearby, lighted it with a blue hue and had it floating flat over the floor, spinning in a circle. 

All the humanoids at the court shouted curses and litanies for protection, grabbed pikes and unsheathed swords. Some ran for shelter, Wogar’s son and other close relatives surrounded their leader to protect him - and to get protection. The wolves howled and growled. Hexka, albeit surprised by Hosadus’ knowledge of her name, unsheathed her ceremonial dagger and placed it at the throat of the human priest. ‘Just dare uttering another word in the presence of Great Lord Wogar and you’ll be the first to die this evening’. 

Wogar stood calm, his impenetrable eyes pondering Hosadus and the rotating sword, a single gesture from his hand would have unleashed his three dire wolves and sent a dozen arrows through Hosadus body. But the Chief did not move, nor speak.

Hosadus had foreseen such an outcome as well. By now the spell did not need further words of command, and the sword could be moved only through his thoughts alone. He had the rotating sword move above the nearest wolf-riders’ saddle scattered around the hall, then had it suddenly stop in the direction of the Great Pass of the Black Mountains, slowly vibrating. At Hosadus’ mental command, the vibrations of the sword created sounds in the air, sounds that looked like eerie goblin words. 

Oh great Wogar, there lies the path of your eternal glory.

Then the sword suddenly pointed down and dropped, running through the saddle and losing all magical powers. 

And the court stood still, awaiting for Wogar’s verdict on Hosadus.

Enough. Live. Bring your comrades with you and thank your patron for my decision. I don’t want to see you again or you will die. Guards, throw all of them back on the other side of the Slaves’ Bridge.

We may never know if Wogar truly believed the ruse or if the show arranged by Hosadus was just useful to the king’s purposes, allowing him to push his horde across unwelcoming lands, his authority now unquestioned thanks to the ‘will of the Immortals’. Anyway, the very next morning, Wogar dispatched the first groups of scouts towards the Black Mountains and, in a month, the  Tribe was moving east. Well, actually not the whole horde, as at least one humanoid every three - including the majority of the goblins of the Tribe - decided to stay in Huyule. Wogar did not care, for he already left splintered humanoid tribes all along his route from Urzud and he was not sure he could find enough loot to feed all the tribes while on the prairies. 

Most importantly, Wogar was now directed to the very Blue Knife - the very object of his Quest for Steel - and not to the pitiful gri-gri of his slain Shaman. The Ogres already left the prairies when Wogar departed, but even this was not important anymore. 

On his part, as soon as the Wolf-Riders left, Hosadus used Wogar’s words to legitimize the public cult of Bozdogan and, soon, several among the formally ‘ruling’ humanoids became followers of the cult of the ‘subjugated’ humans. Within a decade, the lack of a strong humanoid leader and the ‘wise advice’ of Bozdogan’s priests reverted the balance of power in Huyule. Now the church of Bozdogan ruled over the country, with humanoids’ tribes treated as ‘respected allies’ of the much relieved Huyuleans, or outright subordinate to Hosadus’ commands. The saddle crossed by a sword became the symbol of these non-human followers of Bozdogan.

Great Bozdogan himself took great pleasure in Hosadus’ deeds, as they represented the most pure form of his “power through deceit” philosophy he attended so far. My Master was eager to submit Hosadus to the Tests to Immortality but, unfortunately, Bozdogan’s champion was a man aged before his time, crippled by the deprivations suffered under decades of humanoids’ rule. Mighty Thanatos had already cast his eye on Hosadus.”

A Deal between Immortals

“Lord Bozdogan was not so ready to let his greatest champion die before even attempting the Tests, but he could not directly intervene to instill extra life into Hosadus, as the Immortals’ Law prohibited it. He also did not want to upset the Immortal of Death by depriving him of a prized prey. 

My Master told me about a meeting he had with mighty Thanatos, somewhere in the dark recesses beyond space and time dominated by Entropy, where a deal was made.”

‘I want his soul for my own purposes. uttered the dark form of Thanatos.

‘And you will definitely have it, my Lord’’ replied Bozdogan ‘What is time for beings like you and me? Give this promising mortal his chance to test himself for us. I want him reincarnated at the proper time, so I may set the stage for a grand show of Entropy, for him to complete. If he succeeds he will become like us: I will relinquish my initial patronage of him and his soul will be bound to your bidding for as many years as he lived in his mortal life. If he fails his Test, well, I guess you just had to wait a bit longer for his mortal soul.  

‘So be it. pondered Lord Thanatos ‘I will give him time. Time that must be paid in souls. You say that his body is too weak to face the Tests of Immortality right now. So I will crush this body soon, his soul I give it to you to reincarnate as you say. But, for this, you must pay me with a fine soul chosen among your own followers, another of your promising champions. Someone who will become my own servant to monitor the life of such a ‘promising protegè’, and check that our deal is not deceived.’  

That is a deal, my Lord. answered Bozdogan I will sacrifice another of my candidates for Hosadus. But I wish to extend further your own words. The plan I had in mind for him and for the rest of the world may be too extended in time for a single lifetime to come into fruition. So, let’s add this little clause to our agreement: in his new life my champion will be granted time to finish his quest as soon as he finds other souls to be sacrificed to you, whatever the means. The exact amount of the time granted for every soul is up to your generosity.

‘Fine. On it is. But you should never ask for generosity from Death incarnate, you know.    

“It was BC 1250, in case you wish to record this date. Following this eldritch agreement by the two Lords of Entropy the lives of Hosadus and of Mohrbu, Hosadus’ second-in-command at the church of Khuur came to an abrupt end. One night, at the height of an important ceremony, both priests were surrounded by a huge cloud of giant bats. They tried to counter it by summoning their spells, but no help came from Bozdogan and no magic was created. The same happened to any other cleric attempting to save the two from the assailants. Before the guards and priests managed to make their way with weapons to the center of the cloud of bats, both men were dead. Any attempt to resurrect them failed, any question to Bozdogan by the high priests answered with: This is the will of the Immortals, this is where their paths are divided.’

Both bodies were buried, in different places according to the obscure message from Bozdogan. The crypt of Morhbu was found desecrated and empty the very next day of his burial, his body was never found again. In truth, he was turned into a vampire by the bats sent by Thanatos during the ceremony. The vampire took residence in the dungeons of Wogar’s Palace of Khuur, patiently awaiting for the signs of Hosadus’ reincarnation.

Hosadus’ mortal body had a more ordinary demise. He remained buried in a holy crypt in the Temple of Chaos in Kizil for several centuries, until the temple and Hosadus’ ashes were destroyed in a fire caused by a surprisingly successful barbaric incursion from the west. Part of the early arrangements of Lord Bozdogan for his grand scheme of the future, indeed. The temple was soon rebuilt but, as decreed by the Entropic Immortals, no trace of the original mortal body of Hosadus was left in this world. 

