The Wanderer's  Journal
Table of Contents

Chapter One: The World of Athas .......................2
Chapter Two: Athasian Society ........................ 8
Chapter Three: Athasian Geography ....................39
Chapter Four: Atlas of the Tyr Region ................67
Chapter Five: Monsters of Athas ......................84

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The Wanderer's  Journal
	I live in a world of fire and sand. The 
crimson sun scorches the life from anything 
that crawls or flies, and storms of sand scour 
the foliage from the barren ground. Lightning 
strikes from the cloudless sky, and peals of 
thunder roll unexplained across the vast 
tablelands. Even the wind, dry and searing as 
a kiln, can kill a man with thirst.
	This is a land of blood and dust, where tribes 
of feral elves sweep out of the salt plains to 
plunder lonely caravans, mysterious singing 
winds call men to slow suffocation in a Sea 
of Silt, and legions of slaves clash over a few 
bushels of moldering grain. The dragon 
despoils entire cities, while selfish kings 
squander their armies raising gaudy palaces 
and garish tombs.
	This is my home, Athas. It is an arid and 
bleak place, a wasteland with a handful of 
austere cities clinging precariously to a few 
scattered oases. it is a brutal and savage 
land, beset by political strife and monstrous 
abominations, where life is grim and short

Overview of the 
World
	Athas is a desert - sun-scorched and 
windscoured, parched and endless.
	From the first moments of dawn until the 
last twinkling of dusk, the crimson sun 
shimmers in the olive-tinged sky like a fiery 
puddle of blood. It climbs toward its zenith 
and the temperature rises relentlessly: 100 
degrees by midmorning, 110 at noon, 
130 - sometimes even 150 - by late 
afternoon.
	A man cannot drink fast enough to 
replenish the fluids he loses. As the days 
drag on, he feels sick and feeble. If he does 
not have enough water, he grows too weak to 
move. His mouth becomes dry and bitter, his 
lips, tongue, and throat grow swollen. Before 
long, his blood is thick and gummy. His heart 
must work hard to circulate it. Finally his 
system overheats, leaving him dead and 
alone in the sands.
The wind does little to help matters. As 
hot as a
2
forge's  breath, it blows up sandstorms that last 50 
days at a stretch, speeding the evaporation 
of water from skin and soil alike. A storm 
can darken the sky at high noon, carrying so 
much sand that it reduces visibility to a pace.
	Breezes on Athas are suffocating and 
dust-laden, caking everything they touch with 
yellow-orange silt, spoiling food, and filling 
a man's  eyes with pasty mud. Even still days 
are perilous. Columns of superheated air can 
rush upward in terrific whirlwinds, carrying 
dust, plants, and men to great heights - then 
suddenly dying away and leaving their 
reluctant passengers to fall to a horrible 
death.
	As dangerous as it is, the wind is merely 

an inconvenience when compared to the 
greatest danger of Athas - the lack of water. 
In most places, it rains no more than once a 
year. In some places it only rains once in ten 
years, and the only available water lies in 
brackish, mineral-crusted oasis ponds. Aside 
from a handful of streams that trickle less 
than fifty miles before drying up, there is not 
a single river on the planet - though I have 
crossed plenty of ancient bridges and know 
that rivers were once common. What the world 
was like in those days, I cannot imagine.
	l have already noted what the lack of water 
can mean to a thirsty man, but the dry 
climate affects Athas in other ways. it allows 
the sun to shine down unreflected on the 
barren ground, which is why it grows so hot 
during the day.
	At night, the low humidity has the opposite 
effect. The day's  heat escapes into the sky, 
plunging the temperature to 40 degrees or 
less - and in the mountains, even to zero.
	As far I as can tell, all parts of Athas share 
the blazing sun, the dangerous winds, and the 
lack of water. Nothing I have seen in my own 
explorations or heard from the hundreds of travelers 
I have interviewed points to any other 
conclusion. Athas is an endless wasteland, 
spotted by tiny oases of fecundity, inhabited 
by brutal predators. it is, for all intents and 
purposes, a land of mortal desolation. 
The World of Athas
	Though the picture I have painted so far is 
of a stark and rugged land, I do not mean to 
say that Athas is dreary or monotonous. To 
the contrary, it has a majestic and stark 
beauty. When first light casts its emerald 
hues over the Sea of Silt, or when sunset 
spreads its bloody stain over the Ringing 
Mountains, there is a certain feral beauty that 
stirs the untamed heart in all of us. It is a call 
to take up spear and net, to flee the city, to 
go and see what lurks out in the barrenness.
General Geography
	The description that follows is what, over 
the years, I have pieced together about the 
geography of our world. There are many 
omissions, and no doubt dozens of errors, for 
my information is gathered from travelers, 
merchants, and explorers - some of whom no 
doubt felt that it was in their best interest
to mislead me wherever 
possible.
	Nevertheless, certain broad outlines do 
emerge. Athas, or at least the explored 
portion, consists of about one million square 
miles of desert. In its center, covering an area 
of about 120,000 square miles, is a vast, 
dust-filled basin that I call the Sea of Silt. 
Because of travel difficulties to be discussed 
later, the Sea of Silt remains almost entirely 
unexplored.
	Surrounding this dry sea is a band of 
Tablelands, ranging from as much as 400 
miles wide to as little as 50. The Tablelands 
consist of many types of terrain: golden 

dunes, stony barrens, dust sinks, white salt 
flats, rocky badlands, and plains of 
yellow-green scrub-brush.
	This is where civilization - if you can call 
it that -  still lingers. Scattered across these 
flatlands are tiny oases of life where a few 
acres of fertile land supports a grain field, 
sometimes even a forest. Clinging to
3
The World of Athas
these oases are the disorderly jumbles of 
buildings and people that we know as cities. 
Though each city reflects the personality of 
the king that rules it, all are precariously 
balanced at the edge of starvation, barely 
scratching enough food from their small plots 
of land to support their populations.
	The Tablelands are encircled by the 
various ranges of the Ringing Mountains. 
These ranges all run north and south. To the 
east and west of the Sea of Silt, the 
mountains form solid walls separating the 
tablelands from the unknown regions beyond. 
To the north and south of the dusty sea, they 
form a series of parallel ribs. The deep 
valleys between the ridges lead away from 
central Athas like a series of long (and 
hazardous) corridors.

	In every direction, beyond the mountains 
lie the Hinterlands. We have little knowledge 
of what abides there. Many men have set out 
to explore the depths of this unknown region, 
but I have never met one who returned. 
During the one journey that I undertook to 
view just the edge of the Hinterland, an 
invisible braxat carried off my companions, a 
tribe of halflings tried to eat me, and a silk 
wyrm hounded my trail for over a week. It is 
a wonder that I returned at all.
Athasian Culture
	Although Athas is a wasteland, it is not an 
empty wasteland. The world is fairly 
crawling with humans, demihumans and 
humanoids. Every group has found a 
different way to survive in this barren and 
harsh environment. In general, I have found 
that all cultures seem to fall into one of 
seven basic categories. There are city 
dwellers, villagers, merchant caravan 
dynasties, herdsmen, raiders, 
hunter-gatherers, and hermits.
The cities, surrounded by golden fields of 
crops,
 stand at sizable oases. They are bustling 
enclaves of humanity stinking of garbage and 
ringing with the supplications of beggars. 
Their tawny towers of fired brick rise from 
behind thick stone ramparts designed to lock 
the residents inside as well as keep

4
strangers out. In the center of every city, a 
powerful sorcerer-king lives inside a secure 
fortress, ruling his subjects through a 
sophisticated hierarchy of bureaucrats, 

nobles, and rapacious clergymen. Each city 
is a state unto itself, its king wielding 
absolute authority over every living thing 
inside its walls and crawling through its 
fields.
	Villages are no more than clusters of 
mud-brick shelters erected at-minor oases in 
various forlorn places, such as the edge of a 
salt flat or in the shelter of a rocky overhang. 
Depending on their nature, they are ruled by 
officious bureaucrats, minor despots, or, occasionally, 
even democratic councils. At best, they are 
semipermanent. Sooner or later, the dragon 
comes calling, the oasis dries up, or a tribe 
of raiders sweeps out of the wastes. Within a 
few years of such an event, all traces of the 
village are buried beneath a massive sand 
dune or carried away by the howling wind.
	The dynastic merchant houses are 
sophisticated trading companies with 
networks extending many hundreds of miles, 
transcending political boundaries, and 
spanning all social classes. Their trading 
posts are found on bleak peninsulas jutting 
into the Sea of Silt, or in box canyons 
located high in the Ringing Mountains. A 
sporadic stream of cargo runs from these 
outposts to the cities, carrying the goods with which 
the houses stock their vast bargaining 
emporiums. Each house may have facilities 
in a number of cities. Most are owned by 
single families and passed on from 
generation to generation.
	Nomadic herdsmen wander the scrub 
plains, stony barrens, and sand dunes, 
pausing for a week or two wherever there is 
pasture enough for their flocks to graze. 
Their bands are usually small, consisting of 
five to ten extended families (50-150 
individuals), for their harsh way of life will 
not support large populations. Most 
herdsman have fiercely independent spirits, 
governing themselves through a council of 
elders. Usually, a magic wielding patriarch 
serves as the leader of this council.
Wherever something is worth stealing, 
there are 

The World of Athas

raiding tribes. These bands of despicable 
cutthroats live by pillaging caravans, 
poaching nomad flocks, and plundering 
helpless villages. They are cowards who 
make their homes in desolate places 
protected by wide expanses of salt flats or 
great tracts of rocky badlands. Their 
warlords are ruthless and tough, taking and 
holding their positions through violence and 
treachery.
	The primitive hunting and gathering clans 
have the most versatile cultures. You'll 
encounter them anywhere: hunting snakes in 
the salt flats, gathering roots in the stony 
barrens, even stealing eggs from nests 
perched high atop mountainous crags. They 
live in small groups of three or four 
immediate families, usually numbering no 

more than twenty individuals.
	Hermits have withdrawn from a society, 
either by choice or through coercion. They 
are peculiar individuals who reside at 
isolated oases and scratch out a meager 
living, either by subsistence farming or 
through limited hunting. Hermits live in all 
parts of Athas, though you won't meet many 
because they avoid contact with most 
strangers.
Supernatural 
Forces
	The world is full of powers beyond those 
that common men can master. As a rule, they 
are grouped into three categories clerical 
magic, wizardry, and psionics. Each plays an 
important part in the cycle of life and death 
on Athas.
Clerical Magic
	On Athas, there are several different types 
of clerics. Each of them pays homage to one 
of the four elemental forces - air, earth, fire, 
or water. Of course, the latter are perhaps the 
most influental on our thirsty world, but all are 
powerful and worthy of respect.
	Another group of people call themselves 
the druids and, at least by most accounts, are 
considered to be clerics. Druids are special 
in that they do not pay tribute to any single 
elemental force, but

rather work to uphold the dying life force of 
Athas. They serve nature and the planetary 
equilibrium. Many people consider it a lost 
cause, but no druid would ever admit that.
	In some cities, the sorcerer-king is 
glorified as if he were some sort of immortal 
being. In fact, many such rulers are actually 
able to bestow spell-casting abilities upon 
the templars who serve them. Are they truly 
on par with the elemental forces worshipped 
by clerics? I think not.

Wizardry
	The magic of wizards is different from that 
of the clerical orders. it converts the energy 
of life into magical power that the sorcerer 
shapes into spells. If this is done with respect 
for the life forces of the world and care is 
taken to balance the net loss of energy with 
the net gain of magic, there are no adverse 
effects. In most cases, wizards take great 
care to guard the vitality of the world when 
casting their spells and working their 
enchantments.
	For others, however, the long-term drain on 
Athas, ecology is meaningless. They care 
little for the life force that is lost when they 
spin their webs of magic. The dark souls, 
called Defilers, drain the power for their 
spells from the world around them. Plants 
near them whither and once fertile soil turns 
to sterile ash under their macabre power. 
Most of Athas, sorcererkings are Defilers of 
the highest power.
Psionics

	To one extent or another, every human and 
demihuman on Athas has psionic powers. 
Most people are wild talents, with only one 
power that they have learned to use by trial 
and error. But anyone can harness their 
psionic powers through careful practice and 
study, and every city has at least one training 
hall dedicated to teaching "the way of the 
mind." Many warriors, templars, and 
sorcerers have attended these academies and 
developed powerful psionic abilities in addition to 
their normal talents. 
	Psionic powers are not magic. The user 
focuses his effort inward rather than outward, 
drawing upon natural forces that infuse his 
own being rather than those that imbue the 
world around him. Thus, the widespread use 
of such mental abilities does not further- 
enhance the degradation of our battered 
Athas.
History
	What generally passes for the history of 
Athasis in my opinion, a jumble of folklore 
and propaganda. Most people are too concerned 
with the problems of the present to devote 
themselves to the lessons of the past. The 
few who have any interest in history are the 
flattering lackeys of kings undertaking the 
project to glorify their sovereign. The 
resulting chronicles are implausible fables or 
mutually incompatible fabrications, and 
never should you trust what you hear in 
them.
	Still, we can glean something from these 
jaded annals. The authors of the kingly 
histories stumble over their own words in 
their efforts to flatter their monarchs, but we 
know from the sheer number of their 
chronicles that most city-states are thousands 
of years old. The same sorcerer-king rules 
over the city for spans of hundreds of years, 
sometimes for more than a thousand. There 
are even cases where the current sovereign is 
credited with founding the city.
	As incredible as such claims sound, do not 
discredit them too readily. It is certain that 
powerful sorcerers live for centuries, and I 
know of no king that has died in my lifetime, 
or that of my father or his father.
	Yet, the sorcerer-kings do die. I know of at 
least two deserted city-states. A monarch 
ruled each one, so there were once at least 
two more sorcerer-kings than now inhabit the 
world. We can only assume that the magic 
keeping them alive failed - or that another 
king killed them. In either case, the deserted 
cities are further evidence that Athas itself is 
dying. If the world were healthy, new 
metropolises would rise to replace those that had 
fallen into waste.
Turning from political histories to folklore, 
who
has not heard a bard's  sonorous voice sing 
the marvels of the world before ours? The 
lyrics speak of a land of plenty, with grass 
on every hill and water in every draw. Fields 

of barley and whey stretched for miles, and 
there were so many sheep that the herds 
could not be counted. Proud forests of oak 
and maple covered the wild lands, and men 
were the masters of the beasts.
	These ballads sing the praises of warriors 
who fought not for food or entertainment, but 
for honor glory, and lady love. The kings in 
these songs were noble warriors who fought 
terrible beasts and waged righteous wars in 
defense of their subjects. Clearly, they were 
men who placed the needs of their domains 
above their own desires and cravings.
	Most Athasians regard these tales as 
fanciful flights, mere diversions from the toil 
and misery that is their life. As far as the 
individual songs are concerned, their attitude 
is no doubt correct, for every singer 
exaggerates the story to heighten the drama. 
In sum, however, there may be a kernel of 
truth to the ancient lyrics and ballads.
	The world abounds with the ruins of these 
forgotten kingdoms. Who has not marveled at 
the archaic walls of a lost city snaking from 
beneath a mountainous sand dune? Who has 
not stopped at a rocky aerie to wonder at the 
aged ruins of the castle perched on the 
summit? Who has ever crossed an ancient 
stone-paved road without speculating as to 
where it once led?
	If you have ever asked yourself even one 
of these questions, then you feel in your 
heart what I have accepted as true: Athas is 
a barbaric shadow of some better world. 
Like men, the elves, dwarves, halflings, and 
all the demihuman races are but brutal 
descendants of worthier ancestors. The 
dragon, the lions, and the other great beasts 
are horrible abominations of their noble 
progenitors. Even the plants, such as the 
blood-blossomed tamarisks, are deadly scions of the 
foliage that once blanketed the land. The 
essence of every living thing, from the 
highest to the lowest, has been warped in 
some 
grotesque way that makes it more vicious, 
more cunning, and more terrifying than its 
forbearers.
	I have no idea what caused this atrocious 
transformation. Perhaps it was the law of 
nature, for in a savage land, only the savage 
will survive. Perhaps it was the influence of 
a sinister power, as yet unknown and unseen. 
Perhaps, as some say, the dragon itself
is at the heart of the 
matter.
	If we can discover the truth, we may yet 
attain the glory of the ancients. Somewhere 
out there, buried beneath tons of sand and 
dust, lost in centuries of fire and blood, is an 
Athas that we have never known: a world of 
abundance and splendor, where honor is as 
precious as water. 

	In my travels I have found that Athas is a 
world of clashing cultures. Primitive hunters 
stalk their prey into a city's  barley fields, and 
are in turn hunted down by outraged nobles. 
Nomadic herders clog the trading roads with 
their unruly flocks, slowing even the fastest 
merchant caravan to a crawl. To keep from 
being massacred in their sleep, villagers 
working the mines of the Ringing Mountains 
buy off feral halfling tribes with worthless 
glass baubles.
	On Athas, there are as many different 
societies as there are groups of people. Each 
has found a different key to survival in this 
harsh world. Sometimes these different bands 
coexist peacefully; more often, they clash 
whenever they meet.
	Surprisingly, all of these societies are 
shaped by the same four forces: barrenness, 
shortage of metal, psionics, and magic. If 
you understand how any society deals with 
these forces, you will understand the society 
itself.
Barrenness
	The basic necessities of life are scarce on 
Athas. This means that every society must 
devote itself to attaining food and 
safeguarding its water supply.
	Hunting tribes spend three-quarters of their 
time looking for quarry, to say nothing of 
killing it and preparing it to eat. At the same 
time, they cannot stray too far from water, for 
they need plenty of liquid to digest their diet 
of meat. When the game roams away into 
unknown deserts, they must often choose 
between starving to death or dying of thirst.
	The lives of the herders are no easier. 
They spend their days driving their flocks of 
erdlus across the vast wastes in search of good 
grazing and ample water. When they are 
lucky enough to find good pasture, they wage 
a constant battle to protect their flightless 
birds, for few predators can resist the 
temptation of downing a two-hundred pound 
erdlu or stealing an egg from its clutch.
	City dwellers have the most certain means 
of existence, but also the hardest lives. In the 
fields around the cities, whole legions of 
slaves toil to raise a few
meager crops. Thousands of soldiers patrol 
these farms day and night, killing scavengers 
and raiders without pause. Even then, most 
cities suffer frequent famines and must resort 
to food wars in order to keep their 
populations from withering away.

	Given the importance of food and water on 
Athas, it shouldn't surprise any of us that 
whoever controls the food and water forms 
an elite class. The best stalkers, the wisest 
herders, or the people who own the farms 
and wells are always influential and 
politically powerful members of the 
community.
Metal
	Metal isn't strictly necessary for any 

Athasian culture to survive, but it's  a great 
benefit to those that have it. Hunters know 
that metal arrowheads and spearheads are 
sharper and more enduring than those made 
of stone or bone. With metal shoes, herders 
can protect the feet of their mounts from the 
rigors of the desert wastes. City dwellers use 
metal to fashion tools that make 
backbreaking farm work easier and more 
efficient. Metal even facilitates commerce 
between societies, for merchants and traders 
use it as a universal currency.
	Unfortunately, metals are rare. In my 
voyages I have been lucky enough to 
actually see the iron mines of Tyr, something 
few outsiders are ever permitted to do. They 
are grand affairs with hundreds of slaves 
toiling to bring scant traces of metal to the 
surface. I have come to the conclusion that 
the ancient societies would have considered 
this mine too worthless to operate. In our 
age, however, it is a treasure grove that has 
provided the sorcerer-king of Tyr with 
wealth and power almost unmatched in the 
world.
	The scarcity of metal retards commerce on 
Athas. Without an abundance of currency, 
we must often resort to barter - a 
cumbersome affair when a merchant must 
haul both the goods he sells and those he 
receives in exchange over great distances.
	The scarcity of resources hampers 
industrial and economic development as 
well. In Tyr, one maltreated but 
better-equipped slave accomplishes twice
8
Athasian Society
what his well-fed counterparts do in cities 
like Urik and Balic. The only reason for this 
is that his tools are better. Mills and 
workshops that are able to glean a handful of 
metal tools almost always have an edge on 
their competitors.
	In war, the advantages of metal are also 
plain. Tyr's  army has never numbered more 
than ten thousand, but its elite units are 
composed of highly trained men, each of 
whom carries a steel sword and an 
iron-tipped javelin. Often it has destroyed an 
army five times its size that was armed with 
bone battle axes or even obsidian-edged 
sabers!
	Who can doubt that Athas would be a very 
different place with an abundance of metal? 
Commerce would be easier and less 
hazardous, slaves more efficient, wars 
quicker and more decisive.
	As I have stated earlier, it is my belief that 
metal was not always scarce on Athas. For 
the last few centuries, our main source has 
been debris from the ruins of ancient castles 
and cities. Apparently, our ancestors 
devoured Athas, ore supply, leaving to us 
little but their scrap. Now, even that meager 
supply is all but exhausted, and with it fades 
the ghost of civilization. There are those who 

say that our cultures and technologies can 
survive without metal. but I believe that they 
are wrong.
	Still, lucky treasure hunters have been 
known to return from a ruin with a hoard of 
steel swords and shields, providing they are 
resourceful enough and brave enough to 
explore ruins that others have missed or been 
too frightened to enter.
	I have heard tales that suits of clothing 
fashioned from metal have even been found 
from time to time. It is generally agreed that 
these were worn by warriors to protect 
against the blows of enemy weapons. I can 
only speculate that the climate must have 
been far cooler in those ancient days. Any 
fool that would wear such clothing now 
would die faster from heat stroke than he 
would have from the weapons of his foes. 
Still, the idea that there was once enough 
metal in the world to allow such a garment to 
have been manufactured astounds me.
9
	There are even rumors that mounds of 
steel, silver, and gold lie hidden in the 
deepest tunnels of certain forlorn cities. I 
have never seen such a thing myself, but if 
such treasures exist, they will reward those 
who find them most handsomely. Those who 
control such stores of metal can buy food, 
power, influence, and sometimes even the 
sorcerer-king's  protection.

Psionics

	From the lowliest slave to the most 
powerful sorcerer-king, psionics pervade all 
levels of Athasian society. Virtually every 
individual has some mental ability, although 
in many the true strength of their psionic 
potential remains unrealized.
	Each culture values its psionic members. 
To the raiding tribes, individuals with 
clairvoyance are especially useful for 
locating targets. The nomads, for example, 
value an individual who can pinpoint the 
band's position in the desert.
	Psionic powers are not always beneficial. 
They tend to be destabilizing and turbulent. 
There are always thieves who will use their 
psychokinesis to steal the property of a 
fellow tribesmen, and power hungry nobles 
who send assassins trained in 
psychometabolism to murder their rivals. 
Rebellious subjects can always find a use for 
nearly any psionic ability, and in seemingly 
peaceful villages, many sordid and 
disgraceful acts are carried out behind 
curtains of psionic deception.
	Considering the potential psionic offer 
powers for amassing power and wealth, it 
should not surprise you that most cities have 
at least one school devoted to the Way~of 
the Mind. These schools are run by masters 
of the psionic arts, often with the stated 
purpose of helping the individual better 

understand his own potential and the 
responsibilities it entails. In reality, they are 
usually expensive academies for the sons 
and daughters of the wealthy, designed to 
develop the student's  psionic powers to their 
full potential - with the explicit goal of 
gaining an advantage over their political 
rivals in later life. It is no 
Athasian Society
wonder that, in many cities, such school are 
carefully licensed by the sorcerer-king. 
Sometimes, they are even banned altogether, 
though this merely forces the schools to 
disguise themselves and does nothing to 
eliminate them.
	Psionics has often been called a great 
equalizer in the brutal world of Athas, for it 
gives even the most physically weak 
individual a chance to compete and survive. 
If anything can compensate for the gradual 
deterioration of our world s vital energies, it will be the 
power of the mind.
Magic
	Magic is arguably the mightiest force in 
Athas. Those wielding it call fire storms out 
of a calm sky, change one object into 
another, or kill enemies with a mere gesture. 
They dictate the wills of entire mobs, make 
the dead walk, and have even been known to 
stop time. Magic can expose traitors, destroy 
rivals, and exact unquestioning obedience 
from subjects. it can also conceal secret 
activities, uncover the king's  spies, be used 
to assassinate royal officers, and foster 
general rebellion.
Life Energy and 
Magic
	Casting a magical spell requires energy. 
The power for a spell must come from 
somewhere, and there are two means of 
fueling one's  magical endeavors on Athas. 
One is harsh and destructive, furthering the 
downward spiral of life on our world. The 
other is positive and beneficial, halting the 
effects of this ecological entropy for a while. 
Those who employ the first type of magic are 
called Defilers, while those who employ the 
latter variety are Preservers.
	Defilers learn to draw magic from the land, 
but not the art of replacing it. Because it is 
this latter aspect of magic that is most 
difficult to master, they learn spells and 
advance in their art far more quickly than 
their counterparts. Defilers are a blight upon 
our world. They are the fiends who have de

10
stroyed Athas, and the reason that most 
decent folk - especially farmers and 
herders - will take up arms to drive any 
wizard, Defiler or not, from their midst.
	When the life energy of foliage is 
converted into magical spells, the soil in 
which the plants were growing becomes 
sterile. In most cases, it stays barren for 
decades. The spark of life can be returned to 

the ground through hard work and tender 
care, but few people can afford to take the 
time required to do so.
	Preservers reinvigorate the soil after they 
drain it to power their spells. As Preservers 
learn their craft, they also learn to rekindle 
the spark of life. When they cast a spell, they 
replace what they have taken through a 
combination of natural and mystical 
processes (such as by working compost into 
the soil or by performing the Rite of Blood in 
the field they have drained). Preservers learn 
their spells and master their art more slowly 
than Defilers, for they must learn to give as 
well as take. Unfortunately, Preservers are 
scarce compared to Defilers, and it is a rare 
person who understands the difference 
between the two.

