Editing Kas-Turaaal (section)

=Arath'kar, City of Wonders=

Let me now speak, oh faithful, of Arath'kar, where all hopes may be made manifest and one's fondest desires may be purchased -- for a price. The usual, of course. Come now, you're not using that soul anyway, are you?


Far, far to the south of Calishar's towers and the cold wastes of the forbidding north, in an empire of sand, lies Arak'thar, jewel of the Great Desert, city of dreams, wonders and nightmare.


Yes, nightmare. For darkness dwells there, and unearthly hungers ripped forth from night's veil wander aimlessly through the city's glories and huddle against the daylight in cramped corridors never touched by the sun.


As one might imagine, Zayrthrax's Magick Sunscreen sells by the boatload in Arath'kar, for reasons only known to select merchants.


Since times long past, the city has been a place of marvels and prodigies, its roads paved with the riches of merchants and laden with the treasures of pilgrims who came to visit its many shrines to strange and alien gods. Its towering spires gleaming snow-white beneath an eternal ice-blue sky, are capped by canopies and finials of purest gold.


Vendors from all over the known world -- and some unknown worlds -- make their way to Arath'kar to sell their wares. Every imaginable treasure, every terrible poison, every bejewelled gnome-worrier, even delectable poundcakes from distant Calishar, eventually appears for sale on Arath'kar's teeming streets.


To see Arath'kar's marketplace is to be in a constant state of wonder. In fact, so overwhelming is the sight that newcomers suffer a 1d6 intelligence drain (save for half) until their third visit to or third day in the city. Natives are immune to this effect, having grown used to flying carpets, talking apes, djinni, efreeti, graffiti (magical, or course), magic rings, magic lamps, magic coffee-makers, magic pen and pencil sets, big-screen crystal balls and hideous idols brought back from the depths of the desert by gibbering madmen.


Prices are unreasonable. So are the vendors, who will chase down potential patrons, sometimes with vicious desert creatures if need be, to try to interest them in their latest acquisition. Most have purchased charms to make their sales pitches irresistible, although sometimes the items do backfire to humorous (and in a few cases, deadly) effect.


The magickal background noise of the various devices, creatures and other components of the city's day-to-day life causes regular surges of wild magic that provide much unexpected amusement for the Glittering Guard of Sultan Arkra ha Talib, a crack order of scimitar-wielding ruffians about two steps removed from the less-sanctioned ruffians they tend to combat.


Sometimes, strange creatures gate in because of the surges:


Guthar ha Azra: “Look! An incursion of giant-sized octopi.”


Urza ibn Lothkra: “What's an octopi?”


Guthar ha Azra: “Multi-armed things. Live in the ocean, so I'm told.”


Urza ibn Lothkra: “Oh. Well, since I grew up in a desert, what would I know? You're the one who traveled the seas on daddy's money. Before it ran out, of course.”


Guthar ha Azra: “I'll have you know ... Hmm. Should we stop them from eating that merchant?”


Urza ibn Lothkra: “Perhaps. Is it common for these .... octopi ... to fly?”


While there is much wonder to be had in Arath'kar, the real deals are not done in the marketplace. They are done in the shadows, and the shadows in Arath'kar are long indeed.


Though he appears daily before the faithful and appears to command immense power, Akra ha Talib is not the true ruler of Arath'kar. Its true lord and master has long secreted himself beneath the city in caverns ancient, deep and terrible.


The story of his coming coincides with the founding of Arath'kar itself.


Long before the city was built, while the land that it occupies was yet only desert, a young man wandered through the wastes prepared to die. Falling to the ground, he beat the merciless sands repeatedly and wailed long into the cold, dark night, finally falling into a fitful sleep.


And then, a strange thing happened.


The man awoke, clasping a lovely glass bottle in his hands. He opened it, and a djinni woman, her greenish-gold skin sparkling in the moonlight, her diaphanous clothing revealing much of her unearthly charms, emerged.


“So, like, I'm the djinni of the bottle,” she said. “Like, whatcha want?”


“Oh, great djinni, surely you are meant to be my salvation!” he said. “Surely the prophets have watched over me! Tell me, then, what powers you may bestow and boons grant.”


“Pretty much all I can do is make you a nice pudding,” she said.


“That's all?” the man said, incredulous. He paused to think.


“Well, I guess I am hungry,” he said at last. “Make me a nice pudding.”


The djinni sighed. “They never understand how this joke ends,” she said, shaking her head before turning the man into a mound of gelatinous goo.


Later, a much smarter person found the bottle, divined its contents, and then summoned up Grath'aalh, a Demon Lord of the Abyssal Reaches, trading the trapped djinni for a single wish of power and glory.