In truth, Hosadus’ soul was put in a stasis without memory in Bozdogan’s own Home Plane, until the right time would come to wake him up in a new mortal body.  

The Last gasps of the Nithian Empire

“Looks liiike yoour chaaampion waaas noooothing buut a paawn soooo faaar, iiisn’t iiit?” commented Sabakhu “Aaa siinnglee aact ooof cleeevernees cannooot graaant hiiim Immmoortalityy foooor suure. Yooour Maaaster waaas peeerhaaps a liiiittleee toooo cooonfideent abooout his proooteeegééé toooo maaakeee suuuch a deeeeaaal with Loooord Thanatos hiiimself!!”  

Woer noticed how the exalted spider correctly pronounced the name of mighty Thanatos while avoiding to explicitly pronounce the name of his Master Bozdogan. You’ll pay even this in time, my friend, thought Woer, together with your blatant lack of faith toward Bozdogan. But first the full story must be told for the Archives.

“That is what might appear to a superficial glance, my friend” replied Woer “And I am sure that your trained, multiple eyes already spotted the hidden pattern woven by Lord Bozdogan for Hosadus and for the world. I just hope that what I’m going to recount now would not bore you too much! Let’s just start when things start becoming interesting.  

More than seven centuries passed since the burial of Hosadus, and the land of Huyule prospered under the teachings of Bozdogan.  But, for a while, we should focus our attention to other lands far to the east: to the mighty Nithian Empire, the most powerful civilization since the Great Rain of Fire.

At that time, after centuries of personal intervention by Mighty Thanatos himself - whose deeds seeded chaos, strife and infighting among the prosperous Nithians - the fall of their empire of the Nithians was now a certain thing, heralded by its last, devastating civil war. Petty Nithian nobles wasted resources and manpower in rebellions and border conflicts, while the philosophical struggle between the water and fire elementalist was stronger than ever, ultimately leading to a scarcity of both elements in the sophisticated Nithian society. 

For a long time most of the eastern colonies on the Isle of Dawn - who rejected early the new defiling cults inspired by Lord Thanatos in favour of passive contemplation of the element of fire - were acting as de-facto independent dominions. Shortly before BC 500, appalled by the extremes of violence and intrigue running rampant in the Empire, those colonies sent ambassadors to pharaoh Taphose declaring their formal independence and peaceful non-interference in the affairs of the Throne. 

Taphose’s counselors, already utterly corrupted by the Entropic influence, advised him not to trust the rebellious provinces of the East, for they surely desired to overthrow his rightful rule by feigning goodwill and peaceful intentions. Deception should be answered with deception - they argued - and suggested accepting independence for the moment while, at the same time, saving resources to turn the Nithian capital Ranak into a huge, impregnable fortified complex. 

Taphose - an usurper himself and a paranoid, temperamental kind -  at the time was still posing as a mighty and benevolent ruler, so he accepted the advice of his court and let the Thothians pursue their freedom. Then he gave orders to build for himself a new, magnificent, impregnable, palace in Ranak. A place from which all possible threats can be successfully repelled and a base where a solid, loyal army could be gathered to re-unify the Empire under Taphose’s glorious name.” 

Usu-Minre the Usurper and the Soul-Gem of Thanatos

“At the same time, the long-planned preparations of a rather peripheral Nithian Overseer named Usu-Minre, were coming into fruition.

Usu-Minre was the governor of the Nithian Colony of the West, built on the coastal highlands south of Huyule. Corrupted by Thanatos since his youth, Usu-Minre became an accomplished priest of the Nithian cults of this Immortal. Feigning an unswerving loyalty to the pharaoh, in his hubris Usu-Minre  made long-term plans to overthrow his lord.

Thanks to the favour of Thanatos, Usu-Minre was instructed to travel to the splendid City of Ivory, the capital of Odak, the newest, westernmost colony of the Empire along the northern Aryptian coast. Here the Overseer had to recover some arcane crystals just discovered in the desert by Nithian explorers. The crystals were slowly produced over centuries by an otherworldly subterranean, inextinguishable White Flame, one of those mysterious manifestations of ancient magic predating perhaps the Immortals themselves. 

The crystals had the power to absorb mortal souls into themselves, that might be used as a source of raw magical power. Instructed by Thanatos, Usu-Minre hid in the City of Ivory and  with his powerful magic acted like a wolf among sheeps, systematically depleting most of the population to fill the crystals with souls. The terror and sense of helplessness on the population - which notably did not receive any help from the jealous Overseers of nearby Nithian colonies - led the survivors to abandon the city and flee deep in the Aryptian wastelands, never to return.  This caused the demise of the colony of Odak, just a few years before the Empire at large. But, as you will see, it definitely was for a good cause. All for the major glory of Entropy! 

Once back in his pyramid-temple in the Western Province, Usu-Minre consecrated the crystals to Thanatos who, in turn, created with them a powerful artefact, the Soul-Gem. It was a peculiar item, indeed. The Gem was able to steal the whole life force of the individuals sacrificed to her so to prolong by a little amount the life of the owner, or instantaneously heal non-deadly wounds. This was a pretty much unbalanced trade between life and death - I must admit it -  but that’s our job, after all.

Usu-Minre believed that, with the power of the Soul Gem at his disposal, he would possess a strategic advantage against the powerful magic attacks of Taphose, enabling him to defeat the pharaoh in single combat. Moreover, once in power, a suitable, well-organized stream of human sacrifices to the Gem would allow him to live forever as the fabled Eternal Pharaoh so long sought throughout Nithian history. No one in the Empire would ever dare challenge such a mythical position, for fear of direct punishment by the Immortals themselves, thus making the Usu-Minre position truly permanent.

With this problem solved, Usu-Minre moved on to find a way to bypass the powerful defenses of Ranak to challenge Taphose in single combat.

Over the years Usu-Minre built a secret striking force of fanatical elite warriors, which would support him and keep the defences of the palace busy, giving the Overseer enough time to reach the sancta-sanctorum of the pharaoh. This force was made of 500 fanatical elite warriors imbued with magical powers and armed with magical weapons. The warriors were to be embarked on 11 newly-built flying boats powered by skeletons, so as to bypass most of the land forces and garrisons of the pharaoh and swiftly approach Ranak. 

Although corrupted, the Nithians were indeed at the apex of their power, so Usu-Minre was able to cast peculiar spells on the very land of his colony. These spells drained magic from Mystara itself to grant magical powers to suitable people living on the affected lands, and to create a new kind of magical, self-replicating, lightweight mineral ore from which magical weapons and armors could be built in large numbers. This ore was later known as cinnabar.