The Veiled 
Alliance
	Because magic is so powerful, every ruler 
controls it tightly. For the most part, it is 
impossible to maintain control of a populace 
dotted with numerous psionic individuals if 
one is not also a wizard. Thus, nearly every 
ruler on Athas is a wizard of some type, 
usually a Defiler.
	Sorcerer-kings send their agents to destroy 
potential rival wizards hiding within their 
cities. Nomad witch-lords banish rival mages 
to the unforgiving sands of the desert. 
Halfling chiefs exterminate followers who 
show any sign of control over the 
supernatural. Even otherwise timid hermits 
have been known to risk their lives in an 
effort to make sure that no wizard enters 
their territory.
	Despite their efforts, leaders seldom 
monopolize magic. There are always at least 
a few individuals in any society who 
practice it secretly. Of course, these 
Athasian Society

powerful people are almost always the 
hand-picked, loyal followers of the leader.
	In most cities (and many villages, tribes, 
and clans), there are secret leagues of 
Preservers called the Veiled Alliance. The 
Veiled Alliances are confederations of 
Preservers working together to protect their 
members from assassination and harassment 
by sorcerer-kings and other lieges. The 
members work together to shield each other's 
identities from the authorities or to help those 
who have been discovered to escape 
persecution. They are often involved in plots 
to overthrow their oppressive overlords.
	The Preservers with whom I have spoken 
say that there are only two drawbacks to 
belonging to a Veiled Alliance. First, 
membership is permanent. When you join 
one of these secret organizations, you pledge 
to uphold its charter until death. Anyone 
failing in this pledge is cast out, and the 
alliance assigns one of its members (usually 

someone experienced in such matters) to 
assassinate the outcast. This seems rather 
severe to those of us in the ranks of the 
uninitiated, but it is a condition of affiliation 
that all members agree to when they join the 
alliance.
	Second, all Veiled Alliances require that 
their members be Preservers and not 
Defilers. The reason for this is practical, not 
idealistic: even a few mages will decimate a 
small area if they do not practice their art 
responsibly. Any violation of this principle 
always results in the banishment (and 
subsequent execution) of the Defiler.
	From what I can tell, although each league 
goes by the same name, they are in fact 
separate organizations. Most follow the two 
principles outlined above, and will extend 
their protection to a member of an alliance 
from another city (providing adequate
 
Athasian Society
proof of affiliation is provided). At the same 
time, they must be on constant watch for 
spies, for most rulers will stop at nothing to 
uncover and destroy an alliance operating 
within their territory. For this reason, 
punishments are sure and swift in any Veiled 
Alliance. Everyone with whom I have spoken 
agrees that it is better to err on the side of 
security than to risk exposing the entire 
society.
The Worst 
Scourge
	As bad as they are, Defilers are not the 
worst of magic's  blights. Compared to the 
dragon, even sorcerer-kings are babes toying 
with a dimly understood gift. The dragon wields 
sorcery powerful enough to crush entire cities, 
and so destructive that we must measure the 
devastation caused by its spells in square 
miles.
	Anything that crawls or walks or flies 
trembles at the mere sight of the horrid beast, 
for the dragon draws its magical energy from 
animal life. When it casts its spells, any 
creature from whom it draws energy 
collapses in its tracks, dying before it hits the 
ground. In addition, the dragon can store 
magical energy in its body for use at a later 
time. This gives it the freedom to use its 
spells in even the most barren of wastes and 
the incentive to roam over wide expanses of 
desert in search of food.

	Being a wanton user Off magic, the dragon 
preys upon anything that can feed its 
ravenous appetite for energy. When the 
horrid beast is about, caravans of withered 
corpses line the trading routes. Whole herds 
of desiccated erdlus rest alongside their 
shepherds in blackened fields of dead 
saltbrush. Entire villages lie smashed and 
flattened, the bodies of the inhabitants strewn 
about the streets like refuse. No society, from 
the smallest family of hunters to the largest, 

most crowded city-state, is safe from the 
dragon.
The City States

 Each city state is different. Its laws, 
customs,

12
economy, architecture, and general culture vary 
according to the tastes of the city's  ruler and 
the needs dictated by survival.

	In austere Balic, where hungry giants raid 
semiweekly, every citizen is a skilled and 
fearless soldier. At the other extreme is 
decadent Tyr, where slaves outnumber 
citizens two-to-one. Gulg can hardly be called a city 
at all, lacking a single stone building and 
standing hidden behind a wall of thorny 
hedges and poisonous vines.
	Despite each city's  unique character, 
however, they all respond to the rigors of 
barren Athas by organizing in the same 
general manner. Perhaps this is an accident 
of history, or perhaps survival mandates this 
type of organization; I don't pretend to know. 
All I can say is that this is what I have seen 
in my travels.
The Sorcerer 
Kings
	Every city is led by a king. He (or she) 
may be addressed as "Magnate" in one place 
and "Vizier" in another, but is always the 
absolute dictator of his subjects.
	Kings are at the top of the social order. 
They live near the center of the city in a 
fortified palace bustling with minor officials. 
When a potentate finds it necessary to leave 
his palace, he does so only with a great deal 
of preparation and pomp, well-protected by 
magic and his full bodyguard. If this cannot 
be arranged, he will not leave (except in the 
most dire of emergencies). The last thing any 
king of Athas wants is to walk unprotected 
among his subjects.
	Almost without exception, every king is a 
powerful Defiler who has risen to his 
position through the unprincipled use of 
magical and psionic abilities. All monarchs 
jealously guard the use of magic and employ 
a sizable force of templars whose sole duty it 
is to ferret out and execute unauthorized 
Preservers. In every city that I have visited, 
the kings are especially anxious to infiltrate 
agents into the Veiled Alliance, as an 
organization of Preservers presents a viable 
challenge to their magical power base. 
	Every king uses his magic to prolong his 
life, and most have reigned for hundreds of 
years. Many have reigned for more than a 
thousand years, and one or two are even 
credited with founding their ancient cities.
	The king is sometimes considered his city's 
deity. His priests force the citizens to build 
temples to the king and lead them in 
pompous ceremonies of worship. Sometimes, 

the nobles and a few wealthy citizens 
consider the king their benefactor. Never, 
however, are other classes misled by such 
pretensions. The merchants see the king for 
what he is - a center of political and magical 
power that must be appeased if they are to 
continue their commerce in his city. If the 
ranks of slaves see the king as a god, it is 
certainly as an evil and corrupt one that 
keeps them in bondage and makes a misery 
of their lives.
	In return for his exalted position and 
unlimited authority, the king has the duty to 
administer justice, protect the citizens from 
famine and crime, and safeguard the city 
from external attack. In practice, these 
gluttonous monarchs spend most of their 
effort protecting their power base and seeing 
to their own comfort. Justice tends to be 
self-serving and arbitrary, and the king's 
agents are so corrupt that they often ignore 
crime altogether - providing the criminal 
pays them a large enough bribe.
	All kings take the matter of famine 
seriously, how ever. When a city's 
population starves, one of two things happen: 
a terrible revolt breaks out or disease and 
pestilence run rampant through the streets. In 
either case, the slave population plummets. 
Untended fields go barren, fortifications fall 
into disrepair, and the city grows weak. 
Therefore, most kings take quick and 
decisive action when famine begins: they 
raise armies and go to another city-state, 
steal its food, and replenish their supply of 
slaves.
	Because starting a war is the typical 
response to a city's  internal problems, I have 
never heard of a sorcerer-king who does not 
take the matter of security from external 
attack seriously. All kings maintain standing 
armies, they usually have some large defen-
sive project under construction, and I have 
heard that they devote most of their magical 
research to developing spells to fend off 
enemy armies. In fact, most cities are so well 
defended that it is impossible to criticize any 
sorcerer-king on this basis.
The Templars
	Templars are clergymen devoted to the 
sorcererking of their city. Like other priests, 
they are granted spells in return for their 
worship. Unlike true priests, who draw their 
power from the elemental forces of the 
world, Templars tap into the magical forces 
of their sorcerer-king. When a templar 
beseeches his monarch for a spell, the 
sorcerer-king grants the request by 
employing his own mystical energy to power 
the templar's  magic. Because of the strain 
this places on both the sorcerer-king and the 
surrounding land, young templars do not ask 
for (or receive) many spells. As close 
personal servants of the sorcerer-king, 
however, high-ranking templars have greater 
access to magic than one might expect.


	These greedy templars dominate the king's 
bureaucracy. Although each city organizes 
its agencies differently, every bureaucracy is 
steeped in ancient traditions designed to 
promote the organization's  welfare and keep 
it tied closely to the monarch. Templar 
bureaus tend to be permeated by 
intradepartmental treachery and embroiled in 
external political intrigues with other 
agencies of the city s bureaucracy.
	As agents of their monarch's will, templars 
are feared and despised by common 
city-dwellers - with good reason, if you ask 
me. These priests abuse their positions 
steadily, enforcing the king's edicts with 
spiteful indifference, taking bribes, and 
dealing out unjust punishments to anyone 
who objects. Generally, complaints about the 
bureaucracy's corruption fall on deaf ears, 
for the templars are any sorcerer-king's best 
means of maintaining a stranglehold on the 
population.
	Templars are the guardians of reading and 
writing. Because knowledge is power, and the 
most effi
13
cient way of passing on knowledge is through 
writing, no one but templars and nobles are 
permitted to read and write. One of the most 
sacred duties of the templar bureaucracy is 
to prevent the knowledge of this art from 
spreading beyond their own ranks and that of 
the nobility. Most kings have authorized them 
to execute on the spot anyone else 
demonstrating any knowledge of these 
critical skills.
	Templars are commonly recruited from the 
offspring of other templars, or from the ranks 
of freemen. Technically, a member of the 
nobility may also join the king's 
bureaucracy, but most aristocrats consider 
such positions beneath their honor.
The Nobility
	The nobles control the farms and the water 
of the cities. Usually, each noble family 
picks a senior member to sit on a 
parliamentary council. In theory, these 
councils act as advisory bodies to the 
monarchs, but in reality they are little more 
than administrative bodies through which the 
king passes his commands to the aristocracy.
	It is not rare, however, for the interests of 
the nobles to be opposed to those of the 
templars and/or the kings. On such 
occasions, the advisory councils sometimes 
find the courage to voice their opposition. 
When this happens, a flurry of political 
assassinations usually follows. Most people 
assume that these assassinations are carried 
out by the templars on their own initiative or 
at the king's request.
	Though the nobles sometimes gather the 
courage to oppose the templars, or even the 
king, don't make the mistake of believing that 
they have the best interests of the city 

populace at heart. As a class, they are 
interested only in preserving their hereditary 
land rights, and they form the largest block of 
slave-owners in any city.
	No matter how opposed the nobles might 
be to the king's policies, they can always be 
counted on to protect the city (as invasion 
would strip them of their landed rights). For 
this reason, every family is allowed to 
maintain a standing army of slave soldiers,
14
with the young men of the family serving as 
officers. In an emergency, the king can freely 
call upon these armies to supplement his 
own troops.
	As you might expect, the nobles 
sometimes turn their armies on each other or 
the templars, but never the sorcerer-king. 
The king's magic is usually more than 
sufficient to deal with the use of force, and 
any family foolish enough to challenge him 
in such an obvious fashion suffers terrible 
consequences.
	Like the templars, the nobles are permitted 
to read and write, and they are usually 
equally vigilant about protecting this critical 
secret.
The Freemen
	Put simply, freemen are citizens of the city 
who are not owned by the king, the templars, 
or the nobility. By virtue of their birth status, 
they have the right to reside within the 
protection of its walls and, theoretically at 
least, to enjoy the benefits of its laws. But if 
a freeman cannot pay his debts, exhibits 
knowledge of reading, writing, or magic, or 
undertakes some other forbidden activity, he 
is judged to be in violation of the king's 
edicts. The templars have the right to (and 
almost certainly will) seize him and sell him 
into slavery. This practice is a source of 
considerable income to many templars.
	The bulk of freemen are craftsmen and 
artisans who keep their shops within the city 
walls. Heavily taxed by the king and 
harassed by the corrupt templars, they are 
generally ill-contented and suspicious, but 
too cowardly and intimidated to openly resist 
their tormentors.
	Less common in the class of freemen are 
the clerics. Clerics are priests who worship 
the elemental planes and draw their magical 
energies from them. If their devotion allows 
them to live in cities, they make a nice living 
by selling their services as healers or 
workers of minor miracles. Templars tend to 
regard these true priests with suspicion 
and animosity, though most have learned 
that it is wiser not to harass a cleric. 
Merchant
s
	Every city serves as the headquarters for at 
least half-a-dozen merchant houses, and 
several times that number maintain trading 
emporiums within the city walls. Usually, 
these trading emporiums are located in a 

particular quarter of town, where a purchaser 
can buy nearly anything that Athas has to 
offer if he knows where to look.
	Merchants are not citizens, for the nature of 
their work dictates that they maintain contact 
with a wide variety of societies (which 
makes our sorcerer-kings distrustful). 
Instead, merchants are granted longterm 
licenses to reside in a city, and in return they 
donate large sums of money to public works 
(i.e., to the sorcerer-king).
	Merchants are one of the few classes that 
the bureaucracy is careful not to harass. The 
templars have learned that if they try to 
intimidate or black
mail one merchant, they will find that 
everything they wish to buy from other 
merchants has inexplicably doubled in price 
or vanished from the market.
	Technically, merchants are not permitted to 
read or write, but they are allowed to keep 
accounts. I should note that most houses 
have highly developed methods of "keeping 
accounts." For all practical purposes, most 
merchants can both read and write in the 
secret language of their houses. Not 
surprisingly, jealous templars spend a 
considerable amount of energy trying to 
prove to the king that the keeping of 
accounts is, in fact, a form of reading and 
writing.
	For additional information on this subject, I 
have included a more complete description 
in the section entitled Merchant Houses later 
in this chronicle.
	15	
Elven 
Merchants
	Some elven tribes earn their livelihoods as 
traders. Usually, they are less established 
than the merchant houses, so they sell their 
wares in crowded bazaars located on the 
edges of the true merchant quarter. Elves 
have a reputation for smuggling and selling 
banned goods such as spell components. (By 
the way, if you expect a merchant to 
guarantee his product, it is best not to buy 
from an elf).
Slaves
	A person can become a slave in one of 
three ways: by being born a slave, by being 
captured during a war or other armed 
conflict, or by being sold into slavery for 
committing some crime or failing to pay one 
s debts.
	A member of any race or social class can 
become a slave, though nobles and merchants 
usually have friends or family who will buy 
their freedom for them. It is also rare for 
elemental clerics or mages to become slaves, 
as they can usually escape easily. Instead of 
selling such individuals into bondage, 
prudent templars simply execute them when 
they capture them.
	We can take one bit of solace from the 
institution of slavery, however: there are a 

surprising number of former templars in their 
ranks. The losers of the political infighting in 
the king's bureaucracy are often sold into 
slavery. Templar slaves are generally the 
subject of abuse and ridicule by their newly 
established peers and generally die quickly 
as a result of some tragic accident.
	There are several classes of slave: 
gladiators, artists, soldiers, laborers, and 
farmers.
Gladiators
	The wealthiest templars and most noble 
families maintain stables of men and women 
picked and trained for their fighting prowess. 
These slaves are sent to fight in the 
gladiatorial stadiums for public 
entertainment. Their owners, sitting in private 
boxes
16
perched high above the arenas, often wager 
considerable sums on the outcome of these 
battles. More than one noble has been sold 
into slavery for not being able to pay the 
debts he incurred when a favored gladiator 
fell.
	The best of these gladiators are muls 
(pronounced: mul), a tough crossbreed of 
human and dwarf. They retain the height, 
dexterity, and cunning intelligence of their 
human side, but are also gifted with the 
durability and strength of their dwarven 
parent. From their dwarven line, they also 
inherit a certain single-mindedness which 
makes them vicious fighters.
	Standing over six feet tall, muls weigh two 
hundred to three hundred pounds, have 
hairless coppery skin as tough as gith hide, 
and tend toward introspective, gruff 
dispositions. They are born sterile and 
cannot reproduce their own kind.
	Despite their combat abilities, muls don't 
make good soldiers. In addition to being very 
expensive to buy or breed, muls are 
intelligent enough to recognize when their 
officers are making a mistake and stubborn 
enough to refuse foolish orders.
Artists
	In most Athasian cities, the arts are 
appreciated, but not as highly regarded as 
many feel they should be. Although templars 
and nobles alike enjoy being surrounded by 
artistic creations, none of them would ever 
trouble to create such a thing themselves. 
Therefore, all arts are entrusted to slaves.
	One of the best ways for a slave to elevate 
his position is to develop and demonstrate 
some sort of artistic ability, such as singing, 
reciting poetry, painting, sculpting, and so 
forth. If he or she has enough talent, a noble 
or templar will purchase the slave and treat 
him to a life of pampered luxury. In 
exchange, the owner expects the slave to 
produce beautiful works which will impress 
his friends. (I must note that because of the 
dubious tastes of nobles and templars, many 
artists must compromise their artistic vision 

in order to stay alive.) 
	In most cities, it is common practice to  
secretly teach valued slaves the art of  
reading and writing, so that they may read the  
words of the masters and record their own  
observations for the owner's next of kin (this  
is how I came by the art myself). For the  
artists, there is only one drawback to this  
privilege: popularity is a fickle thing, and  
most artists fall out of favor within a few  
years of their success.
	When that happens, those who have been  
taught how to read and write suffer one of  
two fates: their owners either have them  
executed for knowing how to read and write,  
or they are sent to the gladiatorial pits as  
fodder. It is no wonder that many artists,  
upon sensing their popularity beginning to  
wane, plan elaborate escapes and flee into  
the desert as I did.
Soldier 
Slaves
	Both sorcerer-kings and the noble houses  
maintain standing armies of slave soldiers.  
The quality of these soldiers varies widely.  
In most cases, they are simply burly slaves  
who have been taken from the fields,  
equipped with some manner of weaponry,  
then taught to fight as a unit. To keep these  
soldiers in line, officers rely on a  
combination of privileged treatment and harsh  
punishments.
	The best armies of the noble houses are  
selected as infants, removed from their  
parents, and raised by officers. During their  
harsh childhoods, these children learn two  
things: to be loyal to their owning family, and  
to fight without regard for themselves.
	In order to ensure that the armies of their  
nobility are not a threat to their own power,  
many sorcererkings raise armies of  
half-giants. This powerful race was created  
by the magical crossbreeding of humans and  
giants and their strength can put even a  
powerful mul to shame.
	To oversee these half-giant troops, the  
monarchs rely upon hand-picked templar  
officers who use their magical abilities to  
keep the brutes in line. Noble houses never  
use half-giant soldiers, for they lack the  
magic necessary to keep such troops under  
control.
Laborers
 
	Every city has a large force of laborer slaves.  
About half are owned by enterprising  
freemen who make their livings building  
homes, shops, merchant emporiums, and  
other private structures. The other half are  
usually owned by the monarch, overseen by  
the templars, and spend their time building  
and maintaining various public structures  
such as bridges, temples, and city walls.
	Generally speaking, slaves owned by the  
freemen are well-fed and cared for, for they  
are an investment that the owner does not  

care to squander. Laborers owned by the  
king, however, are fed barely enough to keep  
them alive, and once they prove too weak to  
work, they are executed. As agents of the  
monarch, the templars can always procure  
more slaves by arresting minor law-breakers  
or vagrants.
	The ranks of the laborers are dominated by  
strong races such as dwarves, half-giants,  
baazrags, and muls too old or maimed to  
fight in the gladiatorial arenas.
	At least half of any city's slave population  
are farmers owned by the nobles. These  
starving dregs labor in the fields around the  
city, working the soil, carrying water, digging  
up man-choking vines, and picking poisonous  
insects off crop leaves.
	If an overseer sees a slave touch his mouth  
without permission, he whips the man  
mercilessly. If he catches a slave stealing  
food or water, he cuts off the thief's hand.  
When a slave loses both hands, he can no  
longer work and is put to death.
	The only consolation in the farmer's life is  
that when a tribe of raiders attacks, or when a  
flock of wild erdlus races through a field, he  
can sometimes escape into the desert.  
Whether or not this is an improvement is hard  
to say, but the desire for freedom often  
outweighs the urge to live.  
Athasian Society
Wizards
	Despite the persecutions of the templars 
and the sorcerer-kings, every city has its 
share of wizards. Of course, you will never 
meet one who openly admits to his art, but 
there are nevertheless mages in every city.
Defilers
	Cities are the hardest places for 
inexperienced Defilers to survive. Not only 
are they hunted by the agents of the monarch, 
but few citizens will provide them with 
refuge or assistance - in addition to fearing 
the king's wrath, most people resent what the 
Defiler's magic does to the land. For this 
reason, most Defilers lead solitary lives of 
constant apprehension, associating only with 
the shady elves who sell them spell 
components.
The Veiled 
Alliance
	Mages have life a little easier. As 
members of the Veiled Alliance, they have a 
network of friends and allies to whom they 
can turn when they need support. The 
alliance helps them procure spell 
components without exposing their identities 
to untrustworthy elves, warns them about 
nosy templar agents, protects them from 
psionic and magical probes, and helps them 
escape the city if they are discovered.
	Joining a Veiled Alliance is no easy 
matter, however. From what I understand of 
the organization in Tyr, for example, before a 
Preserver is asked to join, a current member 
must propose to the entire organization that 
they extend an invitation to the prospective 
associate. If any of the current members 
states a reason for excluding the candidate, 
he is not invited to join. Only after all the 
members have
18
Athasian Society
been polled and no one objects does the 
proposing member extend an invitation to the 
candidate. Such invitations are seldom 
refused, for by the time 8 Preserver is offered 
membership in the Veiled Alliance, he is well 
aware of the benefits it can provide.
	As a courtesy, most Veiled Alliances 
extend their protection to Alliance members 
from other cities. Once, I was in the company 
of an Alliance member when he requested 
such a courtesy. First, we sought out a tavern 
that we had heard Alliance members 
frequented. As we entered, the Preserver 
covered the lower part of his face with his 
hand. This did not appear to be so much a 
secret password, however, as an indication 
that we were looking for a member of the 
city's  Veiled Alliance.
	After we sat down, we were approached by 
a psionicist. This woman asked us several 
questions, and all the while I could feel her 
probing our minds for lies. At first, I thought 
that she found our answers unsatisfactory, for 

she simply stood and left without saying a 
word. A short time later, however, a waif 
came to our table and informed us that a 
guide was waiting for us. This guide took us 
to the home of a high-ranking Alliance 
member, who acted as our host and protector 
while we were in the city. He did not 
introduce us to any other members of the 
Alliance, and, though he treated us 
courteously enough, I was aware that if we 
had acted in a manner that could be 
considered even slightly suspect, we would 
have been killed in our sleep.
Gender in the Cities
	In most city-states, there is no distinction 
made between the positions which men and 
women may hold, for both sexes seem 
equally capable of the treachery required to 
attain and hold power. At least two 
sorcerer-kings are in fact sorcerer-queens, 
and women rise or fall as fast as men in the 
ranks of the templars. Many noble houses are 
represented on the monarch's  advisory 
council by matriarchs, and the control of 
most merchant houses passes to the eldest 
competent child, whether it is a son or a 
daughter.
	Even in the ranks of slaves, sex makes 
little difference. Women fight as gladiators 
and soldiers alongside their male 
counterparts, and artists are treated the same 
no matter which sex they are. About the only 
place where gender makes any difference is 
in the lowest rank of slavery, where there is a 
slight preference to make males laborers due 
to their slight advantage in strength.
Race in the 
Cities
	Although racial dispositions tend to group 
humans and demihumans along class lines, 
this is not due to any sort of bigotry. In no 
city that I have been to is there a policy, 
official or otherwise, that excludes any race 
from membership in any organization or 
group. There are dwarven templars, elven 
nobles, human gladiators, and halfling 
craftsmen. In short, a member of any race can 
hold any position, provided he has the 
necessary talents and skills.
	This is certainly not due to any 
benevolence or sense of justice on the part 
of the sorcerer kings. I suspect that it has 
more to do with the fact that such prejudices 
are a foolish waste of valuable resources
	However, this is not to say that all races 
are equally represented in all classes of 
society. Every race has certain dispositions 
that suit it for certain positions in society. 
The following paragraphs list the 
occupations which each race commonly 
pursues in a city.
Humans
	Humans are the most common and 
versatile of all the races. They are typically 
found in any position, from sorcerer-king to 
farmer. Compared to dwarves, muls, and 

half-giants, they are not very strong, so there 
are less of them in the ranks of soldier-slaves 
and laborers than their proportion to the total 
population might indicate. Humans have a 
talent for treachery and political intrigue, so 
they form a clear majority in the ranks of 
templars and nobles.
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Dwarves
	Due to their strength, dwarves make good 
laborers, soldiers, and craftsmen, so there 
tend to be large concentrations of them in 
these classes. However, if a dwarf sets his 
mind to attaining a certain position, he can 
overcome nearly any barrier to his success 
through sheer determination. I have met 
hard-working dwarves in the ranks of the 
templars nobility, artists, and gladiators.
Elves
	Most elves found in the cities represent 
their tribes in the trading bazaars. They are 
expert bargainers, but are also extremely 
unreliable to anyone except members of their 
own tribes. Elves usually avoid slavery by 
fleeing at the first sign of trouble, but when 
forced into bondage, they make excellent 
farmers (provided their owners can keep 
them from running away), and are often 
selected as artists due to their ability to 
flatter potential patrons. Though I have never 
frequented the Games, I understand that 
elves also make interesting gladiators, 
winning their victories through speed and 
stealth where their opponents rely on strength 
and endurance.

