Krors Ra Drugan and Zlo the Thief of the Silt

Krors Ra Drugan

Biographical Details

Clan: Mrenbar, on the Crimson Atoll

Uhrnomus: Nado, a powerful earth cleric and psychometabolist

Clan Focus: To accumulate enough wood, stone, and most importantly obsidian floater domes so as to construct their own, strictly dwarven atoll. Before the attack of Alteric, they nearly had enough material to do this.

Clan Religion: Earth. Hardland is corrupt and dangerous. The dwarves of Mrenbar Clan must build hardland anew amidst the Silt Sea, to ensure that it is good land, and not corrupt.

Clan Enemies: The Silt Sea. The Mrenbar dwarves hate the Silt, and oppose it religiously. Their rival dwarven clan aboard the Crimson Atoll, the Randor Dwarves, revere the Silt, and possess several silt clerics. Unlike the Mrenbar, they worship silt, and train their youths with a legendary being called the Old Man of the Sea, who is in fact a kreen of some sort.

Family Patriarch: Morz the Old, a powerful psychokineticist and Mrenbar Clan uhrnius or leader

Family Matriarch: Bezra, a clothesmaker out of creatures from the Silt Sea

Father: Drugan Ra Morz, a stonemason, sailor and silt horror fisherman

Mother: Yera, a silt farmer

Siblings: three living sisters, two living brothers (none of repute)

Maternal Cousin Ora: Ora was a dwarven thiefess, who managed to steel gold and steel from Zhor's treasury aboard the Atoll. Ora was caught and banished to the Silt Sea (executed). Ora is the one who taught Krors the basics of his thieving skills.

Zlo

Biographical Details

Tribe: Black Spear Tribe

Tribal Chief: Urga-Zoltapl, high level fire cleric/psionicist

Clan: Dark Rainbow Clan

Clan Leader: Olmot, Seeker of Secrets

Early Life

Zlo was to be a hunter by his extended family, but disappointed them when he fell under the charismatic spell of Olmot, a renegade halfling who lived by himself, but who had discovered dark magical things he had found in mysterious ancient caves beneath the earth. Intrigued, he accompanied Olmot on several adventures in the strange caves and ruins beneath the earth. He learned much from Olmot.

Harassed by his extended family for failing to become a hunter and not engage in the normal activities of a halfling youth, Zlo began to use the skills he learned from Olmot to trick and harass his family. He would steal their tools or weapons, and place them with the equipment of yet another family member, causing the two to squabble. He would weaken the bow strings of his stronger elder brothers, so that they would fail when an important hunt was taking place. He would even steal food from his father, and eat it himself, for his father was ever disapproving of him.

A popular cousin named Noncul had been particularly cruel to Zlo, and would boast of his strength before Zlo and mock the smaller halfling for his weakness. One time, Zlo fought back, but was defeated, but not before being slashed in the face by Noncul's obsidian blade. When they were more fully grown, Noncul departed on his coming of age quest, which was to prove his worthiness to the chief as a warrior for his tribe. Noncul eventually returned from his coming of age quest from the Ringing Mountains, and once again boasted, showing his clan the strange golden figure he had found in a cave atop one of the snowy mountains. Noncul said he would present it to the chief the next morning during his confirmation ceremony, and heartily expected to be mightily rewarded with the chief's magic. During the next morning, when Noncul climbed the chief's pyramid and was to present Urga-Zoltapl was the talisman as proof of his worthiness, he opened the cloth he had placed the figurine in only to discover it had been replaced with a golden painted rock. The Chief was angered, and sacrificed the cousin right then and there to the forest.

Shortly after this, Olmot found a magical treasure beneath the earth, and gave it to Urga-Zoltapl. The chief was pleased, and made Olmot the leader of his clan, on the condition that Olmot secret further magic beneath the earth. The next day, disaster befell Zlo when the golden figurine he had stole from Noncul was found amongst his things. Zlo managed to make the claim that he had found the golden talisman on one of his subterranean adventures with Olmot. His fellow clansmen disbelieved him, but Olmot supported his apprentice, and explained that Zlo indeed had found it in the tunnels beneath the earth. Zlo was saved, but was effectively ostracized from the rest of his clan.

Zlo, the Spirit of Naulantis, and the Magic Ring

A few months later, Olmot and Zlo once again descended into the earth. They found a secret cave and tunnel near to the one where Olmot had found the magic he had given chief. Passing strange and wondrous underground ruins and going deeper and farther than they ever had before, they discovered a stone tomb astride a subterranean creek, and before it beheld a golden spirit of an elf. Zlo had never seen an elf, much less a dead one, but the elf spoke to them, warning them not to take the treasures of that place, for it was a temple to ancient gods, and was sacred. Zlo boldly asked the golden spirit of the ancient world, and inquired as to what had befallen the spirit. The spirit said it had been a warrior in a great and ancient war. Named Naulantis, the spirit said that its side had lost the war, and so it fled to a secret city with its many followers, where a secret psionic gateway was kept which had the power to open doors to any location on Athas, and even to places beyond Athas. The spirit even said that the gateway could behold other universes and dimensions. The spirit said that they begged the king of the city allowance to use the gateway so that the spirit's people could be saved. The king, called Taraskir the Lion, assented to their use of the magical portal. The spirit said that once having fled, his people built a new secret city to hide from their enemies, but the evil general that had long fought them at last found them many years later with his powerful magic, and slew the spirit and all his followers. Since then the earth had long ago swallowed their hidden home. Zlo asked where this gateway was now, and was told by the spirit that the city which housed it was now only ruins, but was called Guistenal in ancient days, the city of Taraskir the Lion before the Lion and his city were destroyed by Dregoth the Ravager of Giants.

