I'm one of the collaborators of the main Ravenloft fan site (see my sig).
I'd like to know if anyone wrote something for third edition about the Kalidnay area, infamous for having been dragged into the Ravenloft mists during the second edition of D&D?
Joël
Seriously, I think Québec should be officially designated by Wizards as the D&D capital of the world... We're under 7 millions here but still we're like 20-25% of the boards! ;)
Anyways.... Ravenloft.
I've written an "article" detailing a link between Dark Sun and Ravenloft through Kalidnay which used both official versions of the event which met with general approval here. I think Nytcrwlr had posted it on his website, but I hear it is no longer available. Perhaps a search through the forum, though not sure this is working either...
Anyways, it was just flavor-texts, not mechanics.
Kalid-Ma/Ravenloft Contradiction
Ok, having gotten my hands on the Domains of Dread accessory, I've given some thought to the matter of Kalidnay and I think you could actually have both descriptions of the Kalidnay destruction come together in a unified and original story, with very little adjustments and some flavor parts added into it, to do with as you'd like:
Kalid-Ma was the sorcerer-king of Kalidnay, and was also one of the most powerful defilers the land had ever known, rivaling the magical prowess of Sacha of Arala or Dregoth. He was never too warm to the First Sorcerer Rajaat, but was still elevated as one of his champions, because of his great power.
However, Kalid-Ma was knighted last amongst the champions of Rajaat, and was given the task of rooting out and killing the tari, a rat-people seen more as nuisance than anything else, but notoriously resistant and known for multiplying and spreading quite rapidly. The 15th Champion undertook the task grudgingly, and campaigned only as much as was required for him not to displease Rajaat, and though he might have intended to do so eventually, he never completed his appointed task.
When word reached the champions about the true plan of Rajaat, Kalid-Ma was eager to join in Borys' rebellion. Kalid-Ma helped banish the first sorcerer, and became Sorcerer King of the city of Kalidnay, of which he changed the name after his own.
Like all those who followed Borys of Ebe, Kalid-Ma was given the secrets of dragon metamorphosis, and he searched for ways to reach full dragonhood, as most other sorcerer-monarchs. But it was Dregoth, combining his own immense power and findings from a lost age allowed him to reach this goal far quicker than the rest of the sorcerer kings. However, at the request of Abalach-Re, the other sorcerer kings, including Kalid-Ma, banded together to attack and defeat Dregoth at the eve of his victory.
That event demonstrated to Kalid-Ma that he would have to find a different way to reach dragonhood. If the other sorcerer-monarchs were made aware of his plans and had time to prepare against a progressive transformation, they would certainly do the same thing to him as they did to Dregoth. So Kalid-Ma, already a 2nd stage dragon, researched a bolder way to reach is goal, one that would transform him into a full dragon in one swift strike.
After centuries of research, Kalid-Ma had developed the procedures and materials needed, of which were 5 perfect obsidian orbs and a huge Ziggurat, all of which would serve as energy conduits for the deed he was to attempt. When Kalid-Ma would initiate the transformation, each night would take him to a new stage of Dragonhood. But that was not quite quick enough...
Kalak of Tyr, who was always observant of his rivals, seeking ways to attain the level of power that they had been given as champions of Rajaat, learned of his southern neighbor's endeavors, and also learned how to capitalize on the only major flaw in Kalid-Ma's plan. The great defiler that was Kalid-Ma was too powerful for him to challenge, but during his accelerated transformation, Kalid-Ma would be left weak and vulnerable inside his ziggurat, and though the transformation was relatively fast, he would have ample time to strike at him when the ritual was initiated.
Kalak warned Hamanu of Urik that he believed Kalid-Ma was secretly on his last stages of dragonhood, and that he would certainly reach his ends very soon. Kalak gave this information to the Lion of Urik in exchange for the help of the armies of Hamanu and the collaboration of the sorcerer-king himself in the downfall of their rival. The armies of Urik were to attack and sack the city while the two sorcerer-kings would strike at Kalid-Ma himself. They alone would share the spoils of their victory before the other sorcerer kings would have time to react.