Half-elves
	City-born half-elves are rarely accepted as 
members of their elven parent's tribe, for 
their human half makes them suspect to the 
clannish minds of elven tribesmen. At the 
same time, they suffer from the reputation for 
deceit and unreliability that taints elven 
merchants. Therefore, most half-elves grow 
as loners, learning quickly to rely only on 
themselves and to take advantage of others 
to get what they want. These traits serve 
them well in the ranks of the templars. When 
sold into slavery, they either convince their 
owners that they have hidden artistic 
potential or find themselves working in the 
fields as farmers.
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Half-giants
	Because of their limited intellectual 
capacity, halfgiants do poorly in positions of 
power. They make short-lived templars and 
aristocrats, and most people are far too 
cautious with their wealth to buy anything 
that a half-giant craftsman makes. Therefore, 
even if born into freedom, the unfortunate 
members of this race find it difficult to make 
a living as an honest freeman and usually 
find themselves bound into slavery. They are 

generally purchased either by craftsmen in 
need of strong laborers or by templars filling 
a half-giant regiment for the king. 
Occasionally, half-giants manage to retain 
their freedom for a few years by hiring 
themselves out as mercenaries.
Muls
	By their very nature, all muls are born into 
slavery for the purpose of gladiatorial 
training. If they prove unsuitable for this 
purpose, their strength usually commands a 
good price as a laborer. Occasionally, muls 
win or purchase their own freedom. When 
this happens, they make excellent templars. 
Similarly, they can always find ready 
employment as an elite mercenary, in the 
permanent guard of a noble family, or a 
merchant house sentry cadre.
Thri-kreen
	These giant, intelligent insects are not 
common in cities, for their lives are devoted 
to the hunt and they possess only a dim 
understanding of human society. 
Nevertheless, they are sometimes taken as 
slaves. In this case, they serve as laborers or 
farmers, but never as soldiers (they are 
known to turn on their masters, and any man 
who trusts one with a weapon is considered a 
fool). Occasionally, when its pack has been 
destroyed, a thri-kreen comes into a city of 
its own free will. In these cases, it either 
seeks out a position as a templar assassin or 
volunteers its service as gladiator on behalf 
of some lucky noble. 
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Halflings
	Halflings are rare in cities, for they are 
possessed of a personality even more feral 
than that of the thrikreen. When taken as 
slaves, they are usually trained for the 
gladiatorial arena as a curiosity, for it is 
well-known that they die quickly in bondage. 
Halflings who have been cast out of their own 
tribes will serve nobles as hunting guides or 
craftsmen as stonechippers, but only if their 
freedom is in no way impinged and in return 
for room and board only (they view wages as a 
form of slavery).
Villages
	In your travels, you'll find villages 
scattered all over Athas, from islands in the 
Sea of Silt to peaks high in the Ringing 
Mountains. Usually, they stand at some site 
of moderate importance, such as a minor 
oasis, the crossroads of two trading routes, or near 
a flint or obsidian quarry. They consist of a 
few crudely built structures erected within a 
small area.
	Some villages are surrounded by a stone 
wall or a thorn-hedge stockade, but all are 
located in the most defensible position 
possible. Several times a year, the villagers 
will be called upon to defend their homes 
from beasts, raiders, or monsters, and they 
realize the advantage terrain can provide. No 
matter how carefully defended a hamlet is, 

however, don t count on it existing for very 
long. Sooner or later, its defenses will fail 
and the inhabitants will have to flee or die, 
abandoning their shabby homes to the desert.
Client Villages
	The largest, best equipped villages are 
sponsored by the city-states, usually because 
there is something in the local area that is of 
importance to the city. Tyr, for example, 
sponsors a village at the site of its iron mine, 
and Urik maintains a sizable town near the 
obsidian quarries of the Smoking Crown.
	Occasionally, some interest other than a 
city also sponsors a village. For instance, the 
merchant
21
houses of Wavir, Rees, and Tomblador in the 
city of Balic protect a critical junction along 
their trading routes by sponsoring the fortress 
village of Altaruk.
	The leader of most client villages is a 
military governor assigned by the sponsoring 
agency. In the case of city-run villages, this 
leader is usually a moderately powerful 
templar of proven loyalty to the 
sorcerer-king. Other sponsors usually rely 
upon a Preserver or Defiler as the 
commander. The governor is assisted in his 
duties by subordinate officers -  templars if 
a city is sponsoring the village, mercenary 
fighters if someone else is sponsoring it.
	Compared to cities, these hamlets are 
culturally backward. When visiting them, you 
will find only the barest necessities and no 
amenities. The Veiled Alliance is rare in 
client villages, for most hamlets are so small 
that it is impossible for a mage to hide his 
presence for long. Where the Alliance does 
exist, it is only because the members are 
powerful enough that the authorities feel it 
would be more trouble to smash than it is 
worth. The other inhabitants of villages are 
mostly desperate and rough individuals 
whose favorite pastimes are far from 
conducive to the public peace. The 
governor's authority over the inhabitants is 
enforced by virtue of the garrison he 
commands.
	Client villages are rarely self-sustaining. 
They usually draw their water from a local 
well or spring, but they must rely upon 
shipments from their sponsors for food and 
other supplies. Often, enemies find it easier 
to destroy the village by cutting off these 
supply lines than by attacking the village 
itself.
	Unlike most other hamlets, when a client 
village is destroyed, the sponsor generally 
rebuilds it as quickly as possible. Often, to 
prevent such a holding from being looted 
repeatedly, the sponsor also goes to 
considerable effort to track down and 
eliminate the force that ruined the village in 
the first place.
Slave 
Villages

	As we all know, slave escapes are far from 
rare on Athas. Those who survive inevitably 
find their way 
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to one of the hundreds of slave groups hiding 
in the most forlorn parts of the desert.
	Because slaves are not well equipped to 
survive the rigors of the desert, most bands 
form raiding tribes (described later). These tribes 
make their bases in villages located in the 
most miserable, difficult-to-reach parts of the 
desert. If you happen to stumble upon a 
slave village, you won t be allowed to leave 
without first becoming a tribe member, and 
you won't be asked to become a tribe 
member unless you can prove you're an 
escaped slave or will perform some great 
service for the tribe. The only alternative to 
membership, however, is a slow and lingering 
death in the desert.
	The leaders of slave villages are usually 
the best military thinkers, which means these 
hamlets are dominated by soldiers or 
gladiators. Wizards or 
extemplars-turned-slave never serve as 
leaders, for the
slaves are too wary of magical power to trust 
such men in positions of leadership. No 
matter who leads the community, however, 
he must be careful not to be seen as a 
dictator. The slaves are quick to overthrow 
anyone who limits their freedom.
	Despite unpleasant associations with the 
sorcererkings, slaves realize what wizards 
can do to protect them. Therefore, wizards 
and sorcerers are more tolerated in slave 
villages than anywhere else. Usually, 
however, a hamlet has only one type of 
wizard: either Preservers or Defilers. The 
friction caused by the two different 
approaches to magic is destructive to village 
harmony.
	Many escaped slaves were once artists, so 
most slave hamlets have a rich cultural life. 
Should you visit a slave village, you will no 
doubt find brilliant masterpieces of sculpture 
and painting in ramshackle huts, and be 
entertained at night by poetry
22
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recitations, concerts, and 
plays.
	Most slave villagers are truly thankful for 
their newfound freedom, so you will note a 
certain blissful atmosphere in the 
community. At the same time, you had better 
be aware that there is also an undercurrent of 
barbarism that could explode into violence at 
any moment. Many ex-slaves are gladiators, 
soldiers, and other rough sorts who believe 
that the best way to resolve differences is 
with the sharp end of a dagger.
	Whether artist or gladiator, all the 
inhabitants are painfully aware that 
slave-takers from a nearby city could appear 
at any time, so they live with only one goal 

in mind: to enjoy what time they have to the 
fullest.
Dwarven 
Villages
	You will find dwarven villages in any 
place dwarves have a reason to gather for a 
common purpose. Dwarves wishing to build a 
toll-bridge have established villages on 
isolated banks of dust fiords. Others, 
convinced that hidden seas lie under the 
Great Ivory Plain, have founded a hamlet in 
the center of the vast salt flat to drill for 
water. Still others, determined to restore the 
lost City of Dwarven Kings to its former 
glory, have built their village in the middle of 
the vast expanse of sand that long ago buried 
the ancient metropolis.

	The leader of most dwarven villages is the 
person who first devoted himself to the idea 
that is the focus of the town's existence. All 
of the other dwarves look to him for guidance 
and planning, executing his most tentative 
suggestions as if they were commands. If the 
leader of the village dies, then leadership is 
passed on in descending order of arrival. The 
dwarf who joined the project second 
becomes the new leader, then the one who 
joined third, fourth, and so on.
	In these villages, dwarven culture, what 
there is of it, centers on the family. When the 
dwarves are not working toward achieving 
the community's focus, they are caring for 
their families. Relations between
23
the families are generally close and friendly, 
their ties strictly regulated by a code of 
honor. Although it is extremely rare for a 
dwarf to break this code, those who do are 
banished from the village. If you ever visit a 
dwarven village, be sure to ask for a 
recitation of its code of honor as soon as you 
reach the outskirts, or you may find yourself 
entangled in a blood feud with an entire 
community of stubborn dwarves.
	There is no Veiled Alliance in any 
dwarven community, and wizards are not 
tolerated within their bounds unless someone the 
dwarves trust will vouch that the wizard is a 
friend of the dwarven race.
Halfling 
Villages
	As noted later (see Hunting and Gathering 
Clans), most halflings wander the forest 
ridges along the crest of the Ringing 
Mountains, sustaining themselves through 
hunting and gathering. Generally, they live in 
small, isolated clans that ramble through a 
well-defined territory.
	Every 100 days, however, these clans go 
to a small village abutting their territory. The 
village is little more than a stone pyramid 
rising above the forest canopy, surrounded 
by ten to twelve stone houses where the 
tribal chief, his wives, and high priests live.
	The chief resembles the sorcerer-king of 

the cities in that he is the absolute ruler of 
his territory (usually all the forest within fifty 
miles of his village), and in that he is a 
powerful wizard. However, all halfling chiefs 
are Preservers, not Defilers, and exercise 
great care not to destroy the forest when they 
use their magic. For this reason, their magic 
tends to be much less powerful than that of 
the sorcerer-kings, and their lifetimes are 
limited to a normal span. Most of their powers 
come from their psionic abilities.
	Halfling villages serve two important 
functions. First, they are a neutral area where 
different clans can meet without infringing on 
each other's territory. Thus, this is where 
marriages are arranged, goods are traded, and 
information is passed between clans.

	Second, a village is the chief's home and 
the center of the government. When the 
halfling clans go to a village, they take with 
them food and other items to sustain the 
chief, his family, and the advisors. Assuming 
the chief deems the offering adequate, he 
rewards them by bestowing upon them the 
rangerlike abilities that make halflings such 
capable hunters and stalkers.
	Aside from using his powers to help his 
followers be good hunters, the chief also has 
the duty to defend his clans, territories from 
outside encroachment. Therefore, he can 
conscript subjects as warriors or to build 
communal structures that serve the general 
welfare of entire tribe.
	This authority is never invoked for the 
purpose of fighting or building defenses 
against other halflings. Among all halflings, 
there is such racial harmony that they never 
fight with one another. When confronted with 
conflicting interests, even two chiefs will 
work together to find some compromise that 
serves both of them.
	Before moving on in my narrative, I must 
take a moment to offer a warning to any 
reader who is contemplating a visit to a 
halfling village the greatest gift a clan can 
offer its chief is a feast. And the finest feast 
a halfling can imagine is a delicious human 
or demihuman who has wandered into their 
territory and been hunted down.
Dynastic Merchant Houses
	Merchants are the masters of commerce. In 
one way or another, everything that a 
city-state needs and cannot produce itself 
must pass through their hands. For Tyr to 
trade its precious iron for ceramic pots from 
Balic, a merchant must purchase the iron in 
Tyr, carry it to Balic, arrange an exchange, 
carry the pots back to Tyr, and sell them. The 
merchant makes a tidy profit at both ends of 
his journey -  which is only fair, when you 
consider the risks involved in transporting 
such commodities.
Merchants are indispensable to every city, 

but
24
that does not make them popular. Successful 
merchants become incredibly wealthy, a fact 
that templars and nobles alike envy. A 
merchant's business dictates that he ignore 
governmental boundaries and avoid political 
allegiances, which makes him suspect in the 
eyes of the sorcerer-kings.
	Merchants are jealously tolerated, but 
never truly welcomed by the upper classes. 
The templars grant them long-term licenses 
to reside and do business within the city 
walls, but merchants are never considered 
citizens and are not granted the protection of 
the city's laws.
	As a consequence of their non-citizen 
status and the requirements of their 
profession, merchants have developed a 
specialized sub-society of their own. They 
organize themselves into companies called 
merchant houses. These houses consist of 
several different branches, each designed to 
fulfill one aspect of the company's needs. 
Most merchants see no commercial value in 
keeping the basic structure of their 
organizations secret, so it is possible to 
provide a sketch of the way most houses 
operate.
Headquarters
	Most trading houses are owned by a single 
family, which maintains a headquarters in its 
favorite city. Usually, it is a large, 
well-defended compound situated in a secure 
area as far away from noble mansions and 
templar complexes as possible. Although 
they will not discuss the matter, we can 
assume that a great deal of the family's 
wealth is stored in secret vaults within these 
compounds. Needless to say merchant 
headquarters are heavily guarded against 
both assassins and thieves, and all of them 
have established sophisticated escape routes 
in case the need arises for a sudden 
departure.
	The family patriarch (or matriarch) directs 
the operations of the entire merchant house 
from the headquarters. Agents from the 
house's farthest outposts are constantly 
entering and leaving the compound, 
delivering profits, collecting bonuses, 
making reports receiving instructions, and 
attending to every detail of business. Despite the 
constant buzz of activity, however, the 
guards at the gate will permit only agents of 
the house to enter the compound. In the case 
of larger houses, recognition is often 
achieved through secret signals or 
passwords.
	Merchant houses are owned in common by 
all direct descendants of the founder, but 
control is passed on from the patriarch or 
matriarch to any family member of his or her 
choosing. In the most successful of the 

merchant houses, the patriarchs are careful to 
choose their successors on the basis of 
ability and integrity. When this is not the 
case, however, the rest of the owning family 
sometimes withdraws its support from the 
patriarch and chooses a new one - or even allows 
the house to collapse.
Emporiums
	In addition to their headquarters, most 
merchant houses maintain large trading 
emporiums in five to ten different cities. 
These facilities consist of large buildings 
where all manner of goods are stored in neat 
bins. When a resident enters one of these 
emporiums, an agent of the house is assigned 
to accompany him and see to his needs.
	If the customer has come to sell, he will 
discover that the agent is interested in buying 
almost anything. Of course, a few restrictions 
apply. First, it cannot be against the laws of 
the city to possess or otherwise handle the 
item being offered. Second the item must be 
of demonstrated value to someone 
somewhere. Finally, the resident must be 
willing to part with the item for about half of 
its true worth (a quarter if it must be 
transported to another city before being 
resold). If a deal is struck, the customer is 
paid in hard currency or goods, as he prefers.
	If the customer has come to buy, an agent 
will lead him through the emporium and offer 
to sell him anything in which he expresses an 
interest. Generally, most emporiums have an 
ample supply of common items, such as tools, 
building supplies, clothes, etc., and also 
supply one or two types of rare items, such 
as jewelry, gems, food, weapons,
25etc. Although it is possible for a customer 
to bargain for a lower price, most agents will 
not accept less than an item's true 
value - and will obviously try for somewhat 
more. Payment is accepted in goods or metal 
coin.
	Most emporiums are run by trusted senior 
agents of their parent merchant houses, if not 
by a member of the owning family itself. 
These agents handle large transactions 
themselves, and generally live in 
well-guarded areas over, behind, or beneath 
the trading floor. I believe, though I am guessing 
when I say this, that operating capital for the 
emporium is generally stored in a secret 
vault located somewhere within the senior 
agent's living quarters.
Outposts
	Merchant houses also maintain trading posts in 
the wilderness areas and wastelands of 
Athas. Such outposts can be found wherever 
there is something to trade and someone to 
trade with: in the Ringing Mountains, where 
halfling chiefs exchange hardwoods for 
obsidian spear heads; in the rocky badlands, 
where thri-kreen hunters trade sacks of 
minerals for hand-carved whistles; on the 
banks of the Sea of Silt, where friendly giants 
barter blocks of granite for tarp-sized woolen 

capes.
	I have found the agents manning these 
trading posts to be the toughest and most 
self-reliant men and women employed by the 
merchant houses. They commonly barter 
with the most feral and ferocious humans, 
demihumans and humanoids; they enjoy 
making long journeys into the wastelands in 
search of new goods, and they take a great 
pride in their hard lifestyles.
	Unfortunately, necessity dictates that outpost 
agents be the most expendable members of a 
merchant house. Their facilities consist of 
little more than a mud-brick warehouse built 
inside a walled fortification. Usually, the 
house employs a small band of mercenaries 
to defend it, and sometimes even a mage and/or 
a cleric, but the remoteness of the outpost 
dictates that such forces be kept to a 
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minimum. Trading posts are easy marks for 
raiding tribes and hungry monsters. By no 
stretch of the imagination is it uncommon for 
a supply caravan to find the outpost it has 
traveled days to reach demolished and the 
inhabitants slaughtered.
Caravans
	Every merchant house relies upon its 
caravans to move goods from one city to 
another and to supply its trading posts. 
Every house has its own theory on the best 
caravan configurations, but they all want to 
accomplish the same thing: moving cargo 
from one location to another as quickly as 
possible with the least chance of it being 
stolen.
	Some caravans are small and swift, relying 
upon speedy kanks to carry them and their 
cargo out of harm's  way. If you ever have a 
chance to ride with such a caravan, do so. At 
first, you may be hesitant
26
to mount a four-hundred pound, six-legged 
insect with pincers the size of your legs, but 
you will quickly discover that these gentle 
beasts are excellent mounts. Even at their 
slowest pace, they move like the wind. When 
they run, it seems you're flying.
	Other caravans consist of a single, huge, 
slowmoving wagon with armored flanks, 
depending on nearly impregnable defenses to 
discourage attacks. Such wagons are usually 
drawn by a pair of mekillots, cantankerous 
six-ton lizards with a fondness for eating 
their handlers. Aside from a force of 
mercenary outriders, the entire caravan is 
carried inside the wagon: drivers, guards, 
supplies, and cargo. At first, this might seem 
like an easy way to travel, since all a 
passenger need do is lounge about - but I I 
rather walk from Balic to Urik in my bare 
feet. The quarters are cramped and hot, the 
entire wagon smells of unwashed humans and 
demihumans and 
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the journey lasts  

forever.
	Most caravans take passengers, but the  
only cargo they will carry is that of their own  
merchant house. The houses are much too  
competitive to carry cargo for each other, or  
to trust their cargo to another house's  
safekeeping.
	The caravans are led by 8 shrewd captain,  
often a former mercenary or soldier hired by  
the house for his military skills. To defend  
the caravan, the leader either hires individual  
mercenaries or subcontracts with a  
mercenary band. From the time the caravan  
leaves one city's gate until it enters another,s,  
the captain's word is law, and to disobey his  
command is to risk banishment or death. No  
matter what a captain does on the trail, only  
one thing will cause his employers to dismiss  
him: abandoning the cargo. As long as he  
delivers the goods to their destination, the  
house assumes that he is doing his job well.
Employment 
Terms
	In most houses, there are four general  
categories of employees: family members,  
senior agents, agents, and hirelings.
	Family members are, to one extent or  
another, all owners of the companies. They  
are usually based in the headquarters and  
oversee the administrative operations of the  
house, such as the keeping of accounts,  
routing of caravans, and planning for  
expansion. Often, they are also sent to run  
emporiums in distant cities. Of course, a  
family member s relationship with his house  
can be terminated only for the most dreadful  
breaches of trust. 