While Zlo was enraptured by the spirit, Olmot stole the spirit's magical tomb and took from its corpse a magical ring. Olmot, from his long wandering amongst such ruins, could decipher the writing on the ring, and used it to try and destroy the golden spirit. The ring summoned forth a great frost, but the spirit was not harmed, and so it slew Olmot with a golden spear for defiling its lair. At just that moment, Zlo ran forward and took the ring for himself, and then ran immediately away back towards the surface. The spirit was enraged and followed, but Zlo hid amongst the rocks, and the spirit could not find him.

At length, Zlo escaped, and returned to the surface with his prize. That night, the spirit haunted him with the Way of the Unseen, warning Zlo of his impending doom for the theft. Zlo approached the Chief that night, looking for protection and offering the Chief the ring, but Urga-Zoltapl scoffed at the present, saying that it but commanded water, which was antithetical to the sacred fire of the village. The golden spirit came that very night, appearing in the depths of morning and using the Way of the Unseen to find its way to Zlo through the minds of his fellow tribesmen. Zlo hid on the pyramid, forcing Urga-Zoltapl to do battle with the spirit. After a great duel with the Way of the Unseen and the powers of Fire and Water, the spirit at last abated, but the Chief had himself fallen, and was taken, near death, to the stone huts of his wives and priests.

Early that morning the priests announced that the Chief would live, and in that moment Zlol knew that when the Chief awoke he would sacrifice Zlo to the Forest. Most all halflings would have accepted this honorable fate, but Zlo's malign heart had no wish to die for the Forest or anyone else. Instead his mind turned towards the magical gateway of which the spirit had spoken.

Knowing he had to leave, but wishing vengeance upon his family, Zlo summoned his extended family to the clan sacred fire, telling them that Olmot had died, but that he had claimed a magical ring which he would give to the clan as a gift so as to make amends for his ill ways. The leaders of his extended family came, curious about what Zlo was announcing, all the while not knowing that it had been Zlo who had brought the powerful spirit that had killed many warriors and felled their chief but hours before. Once they family elders had gathered, Zlo admitted to them that he was to be sacrificed, and admitted all his past evils and trickeries to their shocked faces. Then, at the critical moment, before they seized him, Zlo used the command word he had heard from Olmot, and rained down frost and a storm of magical hail upon his family, killing them all save for his powerful grandfather, who Zlo was forced to backstab from the frosty mists with his father's own obsidian dagger which he had just recovered from the corpse.

Zlo Flees Ogo

Zlo then fled Ogo, going west, in the vain hope of discovering the ancient magical gateway of which the spirit had spoken. The warriors of Ogo soon followed the evil halfling, but Zlo soon realized the ring allowed him to walk on the waters of the rivers and streams he passed. He fled up the rivers themselves, and even the best of the halfling hunters could not track him.

With each night that he traveled, Zlo was haunted in his dreams by the powerful mind of Naulantis, the spirit from whom he had stolen the ring. The spirit itself also followed. When Zlo had reached the edge of the forest and the Ringing Mountains proper, the spirit appeared out of the waters and sent great waves and magic upon him. He might have been killed if not for the ring, but instead he managed to escape, and ran into the forest and into the night, where he knew a strong war party of halfling hunters was searching for him. Running into their midst to obscure himself from Naulantis, the vengeful spirit slew many of the warriors, whose weapons were useless against him. Zlo only hid, deep into the forest.

Realizing the spirit could only manifest at night, Zlo entered the mountains and the high snows, which the ring allowed him to navigate with relative ease. Several nights into the snows, the halfling encountered the spirit again. Zlo's mind was almost instantly crushed with the Way of the Unseen, with powerful waters blasting his mind, but the rogue at the last moment managed to use the ring, which summoned forth a storm of magical hail which in turn caused an avalanche that buried the spirit beneath a second tomb. Zlo fled into the night, half alive, and heard the terrible threats of the spirit, and saw its eldrich golden glow from the heights above. That was the last time Zlol actually saw the spirit, although it continued to haunt his mind long after these early days.

Zlo's adventures through the Ringing Mountains were many, and he nearly died a great many times.

Starving and near death, Zlo at last emerged from the Ringing Mountains weeks, perhaps even months, later. He happened upon unfortunate elf herdsmen, and slew one of them, and ate him, to regain his strength.

