Where can I look/find it?
Please and thank you
-Von
Original Boxed Set.
Revised Boxed Set.
Beyond the Prism Pentad.
Road to Urik Adventure.
Dragon's Crown Adventure.
Slave Tribes.
Dune Trader.
Trade Lords.
Veiled Alliance.
Complete Gladiator's Handbook.
Dregoth Ascending has some info on Hamanu.
The Prism Pentad series.
The Lynn Abbey novels (take place in Urik)
I may be missing a few, but I think that is it.
Perhaps King Hamanu of Urik is best described
in his own words:
I am Hamanu, King of the World, King of the
Mountains and the Plains, King of Urik, for whom
the roaring winds and the all-mighty sun have decreed
a destiny of heroism, and to whom the lifegiving
waters and the nourishing soils have trusted
the mightiest City of Athas.
The Great Spirits of the bountiful lands raised
me from my childhood, instructing me in the art of
war, how to give the signal for the skirmish, and
when to draw up the line of battle. They made my
arms powerful against my enemies, who have always
been many, and gave me weapons to strike off the
heads of those whom I fight. They made of me a
man who cannot be killed, and a general who cannot
be defeated.
I am Hamanu of Urik, The Great King, The
Mighty King, King of the World, King of Athas, an
unrivaled potentate who holds sway from the great
Ringing Mountains to the shores of the endless Sea
of Silt, the bringer of death and peace, to whom all
must submit.
As you have probably guessed, Hamanu considers
himself a warrior king. Providing he finds the
battle worthy of his skills, he often leads his troops
into combat personally. So far, he has earned his
boasting rights-his armies have never been defeated
when he was leading them.
Hamanu's palace stands inside a great walled fortress
in the center of Urik. This fortress covers a
square mile, serving as both the administrative center
for his templars and the base for his army. It contains
a drill field, a barracks, and an armory filled
with obsidian-edged swords, spears, and bows and
arrows. From this fortress, Hamanu can personally
send more than ten thousand slave soldiers led by a
thousand lance-carrying half-giants into battle.
Whether their status is slave or mercenary, all of
these soldiers are extremely loyal to Hamanu, for he
trains with them personally almost every day.
One of the most interesting aspects of Hamanu's
army is his company of halflings. He has worked out
an agreement with Chief Urga-Zoltapl whereby
Urik supplies him with a certain quantity of obsidian
in return for the services of two hundred halfling
warriors. Hamanu uses these halflings to disrupt his
opponent's rear areas by having them infiltrate during
the night to attack the tents of rival commanders,
destroy supply wagons, and free his
enemy's slaves.
Urik's economy depends almost entirely on obsidian
quarried from the Mountain of the Black
Crown. It also relies heavily on Tyr's iron to make
the tools necessary to quarry the glassy stone efficiently.
As a final note, I should warn you that if you visit
Urik, be very careful to obey all of Hamanu's laws
and keep some gold hidden securely away just in
case you must bribe a templar for your freedom.
Few fates are worse than being sold into slavery to
work in the quarry pits. The sharp edges of the
glassy stone will slice your fingers, hands, and arms
to a point of uselessness within days.
From Veiled Alliance
Templars in Urik teach the citizens their sorcererking
's approved doctrine of order and of change.
These abstract principles underlie all of existence,
the doctrine says. Order means death or stultifying
misery, whereas change liberates vitality. Hamanu,
the Mighty King, clearly has high ambitions to create
change throughout the Tyr Region.
The Alliance in Urik concerns itself with change
of a different kind: overthrowing the king. However,
Hamanu's powerful army makes this unlikely. Furthermore,
the Alliance's longtime leader has vanished
mysteriously, leaving two rival Council
factions to struggle for the society's leadership.
Population: 32,000 (75% human, 5% dwarf, 3%
mul, 2% elf, 1% half-elf, 10% half-giant, 3% thrikreen,
1% halfling). Natives called "Urikites" or
the slightly derogatory "Uri."
Emblems: Hamanu's face; Hamanu in battle
dress; Hamanu surrounded by red fire; and so on.