Urik prepared for war as Kalid-Ma put his plan in motion. However, as its armies were marshaled, the High Templar of Kalidnay, Thakok-An, became aware of the threat to her king, and decided to act upon it.
Thakok-An was a young female half-elf who had risen through the ranks of the templarate as one of Kalid-Ma's favorites. When she was only an infant, the sorcerer-king had sentenced her elven father to death after a transgression on his part, and taken her as a slave to compensate the city-state for her father's crime. However, she was later found to have great psionic potential and was schooled in the Way. Kalid-Ma also had her enroll in the templarate as continuing service to his city, but allowed her to return to her mother and siblings.
Somewhere in Thakok-An's twisted mind, she perceived all these gestures as favors from a great king, and she became enamored with Kalid-Ma, rising quickly through the ranks of the templarate as one of her most devout followers, though the monarch never actually showed any sign of returning her feelings.
When she learned of the threat, Thakok-An looked for a way to save her King from the danger on her own, for she desperately wished to prove her worth to him. Entering into the Royal Libraries, she searched through the personal records of Kalid-Ma himself, now that her king was locked away in his ziggurat. Driven almost mad by the imminent threat to her love, she read through descriptions of magical rituals and transformation ceremonies she little understood, until she found what she thought was a way to speed up the process.
The dragon transformation required the energy from the life of an enormous amount of people, being siphoned slowly through the whole procedure to empower 5 special orbs of obsidian that were to be gradually ingested by the sorcerer king as his draconic form grew progressively larger. However, Thakok-An believed that sacrificing a smaller number of lives, but the lives of those who had the greatest importance to the one who made the sacrifice, could provide more life energy and complete the transformation much more quickly. If this could be achieved, Kalid-Ma would be transformed into a full dragon in one great and final ritual, becoming mighty enough that he could defeat even the combined armies of Urik and the might of the sorcerer-kings of the North.
So, on one of the first nights of the ritual, Thakok-An brought her mother and sisters to the top of the ziggurat, into which the King dwelt, performing the ceremonies which were transforming him into a dragon. There, in the depths of the night, she took her carved bone rod, symbol of her magistrate's position, and beat her family to death, until their blood ran on the ziggurat. The life energy was siphoned into the orbs, but unknown to both Thakok-An and Kalidnay, they had surcharged the orbs, and caused the magic which was transforming Kalid-Ma to go horribly wrong.
A tremendous wave of defiling energy burst out of the ziggurat and threw Thakok-An to the ground, where she lost consciousness. Emerging from the debris was a fully grown and transformed dragon. However, in addition to the inborn aggressiveness of the newly transformed dragon, the beast was not Kalid-Ma, or more accurately, was deprived of Kalid-Ma's consciousness.
On the same night of Thakok-An's sacrifice, Kalid-Ma ingested the first orb which was to quicken his transformation. However, a great surge of power flooded him, much greater than what he had hoped, and his transformation quickened immensely, but his mind was submerged. Half-conscious and deprived of much of his sanity, Kalid-Ma ingested the remaining orbs in the same ritual night, until he was changed into a full Dragon. However, as the energy from the orbs was released into the dragon's body, his mind had been absorbed by them. The excess energy surged forth from the dragon into a great wave that cracked the ziggurat and tore down much of the adjescant buildings.
It was a mindless and raging dragon that emerged from the ziggurat, and the beast leveled what was left of the city of Kalidnay and slaughtered most of the survivors of the catastrophe. In great convulsions, the beast regurgitated the orbs throughout the ruins as he did so. After most of the Kalidnay had been destroyed, the creature moved on.