Following subtle suggestions by the agents of Bozdogan at his court, Usu-Minre built the shipyard for his flying boats in a secret place deep into the northern woods of Niwhelm: it was on the western shore of the Lake of the Deeps, at the same location of present-state Greatrealm. Here he also summoned a small patch of cinnabar to avoid the need of moving it from afar.  All of this was part of Bozdogan’s plan, of course.

To be truly sincere, poor Usu-Minre was manipulated on multiple levels: he was not even aware that the legend of the Eternal Pharaoh was in itself a corruption of the paths to Immortality introduced in the Nithian Empire by other servants of Entropy.  Basically, he was following a lie. 

Moreover, in all his display of power, the Overseer did not realize that Taphose was a secret follower of mighty Thanatos as well, the pharaoh’s true aura magically altered by the Immortal to give false readings of neutrality to all but the deepest screening attempts. The Immortal of Death did not bother to disclose this little piece of information to Usu-Minre, nor to warn the pharaoh about the incoming conspiracy from the west. Thanatos delighted in putting his servants one against the other, so as to spread mayhem among the Nithians and, ultimately, put an end to as many lives as possible. 

In truth, to the cold, ruthless eye of Thanatos, the survivor of this grueling fight would merely be a single step closer to Immortality as a potential candidate to Entropy, still in need of further testing. My erudite Woer, don’t you find this a  stimulating aspect of our Sphere? If you wish to become important among us you should learn as quickly as possible to be wary against the treachery  of your comrades - and of your own sponsor as well! True Destruction needs focus, the fools and the unworthy at this task must be pruned out along the path. But I digress.”

Creation of the Crystal Dagger of Cymorrak

“The creation of the Soul-Gem of Thanatos greatly alarmed the Immortal of Fire Rathanos, who foolishly believed that the Nithian Empire could still be saved as a single political entity under a benevolent ruler. Someone like Taphose, for example.

On the opposite, the rather blatant attempt of Usu-Minre at becoming a potentially immortal evil Nithian pharaoh who fed on human sacrifices was seen by Rathanos as the greatest menace to the Empire. The deluded Immortal was aware that whole cadres of Nithian officials were now utterly corrupted and that they would gladly take Usu-Minre’s place should the opportunity arise. The removal of the Overseer through the heroic acts of some principled Nithian champion was not the best course of action as soon someone else would seize the Soul-Gem of Thanatos  and continue Usu-Minre’s work.

For this reason Rathanos invested a great deal of his own personal power to hastily create the Crystal Dagger of Cymorrak, an artifact whose sole scope was to destroy the Soul-gem of Thanatos, freeing all the souls trapped within the Gem and ending forever this menace to the Nithian throne.

A pious Nithian priest of Rathanos named Kepher was tasked with retrieving the basic materials for this artifact. First, he needed to find the largest and purest diamond encrusted among many thousands of others on the ceiling of the great cavern where the shadow elves established their City of the Stars. Then he needed to go to the same Mound of the White Flame visited a few years before by Uzu-Minre and collect the largest crystal still devoid of a soul. Unlike Usu-Minre - and thanks to his actions, I must say - the area was now filled with tormented undead spirits - the result of failed experiments by the Overseer, who also left more than a few guardians to the place. 

Once done,, Kepher had to bring the diamond and the crystal to the greatest Modiswerg artisan of that time, Cymorrak the Engraver, to carve them into three separate parts which could be assembled into a dagger. The diamond was used to carve the balde and the hilt, while the crystal was used to create the Soul-Gem of Light. 

Cymorrak, the dark dwarf, was a genius of his times, but he was also well known for his extravagant and demanding prices. In exchange for his work he asked Kepher for a single leaf and a small root from Yggdrasil, that extraplanar nexus shaped like an immense tree we all know so well. The problem was that Cymorrak asked Kepher for the leaf to be spontaneously given him by Nithog, the great wyrm dwelling among the roots of Yggdrasil, and for the root to be spontaneously given him by Vedfolnir, the giant eagle dwelling among the highest branches of the mystical tree. As you know well, Nithog and Vedfornil are sworn enemies and each never dares trespassing the domain of the other. 

Kepher somehow managed to complete even this task, even if I strongly suspect that Nibble-Tooth, that troublemaking exalted squirrel dwelling on the trunk of the tree, might have had quite a great role in this success. 

Bah! This is what always happens with the Spheres of Life: they act like sworn enemies and their philosophies seem impossible to conciliate, until they find a common enemy in Entropy and become best friends forever, help each other and the like. That’s why none of those hypocritical Spheres will be spared by us in the end times.    

Anyway, that puppet of Kepher finally presented the carved pieces of the dagger to Rathanos’ avatar, who turned them into that vile Crystal Dagger of Cymorrak. The three separate pieces were meant to make the detection of the artifact more difficult by Thanatos and the rest of our Entropic forces. Moreover, every piece of the Dagger was so strongly aligned against evil that creatures strongly associated with Entropy could not even touch it without feeling an excruciating pain. May Rhathanos be perpetually damned for this.

The pieces of the Dagger were scattered in different locations of the Isle of Dawn and, again Kepher was tasked with their retrieval. Another waste of time for the forces of Good, always obsessed with useless procedures. Once done - and this just highlights Rathanos’ supreme stupidity - Kepher was sent to Ranak to gift the Dagger to pharaoh Taphose, so he could protect himself against the power of the Soul-Gem.“

Kepher’s Ordeal

“After quite a long wait in Tahpose’s private chambers Kepher - who was, after all, a high-ranking priest of an important Nithian Immortal - managed to get an audience with the ever-suspicious pharaoh. As you may expect, when gifted with the Dagger of Cymorrak, Taphose proved unable to touch the artifact, showing his true colours and his allegiance with Entropy. And, of course, by that time it was too late to stop the events already set in motion.

As you may guess, the pharaoh was so frightened by the Dagger that he ordered the artifact to be destroyed at once. Kepher, of course, was to be executed for having attempted to kill the ruler of Nithia. The poor priest barely managed to escape the palace alive, thanks to the powers of the Dagger and with some indirect help from a baffled Rathanos. Kepher then fled Ranak toward the Western Province, determined to destroy the Soul-Gem of Thanatos himself. 

As the allegiance between Taphose and Entropy was now evident to the eyes of the Immortals of the Spheres of Light, these august beings moved their own pieces on the Nithian chessboard to remove the pharaoh from the throne. And so the civil war that brought to the destruction of the most powerful empire on Mystara was unleashed. 

Just notice how often the Spheres of Life end up doing most of the job for us, if properly directed! Entropy is superior and will always be, a Sphere able to stand up alone against the other four combined.

Back to poor Kepher, he found himself hunted without respite both by agents of Taphose and of Usu-Minre: when the Dagger was assembled, those stalkers were attracted by the magical aura of the artifact like flies to a rotting carcass. When the Dagger was disassembled and undetectable, the network of spies and watchers of the two Nithian nobles was more than enough to keep track of Kepher’s moves.