Economy: Obsidian; water; slaves; silk; pottery.
Noteworthy residents: Hamanu, sorcerer-king
(21st-level dragon); Babantylos, chief astronomer
(P10, Sphere of Air, 30 hp, LN); Tamarapal, High
Priestess (Tmp14, 20 hp due to old age, LE);
Bianeser, priestess and imperial consort (Tmp6, 20
hp, LN); Mulgan-dur-g an of Zolpatl, commander
of halfling infantry (F3, 45 hp, LN).
Unusual sites: Destiny's Kingdom, palace complex;
Temple of the Mighty King, shrine to Hamanu;
Little Jungle, fenced area of army grounds
given to halfling huts built in jungle style; Royal
Observatory; Three Sisters Observatory; obsidian
mines, Mountain of the Black Crown; Potter's
Court, pottery market.
The Mighty King's massive estate extends from the heart of the
city in a broad wedge out to the base of Sunrise Hill,
where the ancient Observatory's many balconies
and platforms stand to watch the dawn.
Destiny's Kingdom, called simply "Destiny" in
conversation, could hold the entire city of Tyr, with
room left over for Gulg. Only Raam and Draj cover
more land. But the vast complex consists mainly of
dry desert; the sorcerer-king's magic raised its high
wall and many buildings, but his city has too few
people to maintain the grounds. This demonstrates,
as many features of Urik do, how Hamanu's ambition
exceeds his resources. Of course, observing this
in a templar's presence guarantees an instant death
sentence. So says Hamanu's Code.
Law: In Urik the law reigns supreme, or so claims
Hamanu. In fact Hamanu dictates all laws and
changes them at his need. But for civil matters in
which he takes no personal interest, the Urikite code
stands unsurpassed in the Tyr Region for utility,
comprehensiveness, and ruthlessness.
Hamanu's Code, as some call it, relies on the
principle of talion, or punishment in kind. If an attacker
cuts off a victim's hand, the attacker loses a
hand; if a thief steals food, the thief must work to
earn that value of food for the victim, and may not
eat until then. The Code emphasizes loyalty to Hamanu
and the templars, and secondarily a rigid civil
order. (Hamanu's rhetoric as a "force of change"
only applies outside his own city, it seems.)
Order and change: The Urikite philosophy of
amukash revolves around an endless struggle between
these two abstract principles. The templar
scholars of Destiny's Kingdom teach that Order
currently dominates, and so Athas is stagnating,
even dying. The Mighty King will assert the cause of
change, they say, and restore vigor to the world.
So far the king has not established much vigor
even in Urik. His vaulting ambition has diverted
esses, and he codifies this behavior by forcing the
much of the city's economy to the building of monuments,
though not to the ruinous extent that the late
Kalak required in Tyr. Hamanu at least keeps his
people fed, if the bare subsistence rations of mountain
wild rice he allots qualify as "feeding" them.
Temples: Like Tectuktitlay in Draj, Hamanu
styles himself a god. He has erected a huge shrine to
himself just inside Destiny's walls. Here his priests
and priestesses preach the coming glory when he
conquers the world. Priestesses outrank priests in
the temple; both belong to the templar class.
The Temple of the Mighty King hardly qualifies
as a holy place, even by the low standards of Athas.
Hamanu indulges his various whims with the priest-
Temple's staff to acquiesce to parishioners' desires.
At all times, one priest and one priestess sit on obsidian
thrones on an altar. If any parishioner tosses a
gold coin in his or her lap, then for the next hour
that templar must obey the parishioner's wishes in
all matters, save only those that injure someone or
conflict with Hamanu's Code. Only the templars of
the Temple must obey this stricture, and then only
during their infrequent shifts on the altar. (Adventurers
who try to take advantage of this rule more
than once or twice certainly incur a stern revenge
from off-duty templars.)
Dress: Urikites wear square-cut hair styles with
elaborate tight ringlets; men have square-cut curled
beards. Some wear a brimmed fez.