	Senior agents are trusted employees of the  
house and have the authority to conclude  
fairly large deals in the house's name. They  
are assigned to important positions requiring  
a fair amount of skill, such as running  
emporiums, outposts, or being caravan  
captains. A senior agent holds his position  
for life, and can even pass it on to a trusted  
son or daughter - though the house patriarch  
or matriarch has the option of replacing  
incompetent senior
27
agents who have risen to their positions  
through inheritance.
	It should be noted that although both  
outpost agents and caravan captains are  
senior agents, they seldom pass their  
positions on to children. Even if they survive  
long enough to have families, the children are  
usually too wise to follow in their parent's  
footsteps.
	Regular agents, like senior agents, are  
usually life-long employees of the house, but  
their employment can be terminated for just  
cause by senior agents or family members.  
Agents usually have limited authority to  
conduct a specific type of business.
	Hirelings are people the house contracts to  

perform a specific service. Their  
relationships are usually short term, although  
hirelings who perform well are usually  
assured of receiving more work of a similar  
nature in the future.
The Merchant Code
	All merchant houses abide by a strict code  
of ethics that applies to all employees from  
family member down to agent. Although this  
code varies from house to house and is  
usually kept secret, it is not impossible to  
loosen an agent's tongue with a few friendly  
tankards of ale.
	Generally, I've found that all merchant  
house codes are designed to promote  
commerce and keep the house out of trouble  
with the templars and the sorcerer-kings.  
They usually include the following provisos:
1. Recognition that by joining a merchant  
house, the agent forsakes citizenship in  
any city or membership in any tribe.
2. An oath by all members of allegiance to  
the merchant house.
3. A promise to perform in the best interests  
of the merchant house in return for a specified 
salary.
4. A promise to deal honestly with stranger,  
friend, and foe  alike.  
5. A promise not to flaunt any wealth gained 
through employment with the house.
6. A promise to uphold the laws of the city 
in which the agent is stationed, and to do 
nothing to bring the wrath of the 
sorcerer-king or his agents down upon the 
house.
7. A promise to cooperate with other 
merchants to make life very expensive for 
any person (this usually means templars) 
who unjustly imprisons, blackmails, or 
otherwise harasses any merchant.
	In most merchant houses, violation of its 
code is sufficient reason to terminate the 
house's relationship with any agent, senior 
agent or family member.
Elven Merchants
	Many elven tribes enrich their lives as 
nomads by becoming merchants. As tireless 
runners and desert wanderers, they are well 
suited to caravan life, but elves are too 
restless to establish a permanent 
headquarters.
	Instead, the tribe itself serves as the 
headquarters, with the chief acting as a 
patriarch. The chief's advisory council, 
composed of a senior member from each 
family, handles the administrative functions 
such as keeping of accounts, keeping track 
of inventory, and setting prices
	Most tribes are not wealthy enough to 
build or maintain bartering emporiums in the 
cities. Instead, they rent dilapidated 
buildings or erect semipermanent stalls on 
the outskirts of the trading quarter. These 
bazaars, commonly referred to as the elven 
market, often have unusual and rare goods 
for sale from all corners of Athas.
	In most cities, the elven market is a 
disreputable place. Unlike other merchants, 
elves abide by no code of ethics. People who 
buy there usually assume they are 
purchasing stolen property or goods of 
inferior quality. The elven market is also the 
primary source of banned goods, such as 
spell components and other equipment 
necessary for a wizard to practice his craft
28
	Although elves sell to all comers with no 
questions asked, they are adept at detecting 
the presence of templars and the 
sorcerer-king's agents (generally through the 
use of psionics). As a templar passes 
through the elven market, I have never failed 
to be amazed at how quickly banned goods 
disappear in front of him and reappear after 
he passes.
	Despite the elves, expertise at deceiving 
(or fleeing) the templars, many of them are 
enslaved for selling banned goods. When this 
happens, most elves are rarely concerned. 
They simply wait for the first opportunity to 
escape, then run into the desert and rejoin 
their tribe. If this proves impossible, they 
bide their time by trying to flatter their 

masters into promoting them into artistic 
status - which I believe is the reason so 
many noble homes are decorated with 
tasteless paintings and worthless sculptures.
	Most templars will not admit it, but elves 
rarely remain in captivity for long. Their 
tribes are extremely close-knit, and they 
would not think of leaving one of their 
members in peril. To secure the release of 
even the lowest-ranking tribe members, they 
have been known to offer exorbitant bribes 
(though I have yet to hear of any tribe 
actually paying such a debt). Most often, 
they simply help the slave escape and, if 
possible, assassinate the accusing templar, 
then leave the city with all their tribe 
members and omit it from their caravan 
routes for a few years.
	Usually, a tribe stays at a city for only a 
month or so. Unless it leaves under dubious 
circumstances, a handful of its members stay 
behind to conduct business at the bazaar. 
They usually live together in the same 
building from which they conduct their 
business. Often, this band contains a 
considerable number of thieves who employ 
their talents to add to the store of valuable 
merchandise that the tribe will sell in another 
city.
	By the time the tribe returns - anywhere 
from six months to several years 
later - these elves are more than ready to 
leave the city and return to the wandering 
life. Any half-elf children that happened to 
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have been conceived during this time are left 
in the city, as they would find an unwelcome 
reception within the tribe.
	Outside the city, elven merchant tribes do 
not maintain trading posts. Instead, they 
conduct their business as they wander the 
Athasian deserts, stopping here to graze, 
there to bargain, and anywhere to steal.
	In most cultures, few sights are more 
agitating than that of a tribe of elves camped 
nearby. The next few days are certain to be 
filled with seedy entertainment, hard 
bargaining, and a small but steady outflow of 
stolen property.
	I was once with an elven tribe when 
another elven tribe camped nearby. On the 
first night, my host tribe arranged an evening 
of entertainment for the purpose of luring the 
other tribe away from its camp. While their 
guests were enjoying the party, my hosts sent 
a contingent of thieves to rob the guests, 
camp. The guests reciprocated the next night, 
stealing back not only their own property, but 
a considerable amount of my host's (and my 
own) property as well.
	These affairs continued for about a week, 
with the parties growing progressively more 
wild and ribald each night, until finally both 
tribes claimed that they had gotten the better 
of the contest and parted ways. In truth, I 
don't know who won the contest; I lost a 

precious rusty steel dagger and four copper 
coins, but my share of the host tribe's booty 
was a shiny helmet of bronze!
	Lest anyone make the mistake of thinking it 
is easy to join an elven tribe, I should point 
out the circumstances by which I came to be 
among them. Before being accepted as an 
equal, I had traveled with the tribe for two 
years and single-handedly saved the chief's 
daughter from being eaten by a pack of wild 
thri-kreen. Still, the experience was worth the 
effort, hardship, and risk and I would not 
have passed it up for anything on Athas.
	Elven caravans are notoriously light and 
fast. The elves prefer to travel by foot, 
carrying their personal
belongings in a sack slung over their 
shoulders. Cargo is transported on kanks, the 
only beasts of burden capable of keeping up 
with an elf if he breaks into a full run. During 
my time with the elves, I rode a kank 
whenever we were on the road.
Nomadic Herdsmen
	Herdsmen live in groups called douars. Each 
douar consists of a dozen families or so that 
wander the desert together. They move from 
pasture to pasture, pausing wherever there is 
water and enough forage to feed their 
animals. When the forage is gone, they pack 
up their belongings and move on.
	It is a practical impossibility for the douars 
to be much larger than twelve families or so. 
It requires more than a dozen animals to 
sustain each family, so each tribe needs 
about 140-150 beasts to survive. In most 
parts of Athas, this is the largest number of 
beasts that can graze a pasture area without 
starving. If more than a dozen families try to 
live together, there will not be enough forage 
for the additional animals.
	Most herders rely upon flocks of erdlus for 
their livelihoods. Erdlus are flightless, 
featherless birds covered with flaky gray to 
red scales, weighing as much as a full-grown 
man and standing as high as a tall elf. They 
have powerful, lanky legs ending in four-toed 
feet with razor sharp claws, and can run at 
great speeds over distances of several 
hundred yards. Their bodies are massive and 
round, with a pair of useless wings folded at 
their sides. Attached to their yellow, 
snake-like necks are small round heads with 
huge wedge-shaped beaks. These beaks are 
equally suited for working between thorns to 
crop forage at the roots, for piercing a 
predator's heart like a spearhead, or for 
making a meal of unwary reptiles.
	The first time a herder asked me to share 
one of the gruesome bird's eggs, I almost 
refused, imagining that the wrinkled, leathery 
shell could contain nothing edible. I couldn't 
have been more wrong! Erdlu eggs are a treat 
not to be missed. When consumed raw, as is 
the custom when the tribe is 
on the move, the red yolks have a zesty, 
gamey taste both satisfying and invigorating. 
If cooked, the whites form a spongy cake 
with a rich taste not unlike sharp cheese. All 
in all, erdlu eggs are an excellent food; a man 
can survive for months eating nothing else, 
and by drinking them raw, he can even go for 
a week or so without water.
	Aside from their eggs, however, the erdlus 
provide the herders with many of the other 
things needed to survive in the desert. When 
a bird becomes too old or infirm to travel, its 
meat fills the stew pot. One of the best 
knives I ever owned had an erdlu claw edge, 
and the birds, sharp beaks make fine 
spearheads. Herders long ago learned to 
make a kind of light armor from the birds, 
scaly wings, and the tendons of their long 
necks make fine bowstrings.
Considering the value of even one of these 
beasts,
30
it is no wonder that humans, demihumans and 
the creatures of the wastes all regard erdlus 
as prize quarry. Herdsmen must guard their 
flocks day and night, battling off or fleeing 
from a startling array of raiders, thieves, and 
monsters.
	As you might expect, most herdsmen are 
capable fighters, but even these hardy 
warriors know that it is best to avoid a fight 
whenever possible. Therefore, herdsmen tend 
to be gracious hosts, save that they 
interrogate their guests mercilessly, trying to 
learn all they can about the location of the 
dragon, raiding tribes, and anything else that 
might threaten their flocks.
	The douars are generally led by the tribe's 
wizard. The wizard is always a Preserver 
and never a Defiler, for herdsmen have a 
deep hatred of anyone who deprives them of 
good grazing land. The wisest member of 
each family serves as an advisor to the 
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leader, though the weight given to their 
opinions varies from tribe to tribe.
	Herdsmen have a deep and abiding respect 
for druids, and always leave offerings of 
food and other gifts at any place they pass 
where they know a druid resides. Clerics, 
too, are sure to receive a warm welcome from 
a herding tribe, for the cleric's magic can be 
of great use in helping the tribe defend its 
herds. Templars, however, rarely survive a 
visit to a nomad camp. Herdsmen have 
independent spirits, and they regard servants 
of the sorcerer-kings as harbingers of 
drudgery and slavery.
Elven 
Herdsmen
	Many elven tribes have become merchants, 
and some have become raiders, but elves are 
by nature nomads and herders. They are 
possessed of an independent spirit and a 
wanderlust unmatched in any other Athasian 
race. This free spirit causes other races to 

regard elves as deceitful and lazy - which, 
even I must admit, is more or less true if 
your perspective is that of an honest 
craftsman or a hardworking merchant-house 
agent.
	What other races fail to understand is that 
the elf would rather live a short and happy 
life than a long and cheerless one. Elves have 
adapted to the rigors of the Athasian 
wastelands in a unique way: they embrace 
the inevitability of death and hardship and 
make no attempt to escape it. In their view, 
the future is bleak and terrible - so one 
should do all he can to enjoy life today!
	Admittedly, this outlook makes elves 
notoriously untrustworthy, but only where 
outsiders are concerned. Within their own 
tribes, they follow a strict code of honor 
regulating what liberties they can and cannot 
take with the property and rights of others. 
Of course, this code does not apply to those 
who are not members of the tribe (elven or 
otherwise), and strangers are expected to look 
out for themselves.
	This free-for-all attitude applies even in 
the area of courtship. When a young warrior 
is ready to take a mate, he spies upon other 
tribes, trying to pick out
31
a suitable woman. If he finds one he likes, he 
hides outside the camp until an opportunity 
comes to steal her. If the elf has already 
approached the maiden and she is agreeable 
to being abducted, she will no doubt make 
his wait a short one and accompany him with 
only a token show of resistance. However, if 
the maiden does not wish to go with the 
warrior, his wait may well be a long one, and 
when he finally does have an opportunity to 
seize her, she just might kill him. It should 
also be noted that I have met several elven 
women who, wishing to stay with their own 
tribes, stole the male elf of their dreams in 
this same manner.
	Whatever the sex of the victims, once they 
have successfully been taken to the 
abductor's camp, a messenger is sent to the 
old tribe to announce the safe arrival of the 
newlyweds. The abductees then become 
members of their mates, tribe, and all ties 
with their old tribe are broken. Even if they 
returned, they would be regarded as 
outsiders. This may seem a cruel custom, 
but I doubt that most elven marriages would 
last for more than a few weeks without it.
	Elven tribes vary from other herders in 
more ways than their cultural customs, 
however. Erdlus cannot travel for long 
distances at the rapid pace elven tribes 
prefer, so elves prefer to keep kanks instead. 
Generally speaking, the giant insects are an 
inferior herd animal - but are ideally adapted 
to the elven temperament and lifestyle.
	Kanks can eat nearly anything, so their 
keepers can wander deeper into harsh 
wastelands and stay longer than most other 

herders. In hives, kanks instinctively divide 
themselves into vicious guards, food 
producers, and brood queens, so the elves 
have very little to do in the way of animal 
husbandry. This leaves them free to devote 
themselves to their favorite pastime: frenzied 
feasting and wild revelry.
	Of course, there are a few drawbacks. The 
only food that kanks provide is a thick green 
honey secreted by the food producers and stored 
on their abdomens in melon-sized globules. 
If the tribe wishes 
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to move, it must either move very slowly (for 
elven tastes) so the food producers can keep 
up, or remove all of the honey droplets from 
the kank abdomens. While kank honey 
provides plenty of energy, if you eat it for 
more than two or three weeks without a 
supplement of edible vegetation, you start to 
lose weight and grow weak, just as if you 
were starving. In addition, the meat of the 
kank itself is inedible -  when a kank is 
killed, its flesh begins to emit an odor so foul 
that not even a starving man can stomach it.
	Aside from its honey, the only useful thing 
that a kank provides is a chitinous 
armor - providing an elf is patient enough to 
sit outside camp and use sand to scrub the 
stink of the insect's flesh off the carapace. 
Because of these shortcomings, elves are 
forced to spend more time hunting and 
foraging than other tribes. It is when the 
hunting is bad, or when they find themselves 
in dire need of something they cannot acquire 
through foraging, that they must turn away 
from their free-spirited way of life and 
become merchants or raiders.
Raiding Tribes
	When I say that raiders are the parasites of 
the desert, no one will disagree. Either 
unable or too lazy to earn their own living, they 
feed and clothe themselves by stealing from 
caravans, lonely villages, hermits, and even 
the cultivated fields surrounding the cities. 
Their tribes vary in size from a dozen 
individuals to several hundred, depending on 
the territory they work and from whom they 
usually steal.
	Although raiders may be scoundrels and 
cutthroats, they are not fools. They do not 
prey upon those who stand a chance of 
fighting back and winning. Tribes numbering 
no more than one or two dozen prey upon 
hermits and small parties of travelers. On the 
other hand, the tribes that plunder caravans 
number in the hundreds, and those that loot 
villages have as many as a thousand 
members.
	Most raiders make their homes in some 
forlorn place, such as rocky badlands or a 
secret oasis in the

32
middle of a salt plain. Of course, the raiders 
are attempting to hide their location, but the isolation 

of their villages also makes it difficult and 
expensive to send a force to destroy them. 
This tactic works all too well; I can count on 
my fingers the number of raiding tribes that I 
know to have been destroyed in retribution 
for their thievery.
	Usually, the raiding tribes pick their 
leaders through a hierarchy of violence. The 
most deadly (often a Defiler) is the leader. 
invariably, he chooses the most dangerous 
and toughest tribe members as his assistants, 
ensuring their loyalty through special 
rewards and treatment. The other members of 
the tribe are kept in line through the threat of 
force. If the leader is a wizard, he will 
seldom tolerate the presence of another 
wizard in his tribe. If the leader is not a 
wizard, one of his assistants is usually a 
Defiler who jealously guards his position in 
the tribe.
Slave 
Tribes
	When they escape, slaves usually find 
their way to one of the many slave villages 
(see Villages) dotting Athas. Usually, these 
villages serve as the base for a raiding tribe, 
for slaves seldom have the skills necessary 
to survive in the desert.
	Though slave tribes are no less fierce or 
destructive than other raiders, they tend to 
leave other villages, hermits, and small 
parties of travelers alone. Their attention is 
directed at the city-states themselves, as well 
as the caravans carrying goods between those 
city-states. In this regard, we can excuse their 
violence, for it almost takes on the character 
of a war against their former masters. In fact, 
slave tribes have been known to attack 
templar caravans and expeditions at great 
risk to themselves - even when there was no 
economic incentive!
	Slave tribes vary from other raiding tribes 
in several important ways. First is the special 
treatment they give other slaves. Only 
ex-slaves are allowed to join a slave tribe, 
and when they attack a caravan, their first 
priority is freeing all the slaves in it. At the 
very least, these slaves will be given 
directions to the 
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closest safe oasis, and enough food and 
water to reach it. More often, they are 
offered membership in the slave tribe.
	Second, slave tribes have an innate 
suspicion of the power that a wizard can 
wield, so they will never allow one to 
become their commander. Instead, their 
leaders are usually ex-soldiers, slaves, and 
sometimes gladiators.
	Finally, most raiding tribes are naturally 
composed of one particular race, but slave 
tribes tend to have a wider variety of stocks. 
In every city, a wide selection of races are 
used as slaves. An equally wide selection 
escapes and finds its way to the slave 

villages, so it should come as no surprise to 
discover that most slave tribes are composed 
of a wide variety of races.
Giant Tribes
	Clans of giants inhabit the various islands 
of the Sea of Silt, especially those of the 
Forked Tongue estuary. Periodically, a 
group of them wades ashore to raid the fields 
surrounding a city or to pillage some hapless 
village. After the raid is finished, they wade 
back to their island homes, secure in the 
knowledge that they cannot be followed.
	Fortunately, giants aren't such bad people 
when they aren't smashing your home, and 
they can be very talkative. From the few I've 
visited, it appears that when they aren't 
raiding, most of them keep small herds of 
erdlus and kanks. They live in huge stone 
huts shaped like beehives, consisting of a 
single room with the beds and sitting areas 
along the wall. A cooking fire and the food 
preparation area is located in the middle of 
the room, beneath a smoke-hole in the ceiling 
of the hut. Housekeeping habits vary by 
individual; some huts are meticulously clean, 
others are so cluttered with halffinished 
projects that even a small person can hardly 
find a place to sit.
	As a cautionary note, I should warn you 
that there are two things you should never do 
around a giant:
	First, never assume that just because you 
see one, he's going to attack. When giants 
come to shore, they usually have a specific 
goal in mind and will not bother anyone who 
does not stand in their way. Nothing makes 
them angrier, however, than being attacked 
just because somebody thinks they're going 
to cause trouble.
	Second, never visit a giant s island 
uninvited. They are a very polite race who 
would not dream of visiting your home 
uninvited, unless they intended to steal 
something. Most giants assume that you will 
behave according to similar standards
Thri-kreen 
Tribes
	Most packs of thri-kreen are hunters (see 
Hunting and Gathering Clans), but 
occasionally they start preying on caravans, 
villages, or even lurking about the outskirts 
of cities and attacking farm slaves. When 
they start preying upon other intelligent 
races, they cross the thin line between 
hunting and raiding.
	The fact that they never need to sleep and 
stay in a state of more or less constant 
activity makes them especially dangerous. 
When they start to track a caravan, they can 
quickly overtake it, then attack without 
pausing for a rest. If it is a village they are 
raiding, their tireless nature makes them no 
less menacing; given two or three days of 
constant harassment, even the most 
courageous defenders will be reduced to a 
bundle of quivering nerves.

	Most often, raiding thri-kreen are more 
interested in food than in goods. They eat or 
take away every living being, but seldom 
take anything that is not of immediate use to 
them. I once ran across a band of human 
scavengers who made a practice of following 
a thri-kreen raiding pack around and 
collecting the booty left behind. Six months 
later, I ran across the same band of 
scavengers - they still had all the booty they 
had collected, but had themselves fallen 
victim to the thri-kreen.
	Thri-kreen are intelligent, so it is possible 
to approach their camp and strike up a 
conversation
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without becoming a meal. This is one risk I 
have personally chosen to avoid, however. 
Even solitary thri-kreen tend to be 
treacherous and unreliable and I cannot 
imagine trusting a group of them.
Halfling 
Tribes
	Although normally simple hunters and 
gatherers (see Villages and Hunting and 
Gathering Clans), halflings occasionally 
come down from the mountains in search of 
gifts for their chief. Usually, these tribes have 
been assigned such tasks as a form of 
punishment for some trespass they committed 
against another tribe or the chief. Halflings 
have little concept of property, and they 
regard anything that moves as a potential 
meal, so it is difficult to regard them in the 
same light as normal raiders -  their concept 
of right and wrong is so different from ours 
that it is absurd to hold them to the same 
moral standards .
	That does not change the effects of their 
actions, however. Halfling tribes will sneak 
up on a sleeping caravan, a village, 
sometimes even a city, and carry away 
whatever they can lay their hands on - goods, 
animals, and people. The animals (and 
sometimes the people) they eat immediately, 
but they usually attempt to take prisoners 
and stolen items back to their village as a 
gift for the chief.
	Such raiding parties are led by the clan's 
normal leader, often a fairly powerful 
psionicist. If it proves too difficult for the raiders 
to steal what they want on the first night of 
attack, the psionicist usually tries to use his 
talents to help the clan escape. They return 
the next night with a different plan of attack, 
and, if they do not succeed, the night after 
that, then the night after that, etc. They will 
keep returning until they steal what they 
want, or until the entire raiding party is 
destroyed.
	There are two other peculiar things about 
halfling raiding parties. First, no one can tell 
what the raiders are after, not even the 
raiders themselves. They simply start taking 
things until their leader declares that they've 

got what they came for, i.e., an item of
34
suitable magnificence for their chief. This 
can be an item as common as a kank saddle, 
or something as exotic as the bejeweled 
scabbard of a magical sword. Second, when 
a halfling raider is captured alive, he refuses 
to eat or drink, attempting to starve himself 
to death. He will not, however, attempt to 
escape or to kill his captors, as he views his 
capture as a sacrifice to his clan's chief.
Elf 
Tribes
	Elven raiders are nomad or merchant tribes 
who have been reduced to thievery in order 
to support themselves. The cause of this 
transformation is almost always some 
disaster that has deprived them of their 
normal livelihoods, such as the loss of 
important cargo or a kank hive. Often, the 
tribe returns to its former way of life as soon 
as it recovers, so it is not uncommon for a 
group of elves to be raiders one year and 
merchants the next.
	Attacks by elven raiders are seldom as 
bloody as those by other groups. Usually, the 
elves arrange some diversion, such as a 
stampede or fire, then sneak into the camp to 
steal. If the tribe was formerly a merchant 
tribe, they place the highest priority on 
goods; if it was formerly a herding tribe, they 
usually have the greatest desire for kanks. 
After they're finished, the elves rely on their 
great speed to flee, pausing only to disable 
any means their victims may have of 
catching them (such as kank mounts). 
Although they'll steal everything in sight, 
elves are not murderous. They rarely attack 
anyone except those who stand between them 
and the bounty for which they came.
	For more information on elves, see 
Nomadic Herdsmen or Dynastic Merchant 
Houses. 
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Hunting and Gathering Clans
	Hunting and gathering clans are small 
groups that make their living through hunting 
meat animals and foraging for edible plants. 
Their number is usually small, between 10 
and 50 individuals, and their culture is 
simple and practical. They devote their free 
time to making weapons, clothes, and shelter; 
otherwise, they are usually tracking animals 
or foraging for edible plants.
	Their lifestyle is the most primitive of any 
on Athas, but it is also the freest. They 
wander across great tracks of Athas without 
regard for political boundaries, following 
game wherever it leads. Even though their 
lives are hard and short, whatever they do, 
they do for themselves. If a hunter is not 
hungry, he does not hunt; if he already has a 
fine bow and plenty of arrows, he does not 
make another; if his family has a good tent to 
protect them at night, he does not erect 
another.

	Most hunting and gathering clans are 
thri-kreen or halflings, although small groups 
from other races also make their livings in 
this manner. Humans seem to lack the 
stamina to endure this lifestyle in the 
rigorous wastelands of the desert; in all my 
travels, I have never seen a clan of human 
huntergatherers.

Thri-kreen
	Thri-kreen are hatched to hunt. They roam 
the desert in packs of up to twenty-five 
beasts, always searching for fresh quarry. On 
those rare occasions when they are not 
hunting, thri-kreen are making weapons. They 
never sleep, and pause to rest only rarely. 
Unlike most other hunting clans, they do not 
burden themselves with shelters or other 
belongings, taking with them only what they 
can carry in their own mandibles. Thri-kreen 
packs usually do not hunt other intelligent 
beings (aside from the occasional elf) unless 
they have turned to raiding as a means of 
supporting themselves.
The thri-kreen pack is organized along a 
strict order of dominance. The most aggressive, 
toughest member is the leader. The second 
most aggressive member is next in charge, 
and so forth. Whenever there is any dispute 
about the dominance order, the two 
contenders fight until one of them surrenders 
or dies. After the fight, there is never any 
bad will between the contestants; once the 
issue of dominance is resolved, they both go 
about their business with the full security of 
knowing just where they stand in the pack.
	This pack instinct can make thri-kreen 
seem belligerent and contentious, yet 
strangely loyal, in the eyes of other races. 
The thri-kreen's pack instinct is so strong 
that when a single thri-kreen is a member of 
a group including other races, it attempts to 
establish a dominance order. The thri-kreen 
instinctively attempts to bully the other 
members of the "pack." If they let it get 
away with this behavior, the thri-kreen 
figures that it's the leader of the pack; if 
someone stands up to it and defeats it in a 
contest of physical prowess, the thri-kreen 
accepts a lower place on the dominance 
order and does whatever its
" . "
superior says.
	Once it joins a group, a thri-kreen remains 
steadfastly loyal - unless two or more 
members gang up on it in a dominance 
struggle. When this happens, the thri-kreen 
assumes that the other members intend to kill 
it and leaves at the first opportunity.
Halflings
	The wild halflings live in the forest along 
the ridge of the Ringing Mountains. Each 
clan, numbering between 30 and 75 
individuals, hunts and forages within a strictly 
defined area of 20 to 30 square miles. 