And so pretty soon the good priest realized he was unable to reach the court of Usu-Minre and destroy the Soul-Gem. In desperation, he disassembled for the last time the Dagger of Cymorrak into the three constituting pieces, then he gifted each of them to a different leader chosen among the people who were least prone to harbor a network of Nithian spies and ally themselves with the Entropic Immortals. Such recipients were no-one but the tedious dwarves of the Cruth Mountains, the pesky elves of Alfheim and the naive halflings of the Shires, three rather unremarkable people who carried a living at the fringes of the rotten splendor of metropolitan Nithia.

The crystal blade of the Dagger was gifted to Alevar, this self-important and ‘respected’ leader of the Grunalf clan. It is said that Alevar always kept the blade with him, the strong magical aura of the item masked by the rest of his magical paraphernalia to better avoid detection by the forces of Entropy. Figure out, such a guy was so ‘respected’ by his kin to become the second king of Alfheim after Mealiden Stawatcher some 150 years later. He was so ‘respected’ that they let his tomb be desecrated by Balefire, a large red wyrm from our side who opened the coffin stole the blade and mockingly buried the corpse of the king with a huge amount of gold and treasure. And what did the elves do about this? Absolutely nothing! They carried on with their lives until a party of external adventurers solved this problem for them.

The intricately-carved crystal hilt of the Dagger was gifted to Gunzuth the Clanless, at that time the elderly Sheriff of Seashire. The paranoid chap, fearing Nithian retaliation on the settlements of the halflings, hid the hilt in an old ruined temple of the Gentle Folks, in a wretched and forgotten wood merely a dozen of miles north of Shireton Port. Not exactly into the wild, I must say. The sheriff then dedicated himself to his main interest - crushing humanoid skulls while their brains were still inside them. Apparently he  never told the location of the hilt to anybody else, so the location of this part of the Dagger was forgotten with the Sheriff’s death.

As the more popular dwarves of Rockhome were embroiled in their own struggle with the humanoids - the infamous Battle of Sardal Pass was going to happen just a few years later - Kepher asked for help to the destitute dwarvish clans of Underduin and Thunderdelve, at that time one of the few dwarvish colonies outside Rockhome, by gifting  them with the Soul-Gem of Light. The colony was governed by the humble descendants of tyrannical Loktal Ironshield; they were so miserable and desperate for recognition that they decided to place the gem among their most honoured treasures, deep in the mines of their underground complex, hoping it was far from detection by the evil forces. The fools!

After the three parts were delivered, Rathanos sent Kepher back to Ranak, to save as many people as possible while the pharaoh and his enemies were busy casting terrible spells on each other, on the land and on anybody caught in between. 

As you know well, at the very climax of the war - when perhaps the planet itself was on the verge of destruction - the Immortals got rid of the remnants of the Empire of Nithia, erased most  memories of this empire from the outer world and moved the whole city of Ranak to the Hollow World, filled with a selected population of ‘innocents’. Here Kepher was nominated first pharaoh of the reborn Hollow World Nithia. 

Unfortunately for him, his failure to address the situation at the court of pharaoh Taphose ultimately prevented his ascent to Immortality. A potentially powerful Immortal removed from the ranks of our opponents, all thanks to a little, almost trivial, trick by Thanatos.

After all, we always say that the fall of Nithia was our greatest success in recent history, don’t we?”

Usu-Minre is Pinned Down

“Usu-Minre was advised by Thanatos to take advantage of the civil war, reach Ranak as soon as possible and seize power for himself. Unfortunately, the Overseer became embroiled in a series of rebellions from petty nobles throughout his colony, as ultimate power in Nithia was now all the rage among the depraved nobility. Many people were sacrificed to the Soul-Gem in those chaotic days.

And then the Immortals decided to erase Nithia. The Fall caught Usu-Minre totally off-guard, just while he was embarking his small army for the invasion of Ranak. He was spared by the surrounding destruction only thanks to the bond established with the Soul-Gem which, being an artifact of Immortal origin, was unaffected by most of the magic unleashed that day. It also managed to partially shield the Overseer from the effects of the Spell of Oblivion. At the same time the evil Gem intercepted and fed upon the thousands upon thousands of Nithian souls who died during the ravaging of the Western Province.

When the cataclysm was over, Usu-Minre discovered he was the only living being left amid the ruins of his own temple-pyramid. All other Nithians within dozens of miles were dead: some had killed each other during the strife, others were destroyed by the Immortals for their impiety or  were whisked to the Hollow World; the few survivors simply fled the wretched land, with amnesia and confusion planted in their minds. By questioning Thanatos, Usu-Minre learned that, by Immortals' decree, he should be dead by now: the only thing that  was keeping him alive was the life force provided by the Soul-Gem. 

The Nithian Overseer already knew that the life-giving power of the Gem had a fairly limited range. It did not extended farther than a week on foot from the artifact; the crossing of this limit would sever the protective, life-giving link and Usu-Minre would be subjected to the Immortals’ justice,  immediately crumbling to dust. Moreover, to Usu-Minre’s despair, following the feast of souls from the demise of Nithia, the Soul-Gem cannot be moved anymore. 

This was a funny side effect engineered by Thanatos on the artifact: every absorbed soul added a minimal permanent "weight" (in a mystical sense) to the Gem, and the sheer number of souls absorbed during the fall of Nithia made the item as heavy as a mountain range. The immobile artifact could now be moved only through Immortal magic but, after the Spell of Oblivion was cast on Mystara, Thanatos was explicitly forbidden by the Hierarchs’ Council to directly interfere with the scattered magical relics of Nithia. 

At least, the huge number of souls absorbed by the Gem was able to prolong the life of Usu-Minre for several centuries, albeit the artifact was very mean in providing new life to the Overseer: While this gave quite enough time for Usu-Minre to reorganize and establish an army of now-undead servitors, the search for new victims to be sacrificed to the Gem for further life extension was now much more difficult. 

So Usu-Minre repaired his flying ships - the very vessels he planned to use in his assault on Ranak -  turning them into a raiding fleet with which he scouted the lands surrounding his temple-palace, looking for human preys to sacrifice.

The very limited range of movement granted by the Soul-Gem prevented Usu-Minre to effectively continue his quest to Immortality. The Overseer was effectively trapped in a small bit of land but, at least, the continuous raids by his flying fleet had the benefits of scourging the area around his palace, preventing any re-population and the rise of potential enemies for more than a millennium. 

My Lord Bozdogan enjoyed this development very much, as it isolated the southern border of Huyule and protected his followers from further humanoid invasions from the southwestern steppes. When the Huyuleans were expanding their borders - they managed to build a couple of small empires over the centuries - Bozdogan always sent suitable messages to his priests so that those Huyuleans traders and settlers close to the true faith always kept clear from the lands surrounding the ‘sacred’ mound.