Much to the surprise and dismay of Kalak and Hamanu, a full dragon came to meet them on the battlefield, and both sorcerer-kings withdrew, leaving the Urikite army to be slaughtered by the beast. Hamanu managed to contact Borys, the Dragon, to meet this new threat, and they and Kalak searched for the newly born dragon, and following a trail of destruction, they quickly found the creature and managed to slay it before it attacked any other major settlements.
The Dragon then returned to Ur Draxa and Hamanu, deprived of his main forces and any spoils worth taking in Kalidnay, returned to his city-state. Kalak did much the same, but sent many agents over the years to the ruins of Kalidnay, to see if he could find how Kalid-Ma had achieved dragonhood so quickly. Many agents never returned, and those that did had reports of many undead lurking in the city. Centuries later, it was Dote Mal Payne, a necromancer of some power, who manage to circumvent the undead lurking in the ruined city and find what Kalak was looking for to accomplish his own goals.
And so was the story of Kalidnay... in Athas.
When Thakok-An awoke, she found herself in an almost empty city, and impossible as it seemed, it was now stranded on an island in the middle of the Sea of Silt. Quickly, she managed to restore order in what remained of Kalidnay, and found that a small village had been established some leagues from the city-state. After a month of cleaning and restoring Kalidnay and its ziggurat, Thakok-An found Kalid-Ma's body in a sealed chamber of the ziggurat. There he was, looking as he ever had, human in appearance, and asleep. In fact, nothing could wake the sorcerer-king, and he sleeps to this date.
Thakok-An quickly discovered that the entire city-state and all its inhabitants, which numbered now to a mere fifth of their former numbers, were not on athas anymore, but on some other plane of existence. There she had to endure a miserable life, tyrant of her small domain, deprived of her master's love, he who would seemingly sleep eternally, so near yet so far from her. She rules the people of the domain in the name of the sorcerer-king, and life has become something similar to what it was, yet twisted in some way.
Though Thakok-An doesn't actually know what happened, her involvement into her master's plan caused the magic of Kalid-Ma to attract powerful extraplanar entities, much like the dragon transformation of Borys had once attracted the elemental vortices. However, the gruesome and evil nature of her involvement caught the attention the Demi-Plane of Dread, and as the blood of her relatives was being spilt on the ziggurat, Kalid-Ma, Thakok-An and the survivors of Kalidnay were taken to Ravenloft, where the high templar unwillingly created a small domain of dread with herself as lord.
Moreover, the transformation magics of the ritual had a strange side effect to the event. The physical forms of all creatures so transported were essentially duplicated into the demi-plane, and their original bodies were left in Athas. The consciousness of the victims, however, was not duplicated in that way, and was taken to Ravenloft, leaving mindless corpses behind, which animated as undead due to the nature of the event. The only two exceptions are that of Kalid-Ma, who's consciousness was instead transferred into the magical orbs of obsidian and could not be stripped from Athas, and Thakok-An, who was utterly and irreversibly transferred to the domain she created.
In other words, a copy of Kalid-Ma's untransformed body was taken to Ravenloft, while his true body was indeed transformed into a dragon on Athas, and his consciousness was sealed into the Orbs of Kalid-Ma. The Kalidnay of Athas has been destroyed by the event and the raging dragon, and the city-state also exists in the Demi-Plane of Dread.
Use as you see fit.
Would this be it, Shei-Nad? I had it tucked away on my hard-drive...
Kalid-Ma/Ravenloft Contradiction
Its also listed in the Dark Sun Forum Archive (in the Part X section) stickied on the main page of this forum.
. You should write more things like this Shei-Nad. This is the best historical passage I've ever seen written for the setting.It's... so... beautifull
uh, thanks!
Glad you like it. :D(I sometimes have the impression our borring politicians led us to this situation)
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Back to the text. Sorry I didn't answer before, I was away for the last four days. Yes, this is a fun background history of the place.
Would you like it to be posted on my site too (check my sig, it's the Ravenloft site with the most traffic), under Kalidnay info?
