Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Apr 01, 2005 11:12:46	With the Dragon dead how is Rajaat kept imprisoned? The City-States are no longer making their slave tributes and even if they were who's taking them?
#2 Sysane Apr 01, 2005 12:00:05	There is no longer a levy on the city-states. Sadira threw the dark lens into a pool of magma and cast some protection wards on it. The lens is now incased in solid obsidian (the rain of the Cerulean Storm cooled the magma). If this was a smart thing to do remains to be seen.
#3 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Apr 01, 2005 12:38:19	With the Dragon dead how is Rajaat kept imprisoned? The City-States are no longer making their slave tributes and even if they were who's taking them? For my own Dark Sun campaigns, I work with the idea that Rajaat really isn't imprisoned any more. He remains in the Hollow, because it is a handy place for him to remain while the world forgets about him again, and he builds his power. Sadira's power does nothing to keep him there, because he specifically was the one who granted her powers, after he already was imprisoned, and therefore ensured that she could not rebel like his other "children". Everyone who knows of him thinks he is imprisoned, and he likes it that way. I figure that by Sadira putting the Dark Lens into the lava, she once again, unwittingly did what he wanted all along. He formed the Cerulean Storm to cool the Valley of Dust and Fire, and is in the process of making a new, obsidian skeleton for himself forged from within the lava pools that the Cerulean Storm is over, complete with the power of the Dark Lens - possibly even magnifying it's power. He also has been slowly insinuating his power into The Black, corrupting and twisting things found within that plane to his will (this could include Andropinis, and in effect, his followers). I also tend to work with the idea that the Paraelement of Rain has allied itself with Rajaat (with his promises of a return to the Blue Age and restration of the power of Rain) - hence the Cerulean Storm in the first place. What Rajaat didn't count on was Tithian - but I don't think he really pays much heed to the petty mortal trapped in the storm with him. He lets Tithian release the Tyr storms because they also serves Rajaat's purposes, and lets Tithian exist so long as suits him. And yes, I've had 1 campaign where Rajaat returned, with the full powers he had once before, new obsidian bones that magnified the power of the Dark Lens within them, and the full power of all four Paraelemental planes, plus The Black. It really wasn't pretty.
#4 lyric Apr 01, 2005 16:25:20	now "that" I'd love to hear more about! did he go on a rampage? did he restore athas?? did he create new followers?? And you've brought up a good point, I don't think Sadira is powerful enough to hold the warbringer, even in Rise and Fall of a Dragon King, her spells were failing... I doubt they will outlast her life time at most...
#5 Sysane Apr 01, 2005 17:15:49	And you've brought up a good point, I don't think Sadira is powerful enough to hold the warbringer, even in Rise and Fall of a Dragon King, her spells were failing... I doubt they will outlast her life time at most... There's an adventure in the 2e sup Beyond the Prism Pentad that goes into that very topic of her wards failing.
#6 Pennarin Apr 01, 2005 21:38:53	With the Dragon dead how is Rajaat kept imprisoned? The City-States are no longer making their slave tributes and even if they were who's taking them? Rmm, I haven't seen an actual answer on this thread yet. The Dark Lens, and its sequestration in the lake of lava, is unrelated to Rajaat's imprisonment, the levy, and the whole shebang. Remember, the Lens had been lost shortly after Rajaat was first imprisoned, so its not part of the imprionment scheme and its yearly renewal. The answer to A2Z's question is right there in front of our eyes: when Borys was made into the Dragon and turned mad for 100 years, the spell wasn't renewed. After that period of time Borys came to his senses and discovered the spell that held Rajaat was about to fail. That's in the Timeline IIRC. So, if all things are equal this time around, the world has about 99 years left.