Throughout the epochs adventurers, heroes and whole armies from the lands of Southold were sent to clear the solitary mound from its mysterious and sinister occupant, but the power of the Gem proved too strong: none of the would-be “liberators” succeeded; most of them were slain by the trapped, but invulnerable, Nithian Overseer.

Over the centuries the name of the palace-temple was corrupted by the ignorant local barbarians into "Mound of Uzumir", a name that is still used in modern days”

The Niwhelm Campaign

“Yoooouu taaalk abooout three faaailuure oof aaa chaammpiioon of Thaaanatoos aaas iiif iit waas juust aa miinoor seetback! Hooow daaare yoouu insuuult thee fooresiight of ouur mooost poowerfuul Immooortaal Liiieege? I shooouuld kiil yoou riiight nooow foor thiis!” Again, Sabakhu extended its poisonous fangs towards Woer, perhaps just to overcome the boredom of a story where Entropy was not a total winner. But this part was important for the rest of the story, thought Woer, and must be recorded in the Archives.

“Please, calm down, my friend. I assure you that Mighty Thanatos was not displeased by the course of the events. After all, he intentionally designed the flaw of the Soul-Gem to test his candidate. 

The Lord of Death recognized the surviving Overseer as the ‘winner’ of his little contest among the Nithian upper echelons, but the deeds of his champion were still not enough to grant to this mortal the patronage of Thanatos to Immortality. For the same reason, the Lord of Death always refused to provide any help to the Overseer in finding a way to increase his freedom of movement, something that Usu-Minre always failed to grasp by himself. This was not acceptable by a champion of Entropy, so Usu-Minre was left eternally alive, but ultimately impotent to progress further in the ranks of his Master.

So, let’s leave Usu-Minre in his beautiful buried palace for a while and go back to Hosadus. Around AC 600 - more than 1800 years after his death - Lord Bodzogan decided it was the right time to reincarnate his champion. It happened that, at that time, another Immortal decided to play on the Hulean chessboard. He was Eyrindul, a cunning, rogue Immortal of the elves. During his mortal life Eyrindul created the Niwhelm itself, as part of his Path to Immortality. The wood was inhabited by Eyrindul’s own clan of chosen elvish priests, the Daendurs. The forest was shared with two large clans of human barbarians: the warlike Neustriags and the nature-worshippers Breuxi, the ancestors of current Eusdrians and Robrennite people, respectively. The Daendurs were taken in high regard among both the Neustriags and the Breuxi and their lands were considered sacred by both people, who instead often clashed among themselves pretty often. 

[Image: Map of Hule AC 580]

Although the barbarians of the forest provided a shield against Hulean interference, Eyrindul was wary about the slow encroachment of the eastern Niwhelm by the followers of Bozdogan. What Eyrindul feared the most was to lose control of the core of the dark forest, centered on the very first temple dedicated to his own cult. While in his mortal life Eyrindul spent centuries and countless energies to turn this part of Niwhelm into the arcane Dark Wood he wished it to be. In the following millennium his modifications expanded also to the rest of the forest and, still now, Niwhelm was the template for what  Eyrindul had in mind for the forests of the Shyie-Lawr elves. Niwhelm should not be lost to enemy hands.   

During the VIth century AC Eyrindul’s elvish followers managed to forge a tenuous truce among the barbarians and prevent most infighting in the forest, moving the attention of Neustriags and Breuxi towards a potential common enemy to the east. This stabilized the border for a while, but it still was not enough to prevent the occasional Hulean land grab after some particularly resounding defeat of the barbarians.  

In truth, Eyrindul needed a strong leader, someone able to inspire the barbarians to greater deeds and to bring war back to the Hulean lands. So this Immortal used his renown duplicity to create such a leader, was he willing or not. And, by sheer luck, when this process was almost done, he found another suitable general to lead the barbarians on the Hulean plains.

But let’s go in order. Eyrindul instructed one of his most intelligent and charismatic priests among the Daendurs, an accomplished elvish mage named Gallus, into a quest to retrieve the Crystal Casket. This artifact was created by Eyrindul and acted like an enhanced form of a Magic Jar spell. Someone entering the crystal coffin would have his slumbering in stasis, untouched by time and mortal needs. His soul, instead, would be well awake and ready to possess the body of another recipient within the area of effect, establishing some kind of a parasitic link. If successful, this kind of possession would enable the one in the casket to fully control the actions of the victim, irrespective of distance. 

Now, Eyrindul was not a truly evil being - a real pity for our Sphere, indeed! - so he arranged for the soul of the victim to reside in a suitable vessel, slumbering and ready to return to the original body once the possession is not needed anymore. As a suitable vessel he chose a black altar of stone dedicated to himself in his very temple in Niwhelm. In case the original body was killed, destroyed, or unable to host a soul anymore, Eyrindul arranged for the black altar to develop a Magic Jar power which would grant the soul trapped in the vessel to gain a new body from someone else. This was just a contingency plan, as Eyrindul did not truly believe it would ever be necessary to activate this specific functionality of the item. 

According to Eyrindul’s plans, Gallus was to use the Crystal Casket to possess the body of the most important leader among the Neustriags or the Breuxi and then use his diplomacy, his magic and his superior knowledge of tactics to bring a unified army of barbarians against the Huleans. Military defeat was never an option for Eyrindul: after the victorious campaign, Gallus would retreat back to his original body; in turn, the body of the barbarian commander would get its original soul back.

In AC 575 Gallus found the suitable leader, a powerful - if somewhat naive - Neustriag chieftain named Tros. He persuaded the chieftain to visit the Temple of Eyrindul to get an omen from the Immortal and then possessed his body through the Crystal Casket. From this year on Gallus started the slow process of uniting as many barbaric tribes as possible, to strike Hule with a mighty blow and definitely repel the intrusion on the Niwhelm.

But this boring part is not so important for our story. I said before that Eyrindul managed to find two generals when he was just looking for one of them. Well, it happened that a powerful gemstone dragon, a huge jade female wyrm who just left the Glantrian Highlands, decided to settle on a deep wood close to the western shores of the Lake of the Deeps, just next to the lands of the Breuxi. The dragon’s name was difficult to pronounce in human terms, so he accepted to be called Abaloniax by the awed Breuxi druids. 

The jade gemstone dragon was one of the brainwashed commanders of the endless armies of the Overlord, a foolish extraplanar being who attempted a fruitless invasion of Mystara a few decades before. Until recently, Abaloniax helped his kin in the difficult post-war aftermath, as many former races enslaved by the Overlord - including the gemstone dragons themselves - had to be relocated on Mystara. Then Abaloniax got bored and sought new challenges in his new home. She heard about Warlord Tros’ rallying and of his charismatic leadership and, intrigued by the possibility of a large-scale military campaign, she decided to enlist as well under the barbarians’ banner. The jade dragon intentionally placed his lair next to the lands of the still undecided Breuxi, who immediately treated her as a manifestation of Nature incarnate. In quite a short time, her appassionate speeches led the Breuxi into joining the growing barbaric alliance, a mere three years since the beginning of the campaign.