Another question, what is now in Dark Sun where Kalidnay did stand? (was it ripped from Athas or did the RL dark powers created something new by copying the Kalidnay area?)
And is the darklord male or female ? ;)
Joël
As to the darklord's gender; Kalid-ma was male by nearly all accounts. There was a discussion recently about his gender let me see if I can find it hmm... here's something , but not what I was looking for just a second.... this might interest you as well, but I haven't found it yet, third times a charm..... or not, I guess it was a side discussion in a thread about another topic.
Anyway their was a discussion about the gender of Kalid-ma because of the conflicting information in Domains of Dread and Dungeon magazine which had a picture of "her".
One that came up was that Kalid-ma being a very powerful sorcerer had a habit of switching genders either just with illusions or actually polymorphing. That could explain the discrepency if you don't want to merely consider it a mistake.
Last question about references: was it ever mentionned in DS books that a part of it was copied into the Ravenloft mists?
Joël
Last question about references: was it ever mentionned in DS books that a part of it was copied into the Ravenloft mists?
Joël
As far I know, no DS material has mentioned anything about the Kalidnay/Ravenloft connection. DS time states the following:
174th King's Age (-1,232)
-King's Contemplation In an effort to increase his power, Kalid-Ma attempts to further his dragon metamorphosis to a power near that of Borys of Ebe. The attempt is successful, but his mind is destroyed in the process. The dragon that was Kalid-Ma destroys his city of Kalidnay and begins to move into the rest of the Tyr region. The creature is later slain by the combined efforts of Borys of Ebe, Kalak of Tyr, and Hamanu of Urik. With the loss of Kalidnay, the levy to keep Rajaat imprisoned becomes a firm 1,000 slaves from the seven remaining sorcerer-kings.
it would be interesting to find the TSR insider's story back then.---
From Domains of Dread - personalities of note: "a banshee haunts the wastes between the city and Artan-Tak. Known as Uran-Tor, she was an elf templar who devotedly served Thakok-An and purportedly paid for his devotion with her life"
Does this name rings a bell to DS aficionados?
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Interesting trivia: RL's Kalidnay isn't surrounded by mists, like most other RL islands. It is surrounded by a bassin of loose sand (the Sea of Silt). By night, the RL mists rises around Kalidnay from the Sea of Silt.
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There was recently a discussion on Kalidnay on the FoS board. One poster, who didn't have any 2e books, was wondering about Kalidnay and its darklord's curse.
I'd like you to react on some of these post, to see if they stand the harsh sun of Athas:
Rotipher
Thakok-An was the chief templar of a sorcerer-king on Athas, meaning a cleric who received power from the ruler's near-godlike magical might. Having fallen in love with her [okay, let's go with female] king Kalid-Ma (who couldn't care less), she plotted to somehow win his affections -- not sure how -- against his wishes, but instead she wound up in Ravenloft. The king she'd served is now trapped in suspended animation within his temple, and she can't revive him to be with him or even explain why she did what she did; fearing a revolt by the downtrodden riffraff of RL-Kalidnay, she keeps Kalid-Ma's incapacity a secret, lest her subjects rebel and tear both herself and her sleeping king to pieces for their many decades of oppressive cruelty.
Thakok-An is a half-elven Athasian templar (cleric) with psionicist levels (meaning she'd be a psion in 3E).
Jasper
The Act was to kill all her family in order to help along the process of the king becoming a dragon but she did it wrong and caused everyone in the ziggurat to be killed. Now he sleeps in a suspended animation but at the same time sucks life force from the area to sustaining him. If a sacrifice is not offered on the ziggurat every few days plants start withering and soon people too will start dying. She hates all wizards as all spells cast in Kaliday suck life force from the earth (unless you are a preserver wizard from Athas) and has the chance of "starving" the king.