Normally, this would be too small an area to 
support so many individuals, but the forest 
ridge is unusually abundant in both animal 
and plant life.
	The halfling clans are careful to avoid 
crossing into each other's territory. This 
would cause hard feelings, perhaps even a 
fight. If there is one thing that halflings try 
never to do, it is offend each other. They 
have learned that by respecting each clan,s
35
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rights and property, all the clans will enjoy 
longer, happier lives (perhaps the 
sorcerer-kings should take a lesson from 
these wild fellows).
	When some disaster befalls a clan, they 
have no need to resort to stealing from one 
another. Instead, those in need of help simply 
journey (or send a messenger) to their chief 
(see Villages) with their request. Assuming the 
need is genuine, the chief either lends his 
own support or calls upon his other subject 
clans to aid the one in trouble. This custom 
even applies between chiefs; if one of them 
is ever faced with a problem he cannot 
handle, his brothers are honor-bound to aid 
him in whatever manner they can. Because of 
this custom, which is so deeply ingrained in 
the halfling mind that it is very nearly 
instinct, every clan realizes that it is never to 
their benefit to fight with another halfling 
clan.
	Unfortunately for us, this ethic applies only 
between halflings. They consider anything 
else (including intelligent races) fair game for 
the stew pot - or just to steal from, if there 
are too many intruders to capture. Captured 
humans and demihumans are considered a 
delicacy and are usually taken to the chief as 
an offering, but some clans eat their quarry 
on the spot - particularly if hunting has not 
been good of late.
	When away from their own kind, halflings 
are mistrustful and cautious. I once asked a 
halfling why this was. He gave me a spiteful 
look, then, in all seriousness, replied, "l know 
what on your mind. You think 'not much meat 
on halfling, but he make good snack 
someday, ". Of course, I tried to explain that 
it is not common practice for humans to eat 
their guests, but my little friend refused to 
believe it. Steadfastly he maintained that, 
when it came to mealtime, the only race one 
could trust was his own.
Hermits
	Hermits come in all races and from all 
walks of life. They live alone in some forlorn 
place far away from any permanent human or 
demihuman society,
36
either by their own choice or because they 
are outcasts. Most survive through a 
combination of foraging and herding, though 
some are also hunters. Hermits are seldom 
nomads, for even the most barren patch of 

Athas can meet the survival needs of a 
solitary man, providing he is skilled at 
survival in the desert and is not picky about 
what he eats.
	Usually, hermits live near a source of 
water, but their residences are not obvious or 
easy to find. In Athas, water attracts 
visitors - human, demihuman, and 
otherwise - so it is not always safe for a lone 
individual to reveal his presence. Therefore, 
most hermits go to considerable trouble to 
keep the locations of their homes hidden.
	Occasionally, if you don't look harmful 
and the hermit is an outcast and not a 
voluntary recluse, he shows himself and tries 
to strike up a conversation with you. In such 
cases, don't be put off by the excited hermit's 
rambling conversation, and keep in mind that 
although he may quite inadvertently say 
something offensive to you and will never 
pause to let you speak, he does not mean any 
offense. Most hermits have simply forgotten 
the niceties of conversation.
	Some hermits are crazy and dangerous. If 
you look carefully when you approach an 
apparently abandoned waterhole, you may 
well see some warning sign: a skeleton here, 
a piece of discarded armor there, an 
abandoned wagon over there. Usually, the 
hermit fears that visitors to his waterhole 
intend him harm, or believes they are stealing 
from him. Such hermits rarely confront the 
offenders directly, however. Even if they're 
crazy, they're not stupid, and they realize that 
fighting a superior number of thirsty beings is 
not a good idea. Instead, they try to take the 
visitors unawares, such as after they have 
made camp and gone to sleep.
	Of course, there are as many reasons for 
people to live alone as there are hermits, but 
I have found two types of hermits to be fairly 
common - or, at least. common in hermit 
terms. 
Athasian Society
Psionic 
Masters
	Those who have truly mastered the art of 
psionics often become quite famous. They 
are constantly beseeched by would-be 
students or adversaries who would like to 
prove themselves by defeating a known 
master.
	Often, psionic masters accept the role of 
teacher (for they can command outrageous 
prices in return for their knowledge) and deal 
quickly with young upstarts. When these 
things become too common, however, the 
psionic master finds that the further 
development of his own abilities comes to a 
halt. He must spend most of his time teaching 
his students the basics of the art and dealing 
with a seemingly endless series of 
second-rate psychics with delusions of 
grandeur. This robs him of the terrific 
amount of time he requires for his own 
meditations.

When this happens, many dedicated 
psionic masters leave their schools in the hands of 
trusted disciples, or abandon them altogether 
and flee into the desert. They seek out some 
unknown or seldom used waterhole and have 
a small stronghold erected. The masters shut 
themselves up inside their strongholds and 
continue their meditations in the peace that 
they could not find in the city.
	Usually, a few devoted students 
accompany the master to serve as guards and 
servants, so he is arguably not a hermit. 
However, a man surrounded by guards and 
sitting in trance for days on end is just as 
alone as if he were sitting upon a 
mountaintop without anybody else within a 
hundred miles. Anybody disturbing a psionic 
master in such a condition quickly realizes 
that he has made a mistake. Once, I 
encountered a shattered tribe of elves 
wandering aimlessly through the desert. Lost 
and unprovisioned, they clearly had no hope 
of survival beyond 
Athasian Society

the next few days. I later learned that they 
had made the mistake of disturbing a 
master's trance as they attempted to rob his 
home.
Druids
	Druids are independent priests who 
worship and ally themselves with the various 
spirits of the land. They serve as guardians 
and caretakers of the specific terrain feature 
they worship (such as a particular oasis, an 
unusual rock formation, a rare expanse of 
grassland, etc.). In return, the spirits of life 
grant the druids magical powers.
	Obviously, a druid must be near the 
territory he protects (this territory is called 
his guarded land in order to fulfill his 
obligations. Usually, this means that he lives 
in isolation in some desolate part of the 
desert, living off the land and by the grace of 
the spirit he worships.
38
	Most druids have such a close relationship 
with their guarded lands that they desire no 
contact with any strangers that happen to 
pass their way. Instead, they simply watch 
the visitors from afar, making their presence 
known only if the party includes a Defiler, or 
if it does something to desecrate the terrain 
feature associated with the spirit they 
worship. If they do make their presence 
known, it is always for the purpose of 
attacking. They will use their powers to kill 
or drive away Defilers and others who don't 
respect the land.
	Thankfully, druids do not consider normal 
use desecration. The few who have spoken 
with me have all expressed the firm belief 
that the land is for all to use, animals and 
intelligent races alike. They claim that they 
never use their powers except to safeguard 

their guarded lands from abuse. 
	Almost all of Athas is a desert wasteland, 
but that does not mean that the landscape is 
monotonous. Far from it; over each hill, 
behind each dune, the terrain is more 
awesome, more spectacular, more beautiful 
than what you have already seen. In my 
travels, I have been overwhelmed by the 
sheer magnitude of this land, cowed by its 
indifferent brutality, even overpowered by 
the unrestrained might of its elements, but 
never have I been bored.
	It is beyond my modest capabilities as a 
geographer to impart all the grandeur and 
majesty of Athas. I can write of storms 
blowing in from the Sea of Silt, of watching a 
wall of pearly dust billow ten thousand feet 
into the air, then come roiling ashore like a 
mountain range crashing down about upon 
you. I can say that to breathe the steam of the 
Yellow Caves is to lose your wits in a cloud 
of euphoria, or describe the queasy feeling of 
sliding down the black, glassy slopes of the 
Smoking Crown. I can terrify you with 
stories of being stalked through the forest by 
hungry halflings, and perhaps I can even 
make your eyes sting by describing what it's 
like to cross a salt flat on a windy day. But 
all you will know is what I say of it, and my 
words could never do justice to this 
magnificent land.
	There are hundreds of different kinds of 
terrain on Athas, from wind-scoured pebble 
flats to twisted badlands canyons to gleaming 
sands to jumbled boulder fields. 
Unfortunately, it is impossible to relate in 
detail the geography of all these places, at 
least in the number of days remaining to my 
life. Instead, I will describe what I've learned 
of the four general terrains of Athas: the Sea 
of Silt, the Tablelands, the Ringing 
Mountains, and the Hinterlands. Armed with 
this information, you must see Athas for 
yourself. Perhaps that is as it should be; each 
person must find his own way through the 
splendorous deserts of our world.
Sea of Silt
	In the center of the inhabited lands of 
Athas sits a huge, sunken basin called the 
Sea of Silt. This region is filled with 
tiny particles of dust and 
silt that the wind has carried into this vast 
depression over thousands of years.

	39 

	I have met travelers who claim that the Sea 
of Silt was once a sea of water. As unlikely 
as this may sound, the theory should not be 
entirely discounted. There are, after all, 
certain similarities between the Sea of Silt 
and a body of water: they're both flat, they 
fill low-lying areas, and heavy objects sink in 
them. Although it does not seem likely that 
the water itself turned to dust, it is 
conceivable that this basin was once filled 
with liquid instead of dust.
	On a still day, which is so rare as to be 

almost nonexistent, the Sea of Silt looks like 
an endless plain of pearly powder. 
Sometimes, it lies as flat as a table and it 
seems you can see clear to the other side of 
the world. More often, the dust has been 
churned into star-shaped dunes or piled into 
massive swells. On some days, when the silt 
lies in parallel, wave-like ridges, the sea 
looks like a infinite gray lake, frozen in an 
instant, with the waves all at their peaks.
	Usually, however, the Sea of Silt is not 
even visible. The slightest breeze stirs up a 
silvery pall of dust that clings to the surface 
like a fog. It becomes impossible to tell 
where the silt-laden air ends and the dust-bed 
begins. The sea takes on the aspect of an 
endless moor, the swirling dust rising off the 
surface like ash-colored steam, obscuring 
your vision of everything both far and near.
	When the wind blows more strongly, as it 
often does, the Sea of Silt becomes a boiling 
cloud of dust, the edges tinged with crimson 
sunlight and the center as dark as a dragon's 
heart. On such a day, a man standing near the 
sea cannot see more than a few feet in any 
direction. The dust coats his clothes, his 
face, the inside of his nose, and even, it 
seems, his lungs. He cannot see the ground or 
the sky, and when he walks his feet drag 
through inches of thick dust. He grows 
disoriented and lost, and it becomes an easy 
matter for him to wander into the sea itself. 
Sometimes, he disappears forever.
On stormy days, the wind roars over the sea 
like 
Athasian Geography
the howl of a mekillot. If you are within fifty 
miles of the Sea of Silt, there is nothing to do 
but find shelter and wait. These are the days 
when the silt rises thousands of feet into the 
air, blocking out the sun's light and turning 
the day to night. The dust is so thick that to 
breathe without a cloth over the nose and 
mouth is to choke, and to rest in the open for 
more than a few minutes is to be buried 
beneath a drift of gray powder
	The wind may blow for only a few hours 
during such storms, but the silt stays 
suspended in the air long after it stops. It 
may take a day or more before the dust 
settles enough to allow travel again, and 
more than a week before the haze totally 
disappears from the sky.
	Even when the wind is not blowing, 
however, the Sea of Silt is far from a 
hospitable place. The dust is so loose that a 
man cannot walk across it, and it is too deep 
for any man to wade through. Anyone who 
tries to do so invariably sinks and is lost. He 
suffers a terrible death, suffocating as his 
lungs fill with gray powder.
	As one might imagine, the difficulties of 
travel have had a dampening effect on 
explorations in the Sea of Silt - though there 
are those who have tried it, of course. I am 
not one of those fools, however, so I must 

admit that what little I have learned of this 
region, beyond my own experiences on the 
shores, comes from second-and third-hand 
accounts. There may well be errors in what 
follows, so be forewarned that I take no 
responsibility for any of the advice about 
traveling in this region.
Methods of 
Travel
	So far as I know, there are only a few ways 
frequently used to cross the Sea of Silt: 
flying over it, wading through it, or levitating 
above it. There are other means employed 
from time to time, and certainly new methods 
of travel will be thought of in the future, but 
for now these remain the principle options of 
silt crossers.
Flying
	Flying is the least dangerous of these 
methods, for the traveler avoids the hazards 
of the sea itself by moving above them. This 
method also affords the luxury of increasing 
the distance at which one can see hazards, 
such as approaching storms or flying 
predators. Unfortunately, this option is not 
available to most humans and demihumans 
as they lack wings. Also, if your means of 
flight should fail you, the sands below lie 
waiting to consume you when you are forced 
down.
	Of course, it is possible to use magic or 
psionics to fly, but the number of people 
blessed with these abilities is rather limited. 
Those who do choose to fly over the Sea of 
Silt would be well advised to make sure that 
they are going to reach their destination with 
plenty of time to spare. As mentioned above, 
if their ability fails while they are over the 
Sea of Silt, they will fall into the dust and 
sink like a rock.
Wading
	Wading is usually employed only near the 
shore, for the dust is too deep in most parts 
of the sea for humans and demihumans to 
touch the bottom. At the best, it is a slow 
and tedious process, for the traveler must 
use a long pole to probe the sea bed ahead 
of him - or risk falling into an unseen 
hole - and moving through the silt can be 
quite exhausting.
	When someone steps into one of the many 
pits that dot the floor of the sea, he simply 
disappears -  unless he is accompanied by 
friends who have some method of retrieving 
him, like a rope tied around his waist. It 
appears that such unfortunate victims 
suffocate within four minutes of their 
disappearance, for I have heard numerous 
accounts of searchers finding their 
companion dead within five or six minutes of 
his vanishing beneath the surface.
	It should also be noted that the greater the 
size of the creature, the farther into the Sea 
of Silt he can wade. I am thinking, of course, 
of the giants -  particularly those who make 
their homes on the is

40
Athasian Geography
lands in the Estuary of the Forked Tongue. 
They have worked out paths that allow them 
to wade to and from all the islands in that 
area, much to the consternation of the 
nobles whose crop lands they raid.
	I have spoken at length with several giants 
about the nature of their paths. As far as I 
can tell, it appears that at a depth of fifteen 
feet, the dust grows sufficiently compressed 
to support some weight. By carefully 
walking over the same areas generation after 
generation, the giants have compacted the silt and 
created a sort of trail beneath the dust at a 
depth of about twelve feet.
	I should add that many advanced clerics 
who worship the element of earth have 
developed the ability to pass through stone, 
earth, sand, and the like as if they were 
walking through air. Of course, this ability 
also applies to the Sea of Silt, but the cleric 
must take care lest he be caught somewhere 
on the dust bed when his supernatural powers 
expire. If this were to happen, he would, no 
doubt, suffocate just like anyone else.
	Some humans employ various techniques to 
wade through the Sea of Silt as giants do. I 
know of at least one place where a village 
trades with giants on an island in the sea by 
walking out to it on long stilts. They stick to 
established paths, of course, and any misstep 
can be fatal.
	At least one dwarven community employs 
large vehicles to traverse the sea. Although 
these lark constructs look almost comical 
with their greatly oversized wheels and 
relatively small carriage section, they do 
function very well. To provide locomotion, 
dwarves in the belly of the craft turn a series 
of cranks that cause the wheels to rotate, 
thus propelling the vehicle. A number of 
human communities have employed similar 
craft, either self-built or purchased from the 
dwarves, and use them as merchant vessels. 
In many cases, such craft are powered by
 slaves who are chained to their work stations 
and forced to turn the wheels to the beating 
of a task master's  drum.

Levitation
	Levitation is the last of the three most 
commonly used means of crossing the Sea of 
Silt. Let me clarify that I am not employing 
the term "levitation" in any specific sense, as wizards and psionicists 
are wont to do. By levitation, I mean any manner in 
which a person can cause something to float 
naturally or supernaturally - whether it be 
himself, someone else, or an object.
	By this means, a would-be traveler uses 
his abilities to give something (an individual, 
a group, or an object capable of carrying a 
group) the ability to "float" on or above the 
dust. After this is done, the floating object 
also needs some means to propel it. I have 

heard of two methods: setting up a sail, or 
using long poles to push off the sea bed.
	The trouble with sails is two-fold First, 
when there is enough wind to use a sail, the 
Sea of Silt is invariably covered with such a 
haze of dust that it is impossible to navigate. 
Second, someone using a sail can only travel 
in the direction the wind is blowing I have 
heard of geniuses who have experimented 
with keels and rudders, trying to use various 
combinations of opposing forces to control 
the direction in which they move. 
Unfortunately, however, the dust lacks the 
cohesive tension to make such contraptions 
work effectively.
	Poles work better. Usually, they must be about 
twenty-five feet long, and have some sort 
of square or circular pad on the end. The 
poles are pushed down through the dust until 
the pads reach the compressed layer of 
silt at fifteen to twenty feet, and then the 
craft can be pushed forward.

	Of course, levitation suffers the same 
major drawback as flying. Although an 
object capable of carrying one or more 
people can be levitated, when the spell or 
lifting power wears off, that object sinks just 
like anything else. Add to this the 
disadvantage of having to propel the craft or 
person being levitated, as well as the 
navigational difficulties that one is bound to 
encounter on the many windy days in the sea, 
and it seems to me that levitation is a much

41
Athasian Geography
inferior way of moving across the great basin 
of dust.
Geography of the Sea of Silt
	By far and away, the most common feature 
in the Sea of Silt is mile after mile of dust. 
From the descriptions of those who have 
dared to venture out into this vast pool of 
powder, all that one sees ninety nine days out 
of a hundred is an endless ocean of pearly 
gray silt - especially if he travels straight 
toward the heart of the sea.
Mudflats
	Occasionally, a traveler will come across a 
mudflat Mudflats are areas where traces of water 
seep up through the floor of the Sea of Silt, 
turning the dust above it into mud. Usually, 
mudflats are between fifty and five hundred 
yards in diameter. They are lushly vegetated 
by bushes and small trees that protrude from 
the thick layer of silt.
	Sometimes, if the wind has blown the dust 
away and left the mud exposed to the 
crimson rays of the sun, the surface of the 
mudflat will be dried and cracked. The 
resulting crust is usually strong enough to 
support a man's weight. If this is not the case, 
the man will find himself wallowing waist 
deep in mud and dust. This could be a serious 
hazard, for most mudflats are controlled by 

ferocious beasts that preys on whatever 
comes to feed on the vegetation. Although 
their prey is usually avian, they are not 
adverse to feasting on land-bound travelers 
who have made the trip to their islands.
	The traveler who sees a mudflat and takes 
its lush vegetation to indicate the presence of 
water will be sorely disappointed. All of the 
water seeping out of the sea bed is quickly 
absorbed by the silt and turns to mud. This 
poses no problem for plants, which draw 
water from mud with their roots. The animals 
that inhabit mudflats can usually get all the 
water they need from their prey or from 
plants. Animals like men, however, that must
42
drink their water in more-or-less pure form, 
have a more difficult problem; despite the 
mudflat's lushness, there is no free water. 
Even digging clear to the bottom of the Sea 
of Dust will not produce a single cup of the 
precious fluid. There are those, I am told, 
who have used various processes similar to 
distillation to obtain small quantities of 
water from the mudflats. I have never done 
this myself, nor do I know of anyone who 
has, but I can only imagine that the resulting 
liquid is hardly fit for any but the parched 
and dying.
	The plants and animals that spring up on 
the mudflats are both intriguing and deadly. 
Long, ropy vines dangle from forests of 
towering, nakedtrunked trees capped by umbrellas 
of huge frondlike leaves. The undergrowth is 
a thick tangle of ferns, thick-bladed grasses, 
and broad-leafed plants that spill out of 
single, bulbous roots. Some of the vines are 
carnivorous, and will attempt to entwine and 
strangle any creature lounging or passing 
beneath them. The thick-bladed grasses can 
also be dangerous, for they sometimes have 
edges as sharp as an obsidian sword that will 
slice unprotected skin open.

Estuaries
	Near the shores of the Sea of Silt, there are 
long, relatively narrow estuaries that twist 
their way inland. Like the sea itself, they are 
filled with dust and are nearly impossible for 
humans and demihumans to traverse. In 
many instances, they protrude so far inland 
that they form considerable barriers to travel. 
At the same time, these estuaries serve as 
passageways for the strange creatures that 
inhabit the Sea of Silt - many of which can 
be nearly as devastating to crops, villages, 
and other human interests as a pack of mad 
thri-kreen or a hungry herd of wild erdlus. 
Athasian Geography
	As in the Sea of Silt itself, plants rarely 
grow in the shifting dust of the estuaries. 
Except for the periodic flying beast, a few silt 
horrors, and an occasional giant, the 
estuaries are empty of animal life.
Islands
	In the estuaries and near the shore of the 

Sea of Silt, hundreds of islands poke out of 
the dust. These islands often serve as a 
refuge for predatory creatures that can fly. In 
many cases, they also serve as a haven for 
giants and other raiders who have the ability 
to cross a few miles of deep silt.
	Because they are rarely visited, and tend to 
be located in vicinities that Defilers have no 
reason to frequent, islands often have an 
abundant supply of foliage. This makes them 
ideal for hermits and small tribes of herders. 
Of course, those who are blessed with such 
homes tend to be very territorial
about their islands. Strangers are usually 
chased away, if not killed to keep word of 
the bountiful island from spreading.
	The only oases in the Sea of Silt are 
located on the islands, for any large and 
continuing supply of water that seeps into the 
dust bed quickly becomes a mudflat. 
Unfortunately, the inhabitants of islands are 
secretive about water, so it is difficult to 
determine whether or not there is an oasis on 
most islands. I assume, however, that islands 
are as likely or unlikely as any other piece of 
similar land to have an oasis, so you may 
judge your chances of finding water on an 
island according the type of terrain that is 
upon it.
	The islands have an abundance of plant 
and animal life upon them. Columnlike 
conifers that rise to heights of thirty or forty 
feet are not uncommon, as are wild orchards 
of smaller olive trees. The slopes 
Athasian Geography
are often covered with tangles of woody vines, 
and there are entire fields of brightly colored flowers. 
If giants inhabit the island, they have 
generally destroyed most of the dangerous 
plants. But other islands often have a wide 
assortment of deadly foliage, from 
broad-leafed vines that attempt to mummify 
anything wandering through them to 
innocent-looking flowers whose pollen is a 
deadly poison.
	The giants keep the islands they inhabit 
clear of dangerous animals, and generally one 
finds only common herd animals such as 
goats and erdlus in such places. Other 
islands, however, often have ferocious, 
mid-sized predators like the deadly gaj 
(described in Chapter Five: Monsters of 
Athas).

Ruins
	Like the rest of Athas, the Sea of Silt has 
its fair share of ruins. The ruins of several 
ancient cities still stand on the shores of the 
dusty sea. In many cases, abandoned towers 
poke their crowns clear of the silt more than 
a mile from shore, and the city walls run into 
the sea. Whether or not the sea was always 
filled with dust, these half-buried cities 
suggest that the Sea of Silt is constantly 
growing larger and deeper.
	Many of the islands also have ruins, though 

on a much smaller scale. On some, an ancient 
castle still overlooks a bay or sits atop the 
highest hill. Long forgotten villages jut out of 
the dust. Some explorers have even reported 
seeing great crafts -  built entirely of 
long-since petrified wood - lying half-buried in 
the silt. Some have suggested that these 
vessels were once huge boats, which does 
not seem unlikely if one allows that the sea 
was once filled with water. They resemble 
great wagons, save that they have no wheels 
or skids and are more or less barrel-shaped 
on the bottom. The only conceivable way 
that they could ever have moved is to have 
floated on water or been levitated by some 
terrific magic.