Needless to say, Eyrindul was delighted by this turn of events, and ordered Gallus / Tros to share the leadership of the barbarian army with Abaloniax.”

Hosadus Reborn

“Thiiiis looookss liiikee a baaad siiiituuuatiiiiooon foooor theee fooolloooweeers ooof yooour Loooord!” sneered Sabakhu “Eeeyriiinduuul - maaay hiiiis name beee cuuurseed - iiis noot aaa guuulliiibleee oopppooneeent. Heee iiiis cleeeveeer, aaand suuubtleee, aaand neeeveeer tooo beee uuundeeereeestiiiimaaateeed…”

“Correct, my most poisonous friend” cut short Woer. At least this time the spider gave Lord Bozdogan the proper title. “And that’s precisely why my Lord was interested in Niwhelm and in the Daendurs in the first place. He wanted to provoke Eyrindul in his own sacred lands, to see what the elvish Immortal was capable of. It was a challenge of wit and cunning, you could say. 

For many decades before the war, Bozdogan instructed his followers into provoking the barbarians of the western forest, to intentionally raise tension and cause a conflict. The naive minds of the forest folks were somewhat impervious to the subtle manipulations developed by the priests of Bozdogan, but they understood basic things like dishonourable deeds, trespassing of borders and pillaging raids.

And when the war was going to start Lord Bozdogan definitely did not sit idly on top of the Hulean pantheon! Actually, my Lord carefully watched Gallus’ quest from the beginning. Bozdogan studied from afar the Crystal Casket he determined its powers and immediately decided this was the perfect gift for his reborn champion. And so, with but a whim of my Master, Hosadus’ soul was sent back to Mystara. It was AC 580, just five years after Tros began the unification of the barbarian tribes, a couple of years after Abaloniax chose her side. 

Lord Bozdogan knew that the proper training and coordination of an army of barbarians would require many years - especially with proper Hulean interference and opposition - before it was effective enough to defeat his followers in open fields. For this reason he chose such a late date for Hosadus appearance: he wanted his champion to be as much as unnoticed as possible, mixed between the youths who still have to prove their value in this unforgiving world.  

Of course, a few selected were informed of the event. My Master sent the proper omens of Hosadus’ return to Morhbu, who reached the humble family of farmers south of Jandak where the champion was going to birth anew. The vampire attended in person the birth, so he could pose Bozdogan’s and Entropy’s blessings upon the newborn. 

For a couple of decades Bozdogan let Eyrindul think that he was winning the grinding campaign, while Morbhu’s minions took care of Hosadus education and training in a safe place. Slowly but steadily, Tros’ and Abaloniax’s armies conquered province after province and realm after realm, bringing Hule to the minimum land extent since the time of Wogar. 

What was worse, all along the campaign the barbarian leader always survived all attempts of assassination by Hulean hitmen. Many times they reported his death, only for a leader of different appearance - but always named Tros and apparently with the same memories and competence - to rise a few days later to lead again the barbaric armies against the Huleans. For Eyrindul this was a somewhat unpleasant effect of the long and nasty campaign, as now there was a whole set of souls of barbarian commanders stored in the black altar; their bodies no more suitable to accept their original souls. The need for a swift replacement of slain commanders also required the movement of the altar and the Crystal Casket at the eastern border of the Niwhelm, as close as possible to the frontline as was deemed safe.  

Finally, around AC 600, a barbarian army led by Abaloniax laid siege to Kizil, ready to burn to the ground the nearby capital of Khuur and put an end to the war. All Hulean forces still able to fight were hastily moved east of the Gree and Bolu rivers, abandoning anything on the other side to the fury of the barbarian hordes. In desperation, a draft of all able bodies was established to help in the defence of Kizil’s walls: the 19 years old Hosadus was among the young conscripts.

On the first morning of the siege Abaloniax flew high above the western gate and dictated the conditions for the surrender of the town. She emphasized her speech with a powerful lighting bolt that left the gate crippled and ready to be taken by the approaching barbarians.

At that very moment, from the highest spire of the Temple of Chaos of Kizil, a bolt of dark energy missed Abaloniax by a few yards. A thundering voice, clearly heard by defenders and attackers alike, so spoke:

‘Do not dare to give orders to my people, for I am Hosadus the Returned and before the end of this morning, my curse will be upon you. To you, good people of Hule: hold the gate while I dispatch this opportunistic worm from our sacred lands.’

While murmurs of surprise, awe and joy spread among the defenders, the dragon screamed and dived to the Temple, determined to get rid of that insolent Hulean who ruined her plans. She immediately found that the boy facing her among the towers of the Temple was a more than worthy opponent, skilled in magic and combat, and possessing eldritch powers well beyond his young age. 

On his side, Hosadus had to put all of his concentration to fend off the vicious attacks of the expert Abaloniax, who never allowed him to strike a crushing blow with his mace or with magic. Finally Hosadus decided that he had to lose something to his opponent for his most dangerous spell to be successful. By lowering a bit his guard he allowed a fang of Abaloniax to deeply wound his face; at the same time he dropped the mace and grabbed the crystalline fang with both hands, as the touch was essential for what he was going to cast on the dragon.

And, while the jade wyrm gained ground, lifting Hosadus with him, the champion of Bozdogan uttered the terms of his curse :

‘With the power of dissolution I invoke here and now, may the bond between dragon and gem unbind! Return to your state, green and not jade. Your name forgotten, your purposes blurred, become what you were and never return!’

With a horrified shriek, the jade scales of Abaloniax started dropping from her body, revealing pristine green dragon scales underneath. In less than a minute of turns and torment in the sky over Kizil the jade dragon Abaloniax was no more and a huge green dragon was in her place. By invoking the Entropic powers Hosadus managed to break the ancient spell that turned the green dragon into a jade wyrm. And now, back to her original form, Abaloniax lost all traces of her nobility and sophistication. She was just a selfish, greedy, ignorant green wyrm, wishing nothing else than going back to her lair to guard her treasure and attend to her own business.

With an annoyed movement, she cast Hosadus away from her fang and flew away, abandoning the battlefield and the party of Eyrindul, never to return. The dragon is now known as Voysava and she is the scourge of the western shores of Lake Tros, feared by the humanoids living in the vicinity. It is said that Hosadus curse can be dispelled, but it would require touching the dragon’s body with an original jade scale of her previous skin, and to recite anew the binding formula that created the jade dragons. A formula that is known only among the wisest dragons and Eldars of Windreach, and which is jealously guarded for the explicit purpose of not being cast again on chromatic dragons.  