Lower classes wear a white linen shirt with short,
tight sleeves, knee-length. Upper classes wear the
same shirt to ankle-length, but with a striped or diamond
pattern and topped with a girdle trimmed
with tassels. An elaborate scarf indicates the wearer
's station; the longer and richer the scarf, the
higher the social rank. Citizens wear the scarves only
in the evenings and at night, after the heat of the
day.
Among all Urikites and by law, only templars
may wear a cloak, and only the sorcerer-king may
wear a cloak with a fringe. Templars' cloaks are
bleached white (another unique honor). Hamanu
keeps a huge selection of cloaks and changes them
daily or more often; popular belief has it that he
need never repeat the same pattern in an ordinary
person's lifetime. Some say presenting Hamanu
with a fine new fringed cloak earns his favor, if he
likes it; but presenting him with a cloak he dislikes
leads to disaster.
Urikites enjoy competitive sports, such as arm
wrestling and a hoop-rolling game known as pichut,
as well as story-telling and dancing.
Architecture: Buildings range from crude domelike
slave quarters made of brick and sticks to the
spectacular ukrikets, glistening obsidian towers with
open observation platforms at the top. The ukrikets
serve both as guard posts and demonstrations of
Hamanu's majesty. Ornate obsidian statues of Hamanu
line the neatly-kept streets. So do immense
brick walls covered with white glaze, on which artists
paint elaborate scenes of Hamanu's exploits.
Pottery
Urikites consider pottery not only an esteemed
trade but a fine art. The whole Tyr region holds
Urikian pottery in high regard for its fine workmanship
and traders get high prices for the city's
dishes, plates, and a variety of decorative pieces.
Potters make their wares from the soft gray clay
found in abundance near the city's obsidian mines.
They add dyes and ground minerals to produce
crimson, green, blue, and other brilliant colors,
then knead the clay into shape on the dozens of potter
's wheels scattered throughout Potter's Court.
The Court's immense stone kilns raise the local
temperature to almost unbearable levels, so potters
operate the kilns during the evening and at night.
Potters decorate their pieces with lustrous glazes
(the popular metallic colors contain little actual
metal), and detailed carvings of animals, astronomical
symbols, and images of the sorcerer-king.
Ok, here is a list that may help:
Original Boxed Set.
Revised Boxed Set.
Beyond the Prism Pentad.
Road to Urik Adventure.
Dragon's Crown Adventure.
Slave Tribes.
Dune Trader.
Trade Lords.
Veiled Alliance.
Complete Gladiator's Handbook.
Dregoth Ascending has some info on Hamanu.
The Prism Pentad series.
The Lynn Abbey novels (take place in Urik)
I may be missing a few, but I think that is it.
To note:
Beyong the Prism Pentad is only useful in that Hamanu is statted out, albiet in 2e rules. Most of the rest is reprinted in the Wanderer's Chronicle, which is way more useful as a whole.
The only information specific to Urik in the adventure Road to Urik is the description of urikite soldier garb, which is described in much more detail in the Crimson Legion novel, as well as the novel series by Abbey (which, as a whole, IMO is the single most useful source of Urik information)
Info on the psionic institutions of Urik may also be found in the Will and the Way
to bad I missed the Will and the Way.
Cnahumck, your fired!
VonZrucker,
If it helps, I stumbled accorss our very own Jon, Oracle of Athas' PDF on the laws of Urik titled "The Code of Hamanu".
Best food in all the tablelands!
:D
Also, does anyone maybe have a map/picture of the city? Or a list of NPCs/shops and city sites?
I'm having a hard time DMing this chapter in our campaign with the limited resources available.
Any additional help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Von
Sorry but I don't recall the URL and I am out of tim...
I googled the City of Urik map and found one that was pretty good.
Sorry but I don't recall the URL and I am out of tim...
I can almost guarantee that you didn't :P
hee hee
The most likely candidate, for the map you found, was the one from Brax's old site (can't remember the artist). However, that map was horribly inaccurate, in just about every way conceivable.
I have a very amateur-ish map (done by yours truly - a no talent hack when it comes to this sort o' thing), which places the major wards of the city, as well as a complete list of official locales, according to location within the city. For those interested, just send me an email request.