Fabled City of Plenty

	Many of the travelers to whom I have 
spoken claim to know explorers who have 
ventured deep into the heart of the Sea of 
Silt. Several of the explorers told of being 
lost in a terrible storm that nearly killed 
them.
	After the storm passed, and the dust was 
settling back to the sea, they saw a 
magnificent city surrounded by lush fields 
and filled with towering fruit trees. As they 
tried to approach the city, the wind rose and 
obscured its exact location with a pearly veil 
of silt.
	No one I know has ever claimed to have 
visited the fabled city. According to the 
stories which pass from one traveler to 
another, however, dozens of explorers have 
tried to return to the place where they saw 
the fabled city - and all they found was dust.
	What the secret of the fabled city is, I 
leave you to judge for yourself. Perhaps it is 
no more than a legend. Perhaps it is a ghost 
from a better time. Perhaps, after all, there is 
a real city somewhere out there. Let me 
know if you discover the truth.
Encounters in the Sea 
of Silt

	Despite its bleakness, the Sea of Silt is not 
exactly deserted. Those who journey there 
can expect to find plenty of 
adventure - though little of the kind I suspect 
they would prefer. As one might expect, 
there is no abundance of intelligent races. On 
the other hand, there are more than enough 
voracious monsters for any man to meet in 
one lifetime. Here follows a list of the kinds 
of creatures most commonly reported by 
explorers of the Sea of Silt.
I .
Flying 
Creatures
	No matter what method of travel they 
chose, all explorers may expect many 
encounters with flying creatures. Flocks of 
predatory birds and flesh-eating bats circle 
above the drifting sands, while bloodsucking 
insects (both large and small) seem always 

to be close by. 
Athasian Geography
	These encounters seem to occur more 
often near shore, especially in estuaries 
where the islands were not populated by 
intelligent races. Usually, the encounters 
resulted in a predatory attack. Often, as 
many members of the explorer's party 
perished by falling into the Sea of Silt as by 
being killed by the attacking monster.
Giants
	Many explorers have reported unpleasant 
meetings with giants. Uniformly, these 
encounters occurred when the explorer 
and/or his party went ashore on a giant's 
island without first being invited. In these 
instances, the giant would defend his territory 
savagely, not stopping to listen to any sort of 
reasoning.
	On the other hand, if the explorers first 
circumnavigated the island and used some 
means to signal the inhabitants, any giants 
living there were usually happy to receive 
the travelers as honored guests. Of course, 
not all islands are inhabited by giants, so 
explorers have reported many instances when 
announcing their arrival brought them nothing 
but a swift attack from some hungry 
predator.
Mudfiends
	As mentioned earlier, predators often lurk 
on mudflats. Often, these predators are 
various manners of flying beasts found 
elsewhere in the world, like wyverns. As 
soon as any prey comes to feed on the lush 
vegetation, they spring out of their hiding 
places and attack.
	The most dangerous of these beasts are 
kluzds, ten-foot reptiles who live only in 
muddy areas, which means predominantly on 
the mudflats. Few explorers have actually 
seen a kluzd (pronounced "kloozd"), but 
many of them have had encounters with the 
snake-like creatures.
	Usually, it happens this way: shortly after 
setting foot on a mudflat, someone notices a 
pressure ridge forming in the silt-covered 
mud. This pressure ridge
makes a beeline straight for one member of 
the party, who usually tries to flee. His 
efforts generally avail him little, however, for 
the ridge quickly catches up with him. Little, 
if any, can be seen of the monster as it drags 
its screaming prey beneath the surface of the 
mudflat. If the victim struggles, the mud and 
silt in the area may be churned for a short 
period. Then the ground grows still, the kluzd 
apparently having retreated. The victim is 
never seen again (presumably because he has 
been eaten). Fortunately, kluzds are not 
overly voracious and tend to be solitary 
creatures, so only one victim is usually taken 
in this manner
	When the wind has exposed the mudflat 
and left the mud to dry into a hard crust, 
however, the kluzds can be even more 

dangerous. Apparently, they mate under such 
conditions, for two of them often burst 
through the crust and attack simultaneously. 
The kluzds will each drag a victim down to 
their muddy nest for their young to feed 
upon, then return to get another victim for 
themselves. If the attack comes at night, some 
explorers have even reported dozens of 
kluzd young pouring out of the holes created 
by their parents to gnaw upon the wounded 
and dead.
Silt Horrors

	Occasionally, explorers are attacked by 
huge white tentacles that shoot out of the Sea 
of Silt. These tentacles wrap themselves 
around whatever they touch - man, beast, 
object - and try to pull it down to the dust 
bed. Usually, of course, wading or levitating 
explorers are most susceptible to such 
attacks, but I've heard stories of tentacles 
attacking those who fly within twenty feet of 
the surface.
	No one seems to know for sure what the 
tentacles are attached to, though I have heard 
a third-hand account describing a horrid 
beast. According to this account (which, I 
must emphasize, may be unreliable), a mage 
was flying over the Sea of Silt when he saw a 
wading giant attacked by some of the 
tentacles.
45
Athasian Geography
During the struggle, the giant managed to pull 
a gruesome white creature with a fleshy, 
bulbous body out of the dust bed. The thing's 
body was as malleable as soft clay, and the 
giant could never get a handle on it. 
Eventually, the thing wrapped itself around 
the giant's head. He screamed, then fell and 
disappeared in a cloud of dust. I have 
dubbed these monsters "silt horrors.',
Tablelands
	The Sea of Silt is surrounded on all sides 
by the Tablelands, a band of relatively flat 
terrain ranging from less than fifty miles wide 
to more than four hundred. This is where the 
civilization of the ancients flourished, at least 
if we are to judge by all the ruins they left. It 
is here that the remnants of civilization cling 
to a few verdant oases today.
	Generally, the Tablelands are arid, hot, and 
barren. Even on windless days, the sky is 
filled with a yellow-green haze of floating 
silt. The crimson sun blazes with merciless 
fervor, and the breeze feels like the hot 
breath of the dragon itself. The ground is 
parched and desolate, either baked to 
ceramic hardness or so lacking in moisture 
that it has the consistency of fine powder. 
Here and there, thorny bushes and clumps of 
spiny grass cling to the soil, waiting for the 
once-in-a-decade rain in order to release their 
seeds.
	The plains of the Tablelands are home to a 
wide variety of societies composed of all 

races. Here, the traveler will find hermits, 
thri-kreen packs, nomad tribes, villages, and 
the few cities that remain. He will meet 
people of all races and classes; human 
slaves, elven nobles, and even, in one or two 
cases, halfling merchants. The Tablelands 
are the great mixing bowl of Athas, where the 
different cultures of many people are forced 
to fuse or clash.
	This is not, by any means, to say that the 
Tablelands are tame. In the Tyr region alone, 
there are tens of thousands of square miles 
of plains, and I am sure that fewer than a 
million people live in that area - most of 
them in cities, villages, or other
46
groups located near a good source of water 
By and large, the plains are empty and wild, 
populated by untamed tribes and savage 
beasts. All in all, the Tablelands are an 
excellent place for adventure - and death.
Travel in the 
Tablelands
	We have all seen wizards and elemental 
clerics of the air merrily riding the currents 
over our heads, but flying is hardly a 
common method of travel. Most Athasians 
must choose between two slower, more 
tiresome options: walking or riding.
Walking
	Walking is by far the most inexpensive and 
reliable mode of transportation, but (unless 
you are an elf) it is also one of the slowest 
and most dangerous. On a good road, an 
average human or demihuman can walk 
about two miles an hour for a maximum of 
ten hours a day. This means he can travel 
about twenty miles a day.
	At this rate, it takes him about nine days to 
travel the 170 miles from Tyr to Urik. 
Although this might not seem like a terribly 
long trip to one who has not attempted it, let 
me assure you that it is a real test of 
endurance.
	First, travelers must carry enough food and 
water to make the trip. At the least, a human 
needs one good meal and a gallon of water 
each day to survive. Even this assumes that 
he spends the hottest part of the day sitting in 
the shade and limits his traveling to the cool 
hours after dusk and before dawn. Therefore, 
he must load himself down with nine gallons 
of water, weighing about one hundred 
pounds, for his nine day trip. If he knows 
where the oases are along the route, and 
wishes to take the chance that there will be 
nothing to prevent him from using them, he 
can get along with much less water.
	Of course, he will need a few pounds of 
food. unless he wishes to take the time to 
hunt or forage 
Athasian Geography
each day - which means he will be able to 
spend less time walking and must therefore 
carry more water. In addition, he'll need a 
weapon to defend himself, for even if he 

does not run into any unfriendly strangers, 
the desert is full of hungry beasts - most of 
which he cannot hope to outrun on his own.
	Further, of course, he must consider the 
unexpected. What happens if he is delayed by 
a sandstorm, or loses track of (or is chased off 
of) the established trails. What happens if he has 
some (or all) of his supplies stolen by 
scavengers, or is injured in an accident? It 
should be obvious by now that the answer to most 
of these questions is simply: he dies.
	Walking is fine if the traveler is interested in 
transporting himself and/or something small 
and light from one place to another. It is far 
from safe, however, is very slow, and is 
anything but an ideal method of moving 
cargo.
Riding
	There are two forms of riding: mounted, or in 
a wagon. Mounted is the fastest form of travel. 
Usually, mounted travelers ride kanks, for 
these giant insects are hardy, swift, and 
docile. They move at an average rate of four 
miles an hour, and cover forty miles or more 
a day. The kanks could probably cover half 
again as much distance, but few riders can 
endure more than ten hours of kank riding.
	Kanks need no water when on the move. 
They feed themselves by foraging at night, 
and they can carry a hundred pounds of 
equipment or supplies in addition to their 
riders. Their greatest advantage becomes 
apparent in an emergency, however; even 
fully loaded, kanks can run at forty miles an 
hour for distances of ten miles or more. It is no 
wonder that most explorers and adventurers 
prefer kanks over every other form of travel.
47
Athasian Geography

	Wagon travel is used primarily by caravans. Any
beast of burden can be used to draw a wagon, but
most wagon caravans prefer mekillots. Standing as
high as twelve feet at the shoulder and weighing as
much as ten tons, these monstrous lizards move
along at a plodding pace of two miles an hour for
fifteen hours a day, pulling behind them fortress
wagons loaded with dozens of guards, passengers,
supplies, and cargo. When attacked, these fear-
some lizards turn into gargantuan terrors, stomp-
ing, biting, and tongue-lashing their opponents to
death. At the same time, it is nearly impossible to
kill a mekillot for its hide is so thick that many weap-
ons simply will not penetrate it.

	Despite their toughness, mekillots have several
disadvantages. First, they are carnivores. Toward
the end of a long journey, they begin to cast hungry
glances at their handlers. In fact, more than one
driver has disappeared when he went to check the
mekillots.

	Second, they must drink every four or five days.
This process takes an entire day. The typical mekil-
lot will drink about two hundred gallons of water
before it quenches its thirst, but its stomach holds
only fifty gallons at a time. It requires several trips
back to the well for the beast's body to store all the
water it needs.

	Third, the huge wagons drawn by mekillot teams
can only travel on well-established roads or on ex-
tremely flat terrain like salt flats. Otherwise, the
wagons tend to roll over or bog down.

	Finally, the only thing that a mekillot can outrun
is another mekillot. Parties traveling in these huge
wagons are committing themselves to a fight if some-
thing should decide to attack them, for fleeing is out
of the question.

Geography of the Tablelands

	I may speak of the Tablelands as if they are a sin-
gle type of terrain, but this is far from true. The
Tablelands consist of six different kinds of land:
stony barrens, sandy wastes, salt flats, rocky bad

lands, scrub plains, and inland silt basins. Each is
as different from the other as the Sea of Silt is from
the Ringing Mountains. They are lumped together
for the purposes of geographical description. All oc-
cur in the same general area, but no one should
make the mistake of assuming that the similarity
goes much beyond their location.

Stony Barrens

	Stony barrens are the most common type of ter-
rain in the Tablelands. They consist primarily of
large sheets of exposed bedrock - mostly orange-red
sandstone. Of course, the bedrock is constantly be-
ing weathered away, so the barrens are littered with
stones ranging in size from pebbles to boulders.

Large areas of rock are covered by a thick layer of
red dirt, as well as waist-high drifts of coarse orange
sand and puffy heaps of yellow dust.

	If you have any other choice, don't travel across
open ground on stony barrens. Unless you're travel-
ing on a road or well-worn path, the loose rocks
make footing treacherous. Humans and demi-
humans (including elves) can move at only half their
normal walking speed when traveling these areas.
Kanks can travel at standard walking speed, but not
any faster.

	On the other hand, mekillots barely notice the
change in footing, for their great weight grinds rocks
into powder. However, only a fool would try to pull a
wagon through this terrain; even the sturdiest
wheels would be pulverized within a matter of miles.

Flora and Fauna

	For every rock in the stony barrens, there are a
dozen thorns. Cactus grows everywhere and in every
conceivable shape: squat spheres covered by long
yellow needles, twisted masses of ground-hugging
tubes, tall spine-covered barrels rising as high as
twenty feet - even in tangled masses with tree-like
limbs. Many of these cacti are sources of both food
and waters provided you are willing to work your way

48
Athasian Geography

past their thorns.

	If you are not familiar with a particular cactus,
however, it is best not to attempt eating it or stealing
water from it. Some cacti have mobile needles that
will work their way deep into your flesh, not stopping
until they reach your heart or another vital organ.
The meat or fluid of other cacti is toxic, and there
are even a few that shoot poisoned needles at any
animal passing near them.

	The fauna of the stony barrens is varied. Here,
you will find most of the animals of Athas wild
erdlus, mekillots, inix, etc. Of course, there is also
an abundance of predators: braxat, tembo, belgoi,
and the like.

Sandy Wastes

	The sandy wastes are what many people imagine
when they think of the open desert: a vast expanse of
yellow sand, piled into dunes of various shapes and
sizes. There are many different kinds of dunes.

	Where there is a strong, steady wind blowing
from one direction, the dunes are called mekillot
dunes. This is because of their great size and shape,
which resembles the hump of a mekillot's back.
Stretching anywhere from one-half to several miles
in length, and lying parallel to the path of the wind,
these dunes often rise as high as 750 feet and can
seem like mountains - especially if you happen to be
the unlucky fellow who must cross a couple of hun-
dred miles of them on foot.
	Wave dunes are the product of moderate winds
which blow steadily from one direction. They look
like an oasis pond on a windy day, with sharp, even-
ly spaced ridges of sand. The crests of these dunes
are only between fifty and a hundred feet high.
They are not difficult to cross, but I have known the
regularity of their spacing to drive impatient muls
into a killing frenzy.

	Crescent dunes form where the sand does not com-
pletely cover the ground. They result from a one-
directional wind blowing sand more readily over the
dune's low tips than its high center. These are my fa

49

vorite kinds of dunes, for you can almost always find a
way to go around rather than climb over them.

	Star dunes are the most interesting. They are
twisted masses of sand with tentacle-like ridges ex-
tending in all directions - sometimes for many miles.
They form in areas where winds from many direc-
tions meet, causing the dune's radial arms to twist
back on itself. As a traveler, I have always consid-
ered star dunes my friend. Because they change
shape slowly and seldom move far, they serve well as
landmarks in seas of shifting sand.

	In any dune region, the traveler occaslonally hears
a vibrant booming echoing across the sands. This
muffled thunder usually continues for five minutes
or more, and can be so loud that you must shout to
make yourself heard. Druids and clerics explain this
roaring by saying that it is caused by avalanches of
sand tumbling down the steep slip-faces of the
dunes. Personally, I think the elven explanation is
more likely the booming is caused by the tolling
bells of an ancient city that the dunes have buried.

	Of course, not all sand lies in dunes. Where there
is no wind, it may form a yellow plain, as level as a
salt flat and seemingly as endless as the Sea of Silt.
Similarly, it is heaped in great fan-shaped hills at
the base of the Ringing Mountains, where it spills
out of the canyons running out of the high country.

	Whether it lies in a flat plain or is heaped into
great piles and dunes, traveling through sand is
hard work. Human and demihuman travelers must
rest at least twelve hours a day and have an ade-
quate supply of food and water, or their speed
quickly decreases and they find themselves too ex-
hausted to continue moving.

	The other great hazard of the sandy wastes as the
sandstorm. On a bad day, the wind howls so loud
that it drowns out the voice of a screaming man, and
it stirs up so much sand that you cannot see farther
than a few feet in front of you. Under such circum-
stances, I advise you to stop wherever you are and
wait out the storm. To do otherwise is to lose your
way or become separated from your companions.
Athasian Geography


Flora and Fauna

	Plants are few and far between in the sandy
wastes, for they must fight a constant losing battle
with the wind as it works to bury them beneath a fine
layer of sand. Still, there are occasional clumps of
tough grass, wiry stems of ocotillo, and scrawny
sprays of salt brush. Most of these plants are harm-
less, if not nutritious, but be careful before allowing
your mounts to graze on anything with a purple
hue - such plants often drive mekillots and inix into
murderous rages. Kanks don't seem to be affected
by these plants, however, I have no idea what the
purple plants would do to a man who eats them.

	As in the stony barrens, you will find most forms
of animals in the sandy wastes. The anakore (see
Chapter Five Monsters of Athas) seems to be par-
ticularly common here.

Salt flats

	The salt flats are just what the name implies: im-
mense plains of salt-crusted ground. Salt flats are
generally level and packed as hard as stone, so trav-
eling over them is fast and easy. However, forage for
pack animals and prey for hunters is all but nonex-
istent. Those traveling through a salt-flat are well
advised to take along enough food for themselves
and their beasts.

	They should also carry an ample supply of drink-
ing water. Although there are oases in the salt flats,
the water is usually so bitter and salty that it is un-
drinkable. In some cases, water can be found that
seems safe to drink, but is tainted with a slow-acting
poison.

Flora and Fauna

	I have always tried to avoid travel on the salt flats,
for they are a harsh place. This is nowhere more evi-
dent than in the shocking lack of plant and animal
life found upon them. Here and there a traveler
might find a hearty weed or dwarf cactus, but by and
Large these foul regions are wholly lifeless.

50

Rocky Badlands

	The rocky badlands are labyrinths of narrow,
twisting canyons winding their way through a re-
gion of high ground. The canyons are walled by
cliffs of crumbling rock, and the hilltops consist of
little more than knife-sharp ridges separating one
canyon from the next. There tend to be concentra-
tions of oases in the badlands, so they are a natural
haven for hermits, raiding tribes, and creatures of
all sorts.

	Traveling in the badlands is not particularly
difficult - provided one is willing to stay in the bot-
tom of the canyons and has no particular desire to
move in a straight line. Those wishing to go some-
where other than where the canyon leads quickly

discover that scaling the canyon walls - often sheer
cliffs - is a practical impossibility, especially if they
have much cargo.

	Mountains often lie at the heart of the badlands.
Usually, these mountains are little more than mas-
sive pinnacles of stone rising far above the sur-
rounding hills, but they are occasionally true
mountains standing thousands of feet high. No
matter what their height, mountains are usually in-
habited by one or two vicious creatures who consider
any attempt to climb the peak an encroachment on
their territory.

Flora and Fauna

	The gulches of the rocky badlands are often cov-
ered with diminutive trees bearing tiny silver, gold,
or purple leaves. There is also an abundance of
low-lying brush with serrated, silver-white leaves, as
well as spherical gray-yellow bushes with thorny
stems standing as tall as a man. The twigs of the
trees make excellent grazing for any reptile, but
kanks die within a few days of eating even a mouth-
ful of these twigs. Don't let anything eat the ser-
rated leaves of the low-lying brush, as the sharp
leaves slice up the intestines of whatever eats them.

As throughout most of the Tablelands, nearly any
Athasian Geography

kind of beast can be found in the rocky badlands,
but tembo, belgoi, and silk wyrms are especially
common.

Scrub Plains

	Scrub plains are small tracts of dusty land dotted
with clumps of grass, thorny bushes, and occasion-
ally even spindly trees. These tracts are relatively
scarce in the Tablelands. Because the scrub pro-
vides the best forage available, herders tend to over-
graze these plains, stripping the land of all foliage
and reducing it to a sandy waste or stony barren.

	What the herders do not inadvertently destroy,
Defilers often annihilate. Although the scrub plains
are not lush by any standard, they contain more
vegetation per acre than most other Athasian ter-
rain. Because of this, Defilers are often attracted to
these areas when first learning their black art, prac-
ticing new spells, or trying to find a safe refuge.

	Given the destructive pressure of these two
forces, it is a wonder that there are any scrub plains
at all in the Tablelands. Most of the remaining
tracts still exist only because they are watched over
by druids. When they realize that a Defiler has en-
tered their territory, these druids do everything in
their power to drive him from the area or kill him - 
usually the latter.

	The druids treat herders more kindly, simply
keeping a close eye on the herding tribes and their
flocks. If the herders try to take their flocks into a
pasture in danger of being overgrazed, or if they

stay in the same place too long, the druids will subtly
guide the herders away by summoning a ferocious
creature or a plague of insects.

	In cases of especially dense or stubborn herders,
the action may be more severe. I was once traveling
with a party of elven nomads who refused to move
on, even though they were perfectly aware that they
were angering the local druid. The standoff finally
ended with the druid opening the earth and swal-
lowing the tribe's entire camp. No elven lives were
lost, but the herders had to resort to raiding in order

51

to Survive.

	Travel in the scrub plains is generally easy and
uneventful. The greatest danger facing most trav-
elers is that they will anger the local druid or run
across a predatory animal.

Flora and Fauna

	The scrub plains are covered with sporadic clumps
of brown-green grass, thorny hedges, and tall, wispy
trees with drooping branches and long, spear-shaped
leaves. Occasionally, when a rain has fallen in an area
within the last thirty to sixty days, an entire field will be
covered with wild flowers and leafy green plants. Gen-
erally speaking, most of the plants in the scrub plains
are safe for both humans and beasts, but halflings
and dwarves should avoid eating anything with purple
spots (unless they are fond of terrible stomachaches
and feverish deliriums).

	As in the rest of the Tablelands, nearly any beast
can be found in the scrub plains - though with
much greater frequency. Jozhal and gith can be an
exceptional problem here.

Inland Silt Basins

	These areas are much the same as the Sea of
Silt, save that they cover a much smaller area.
Most of the time, they are shrouded by a gray pall
of windborne silt, and the dust is still so deep that a
man cannot wade through it. There are rumors
that certain hidden pathways follow the course of
long buried city walls. I cannot attest to the accu-
racy of these tales, but even if they are true, I would
hesitate to trust my life such a treacherous trail.

	Those traveling across an inland silt basin must
use the same methods as those traveling in the Sea
of Silt itself, and can expect to meet the same haz-
ards. Therefore, I suggest that anyone contemplat-
ing such a journey read the entry describing the
Sea of Silt before embarking.
Athasian Geography

Flora and Fauna

	I have found that the creatures dwelling in and
around the silt basins are similar in most respects
to those found in the Sea of Silt itself. With the

general exception of silt horrors, the information
presented above for the Sea of Silt can be assumed
to apply to Silt Basins as well

Ruins

	The Tablelands are fairly covered with ruins. De-
caying towers rise out of the sandy wastes. Aban-
doned fortresses loom over the stony barrens. The
white-crusted crowns of half-buried palaces protrude
from the salt flats. Long-lost dungeons lie tucked away
in the hidden corners of badlands labyrinths.

	The architecture of these ruins, both in the great
cities and in the isolated buildings, is that of an-
cients, with an abundance of gracefully arched
doors, windows, and gates. The walls and towers
are built of thousands of more-or-less flat rocks,
carefully shaped and fitted into place, then mor-
tared with lime cement. The top of the towers and
walls are capped by square crenelations designed
to protect men as they defended the top of the wall.
Generally, the windows of the exterior walls are no
more than slits through which soldiers can fire
bows and crossbows at besiegers outside the castle.
The interior walls are more generous, large enough
to let an ample amount of light and air into the
dank rooms.

	The most common ruins are solitary remnants of
the glorious age that preceded ours. As you travel
through the Tablelands, you'll find bridges span-
ning long dead riverbeds that have not known the
taste of water in centuries. You'll cross cobblestone
lanes laid down more than a thousand years ago,
and if you turn to follow them you'll pass shattered
guard towers that must have seemed like lonely and
forlorn posts even when the road ran heavy with
traffic. Most often, these ruins are simply places to
hide from the sweltering sun or take shade from the

merciless wind. Occasionally, there will be a hid-
den opening that leads to a basement or lost tunnel
system. Sometimes, these subterranean tunnels
even hold priceless treasures - an ancient steel
sword or breastplate, for example. Just as often,
they serve as home to some vicious or brutish crea-
ture that will appreciate an unexpected meal enter-
ing its lair.

	Although not as common as the solitary bridges
and towers of the previous age, more substantial ru-
ins are not rare. Archaic castles stand along ancient
roads and dry riverbeds. Even if the castle itself has
been reduced to a ruin, the foundations often still
exist. The dark rooms and twisting tunnels inside
those foundations sometimes contain valuable
weapons and other treasures - but like the ruins of
the previous age, they are also prime lairs for vicious
creatures.

	The largest castles are surrounded by villages.
Most of the village buildings have long-since col-
lapsed, and their walls have disappeared, but valu-
able items such as coins, weapons, and metal tools
and utensils still lie among the foundations. There is

usually a large, ruined stone building that once
served as a temple where the ancients practiced their
religion. The vaults beneath these temples some-
times contain vast treasures. Unfortunately, those
who have entered these temples also report finding
unusual numbers of strange creatures - both living
and undead.

	In the Tablelands of the Tyr region, a handful of
ruined cities lie half-buried in dust, sand, or sak. Al-
though the locations of these cities are well known,
they are relatively untouched. Exploring a city ruin is a
major undertaking, for they cover tens of thousands of
acres and are often buried beneath a thick layer of
windblown sediment. In addition, most serve as either
the home of a raiding tribe or the lair of dozens of
vicious creatures, so it is common for adventurers en-
tering city ruins to not return.

	The eight cities that I know of (and have visited
personally) are described in Chapter Four: Atlas

52
Athasian Geography

of the Tyr Region. The vast majority of these ru-
ined cities date from ancient times. In many ways,
they resemble the ancient village ruins, save that
everything is on a much grander scale. In the cen-
ter of a city, there is a massive fortress-town in place
of a castle. There is dozens of huge temples instead
of a single small one; there are thousands of col-
lapsed buildings, each with a cellar or basement in
its foundation. Finally, most have large subterra-
nean sewers and catacombs into which much of the
city's treasure has been dragged over the centuries
by successive generations of monsters.

	Two of the ruined cities that I know of date from
our own era. Of course, they resemble our modern
cities in layout. The prime areas of economic impor-
tance (the merchant emporiums, the noble estates,
the templar houses, and the sorcerer-king's fortress)
have already been thoroughly explored and looted.
There is little reason to visit these two cities except
for curiosity's sake. Considering what abides there
now, I am not that curious.