Back to Hosadus, he fell from the sky directly on the Grand Hall of the Temple of Chaos, crippled and badly wounded by his fight with Abaloniax. He was carried away by the minions of Morhbu and carefully tended to recover from his wounds. Hosadus did not see the crushing defeat of the barbarians at Kizil following the escape of Abaloniax / Voysava, nor the ceremonies the official church of Bozdogan organized to recognize the champion reincarnated and to declare eternal loyalty to him. Hosadus took a year and a half to recover but, once back from his secret retirement, by his early twenties, he was again in charge of Hule.

With Abaloniax gone, there still was Tros to be defeated. The siege of Kizil was over, but Tros managed to stabilize most of the frontline on the western shores of the river Bolu, repelling all sorties by the Huleans. 

By carefully studying the reports about the successful murderings of Tros and his renewed appearances a few days later Hosadus correctly deduced that Tros was moving his soul across different bodies. The delay between the death of a ‘Tros’ and the coming of a new one implied that the source of the reincarnation process was located far from the frontline but still not so distant. 

And so Hosauds had the current ‘Tros’ assassinated again, then asked Morhbu and his minions to fly over the western plains with his bats and locate the caravan bringing the new leader to the siege camp. It was determined that the reincarnation of the new leader most likely happened at an black stone altar at the eastern fringes of the Niwhelm, where the large river Rosin entered the forest.

With this information, Hosadus ordered his armies to hold the line along the rivers at all costs, while he consulted the high priests to set up a suitable countermeasure against the barbarian leader.

Now, the church of Bozdogan is quite an ancient thing. In over 1500 years until that time the priests of my Lord accumulated quite a large amount of lore of all kinds, dating back to the Nithians, to the elves and to the Oltecs living on the plains before the Huleans. A powerful Polymorph spell was devised, a curse on the water of river Rosin that turned people into animals if they drank too much from it. It required Hosadus defeating a group of human-animal hybrids who held the most crucial bit of information about the spell, but, in the end, the Hulean leader was successful. And so, in a dreadful morning, while the Hulean warriors were desperately fending off another brutal assault on the battered walls of Kizil, the priests cast the mighty spell on the part of the river Rosin that crossed the Niwhelm. Hosadus then rushed to the city walls reassuring his soldiers that in a few days the tide of the war would be turned.

And in a few days the tide turned indeed. Terrible news spread among the barbarians, of entire villages in the forest suddenly devoid of people; unconfirmed tales told of women, children, elders that suddenly turned into animals without apparent cause. The barbarian frontline faltered, as more and more barbarian warriors rushed back to their homeland to check on their families. Tros and his officers tried in vain to keep their soldiers in line but, in a couple of days, the ranks of the barbarians were depleted. 

And then the pent-up Hulean fury was unleashed upon the remainders, in the so-called Battle of the Black Lord, for the pitch black robes worn by Hosadus when he gave the order to attack. From the gates of Kizil the whole Hulean army was poured on the weakened enemies. The slaughter of barbarian warriors all along the frontline was so great that, following the battle, the placid river Bolu was renamed river Thanat, to honor the Immortal of Death, as he who was surely on the Hulean side on that glorious day. In truth, this renaming was just a subtle suggestion by Bozdogan to please his fellow Immortal.  

Hosadus ordered his army to ignore the fleeing barbarians, for he was sure that most of them would be turned into animals shortly after their return to their homeland. He also correctly foresaw that Tros would be currently more focused on lifting the curse on the river than on giving orders, and that most of the still able barbarian warriors would be left without a clear course of action. Hosadus exploited this to push his divisions among barbarian villages, encircling and isolating them. In desperation, whole tribes of Neudriags and Breuxi found their position untenable and so, harassed by the Hulean armies, decided to evacuate and migrate south, to the coast, far from Hulean influence. Hosadus allowed those people to leave unharmed and in their place he established loyal humanoid tribes, as the curse of Rosin waters was ineffective on them. 

Gallus is Defeated

While all of this was happening, Hosadus also sent an embassy to Tros, asking for peace. The Huleans were going to lift the curse on the river and turn people back to their human shapes. As a sign of goodwill, Hosadus revealed the source of the curse and suggested not drinking water from the river. In turn, the Niwhelm and all elves and humans still inside it would become part of the Hulean nation under the authority of Hosadus and of the church of Bozdogan. 

Gallus/Tros sent an ambassador  accepting the offer for peace and asked for a meeting with Hosadus in which the curse would be lifted and the treaty of peace would be signed at the same time. He asked for the meeting to be held at the black altar in the forest. 

With the information he already gathered Hosadus was aware that - given the opportunity - Tros would attempt to reincarnate his soul in Hosadus’ own body, so as to rule the barbarians and the Huleans at the same time. To prevent this, Hosadus worked with his priests to forge a powerful, single-use, penchant able to mirror back a spell to its caster. He gave orders to his retinue to stay far away from him and from Tros during the talks but to stand ready to exterminate on his command - from distance and without hesitation - the whole delegation of the enemy.

The two groups met at the black stone altar. A crystal coffin with an elvish body was on it. When the Huleans asked who he was, the barbarians replied it was the body of long-dead Daendur, the mythical founder of the order of elvish monks living in the forest, forever preserved in the coffin to protect and guide his people. Hosadus did not reply. He was able to detect a strong magical aura radiating from the coffin and suspected that the body was not dead at all.

The meeting started as expected, with ‘Tros’ standing close to the coffin and feigning willingness to sign the peace treaty. He did not try to bargain the deal and accepted all terms to submit to Hulean rule. Hosadus then proceeded alone, accepting barbarian and elvish compliance and declaring that he was now going to lift the curse from the river. Then, all of a sudden, the body of Tros fell to the ground, lifeless. At the same time Hosadus felt a crushing external will coming from the coffin. This will was trying to push his mind away from his body and into the altar of stone. During this communion of souls Hosadus became aware of the true name of his assailant, of his true nature and of his purpose, and the same happened to Gallus about Hosadus. Fortunately for Hosadus the penchant worked and this forced cohabitation was short-lived: while the item crumbled to dust, it reflected the spell on the body on the coffin, moving his soul to the altar, instead. 

Immediately Hosadus uttered his order and the retinues closer to Tros were killed with arrows and magic, to prevent Gallus’ soul from reincarnating into someone else nearby. On his side Hosadus cast a magical barrier on the altar, to prevent the soul from returning into the body inside the coffin. With the enemy’s delegation killed or turned away, Hosadus gave orders to quickly remove the body from the coffin, cripple it almost to the point of death and then bury it in front of the altar, all while his magical barrier spell was still in place.