Knowing of his tribe's agreement with Urik, the only human city Zlo knew to exist in the modern world, Zlo found his way to the warlike city-state. There he found his kinsmen, who were yet ignorant of his crimes, telling them that he was to join their number, and that he needed their aid. They were suspicious, but gave him food and shelter in their special camp provided for them by the army of King Hamanu of Urik. Knowing his time was limited, Zlo found a defiler-sage, and traded some of Olmot's gold which Zlo had taken before he had fled Ogo in return for knowledge about the ring. Instead, Zlo was betrayed by the defiler, for the defiler had just learned from the halflings of Ogo that Zlo was wanted by them for his evil crimes. The defiler poisoned Zlo with a magical sedative tea, and took his magic ring. Zlo awoke in bondage in the defiler's hut, but the halfling twisted out of his rope fetters and fled.

The soldier-halflings of Urik hunted Zlo as the rogue fled further east, where Zlo nearly died in the extreme heat of the Athasian deserts. He found mercy from a passing merchant caravan just when he knew his kinsmen were drawing near to tracking him. Zlo paid the merchants with trinkets he had stolen from the defiler's lab for passage. They let Zlol aboard, but the halfling was once again betrayed, and thrown in wooden fetters, a slave.

Zlo arrived in Nibenay, but once again managed to escape. He stole and scavenged on the streets of Nibenay, and slew two street urchins in alleyways and fed upon them to regain his strength. Tenacious warrior-hunters from the Urikan halfling company somehow managed to trace Zlo however, and so once again Zlo fled, and even managed to slay one of his pursuers by backstabbing him and pushing him into the boiling water springs that surround Nibenay.

Zlo hunted and scavenged for many months, becoming a creature of the desert, and living in spaces beneath desert boulders, always fearful his kinsmen were still right behind him. In the desert, Urga-Zoltapl contacted him telepathically once, reminding Zlo that he had done nothing by his murders but add his family and other kinsmen as sacrifices to the Forest, and that he too would soon join the Forest. Alarmed, Zlo continued to move east.

Zlo in The City-state of Balic

Nearly dying once again from thirst and from the extreme cold of the open desert night, Zlo fell in one night with a party of bandits, pretending to befriend the useless giants while he stole precious water from them. He saw the eyes of his chief amidst the camp fire however, and fled.

Another year passed in the wastelands until Zlo arrived, his mind all but broken, at the gates of the city of Balic. Not knowing where he was, he slipped into the city and for the first time beheld the Silt Sea. After slaying another street urchin to regain his strength, Zlo pushed himself on a silt skimmer, working for free on the ship in return for room and board, hoping to use the ship to find the fallen city with its secret psionic gate. Zlo felt free on the Silt Sea, and when he was on it, the dark and watery dreams sent to him by Naulantis at last ceased. After some months as a member of her crew, Zlo left the silt skimmer and found work on a silt schooner, a psionicially empowered ship which floated over the silt and allowed passage into the depths of the Silt Sea. He did very well aboard the schooner, earning the praise of its captain. This ship travel far to the south, trading for precious woods, spices and rare foods from a strange people who lived on enormous fields of reeds in the middle of the Silt Sea.

Zlo and The White Sail

By now having learned the common tongue of humans and having earned a good reputation for himself, Zlo was able to become a member of the crew of the White Sail, a ship that was rumored to be piloted by an adventurous dwarven captain named Cassander who would go very deep into the Silt Sea, indeed deeper than most any other.

Zlo sailed with Cassander for the better part of a year. They went so far so as even to pass through the Great Ash Storm, an all but insurmountable permanent storm of silt which lies at the center of the Silt Sea. The dwarven captain navigated the barrier successfully, and Zlo has seen the land of the extreme east, a blasted volcanic continent of fires with almost no life of any sort. Yet he learned from Cassander that even this land was not the absolute furthest east, and indeed it was only a massive island in the middle of the Silt Sea. It was on the return of this voyage that Cassander landed at the extremely remote and strange Crimson Atoll. The Crimson Atoll is a village of wood and stone which floats on the Silt Sea by a continuous team of psionicists. Hoping to use the Atoll as a base to explore yet even further east, Zlo begged Cassander to let him stay aboard the Atoll, which the dwarven captain accepted.

Zlo earned his keep for a over a year as a sailor for various native ships of the Crimson Atoll. After a year, always paranoid about being persecuted telepathically once again, Zlo paid the psionicist Melenarchus to tutor him on how to harness the Way of the Unseen well enough to defend himself.

Zlo saw the otherworldly magical gate created by the dwarf Artan at the behest of Zhor of Tyr (see Artan). Zlo saw the magical ocean on the other side, but was unable to ever get on the Trilith to try and walk through.

After the recent raider attack upon the Crimson Atoll and the destruction of the magical gateway Trilith, Zlo once again saw the White Sail at the Atoll, and boarded her once again, believing he just was not sure where the ruined city Naulantis spoke of was.

Zlo was aboard the White Sail for nearly another year until she was sunk on 21 Octavus, Free Year 19...