#7 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Apr 02, 2005 1:20:38	now "that" I'd love to hear more about! did he go on a rampage? did he restore athas?? did he create new followers?? And you've brought up a good point, I don't think Sadira is powerful enough to hold the warbringer, even in Rise and Fall of a Dragon King, her spells were failing... I doubt they will outlast her life time at most... PRetty much went on a rampage. it was a campaign that reached deep into epic proportions, to include the return of the Rhulisti (actually, umm.... I used the Yuusong Vong from Star Wars d20, which was based off the idea of space Rhulisti that was being worked up for Dark Sun before it was shut down), Dregoth's attempt at ascention, the Kreen invasion, and the Deadlands becoming more or less aware of the rest of the world. I think the campaign left off with basically the world coming to an end. At one point, the Rhulisti (Yuusong Vong) and Rajaat joined forces, at another point Rajaat was by himself, the whole time the Kreen basically did an all-out ofensive against everyone, especially the "invaders from space". Huge, epic battlegrounds and stuff. Been about a year and a half or more since I ran that campaign. Rmm, I haven't seen an actual answer on this thread yet. The Dark Lens, and its sequestration in the lake of lava, is unrelated to Rajaat's imprisonment, the levy, and the whole shebang. Remember, the Lens had been lost shortly after Rajaat was first imprisoned, so its not part of the imprionment scheme and its yearly renewal. The answer to A2Z's question is right there in front of our eyes: when Borys was made into the Dragon and turned mad for 100 years, the spell wasn't renewed. After that period of time Borys came to his senses and discovered the spell that held Rajaat was about to fail. That's in the Timeline IIRC. So, if all things are equal this time around, the world has about 99 years left. Actually, the wards originally were formed through the efforts of all the Sorcerer-Kings, including those now dead - the ones that had about 100 years to wear down. The second time through.... there was a significant drop in the number of Sorcerer-Kings available. And they had Sadira help them to boot - whose magic wanes during the day, and I have little faith that her "support" really ended up being support, rather than simply leaving a wide open door for Rajaat to use whenever he felt like it. The Dark Lens had nothing to do with the wards, true. But with the wards being...erm... significantly weaker than before, the Dark Lens now basically is in the hands of Rajaat, great place for it to be, no?
#8 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 3:32:43	Actually, the wards originally were formed through the efforts of all the Sorcerer-Kings, including those now dead - the ones that had about 100 years to wear down. The second time through.... there was a significant drop in the number of Sorcerer-Kings available. Albeit what you say is quite likely right, I'd also suggest the very real possibility that the imprisonment spell itself is what lasts 100 years, and that no matter how many SKs cast it, as long as it gets cast it lasts as long. And they had Sadira help them to boot As far as I can recall Sadira does not help the SKs perform the group casting of the imprisonment spell. Sadira knows that the SKs are pretty much the only people that have the might to release Rajaat, and since they won't do that ever (at least she believes that from them when they tell her), the only other possible release is if someone less powerful gets his hands on the Lens and, IIRC, simply touches the cyst with it. Sadira casts the Lens into the lake and puts wards on it for the purpose of denying access to it to further interlopers. Lynn Abbey has Hamanu mention that its Sadira's wards that keep Rajaat traped, but I can't figure how she made that determination. Maybe I forgot an important passage of The Cerulean Storm...
#9 Sysane Apr 02, 2005 8:10:28	The Dark Lens, and its sequestration in the lake of lava, is unrelated to Rajaat's imprisonment, the levy, and the whole shebang. Remember, the Lens had been lost shortly after Rajaat was first imprisoned, so its not part of the imprionment scheme and its yearly renewal. True, but his "new" imprisonment by the hands of Rkard and Sadira seems pretty dependant on it. From BtPP pg 8: The boy (Rkard) cast his sun spell into the Dark Lens, and the obsidian orb erupted into a miniature version of the crimson sun. It engulfed Rajaat in its brilliance, obliterating his shadow and sending his essence back to the Hollow... Furthermore from pg 334 of The Cerulean Storm: She (Sadira) reached into her pocket and fished out a small sliver of diamond."This should keep your fire burning forever". Sadira stepped near the Dark Lens and cast her spell. The diamond shard disappeared from between her fingers, and a stream of white light flowed into the obsidian. It emerged on the other side as a silvery river of magic energy, engulfeding the fiery orb of Rkard's sun spell. Pearly wisps of flame began to shoot through the fireball, and it burned with a new brilliance... It would appear that its Rkard's "fiery orb" thats the actual object keeping Rajaat locked away in the Hollow. It remains to be seen if Sadira's and Rkard's spells will hold without renewal and the aid of the Dark Lens.
#10 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 9:18:34	The Cerulean Storm is real imprecise, but Sysane also has part of the answer. Rajaat had an elemental body, which the SKs trapped in the cyst produced by the imprisonment spell. Normally the essence goes with it, to the Hollow that it also creates, but Rajaat had stored it in his shadow. You'll recall its the shadow that goes around imprisoning Andropinis and killing Tec. By that point Rajaat is undefeatable. Then Sadira realises what Rajaat did (storing his essence in his shadow) and thinks that all she needs to defeat him is Rkard's sun magic and the Lens. The sun spell comes on inside the Lens and obliterates the shadow. Afterwards Rkard says something like "I think Rajaat is trapped in my sun-spell". Later on Sadira makes the spell permanent. The tricky part is that, from that point on, Denning does not describe the Lens as a brilliant sphere, which I think it is and ever will be till the day her spell fails. So, Sadira throwing the Lens where no one can get to it to try and...I guess, dispell the sun spell, is her way of imprisonning Rajaat. Conclusion: Rajaat's essence is inside the Lens, trapped by the sun spell within it, in the lake, and warded by Sadira's sun magic. Rajaat's body has evaporated from the sun spell and, probably, the fact that Rajaat was no longer at the controls. The result is the cerulean storm. As for the BtPP quote, I think its erroneous. The novel does not say Rajaat's essence is back in the Hollow, but rather trapped inside the sun spell, which is itself within the Lens. It engulfed Rajaat in its brilliance, obliterating his shadow and sending his essence back to the Hollow... AFAIK, only the SKs' imprisonment spell sends essence through the Hollow. RaFoaDK even goes as far as saying the Hollow is the (intended) by-product of the imprisonment spell.