“Do not fear, my friend” said Hosadus to the stone altar. “Soon my magical barrier will fade over, and you will be able to become corporeal anew. I am afraid your original body will not serve you so well, but I will give you plenty of opportunities to possess other bodies in the future. As for your people, if they are wise enough, they are free to follow their former barbaric allies to the southern sea. And, for your treachery, the curse on this river stays in place. But to honor a worthy opponent like you, the Lake of the Deeps from now on will be called Lake Tros. ”

Then Hosadus left for Khuur, bringing the Crystal Casket with him, together with every bit of information he managed to recover from Gallus’ personal items. 

Eyrindul was utterly defeated at this point. In frustration, the Immortal created a large stone obelisk where River Rosin enters the Niwhelm. On this obelisk he wrote obscure words of warning about the new power of Hosadus. The obelisk would shine with a golden hue to attract passers-by from a distance. Any time a sentient being would touch the obelisk, the monument would be struck by a lightning of magic, and the warning about Hosadus would appear in the form of giant glowing words written on the obelisks’ sides.

Currently Eyrindul is a sworn enemy of Lord Bozdogan. I believe the elvish Immortal is plotting his revenge against my Master and his champion, but I’m not worried at all. We defeated him in the past, we will defeat him again in the future!

Hosadus Triumphant

Anyway, to close this part of the story, Hosadus was hailed as the saviour of Hule. The former barbarian lands were annexed to the country, and the leader of Hule continued the consolidation of his power. Hosadus also made sure that the remaining elves and barbarians fled the cursed Niwhelm and moved south, never to come back. 

Under suggestion by Lord Bozdogan, Hosadus moved to an abandoned temple complex on the western shore of Lake Tros, a place shunned even by the Daeldurs for it was cursed by the Immortals. It was the very same place where - a thousand years before - Usu-Minre built the yards for his floating ships. 

The ruined place was guarded by beings from the Dimension of Nightmare, summoned by the Nithian Overseer to fend-off trespassers. Instead of fighting these guardians, Hosadus decided to bargain for their services, in exchange for their freedom from old Usu-Minre’s bounds and for part of Hosadus life essence to allow them to survive on Mystara without the protection provided by the binding spell. It was said that, after the deal was in place, Hosadus never looked as the handsome young man of before, but that his appearance was more cadaveric and unnatural, as if some important part of his spirit was stolen - and I guess this is exactly what happened. The denizens of the Nightmare Dimension may see the world from a different perspective, but they manage to be as evil and cruel as the people of the ordinary world.  

With the support of these new allies Hosadus rebuilt part of Usu-Minre’s complex, and sifted the Niwhelm to expel or outright slaughter any group of elves of barbarians still in the forest. The spectral hounds he allied with proved extremely good at this task and, in a few years, they even managed to clear the town of Daenduril and the very Temple of Eyrindul - the accessible sections, at least - from their elvish inhabitants. 

The elves who survived these ferocious hunts migrated south, to the new lands of the Eustriags and the Breuxi. Most notably, they brought with them a live branch of the Tree of Life in Eyrindul’s Temple, a Tree directly descended from the original Tree created by Ilsundal in the Sylvan Realm. One of Hosadus' officers, an accomplished mage named Moorkroft, attended unseen the moving of the Tree shot from the magical plant in the Temple of Eyrindul. Intrigued by the possibilities offered by the Tree in terms of life extension he deserted Hosadus’ ranks to start his own investigations. In the following years he reached the Sylvan Realm, conquered it and brought immense suffering on the elves of Ilsundal. This is just how chaos and destruction spread in the world, a sparkle can start a fire elsewhere, and nothing will prevent Entropy to be the final winner, in the end.

But I digress again. After a few years of researches in the rebuilt Nithian complex Hosadus also found instructions on how to repair and manage the flying ships, hidden in an underwater cave in Lake Tros guarded by an ancient marine creature placed there by Usu-Minre himself. 

Hosadus named his new palace-temple-fortress Greatrealm for, in perspective, it was going to be the seat of the greatest realm Mystara would have ever seen. A magical waterfall from the Plane of Water prevented the effect of the curse on those working at the temple, while the local small ore of cynnabar was discovered and exploited.

Hosadus studied the Crystal Casket in a secure place, together with all the information he managed to gather from Gallus’ notes and from his spellbook. Unfortunately, Gallus was very secretive on the functioning of the magical device and its open use was, obviously, very dangerous. Whole decades were necessary to Hosadus to decipher the mystery of the Crystal Casket, to the point that an eldritch deal with otherworldly beings was necessary to gather the missing information. Fortunately for him, Hosadus also collected ancient Usu-Minre notes about the life-extending powers of cinnabar, which he used to push further the limits of his life.

Around seventy years after his birth, Hosadus - now living in an aged and weak body - finally understood how the artifact worked, and was ready to follow Gallus’ example. He built the third part of the monumental complex, specifically to host the Crystal Casket and his body, then gave orders to bring a carefully selected young boy to Greatrealm, and announced he will become his chosen successor, to be followed as all words were spoken by his very mouth.

Hosadus and the boy left for the wilderness, escorted only by a cloud of bats. Some months later the boy returned to Greatrealm alone, dragging on a ceremonial cart the Crystal Casket with the body of Hosadus inside. The boy gave orders to place the crystal coffin in the Halls of Law, while he took office as the new leader of Hule. In a short time - with the surprise of the whole ruling class of Hule - the boy revealed himself a true successor of Hosadus, seamlessly ruling in full continuity with Hosadus’ politics and deeds.

For almost four hundreds of years the same procedure was followed: at the end of his active life the current ruler of Hule declared his will to abdicate to a chosen young heir, then both of them would move to Greatrealm ‘to a pilgrimage to Hosadus and to the great leaders of the past’. Here the former ruler would ‘die’, his body interred into a transparent coffin in the Hall of Laws, and his soul (actually Hosadus’ soul) would go back to the original body inside the magical Crystal Casket. Shortly after, Hosadus’ soul would depart its original body to possess the body of the new, young ruler. So Hule became ruled by the same person for all this time. The resulting unity of purpose enabled this country to expand its borders and grow powerful much faster than its neighbours, to the point that, by AC 1000, it was able to field a land army nearly as powerful as those of much older and larger empires such as Thyatis of Alphatia.” 

 “Aaaand whaaat will haaappen tooo thee souuuls oof the victiiim of suuch paaarassitiismm?” Asked Woer, fascinated by the implications of Hosadus’ deeds.

“Weel, my friend, Bozdogan is not an ungrateful Lord such as foolish Eyrindul. For the services they gave to Hule and to its church their souls were all moved to the Home Plane of Bozdogan himself, to serve him as they would have done if they were truly at the reins of the Hulean Empire. I guess they cannot hope for a greater destiny, don’t you think so?”      

End of Part 1 - To be continued on Part 2