	Of course, there may well be cities that no one has
discovered yet. Who has not heard stories of a lost
city of steel lying buried beneath a mammoth mekil-
lot dune, or listened in awe to the bards who sing of
the dwarves, Lost City of Gold?

Encounters in the Tablelands

	Anyone traveling in the Tablelands is assured of a
wide variety of adventures. To be certain, not all will
be pleasant, but they will be interesting - provided
the traveler survives, of course.

Cities

	Seldom will an alert traveler encounter a city by
surprise. The locations of all cities in the Tablelands
are well known, and they all lie along the course of

well-traveled roads. In addition, most cities are sur-
rounded by a wide swath of cultivated land, as well
as service roads for moving wagons, water, and
slaves about without injuring crops. Further, there is

53

a constant stream of travel within several miles of the
gates. In short, not even a blind man could ap-
proach a city without realizing it.

	Of course, it is always possible for a wanderer to
crest a hill and discover to his surprise that a city lies
in the valley below. Even in this case, he will not be
lost for long. Any passing caravan driver will tell
him where he is - though the wanderer may have to
suffer a few bemused remarks for having to ask such
a foolish question.

	In the Tyr region, there are seven cities: Tyr,
Urik, Gulg, Balic, Raam, Nibenay, and Draj. The
name and location of each is well known, and all a
traveler must do reach any one of them is set foot
onto the proper road and start walking. In most
cases, entry into a city is simple. Unless the traveler
is carrying banned goods (be especially careful
about anything that could be used as a magical
component), the gate guards simply record the trav-
eler s name and reason for visiting a city, collect a
tariff (and/or bribe) for any cargo the traveler is car-
rying, and then let him enter. Each city's unique
atmosphere and flavor is detailed in the Atlas of the
Tyr Region later in this book.

Villages

	Villages are far from common; it is quite possible
to travel for hundreds of miles without coming
across a single one. On the other hand, you will find
them in the most unexpected places: standing in the
middle of salt flats, hidden in the labyrinths of the
rocky badlands, and clinging to the sides of isolated
mountains.

	The reception given a party of strangers depends
upon the nature of the village they encounter. Other
than offering them food and water; a dwarven vil-
lage might hardly notice the strangers. A slave or
raiding village, on the other hand, might well at-
tempt to imprison or slay them.

	Some villages are described in the Atlas of the
Tyr Region, which appears later in this book. How-
ever villages tend to be temporary communities, so
it would be futile to describe them 8ll. Besides, there
are no doubt dozens of villages of which I have not
heard. For a general description of what to expect
when you run into a village, I suggest you consult
Villages in Chapter Two Athasian Society.

Caravans

	Anyone traveling a major road will certainly en-
counter caravans of all sizes and descriptions. If

they wish, they can usually purchase passage with a
caravan in return for money or labor - provided
they don't appear menacing or threatening. The
primary benefit of caravan passage is safety, not
comfort; often, passengers provide their own food
and transportation, purchasing only the protection
of the caravan's guards.

	Small caravans, usually mounted on kanks, can be
found off the main roads. Those traveling away from
the road are usually carrying supplies to an outpost
or village. Caravans traveling toward the road are
generally carrying raw materials, such as clay, obsidi-
an chips, or even beads of smelted iron. Unlike most
caravans, these off-road caravans seldom take pas-
sengers. To safeguard against raiders and competi-
tors, Merchant Houses place a high priority on
keeping the location of their outposts secret.

	For more information on caravan organization,
take a look at the section I have entitled Caravans,
located under Dynastic Merchant Houses in Chap-
ter Two Athasian Society.

People of the Tablelands

	Most of the Tablelands are bleak and savage, but
they are far from deserted. When you travel in these
areas, you'll meet representatives of all races, in-
cluding nomads, raiders, hermits, and hunters.
Each group tends to be found in the type of terrain
best suited to its lifestyle. Nomadic herders are
more common in the scrub lands. Raiders tend to
hide in the labyrinths of the badlands, and hermits
prefer to live at out-of-the-way oases. Hunters are

~4

found wherever there is prey: stony barrens, sandy
wastes, rocky badlands, and the scrub plains. Of
course, these guidelines are not hard or fast; to sur-
vive, the races of the desert must be flexible and mo-
bile, so you shouldn't be surprised to find any group
in any terrain.

	When you meet a group of natives, the responses
you receive will depend on their nature and your
own attitude. If you appear frightened, most natives
will try to take advantage of you; if you seem hostile,
they'll want to fight; if you're arrogant, they won't
do anything to help you. In general, I have found
that it is best to appear confident and courteous.
This implies that you have the strength to defend
yourself, yet have no harmful intentions.

	Each of the groups mentioned above is described
more fully in Chapter Two Athasian Society.

Animals

	A wide variety of creatures inhabit the Table-
lands. All are dangerous, for Athas is a harsh place
with one natural law that prevails over all others: kill
or be killed. Even animals which subsist entirely on
plants have deadly defenses, for they must fight off
vicious predators almost daily. My advice to the

hungry traveler thinking to make an easy meal of
any innocuous-looking beast is this: be as prepared
to fight for your life as the animal you are hunting
will be to fight for its own.

	If the herbivores are dangerous, the carnivores are
a truly nightmarish. Intelligent races receive no spe-
cial consideration in the deserts of Athas. In fact,
many predators consider them a special delicacy
and lurk near places where human and demihuman
races conglomerate - i.e., near villages, roads, oa-
ses, etc. When you travel outside any city, always
assume that you're being stalked by something as
large as a mekillot, as quiet as a halfling, as fast as
an elf, and as vicious as a mul - chances are that
you will be correct.

	Most of the creatures described in Chapter Five:
Monsters of Athas can be found in the Tablelands.
Athasian Geography

The herbivores tend to inhabit the types of terrain
described as their natural habitat, and will seldom
be found in other locales, unless some natural or
unnatural event has forced them to leave their home
terrain. On the other hand, the carnivores move
through all terrains freely, either pursuing prey or
searching for it in places that they know it frequents.

The Ringing Mountains

	Mountain ranges encircle the Tablelands, each
running north and south. To the east and west of
the Sea of Silt, they form great wall-like barriers sep-
arating the Tablelands from the unknown lands be-
yond. To the north and south of the Sea of Silt, they
form a series of parallel ribs. The deep valleys be-
tween these ribs lead away from central Athas like a
series of long corridors.

I have visited only the mountains lying west of Tyr,

so remember that my comments reflect experiences
there. These mountains more or less separate the
Hinterlands from the Tablelands, whereas the
mountains north and south of the Sea of Silt form
long passageways connecting the Hinterlands and
the Tablelands.

	It is entirely conceivable that this terrain differ-
ence will have a profound effect on the societies in
those areas. After all, in the Tyr region, the moun-
tains are a barrier separating this part of Athas
from whatever lies beyond. In the northern and
southern regions, the mountains are like funnels
that guide travel between the two areas along certain
rigid tracks. Keeping this warning in mind, then, let
us explore the Ringing Mountains.

	From a distance of a hundred miles, the Ringing
Mountains look like a ridge of reddish clouds hug-
ging the horizon. As you move closer, their soft edges
gradually grow sharper and more distinct. At a dis-
tance of fifty miles, the craggy shape of individual

peaks becomes visible. Between twenty and thirty
miles, you start to climb great, fan-shaped heaps of
coarse sand washed down out of the canyons. After
you've struggled to within five miles of the moun-
tains, the range takes on the appearance of a great
wall of loose rock and sheer cliff.

	At this point, weak-hearted travelers often de-
spair of crossing the mountains and turn back.
Don't make this mistake. As you trudge forward,
you'll discover that the mountains are not nearly as
inhospitable as they look. Traveling in them is sim
ply a matter of keeping your wits about you and
moving forward with a slow, steady pace.

Methods of Travel

	In the mountains, the only reliable means of
transport is walking. You can ride kanks many miles
up the canyons that wind and twist into the heart of
the range, but eventually you'll reach a boulder
field or rocky escarpment where it would be danger-
ous to remain mounted. On treacherous terrain, ex-
tra weight can easily cause even a sure-footed kank
to loose its balance and fall - spilling the passenger
into a boulder field or plunging both mount and
rider hundreds of feet to their deaths. In fact,
there are many places, such as the cliffs at the can-
yon heads, where kanks cannot even travel.

	Therefore, if you are going to travel very far in the
Ringing Mountains, sooner or later you will have to
rely upon your own two feet. Unfortunately, walking
in the mountains is even slower and more tedious
than in the desert. It is impossible to travel a straight
line in the mountains. Your path always bends and
turns as you move around obstacles such as cliffs,
high peaks, deep crevices, and so forth. Even then,
you must hike hundreds of feet up or down, often
both, for every mile traveled horizontally.
	In addition to the extra effort of travel, one must
always be on the lookout for the market hazards of the
mountains. First and foremost, losing your footing

56

can be deadly. Even if the slip does not send you
plunging down the mountain, it may result in an in-
jury that will make it impossible to travel when the
going becomes truly hazardous. Second, the moun-
tains are full of hiding places where dangerous crea-
tures and desperate characters can wait to ambush
unwary travelers. Third, the mountains grow ex-
tremely cold at night, especially in the highest places.
Unless you are wearing heavy clothing or sitting up
all night next to a campfire (which tends to attract
unwanted attention), it is quite possible to freeze to
death - especially if you haven't had much to eat.

	There is one last inconvenience to traveling in the
mountains: it is exhausting. Of course, hour after
hour of climbing hundreds of feet up and down is
bound to take its toll on a person, but the weariness
of which I speak goes far beyond that. As you travel
higher, it almost seems that some magical force is
trying to hold you back. Breathing becomes diffi-

cult, until even walking a hundred yards is enough
to leave you panting and gasping. You begin to feel
light-headed and dizzy, then sick to your stomach.
You lose all desire to go on, and want nothing so
much as to collapse and sleep forever. Even water
loses its appeal, and the thought of eating seems
more trouble than it is worth.

	I have seen full-grown men lie in the same spot
for more than a day, not bothering to eat the food
in their satchels and barely drinking enough from
their full waterskins to keep themselves from dying.
This strange malaise seems to affect half-giants
and elves more than most other races, to the point
where I would advise them not to enter the moun-
tains without a trusted member of another race
who will remind them to eat and drink, as well as
prod them to continue moving. On the other hand,
although dwarves grow as tired as anybody else,
the characteristic determination of their race ren-
ders them all but immune to the lethargy so dan-
gerous to others.

	Given all of the complications of voyaging in the
mountains, most parties should be happy if they can
Athasian Geography

maintain a travel rate a equaling quarter of their
normal distance. It should also be noted that the
fatigue of traveling in the mountains has no effect
on running speeds (as long as one is not moving
across treacherous terrain, of course). When the in-
dividual finally has to rest, however, it takes twice as
long as normal to recover - and if the exertion was
especially intense, he may feel sick and lethargic.

Geography of the Ringing Mountains

	The Ringing Mountains are composed of four
predominate terrains: the foothills, the canyons, the
mountains, and the forest ridge. Although each is
distinguished from the other in many ways, it is
sometimes difficult to tell where one region ends and
the other begins. At the base of the mountain
range, steep hills rise to either side of the sand
heaped at the mouth of the canyons, and before you
know it you have entered a canyon that winds deep
into the foothills. The foothills gradually grow steep
er and rockier, imperceptibly making the transition
into full-fledged mountains.

	Other times, the transitions are more obvious. A
rocky slope suddenly ends in a cliff that plunges
hundreds or thousands of feet down to a canyon,s
sandy floor. At the summit of the mountain range, a
forest of tall trees suddenly appears, their leaf-laden
boughs swaying in the wind as if to greet a weary
traveler.

	Whether the transition is gradual or sudden, a
smart traveler will always pay attention to the terrain
he is in. It will provide him with valuable clues as to
what he might find lurking around the next corner,
the kind of hazards that could come crashing down
around his head, and what is likely to happen to
him if he makes a mistake.


The Foothills

	On both sides of the Ringing Mountains, the
great heaps of sand washed out of the mouth of the
canvons lie piled high against the foothills. The

57

foothills generally resemble the rocky badlands of
the Tablelands in both appearance and terrain.
They are filled with narrow, twisting canyons inter-
spersed with steep ridges of higher ground.

	There are a few differences, however. The ridges
between the canyons tend to be higher, and their
summits are often rounded and quite expansive in-
stead of sharp and narrow. Also, as you travel to-
ward the spine of the Ringing Mountains, the
foothills grow more dramatic. The canyons are
deeper, the cliffs more impressive, and the summits
higher.

	Assuming you're going toward (or away from) the
summit of the Ringing Mountains, the easiest way
to travel through the foothills is along the bottom of
a ravine. Here there is often a dry creek bed that
makes a fairly nice walking surface. It is even possi-
ble to ride kanks safely in these areas, if you can get
one there in the first place. Occasionally, you'll en-
counter a field of boulders or a steep wall of stone
that must be crossed or climbed, but otherwise your
travel should be fairly easy.

	When traveling along these seemingly dry water-
courses, however, carefully watch the sky over the
mountains ahead, and immediately climb to higher
ground if you see any dark clouds gathering up
there. Should a rainstorm occur over the area from
which your gulch drains (not an uncommon occur-
rence in the mountains), a wall of water may come
rushing down the gulch without warning. Those
caught in such a flash flood will almost surely
perish - either from drowning, or by being battered
against rocks as they are carried downstream.

	It is also fairly easy to travel along the ridgetops
toward the spine of the mountains, thus avoiding
the possibility of being caught in a flash flood. This
route entails its own problems, however. Not infre-
quently, you'll find yourself working your way along
the edge of a precipice that plunges hundreds or
thousands of feet down into an abyss. When this
happens, forget about riding your kanks or any oth-
er beasts of burden - unless you~value your life as
little as your cargo. The crumbling ground along
the edge of these precipices can be shifting and un
certain, and will certainly collapse if too much
weight is concentrated in one place. You'll have to
figure out for yourself what is too much weight;
sometimes the ground will support a full grown me-
killot, and other times it will collapse under the
weight of an unencumbered halfling woman.


	Traveling parallel to the spine of the Ringing
Mountains is all but impossible. You'll find yourself
climbing and descending ridge after ridge - a slow
and exhausting process, even if you don't fall off a
precipice or find yourself facing an impassable cliff.
It's usually much wiser to go to the base of the foot-
hills, travel the desired distance northward or south-
ward, and then travel up a canyon or ridge that
leads more or less where you wish to go.

Flora and Fauna

	The flora and fauna of the foothills is the same as
that found in the rocky badlands of the Tablelands.
See Rocky Badlands in the Tablelands section
above for more information about this.


The Canyons

	The foothills are broken every twenty to forty
miles by a major canyon that leads deep into the
heart of the mountains. These canyons are usually
between one and five miles wide, and kanks can usu-
ally be ridden up to forty or fifty miles into them.

	The first five or ten miles of canyon floor is usually
covered with heaps of deep sand that have been
washed down out of the mountains over the years.
Often, there is quite a bit of water trapped beneath
these sands (having trickled or washed down from
the mountains), so it is not uncommon to find
copses of small trees, fields of grass or flowers, or
even hedges of thorny bushes growing here.

	These sandy fans make good grazing land, so it is
not uncommon to encounter nomadic herders
camped at their bases. The herders are usually hap

58

py to let a party of travelers pass through their terri-
tory, but tend to frown on anyone stopping to graze
their animals for more than a day or two.

	Further up, the canyon floor consists of stony bar-
rens, and is littered liberally with boulders of all
sizes. Here, the vegetation is a little heavier than in
most stony barrens, for rocky cliffs rise high on both
sides of the canyon, providing shelter from the sun
during much of the day. Every ten or twenty miles,
there is usually a pool of water hidden in some rock
crevice, left behind by the last flash flood. Travelers
should think twice before drinking from such a pool;
often, it has been standing stagnant for years.

	The greatest hazard of this area comes from pred-
atory creatures. The ample vegetation supports a
large population of grazing creatures, which in turn
draw a larger number of carnivores. In addition, the
confined spaces of the canyons make it easy for hun-
gry predators to work their territories, and there are
plenty of crevices and fissures in which they can
hide. Plan on losing at least a third of your pack
animals, and perhaps one or two of your friends, as
you pass through this area.


	Near the top of the canyon, you may reach a
steep field of boulders. Leave your mounts behind
at this point, for even kanks cannot hope to cross
this treacherous terrain without breaking a leg with-
in the first mile or so. In fact, as you cross this area,
be careful yourself. If you misstep even once, your
foot may lodge in a gap between two boulders, snap-
ping your leg like a piece of dry wood as your mo-
mentum carries you forward.

	As you step or jump from one boulder to another
in this area, it is difficult to tell when your weight
may tip a stone's balance and send you tumbling
into a mass of sharp-edged rocks. Even worse, the
shifting boulder may dislodge others above, burying
you beneath tons of jagged rock. It is because of the
hazard presented by boulder fields that many mer-
chants who travel in the mountains insist on taking
an Earth Cleric along with them; such an individual
can prove invaluable in stabilizing a particularly
Athasian Geography

loose area of boulders, or in moving a great mass of
stone if a rock slide should occur.

	Above the boulder field, near the head of the can-
yon, there is nearly always a large field of scrub.
These fields range in size from just over twenty miles
in diameter to nearly a hundred. They exist, in my
estimation, for three reasons. First, the boulder field
makes it difficult for grazing creatures to reach
them, so the plants live longer. Second, they are
close to the summit of the Ringing Mountains,
which means they are close to a water supply. Third,
the temperatures are a little cooler at these altitudes,
so the grasses are not punished as severely by the
heat of the day.

	Sometimes, a hermit or a small tribe of herders
will make their home in such areas, having carried
their beasts into the field as young animals. Such
individuals (or tribes) are very suspicious of stran-
gers and protective of their territory. It is far from a
rare occurrence for a tribe of raiders to slay them,
steal their herds, and make the mountain meadow
their home base. Obviously, this means that anyone
entering one of these areas stands a fair chance of
running into a raiding tribe - which is never a pleas-
ant experience.

	Occasionally, these high mountain meadows are
not protected by a boulder field. Avoid such areas
at all costs. They are often defended so jealously by
hostile nomads or raiding tribes that to enter them is
to insure an ambush. If this is not the case, then
they are filled with nervous herbivores and ferocious
carnivores, all of whom will defend their territory ag-
gressively against any intrusion.

	The only exception to this that I know of is the
scrub land surrounding the city of Tyr, where the
city nobles consider it a great sport to hunt down
Athasian Geography


any vicious animals that intrude upon their territory.
This is an exciting sport, for the nobles fall victim to
the animals almost as frequently as they are success-
ful in their hunting.

Flora and Fauna

	Near the bottom of a typical canyon, the flora
and fauna corresponds to that of the sandy wastes
(see Sand Dunes in the Tablelands section above).
At the top of the canyon, there is usually a region of
scrub land. This area is covered with a lush carpet
of grass, and dotted with tall, puff-ball trees bearing
small waxy leaves. The wood of the trees is extremely
hard and is excellent for making weapons, but the
tree is otherwise inedible. Watch out for single
blades of a tough purple grass in this area; they tend
to grow with other clumps of grass, and are so sharp
that they can cut the tongue off careless beasts and
slash the feet of unwary travelers to ribbons.

	In place of the cacti of the rocky barrens, the mid-
ranges of the canyons are covered by dagger plants.
These strange plants have dozens of long, dagger-
shaped leaves that radiate out as much as three feet
from a central core at the top of the plant's root.
Each leaf ends in a sharp needle. The needle is
tipped with a mild poison, and paralyzes any limb it
pokes will be paralyzed for up to ten days. Some va-
rieties of these plants have leaf edges as sharp as an
obsidian blade.

	Most kinds of animals can be found in the can-
yons, especially those of the predatory variety. For-
tunately, since animals in the canyons are very
territorial, once you have dealt with the primary
predators, chances are you will not be attacked
again. Mountain gith can be a real hazard in these
canyons.

The Mountains;

	If your intention is to cross the Ringing Moun-
tains, or even to reach their summit, sooner or later
you'll have climb the mountains themselves.

	Those who have been traveling in a gulch or a
canyon will have no doubt when this moment has
arrived. They will find themselves standing at the
base of a sheer wall rising thousands of feet into the
sky. There will be no easy way to continue forward.
If they have somehow managed to bring pack ani-
mals this far, the gravel-covered slope, the huge
boulders looming overhead, and the intermittent
cliffs will leave no doubt that the only way to con-
tinue is climbing on their own feet.

	The realization will come slower to those who have
been traveling along the ridgetops. They will notice
that the slopes are growing steeper, the precipices
deeper, cliffs more frequent. Their pack animals, if
they still have any, will grow nervous and afraid.
Even the docile kanks will refuse to move, and, if
they are somehow forced to continue forward, the
poor beasts will inevitably lose their footing on the
sheer slopes and fall to their deaths - strewing all

that they were carrying as they tumble thousands of
feet down the mountainside.

	In either case, as you shoulder your burdens and
start to climb foot-by-foot up the steep slopes, this is
where you will feel the worst effects of the mysterious
mountain-sickness. Breathing will become difficult,
your head will pound with pain, you will feel sick to
your stomach, and you will feel tired and listless. In
serious cases, you may even lose all desire to con-
tinue your journey and turn back for no reason you
can name, or even sit down and wait for the freezing
embrace of the night, when the temperatures will
plunge far below zero.

	Assuming you have the necessary willpower to
continue onward, however, the mountain peaks will
probably be covered with loose gravel and stones,
for little grows on the windswept, sun-scorched ter-
rain. For every three steps you take upward, you will
slip backward one. At any moment, the entire slope
might coming sliding down on top of you, burying
your entire party under tons of dirt and rock. If the
mountainside is not covered in gravel, chances are
that you're Climbing a cliff of solid stone. You must
Athasian Geography

be sure of every step, always securing every move
with a good handhold, for one slip will send you
plummeting thousands of feet. Even if you friends
bother to descend the mountain and are lucky
enough to locate your remains, all they will find is a
pummeled mass of flesh.

	The one good thing about the mountains is that
predators will not be as great a concern as they are
in the canyons. Few land animals have any desire or
reason to journey into the mountains, so the only
hazard will come from large flying creatures that
may be looking for an easy meal. Usually, the pur-
pose of their attacks is not so much to kill you di-
rectly as to cause you to lose your footing and
plunge to your death. In fact, they seem to prefer
meat that has been tenderized in this fashion. I once
saw a wyvern ignore several pounds of freshly killed
erdlu in order to knock a man off the mountainside,
then fly down and feast on the pulverized body.

Flora and Fauna

	Vegetation is not common on the rocky slopes of
the high mountains, but here and there, the gnarled
trunk of a six-foot ranike tree snakes out of a crack
in the cliffs. While there is nothing edible about this
tree, when burned, its sap gives off an aromatic fra-
grance that is repugnant to insects, including the
rugged thri-kreen.

	The only animals you are likely to encounter on
these slopes are flying reptiles and birds of prey, all
of which take advantage of the security offered by
the rocky heights to make their nests. Needless to
say, they do not appreciate having their territory vio-
lated.

The Forest Ridge


	As the traveler crests the summit of the Ringing
Mountains, he sees what is perhaps the strangest
sight on Athas, and one that will assuredly take his
breath away. Below him, a jungle of tall fir and
birch trees covers the steep slopes of the high moun

61

tains, with a thick undergrowth of rhododendron
and mountain bamboo. It stretches north and south
along the spine of the mountains as far as the eye
can see. This is the legendary Forest Ridge, the par-
adise at the top of the world.

	For some reason, a wide band west of the summit
of Ringing Mountains is surprisingly moist. Nearly
every morning, a gentle drizzle falls, and at night
there is sometimes an inch or two of snow. Predict-
ably, this more-or-less constant supply of moisture
has resulted in a green-belt unlike anything else on
Athas.

	As the traveler enters the forest, he quickly dis-
covers that the vegetation is so thick that he must
cut a path through it. The forest grows dark and
gloomy, and it is filled with the chortles and cries of
hundreds of small animals alarmed at the intruder,s
presence. Overhead, the wind whistles through the
treetops with an eerie ringing - hence the name of
the range.

	Although the mountains on this side of the sum-
mit are as steep as those on the eastern side, the
footing is much less treacherous. The loose gravel
has been replaced by a carpet of moss that clings to
a thick layer of black soil. The slopes are still steep,
the cliffs are just as rocky, and the abysses just as
deep, but they are hardly visible behind the green
curtain of vegetation.

	The most amazing thing about this forest is the
humidity. Beads of water cling to everything: tree
leaves, rocks, even your forehead. The gentle mur-
mur of tiny brooks comes from all directions, here
and there becoming a small roar as a stream plung-
es over a precipice and crashes onto the rocks at its
base far below.