#11 Sysane Apr 02, 2005 9:59:17	Conclusion: Rajaat's essence is inside the Lens, trapped by the sun spell within it, in the lake, and warded by Sadira's sun magic. Rajaat's body has evaporated from the sun spell and, probably, the fact that Rajaat was no longer at the controls. The result is the cerulean storm.. Interesting. That would lend credance that the obsidian that formed around the Dark Lens would enlarge Rajaat's new prison. This would also stregthen the theroy in that the Warbringer could and would have a greater influance on Athas outside of his "cell". I also think this line from the Cerulean Storm pg 341 supports this as well: Sadira: "There are some wards that I must place around Rajaat's NEW prison"... This would seem to indicate that the Lens was now Rajaat's prison vs the Hollow in a loose sort of way.
#12 greyorm Apr 02, 2005 12:26:47	Before you all get too excited, you might want to reread that quote a little more carefully: "...and sending his essence back to the Hollow..." Where is Rajaat's essence? Back in the Hollow. Not in the lens. Not in the obsidian around it. Not stored in a pair of Sadira's leather hotpants. Etc. The only thing we might infer from the various passages is that Rajaat cannot reform his shadow because the sun spell has obliterated it (and presumably also keeps it from being reformed), thus keeping his essence locked in the Hollow unless it is transferred for placement into something else. And of course, since the Hollow is in the Black, and the Black is only made up of shadow, his essence doesn't have anything else it can merge with. It has no container because everything in the Black is made up of the one thing that it can't form within due to the sun spell. (Tangentially, I happen to believe that Rajaat's essence is just that: an essence...not a conscious, living, plotting, thinking being. It is a program without a computer to run it. Rajaat thus exists in some sense, the same way a program on a disk "exists" even when it is not being run on a computer. Perhaps that is the secret of the Hollow's ability to contain the First Sorcerer.) Given all that, and given that the lens is sort of a gateway to the Black (and even that it has been argued that the lens is the Black itself), one wonders what sort of effects the sun spell is going to have on the Black? What if the spell is slowly destroying the shadow plane as well? Talk about adventure ideas: everything from shadow wizards desperately trying to put an end to the spell on the lens (because their powers are being destroyed along with the plane), to worries about the very fate of Athas itself (ie: what effect does destroying/weakening the metaphysical barrier between everything-that-exists and everything-that-doesn't have on the world? Does reality begin tearing at the edges? Do Nightmare Beasts go on rampages? Do illusionary locales begin to appear and disappear with greater frequency and chaos eats away at the edges of the world? Heck, I need to go update my "Athasian Frostburn" setting ideas with this!). What if? What if Rajaat's shadow is the Black? He infused his essence throughout the plane, becoming one with it, and this is why he was so god-awfully powerful? So, if the Black is destroyed, if his shadow was obliterated, and all shadow is burned away, Rajaat suddenly isn't as powerful as he was at the end of the Prisim Pentad. He's back to being the First Sorcerer again, needing Champions and all that jazz. Thus, even if he escapes again, though he will be a horrible evil scourge not easily put down, he will not be as omnipotent an entity as he was during his release: he will need to rebuild his power somehow, mingle his essence into other planes and realms instead. (I so have an adventure idea about that involving the need to trick or redirect his spells to link him with the Grey to dissolve him!) Anyways, to review: Rajaat's essence is contained in the Hollow, according to the novels. Other pieces of him might be elsewhere. Metaphorically, the lens would be best described as the gate on the cage, with the spell being the lock holding it shut. So, the lens is responsible for keeping Rajaat locked up, indeed, but it is not itself the prison. The lens could also be the plug in a filled bathtub, and the spell is the little dealy you have to flick to unlock the plug so you can pop the cork and let the water free, and the sewer pipes are Athas, but that's just getting silly. Or, oo-oo! Maybe the Hollow is like a WINE BOTTLE, and the cork is the lens, with the spell being the tie keeping it in there...and you need to shake it up to get the cork to pop, and..!