And she uses a wall of heat to close Kalidnay's borders.
brothersale
Actually HER background changed, due to a lack of knowledge in the first publication. In the Dark Sun publications Kalid-Ma has always been male, and due to a small snafu this went unnoticed in the publication of Forbidden Lore and he was listed as she with a male Thakok-An, but fans from both settings noticed and the error was corrected in the next publication of the realm Domains of Dread, creating a female Thakok-An.
Charlatan
I prefer male Thakok-An and female Kalid-Ma, for a couple of reasons. One, it gives Athas one more Sorcerer Queen rather than yet another King. Two (and this is slightly better than the gender-equality reason) the name Kalid-Ma suggests to me Kali-Ma, the Hindu goddess of murder. So, you could think of the city as a semi-Indian setting, with deserts instead of the more typical jungles (ala Sri Raji). And for two and a half reasons, it makes the dead spirit of the elf woman Thakok-An murdered and betrayed his wife that than just the friend that the female Thakok-An murdered and betrayed. Minor, but I like the thematic better that way.
Joël
From Domains of Dread - personalities of note: "a banshee haunts the wastes between the city and Artan-Tak. Known as Uran-Tor, she was an elf templar who devotedly served Thakok-An and purportedly paid for his devotion with her life"
Does this name rings a bell to DS aficionados?
No where in the DS books. I would also like to point out that elves don't become banshees in DS, dwarves do, and it's a whole different monster.
So, in order to stay within more DS flavor, I changed it to a dwarf and made her a dwarven banshee instead.
I guess one could have an elf banshee within that domain since it's in Ravenloft, but I figured staying closer to DS flavor would be better.
Interesting trivia: RL's Kalidnay isn't surrounded by mists, like most other RL islands. It is surrounded by a bassin of loose sand (the Sea of Silt). By night, the RL mists rises around Kalidnay from the Sea of Silt.
Yep, I thought that was quite cool myself.
And she uses a wall of heat to close Kalidnay's borders.
Don't remember that anywhere, maybe it's a Forbidden Lore thing.
In the Dark Sun publications Kalid-Ma has always been male
Not true, plenty of other publications have also changed his/her gender.
I've debated making it female and leaving Thakok-an female as well just to keep it interesting, that and I don't like the fact that there is only one Sorcerer Queen in the midst of all the kings out there (well two if you go by DS 1st ed. setting).
And for two and a half reasons, it makes the dead spirit of the elf woman Thakok-An murdered and betrayed his wife that than just the friend that the female Thakok-An murdered and betrayed. Minor, but I like the thematic better that way.
That's an interesting change too, I might go with that. Though maybe just her sacrificing her family is enough dread to be put on her shoulders.
No where in the DS books. I would also like to point out that elves don't become banshees in DS, dwarves do, and it's a whole different monster.
So, in order to stay within more DS flavor, I changed it to a dwarf and made her a dwarven banshee instead.
I guess one could have an elf banshee within that domain since it's in Ravenloft, but I figured staying closer to DS flavor would be better.
Why not a Dune Runner? If you're going to have someone haunt your wastes, a Dune Runner can cover a larger area...
Ok, I had some spare time at work today and I thought this through, and it seemed to fit so well, and be such an interesting idea for an adventure, I thought I'd post it here, though I'll be roasted by all those "athas is a lone solitary sphere" types..
Ok, here are the items that are needed for this quest, place these in the DM's handbag..
Deurgothoth (Dracolich from the Forgotten Realms Setting)
Dregoth (we all know him)
Kalid-Ma
Daskinor (mad as usual)
The Bloodstone of Fistandantilus (Dragonlance Setting)
The Orbs of Kalid-Ma
The Planar Gate (in Dregoth's Posession)
PC's perspective: the PC's begin receiving dreams regarding the locations of powerful artifacts, the orbs of Kalid-Ma, though of course, they need not be aware that is what they begin hunting.. they feel compelled to search them out..