That man was Frith'kallah the Deathless, the first sultan of Arath'kar – and its only true sultan, ever.


“I wish to eternally rule over the greatest city in all the desert, built here on this very spot!” Frith'kallah told the Daemon Sultan. And so, he did. Arath'kar magically appeared from out of the trackless wastes, and soon great trains of people marched into the city's gleaming gates from all over the Great Desert. Their descendants have rarely left, and most return to the city once an almost irresistible longing for the home they once knew starts to gnaw at their very souls.


For years, Frith'kallah reigned in power and glory, but when his body aged and should have at long last died, Frith'kallah did not die. He only began slowly, slowly to change.


Now an ancient lich of terrific power, Frith'kallah the Deathless still rules through an endless stream of puppet sultans. He dispatches them when they displease him – and they often do. Thus, Arath'kar has had many, many sultans in its long life, some for only about a day. Frith'kallah particularly dislikes slackers.


While his puppets pull strings for him, he searches in vain for a way to restore himself to full humanity, absentmindedly forgetting that 1,000-year-old men don't tend to live all that long once restored to their correct chronological age(1). For the foreseeable future, though, he rules an underground kingdom of undead, served by mummified horrors, shambling zombies and a variety of trembling accountants spirited away beneath the earth to keep him appraised of his kingdom's financial strengths.


Frith'kallah only answers to his Demon Lord, who demands unholy sacrifices and lots of cold, hard cash from him quite regularly for his own evil devices. Frankly, Frith'kallah is getting kind of tired of the whole evil thing, but like most executives he doesn't want to give up the prestige


The subtle influence of Grath'aalh's bargain with the deathless sultan creates and air of corruption that falls upon all of those who live in Arath'kar. Greedy people become greedier. Gluttonous people glut themselves more often. Vain people become even more insufferable. It's kind of like Hollywood, but with better sets.


Some examples of the typical evil found within:


It is said that there once dwelled in city a young woman who sold curious trinkets, necklaces crafted from the crushed light of stars and rings carved from the bones of ancient gods. No two were alike, and each was of such exquisite beauty that those who gazed upon her works could think of little else until such magnificence was theirs. The few who paid the dazzling sum for her baubles often awoke the next day to find a wreath of dried leaves about their neck or a ring of dull iron encircling the finger a god's remains once adorned. Each night they would dream fitfully of the rapturous splendor that once lay cold and gleaming against their skin.


Later, she went into advertising. It was a natural progression.


Another tale is told of a pair of brothers, princes from lands to the north, each willing to pay a fortune in gold to be granted life without end. Through a mixture of curious and unwholesome elixirs distilled drop by drop by drop by an ancient sage who spoke only in riddles (long, annoying ones) and whose eyes were black as pitch, their dreams were at length fulfilled.


But such a blasphemy was their metamorphosis that the earth itself swallowed them once they crossed the barrier between life and eternity, sealing them in a chamber far beneath the city's smooth streets and shining domes.


It is whispered that they dwell beneath the ruins of the city still, never sleeping, awaiting the day when their gray and yellowed flesh and blazing eyes might once again cast upon the remains of the kingdoms they lost long ago, principalities now crumbled to ruin.


Not long from now, mayhap a few weeks hence, a certain merchant will break ground for his new shop to sell lovely fruits from far-distant lands. He has scrimped and saved all of his life, and Arath'kar's vile influence has only made him slightly more ambitious and driven to power than he very mildly was originally.


The spade of his workers' shovels will turn the earth one too many times, breaking an ancient seal of power. A shaft of sunlight shall penetrate the brothers' tomb for the first time in untold years.


All proving that the merchant really should have joined the traveling circus, as his dear dead mother suggested.


Thieves and assassins also make the city their home, led by Alahazam, the Slighty Spry Elderly Man of the Foothills. Making his lair in the sandy hills outside of the city, he regularly drugs promising candidates (usually with the help of a lovely hori or two) and brings them to his walled compound deep in the deser . Wakening from their slumber, the candidate is given all the women, drugs and Calisharian poundcake (2) they can eat. Believing themselves to be in the Promised Paradise of the Prophet Zarthan ibn Ali Ababwa, they pledge their lives to the service of the Elder's assassins. They know no fear. They do not even know how to spell it, once the brainwashing drugs thoroughly suffuse their systems – the true secret of their loyalty.


The land surrounding the city is also filled with strange monsters, oases haunted by unseen spirits, ancient tombs, crafty bands of robbers, and everything the game master might wish to place there.


(1) Thus implying that a good way to defeat the lich-lord would be to help him.
(2) Which is actually not that good without the Melville's Super-Goodness (MSG) spell first cast upon it. Then it's delicious!