#13 Sysane Apr 02, 2005 15:33:32	Before you all get too excited, you might want to reread that quote a little more carefully: "...and sending his essence back to the Hollow..." That would be in Bill Slavicksek's words in BtPP not in the words of Troy Denning. As Pennarin stated, Troy never came out and pointedly stated that Rajaat was banished back into the Hollow in the Cerulean Storm.
#14 zombiegleemax Apr 02, 2005 17:41:57	Sadira, despite the sheer, raw elemental power she wields during the day, is still, at best, a mere stripling bungling around with magic she barely comprehends. When the sorcerer-kings bound away their master, they had already been fighting a war for over a thousand years (maybe even longer). Their mastery of battle magic (and arcane magic, in general) would be second-to-none. Thus, their enchantments to keep the Warbringer locked away would be infinitely more potent than anything puny little Sadira of Tyr could ever come up with. --hence, her wards mean less than nothing to Rajaat NB
#15 beyowulf Apr 02, 2005 21:43:13	So who's in the Hollow now? Abalach Rei?
#16 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Apr 02, 2005 21:47:35	So who's in the Hollow now? Abalach Rei? I personally work with the idea that Rajaat is. however, he's now basically made it less of a prison, and more of a good hidden, and well-protected place to build his power from.
#17 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 21:47:41	Before you all get too excited, you might want to reread that quote a little more carefully: "...and sending his essence back to the Hollow..." Where is Rajaat's essence? Back in the Hollow. Not in the lens. Not in the obsidian around it. Not stored in a pair of Sadira's leather hotpants. Etc. Greyorm, one thing that is unspoken on the boards, in this very thread to be more precise, is that BtPP is based directly off the Prism Pentad, and the Pentad does not say what that quote says! So its probably a misread on the part of whoever wrote BtPP. Essence is RaFoaDK's term for "soul". Its one and the same with a creature's life force, suggesting strongly that consuming a creature's life force forever destroys her (i.e. it doesn't go into the Gray). Rajaat's great feat is transfering his essence away from his life force, into his shadow.
#18 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 21:56:35	So who's in the Hollow now? Abalach Rei? Nothing. If you reread The Cerulean Storm, you'll see the SKs succeed in casting the imprisonment spell on Rajaat. The spell creates a black sphere, the cyst, around Rajaat's giant elemental body (which sends Rajaat's life force into the Hollow too). But this doesn't trap Rajaat, since his essence is not in his life force but in his shadow (it would mean the life force trapped in the Hollow is an empty shell). In the novel, Sadira accidentally crashlands (yes, she was flying) into the cyst while wielding the Lens. This automatically puts an end to the spell, freeing Rajaat's body from the cyst and retrieving his life force from the Hollow. Conclusion: Since the SKs' spell was negated, there is nothing in the Hollow. To support this conclusion, I direct you to this piece of info from the "The Black" thread on the front page: PP V: p. 295-296 Another meaningful tidbit from Sadira and Rikus’ last battle with Khidar. “At first Sadira did not understand, but then she realized what happened. Shadow people had no life forces of their own; they existed only as sillouettes marking the absence of energy—usually in the form of light. So direct contact with a mystic power—one of the most potent forms of energy—annihilated them.” This sounds an awful lot like what Rajaat did with transfering his essence from his life force to his shadow.
#19 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 22:02:49	Mmm, in the Prism Pentad Rajaat is showned trapped in the Hollow, which appears to be smack in the middle of the Black. His shadow giant servants gather around his netherworld prison to hear his orders. I think the same could still be true, even since Rajaat is trapped inside Rkard's sun spell. Why? Because the spell is within the Lens, and the Lens is synonymous of the Black*. So maybe if one where to travel to the Black, he would see a sphere of white light with a shadowy form within, close enough to the same setup Rajaat had before, in the Hollow. I'd surmise he can still communicate with nearby shadow giants. * This might be taken solely from Abbey's notes, I'm not sure.
#20 Pennarin Apr 02, 2005 22:09:24	Conclusion: Rajaat's essence is inside the Lens, trapped by the sun spell within it, in the lake, and warded by Sadira's sun magic. Rajaat's body has evaporated from the sun spell and, probably, the fact that Rajaat was no longer at the controls. The result is the cerulean storm.. Interesting. That would lend credance that the obsidian that formed around the Dark Lens would enlarge Rajaat's new prison. This would also stregthen the theroy in that the Warbringer could and would have a greater influance on Athas outside of his "cell". Good follow through. Rajaat's prison would, litteraly, grow in size, so he could grow in power as well. At the same time, Rkard's sun spell might be "blowned up" in size (for lack of a better expression) to match the prison's growing size, which might reduce the spell's overall potency.