Background :
Deurgothoth is contacted mentally by the Spirit of Kalid-Ma, which has been trapped on another plane by the powers in the realm of Ravenloft (I seem to recall that theory on the boards somewhere, notify me if you know where or who). Kalid-Ma entices Deurgothoth with thoughts of power and a restoration to life from his undead state.. He coaches him to collect an artifact, the Bloodstone of Fistandantilus, this to be used by Deurgothoth as a new, and special phylactery..
With this artifact, he travels (from Krynn) to the Ravenloft setting (what's that world called? I've never played it) from there, he performs a ritual, using the bloodstones unique abilities to incorporate a subjects knowledge and power, even send their soul to another realm, to forge a bond between himself, and Kalid-Ma, that bond, links Deurgothoth's spirit and mind through a portal only he could travel through (he had the ability to posess multiple bodies, should one be destroyed he'd move to another). He now shunts his essence through the planes (starting from ravenloft merely because that was the prime nearest to Kalid-Ma, and the powers of that realm originally influenced Athas in the past creating a bridge of sorts, though tenuous).
His spirit now exists in the gray on Athas, and is perfectly protected.. From there, he uses his abilities to project dreamlike compulshions into various PC and NPC's encouraging the collection of the Orbs of Kalid-Ma (which was Kalid-Ma's purpose, he needed a creature like Deurgothoth to make its way back to Athas as he could not) However, its not done yet..
The PC's get the Orbs together, and rather than Kalid-Ma returning as a fully formed Dragon, Deurgothoth gains the physical form, and is in that world.. The planar link through Kalid-Ma to Deurgothoth's original body still exists, allowing him to access his original draconic nature he left behind as a dracolich, with the full powers he possessed there.. however, his inclusion of the body of an Athasian Dragon now allows him to defile for magical energy. (the only reason he can do this right off the bat is due to his connection to Kalid-Ma).
Now Deurgothoth doesn't want to be trapped on this plane, and there is still a planar link between himself and Kalid-Ma to consider, so, he decides he needs to get his body back home.. this is all to Kalid-Ma's liking.. and according to his plan.. he wants his body brought to him.. so he informs him of another artifact he's discovered.. the Planar Gate.. in Dregoth's posession..
After careful planning and many aquired resources Deurgothoth learns that Dregoth is preventing his madness from overtaking him, even in his undead state, by pushing the madness onto Daskinor, and the madness is so great it overflows to affect many of his citizens.. He disrupts that connection with Kalid-Ma's help, vastly afflicting Dregoth, and though Dregoth is still powerful, he isn't sane enough to properly defend himself.. Deurgothoth engages in an epic battle against Dregoth.. the advantage, and the reason Deurgothoth comes out on top, is because he amplifies the link between himself and the Bloodstone of Fistandantilus so that he can absorb the powers and abilities of Dregoth. And since Deurgothoth is in a fully formed Dragon of Athas body, he is not affected by the madness, and Daskinor is at last free to regain his mind after centuries..
Again, this strengthening of the bond between Deurgothoth and Kalid-Ma is to Kalid-Ma's advantage.. for it also strengthen's thier bond as well.. Now when Deurgothoth uses the Planar Gate, the only place he can go, is strait back to Kalid-Ma, where Kalid-Ma tries to posess his body, and overpower his pawn..
At this point its up to the DM who comes out on top, either way, the victor is free to roam back to Athas or away from it.. and you could even have Deurgothoth use the Bloodstone's power upon Kalid-Ma if you like, though he may have a defense against it..
The PC's job durring all this?? well, after the orbs are brought together, some try to hunt down Deurgothoth, some help him seeking for power, mostly, in the course of his epic incursion, Deurgothoth is going to cause a lot of havoc and disruption, so PC's from various city states and organizations will be called upon to deal with this Dragon Reborn.. they could harass Deurgothoth all the way till his battle with Kalid-Ma, and tip the balance in favor of one, another, or neither... perhaps destroying both once and for all??