	Even in this paradise, you still will suffer from
mountain-sickness. The slightest exertion still fa-
tigues you and your head still pounds, but at least
the thick canopy of the jungle provides some shelter
from the sun.

	At night, the forest remains surprisingly warm,
almost as if the thick canopy were acting like a
blanket to insulate the ground. The temperature
drops, lingering a little bit above or a little bit below
freezing but does not plunge anywhere near the ex-
tremes experienced on the barren eastern slopes of
the mountains.

	You mustn't linger in the forest, however, unless

you have come here to die. Surprisingly, the greatest
threat does not come from animals. The jungle is
occupied mostly by small animals that rely upon
poison to defend themselves, and they won't bother
you if you don't bother them. The predators are not
generally dangerous to men, either; they tend to be
small and feed almost exclusively on the lesser crea-
tures inhabiting the forest.

	It is the halflings that you must watch out for.
They consider anything that enters their territory - 
including other intelligent races - fair game. Once
they become aware of your presence, they will silent-
ly stalk you through the forest, awaiting just the
proper time to spring ambush. If possible, they'll
take you alive and present you as a gift to their king.
Should you be taken alive, this is not a fate you
should hope for. Some halfling kings are so savage
that they prefer to eat humans and Demihumans
presented to them alive. Others are more civilized,
and will at least have the decency to kill and cook
their meals first.

	If a traveler cannot be taken alive, the halflings
will be just as content to drive him over some cliff,
ambush him during his sleep, trick him into trusting
them by pretending to be friendly, or simply over-
whelm him with superior numbers.

	It should be noted that any halfling with the ad-
venturing party will be spared if at all possible. Even
if the halfling is dressed the same as his compan-
ions, the natives will assume he has been captured
and is being held against his will by the "big peo-
ple." Protests and entreaties on behalf of the rest of
the party will have no effect, as the savage halflings
will simply assume that their unfortunate brother
has been magically seduced into defending his com-
panions. After the "brother" has been "freed", he

will be invited to join the tribe or be released with an
armful of gifts to go on about his business.

	For more information on halflings, see Organiza-
tion of Villages and Hunting and Gathering Clans
in Chapter Two: Society on Athas.

Flora and Fauna

	There are so many trees, vines, and shrubs grow-
ing on the Forest Ridge that it is futile to try to de-
scribe them all. Suffice it to say that there are
hundreds of mighty trees, all covered with lush
growths of huge leaves, bearing strange and exotic
fruits. From their branches dangle more kinds of
vines than I could catalog in a lifetime. The floor of
the jungle is so thickly covered with green shrubs
and brightly colored flowers that the ground itself
can only be glimpsed on rare occasions.

	The fauna of the jungle is as amazing as the flora.
A thousand species of snakes, frogs, birds, and little
rodents scurry about your feet. Occasionally, you
will also glimpse one of the great, dark predators
that lurk in the depths of the jungle - but so briefly
that you will not be able to say that you saw any

more than a dark shadow. Be forewarned, however;
in the forest, just because something is small does
not mean that it is not deadly. Poison is so common
in this jungle that it is a wonder you can breathe the
air without inhaling some foul toxin.

Ruins

	The Ringing Mountains have their share of ru-
ins, though sometimes of peculiar sorts.

	The canyons and gulches are, for the most part,
devoid of any ruins. Whether this is because the an-
cients did not build there or because the flash floods
have washed away all signs of their presence is im-
possible to know. Suffice it to say that if you are
searching for lost treasure, don't bother looking in
the canyons.

	The spires and ridges of the foothills are dotted
with crumbling towers, abandoned keeps, an£1
Athasian Geography

forgotten castles. Usually, these lonely edifices stand
atop a peak or knoll overlooking what must have
once been a point of some strategic importance,
such as the junction of two large canyons or the nar-
row entrance of a particularly long gulch. Some-
times, the foundations and dungeons below these
castles still contain a few pieces of steel armor, a
metal sword, or some other forgotten treasure. Just
as often, they now serve as the stronghold of a pow-
erful raider chieftain or monster tribe.

	In the foothills, there are many natural caverns of
incredible scope and size. Usually, they are inhab-
ited by a wide variety of nasty creatures, but some of
them house incredibly beautiful scenes and vast
pools of water concealed in their depths. It is occa-
sionally worth the risks involved to sneak into one of
these caverns just to see what you can see.

The mountains and foothills alike are laced with

ancient mines. For all but dwarves and halflings,
mine tunnels too low to walk in comfortably; in fact,
half-giants and many elves must crawl on their hands
and knees to explore these places. Some people claim
that this is because halflings were once expert miners
who dug most of the tunnels in the Ringing Moun-
tains, but I'm not sure I believe this. Whoever dug
the mines did a poor job - or else age has taken its
toll on their craftsmanship. I have heard tales of mine
entrances collapsing unexpectedly, leaving a party of
explorers trapped inside and suffocating. Some
mines are filled with water, and as you move through
them you must be careful not to step into a hidden
pit, or to open a door that will unleash a torrent of
foul-smelling water that burns your skin like acid.
Other mines, I have been told, are filled with explo-
sive gas, so that when you carry a torch into them,
the air itself burst into flames

Athasian Geography

	Add to these dangers the usual assortment of
horrors lurking in dark caverns, and strange races
of dark-dwelling humanoids said to inhabit the
mountain tunnels, and the mines seem to be very
good places to avoid. Of course, I realize that many
of you reading these words have heard the tales of
underground cities and treasures hidden in these
mountain mines, but just remember that neither
wealth nor fame does a dead man any service. That
is all I will say on the matter.

	Finally, the strangest ruins of all can only be
found high in the mountains. Every now and then,
you will come across a strange, dilapidated building
still clinging to the side of a high cliff, or tucked
away in a deep crevice halfway down a thousand
foot abyss. These tiny buildings are large enough to
hold no more than two or three people, and can only
be entered at considerable risk by climbing a sheer
face of rock or lowering oneself several hundred feet
on a rope. They seldom contain anything of eco-
nomic value, but I have known clerics and druids
alike who have spent a day or two there and em-
erged with new insights on the nature of the world
that have allowed them to increase their powers sig
nificantly.

Meetings

	If you intend to travel into the Ringing Moun-
tains, be prepared to fight for your life one minute
and run for it the next. About the only friendly peo-
ple that you will meet are the herders grazing their
animals on the sandy heaps at the mouths of the
canyons. Otherwise, the inhabitants of the moun
tains are there either in search of privacy, or because
it is a good place to hunt. Neither group is likely to
welcome visitors.

	Occasionally, you may discover a merchant,s
trading post hidden away in some gulch, near a rock
quarry or possibly even a mine. Unless you work for
the same house, and are bringing him supplies,
don't expect a warm welcome. Any merchant out-
post in such an out-of-the-way location is a sure in-
dicator that something in the vicinity is of economic
importance. Most likely, the resident agent will as-
sume you are scouting for a competitive house and
will do nothing to make your job easier - or even to
save your life.

	On the other hand, there is little need to fear that
he will ambush or otherwise assault you; all mer-
chant codes strictly forbid using violence to weed out
the competition. Of course, if you can prove that
you are not a competitor, and offer to swear a satis-
factory oath never to reveal the outpost's existence,
the agent may be inclined to receive you as a guest
or customer. Of course, once you have proven that
you do not belong to another house, his obligated to
avoid violence no longer applies.

The Hinterlands

	The Hinterlands is that area which lies beyond
the Ringing Mountains. I must confess that I know

little of this region, for my journeys have taken me
less than a hundred miles into it. In my defense,
however, let me point out that I am the only person I
know who has ever journeyed there and returned.
To my knowledge, all others who have set out to ex-
plore this region have simply disappeared.

	At first glance, the Hinterlands are not very dif-
ferent from the Tablelands. After descending the
western slope of the Ringing Mountains and work-
ing your way across the miles of sand heaped at the
mouths of the canyons, you will come to a flat, emp-
ty plain that stretches out toward the horizon as far
as the eye can see. You have reached the Hinter-
lands.

Travel in the Hinterlands

	Almost any normal method of travel should work
well in the level plains of the Hinterlands: walking,
kank riding, or even a mekillot wagon. Unfortu-
nately, unless you can think of some way to get a
kank or mekillot across the Ringing Mountains
(and believe me, I have tried or heard tell of every

64

Athasian Geography

technique I know) you'll end up walking. You're
about as likely to find a domesticated beast of bur-
den here as you are to survive a battle with the drag-
on. The Hinterlands remain completely deserted;
even if you're carrying money or goods which with to
barter with, you'll find no one from whom you can
purchase an animal.
	Fortunately, the flat terrain is conducive to foot
travel. After leaving the narrow band of stony bar-
rens (see below), you'll be able to make good time.
There will be enough foliage so that you can forage
for food without too much effort, even if you don't
always recognize the plant that you're eating. I ad-
vise you to be careful of anything with crimson
leaves, however; after eating the root of one of these
plants, for two days I thought I could fly. (It's a good
thing I wasn't in the mountains.) Game will be also
be plentiful, if you feel like risking a hunt.

	I would advise you to be careful about water, how-
ever. Although oases are a little more common in
the Hinterlands than in the Tablelands, you won't
know their locations, and there are no well-traveled
paths to give you clues as to where you should look.
The best option is take along a cleric of the Water
Plane as a traveling companion. Barring this, I
would suggest never traveling so far away from your
last watering hole that you cannot return to it with
what you have left in your waterskins. I suspect that
one reason travelers don't return from this region is
that hidden oases are more common and, they
don't follow this advice.

Geography of the Hinterlands

	From my experiences, the Hinterlands have much
in common with the Tablelands, save that they are
devoid of intelligent races as we know them. There-

fore, the descriptions below are brief, describing on-
ly aspects which are unique to the regional terrain of
the Hinterlands. If you need to know more about
the basic nature of a particular type of terrain, or
the flora or fauna found there, see Geography of the
Tablelands in this same chapter.

65

Stony Barrens

	When you reach the base of the Ringing Moun-
tains, western slope, it will appear that the Hinter-
lands are nothing but a vast plain of stony barrens.
Don't despair; the stony plains are only a narrow
band, between five and thirty miles wide. In the
worst case, it shouldn't take more than three days to
cross them.

	You may stumble across a well-worn path leading
away from the foothills of the Ringing Mountains.
Though the walking will be much faster and easier
on this path, avoid it at all costs. The path has no
doubt been made by large animals that roam back
and forth between the foothills and the scrub plains
beyond. Even if you don't encounter a herd or pack
of these beasts, which will no doubt be ferocious,
you are likely to be attacked by the fierce predators
that have learned to lie in ambush along such
routes .

Scrub Plains

	Most of the ground that I have seen in the Hinter-
lands is composed of scrub plains. Compared to
those of the Tablelands, these plains are unusually
flat; except for bushes and the occasional tree, they
are as level as a tabletop. Unfortunately, the gentle
breeze which always seems to be blowing stirs up a
lot of dust, so a gray-green haze clings to the
ground, limiting visibility to a half mile or so.

	There are vast numbers of animals in the scrub
plains, most of whom show two-legged creatures no
special diffidence. As you travel, you will no doubt
run across feral herds of erdlus, wild mekillots, un-
tamed kank hives, and dozens of creatures that you
will not recognize at all. If they do not flee from you,
then you would be well advised to flee from them.

Rocky Badlands' Mountains, s Forest

	The only terrain of this type that I encountered
was the Dragon Crown Mountain; see this entry in
Chapter Four Atlas of the Tyr Region.
Ruins
	I ran across little sign of the ancients in the 
Hinterlands. Apparently, the Ringing 
Mountains were IS much a barrier to them as 
they are to us. The sole Exception was a 
strange temple I found in the forest, 
concealed in the heart of the Dragon Crown 
Mountain. While I did not have time to 
explore it as carefully as I would have liked, 
l can assure you that it was unlike anything I 
have seen elsewhere on Athas.
Meetings
	The only encounters I had were with wild 
beasts; I came across no sign of intelligent 
races in the Hinterlands. This is not to say 
that such races don't exist, only that they are 
very rare. If there are intelligent races in the 
Hinterlands, I would guess that hey are 
primitive hunting and gathering clans, or 
possibly even nomadic herders. There is no 
sign of economic activity in the region, so it 
would be out of :he question to encounter 
raiding tribes, merchants, villages or cities.
	So far, I have tried to describe the general 
nature of Athas. To a certain extent, my 
abilities in this regard have been limited by 
mortal weaknesses: it is impossible for one 
man to visit all the corners of the world in his 
lifetime. Therefore, much of what I have set 
down in these pages has been gathered from 
conversations with fellow travelers, gleaned 
from the records of far-ranging merchants, or 
extrapolated from what I know via first hand 
experience. Of course, there are bound to be 
certain errors and vagaries in such material.
	That won't be the case in the material 
presented here. In these pages, I will 
describe, in as much detail as possible, only 
sites that I have seen for myself. No doubt, 
when you visit some of the places depicted 
below, you will find that certain things may 
have changed.
	Despite these differences, I believe you 
will find this record amazingly accurate; at 
one time, at least, these places were exactly 
as they are described here.
	In honor of my home city, I call the region I 
have explored the Tyr Region. This in no 
way implies that Tyr dominates this vast 
area - it doesn't - or even that is the largest 
city in the area - it isn't. All that it is meant 
by the name is that I started my explorations 
in Tyr, and this is the region I have explored.
	The Tyr region lies on the western shore of 
the Sea of Silt. Judging by what I have heard 
from other explorers and travelers, the land 
around Tyr is fairly typical of the regions 
bordering the Sea of Silt, with about half of 
its entire area taken up by Tablelands. The 
large Map of the Tyr Region shows the 
terrain of this area, as well as the locations 
of all the locales described below. Before 
reading further, take a few minutes, if you 
will, to study this map - if for no other 
reason than to appease the ego of an old man 
who has spent countless hours ruining his 

eyesight to make it.
 .
Cities
There are seven cities in the Tyr Region: 
Balic,
Draj, Gulg, Nibenay, Raam, Tyr, and Urik. 
Each

67
is ruled by a sorcerer-king (or queen) and is 
organized more or less along the lines 
outlined under Society of the City States in 
Chapter Two: Athasian Society. If you've 
never been to a city, be sure that you read 
this section before stepping through the 
gates. Otherwise, you could quite easily find 
yourself making bricks in the mudpits or 
fighting for your life in the arena.
	Of course, there are many cultural 
variations among the cities, as dictated by 
the individual tastes of the sorcerer-kings. 
Considering the degree to which these 
differences manifest themselves, it is a lucky 
thing that the underlying social structure is 
so similar from city to city. Otherwise, 
traveling from one to another would be even 
more hazardous than it is now.


Balic

	Balic is ruled by the Dictator Andropinis, a 
powerful sorcerer-king who was elected to 
his post over seven-hundred years ago. 
Though the term "dictator" originally 
referred to the power of dictating (as in 
stating) a city policy sanctioned by a 
democratic assembly of property owners, 
Andropinis has converted the title and office 
into one of total authority. Anyone who 
speaks against him is executed by dictatorial 
decree.
	On the rare occasions that someone is 
brave enough to voice a complaint about the 
harshness of Andropinis, rule, the old man 
takes great delight in reminding all within 
earshot that their ancestors elected him to his 
post for life. Unfortunately for the citizens of 
Balic, nobody realized just how long 
Andropinis might live.
	Andropinis lives in a majestic palace of 
white marble, rectangular in shape and 
adorned on all sides by magnificent columns. 
This palace is located atop a stony, fortified 
bluff in the center of the city. Andropinis, 
personal army consists of ten thousand 
highly disciplined foot soldiers who carry 
twelve-foot lances, large woolen shields, and 
thrusting daggers made from the sharpened 
thigh bones of erdlus.
	Balic's templars are unique in that the free 
citizens of the city elect them to their posts 
for ten-year terms. Andropinis is generally 
tolerant of these elections, though he 
sometimes lets the citizens know which 
candidates he would like to have elected. I 

have heard that if the wrong candidate wins 
the election, Andropinis has him executed 
and calls another vote.
	The nobles of Balic are called patricians. Like 
most other nobles, they hold their lands from 
generation to generation. Most of them make 
their living from the olive orchards and grain 
farms surrounding the city, but a few own 
large parcels of the scrub plains, upon which 
they carefully graze kanks and other 
creatures, twenty miles west of the city.
	Balic's Merchant Emporiums sit nestled 
against the base of Andropinis, rocky 
fortress, in an area called the agora. The 
merchants do a bustling busi-
ness in olive oil, kank nectar, and the 
decorated pottery produced by the city's 
famous potters. The Elven Market rings the 
agora on all sides, so that it is impossible to 
do any legitimate bartering without first 
being assaulted with dubious offers.
	Balic's secluded location is quite defensible as 
far as the armies of other city-states are 
concerned, for it is impossible to approach 
the city from any direction except the west. 
Unfortunately, its close proximity to the 
Forked Tongue Estuary causes the city more 
than enough trouble from giants who wade 
ashore to raid. Every citizen in the city, male 
or female, slave or freeman, is a member of 
the militia. On a rotating basis, they spend 
every tenth month helping the normal army 
patrol the fields and scrublands in an effort 
to reduce the amount of crops and stock lost 
to raiding giants
Draj
The sorcerer-king of Draj calls himself "The 
Mighty and Omnipotent Tectuktitlay, Father 
of Life and Master of the Two Moons." As 
you might guess from his appellation, 
Tectuktitlay claims to be a god. Lest you 
take him seriously, I'll point out that in my 
opinion, Tectuktitlay is not even one of the 
more powerful sorcerer-kings.
	Be that as it may, Tectuktitlay rules Draj 
from a great walled compound in the center 
of the city. This compound contains several 
one-story buildings that serve as the barracks 
for his personal guard, templar quarters, a 
school for the children of the nobles, and a 
psionics academy that he personally 
supervises. In the center of this compound is 
a large gladiatorial arena. It is surrounded by 
tiers of stone seats, except where a steep 
stone pyramid -  Tectuktitlay's home - rises 
two hundred feet over it.
	No one seems to know how long 
Tectuktitlay has ruled Draj, probably 
because he has forbidden this knowledge to 
be passed on from generation to generation in 
order to make himself seem completely 
immortal. His templars, called "Moon 
Priests," claim that he raised the city from the 
dust and I made 
Atlas of the Tyr Region


the surrounding lands 
fertile.
	This last claim no doubt arises from the 
fact that Draj sits on a huge mudflat located 
on the western edge of a large inland silt basin 
(see Geography of the Sea of Silt in Chapter 
Three: Athasian Geography for an 
explanation of mudflats).
	If I had to guess, and I have to, I would say 
that what really happened is this: A relatively 
young and weak Defiler, Tectuktitlay, led a 
small band of followers to this island and 
founded his city. Given the natural fertility of 
mudflats, Draj prospered and Tectuktitlay 
eventually became a sorcerer king.
	Because Draj and the surrounding lands 
are located on a mudflat, defending it is 
fairly simple. Any army that attempts to 
leave the road to it inevitably bogs down in a 
quagmire of thick mud. If the army stays on 
the stone paved road leading through 
Tectuktitlay's lands, all he needs do is send 
his warriors out to defend the narrow 
passage, then drive the enemy into the mud.
	Nevertheless, Draj is almost constantly at 
war, sending its armies far and wide in search 
of captives. The warriors, which you will 
encounter nearly anywhere, are armed with 
obsidian-edged swords and short barbed 
spears attached to long ropes. They are 
trained to throw their harpoons into a target's 
thigh or seat and then drag him back to where 
they are standing.
	Captives are returned to Draj itself, where they 
are forced to climb the great pyramid so that 
Tectuktitlay himself can tear out their hearts. 
The bodies are sent tumbling down the 
pyramid into the great arena below.
	On a day following a particularly large 
number of sacrifices, the bodies are removed 
from the arena so that the Tectuktitlay's 
favorites - the Priests of the Moons, the 
nobles, and weapon-makers - can enjoy an 
afternoon of gladiatorial games.
	Despite its warlike nature, Draj enjoys heavy 
commerce with the other cities of the Tyr 
Region (and some cities to the north, whose 
names I do not

know). This is because Draj's fertile soil 
makes it rich in two essential resources 
hemp, which is good for making both clothes 
and rope, and grain, which most other cities 
desperately need in order to feed their 
starving populations.
Gulg
	The sorcerer-queen of Gulg, Lalali-Puy, is 
called the oba by her subjects. The oba is an 
absolute monarch whose name means "forest 
goddess" in the language of her people. This 
is not a title she assumed herself, but one 
that her subjects thrust upon her. Lalali-Puy 
can command anything she wishes and know 
that she will be instantly obeyed by her 
people. In their eyes, she is a goddess they 
attribute her long life to immortality, and 

they believe that only a being of supreme 
power could have the abilities that she 
displays.
69
Atlas of the Tyr Region

	Lalali-Puy is perhaps the only city ruler 
who enjoys the popular support of her 
subjects. Gulg is engaged in an ages-old 
territorial war with Nibenay, the city at the 
other end of the forest. As terrible as their 
oba is, the inhabitants of Gulg are convinced 
that she is all that stands between them and 
being totally enslaved by Nibenay. In this, 
they are undoubtedly correct.
	Gulg is not a city in the ordinary sense of 
the word. It lies at the southern tip of the 
Crescent Forest, more or less in the center of 
the territory portrayed on the Map of the Tyr 
Region. The outer walls of the city consist of 
a thick hedge of thorny trees. The branches 
of these trees grow so tightly interwoven that 
it is impossible for anything larger than a 
halfling's fist to penetrate the barrier.
While most of the inhabitants of the city 
live in
	circular mud capped by roofs of thatched vines,
 Lalali-Puy herself lives in a small but 
magnificent palace built in the highest limbs 
of a huge agafari tree.
	Her templars, who oversee the military, 
economic, and agricultural matters of the 
city, live in well appointed huts in the lower 
limbs of the tree. Although the particular 
level of a templar's hut bears no direct 
relationship to his status, one can tell a 
templar's approximate rank by counting the 
number of necklaces he wears. Lalali-Puy's 
most trusted advisor, and second in 
command, wears ten necklaces. The lowliest 
templars wear only one.
	In Gulg, the nobles are not landowners, for 
the templars, city-owned slaves gather the 
city's food supply - wild fruits, nuts, and 
berries - from the forest. instead, the nobles 
are composed of an elite class of hunters 
who are selected from the general population 
at an early age and laboriously trained in the 
arts of tracking, moving silently, and 
surviving in the timberlands for many days 
without foods or water. As you might 
suspect, nobility is not inherited in Gulg, for 
only the most capable youths are selected to 
undertake the grueling training required to 
become a hunter.
	Like all property in Gulg, the food that the 
hunters and slaves gather is considered to be 
owned by the oba, who then redistributes it 
so that the basic needs of citizens are met. 
Of course, this makes it difficult for 
merchants to operate in the city, but the oba 
has solved this problem in a very efficient 
manner. In Gulg, the senior agent of a 
merchant house deals directly with a templar 
assigned to his emporium, who barters on 
behalf of all the people of the city. These 

templars are well known as hard bargainers, 
for more than one merchant house has gone 
broke trying to trade in pepper, kola nuts, 
and exotic feathers with the merchants of 
Gulg.
	The warriors of Gulg are known as judaga 
or head hunters. They are half-hunter and 
half-fighter, depending upon stealth to 
ambush their enemies and bows and arrows 
or poisoned darts to slay them. Their name 
comes from their habit of claim
70
Atlas of the Tyr Region
ing the heads of fallen enemies to prove their 
boasts of combat prowess.
Nibenay
	The city of Nibenay is named after its 
founder, the sorcerer-king Nibenay. Called 
the Shadow King by his subjects, Nibenay is a 
bizarre and enigmatic figure. His subjects 
see him so rarely that the city is constantly 
filled with rumors that he has died Whenever 
these rumors result in a civil disturbance, 
however, Nibenay appears long enough to 
impress upon his subjects that he is still very 
much alive usually by singlehandedly 
crushing the rebellion.
	The Shadow King lives inside a walled 
sub-city located in the center of Nibenay. No 
free man has ever seen his palace in person, 
but according to rumor it sits atop an 
artificial mountain of stone slabs. The palace 
itself is supposedly a giant bust of Nibenay's 
head. The front of the castle is carved into a 
stone relief of the Shadow King's face. The 
sides and rear of the palace are covered with 
life-sized representations of dancing women, 
strung together as if they were locks of his 
hair.
	Nibenay's  templars are all women. It is 
unclear whether they are all Nibenay's  wives, 
but it seems entirely possible. Only the 
templars are permitted to enter and leave the 
sub-city in which his palace is located. 
Otherwise, the rest of the city is composed 
entirely of slaves dedicated to making the 
lives of Nibenay and his templars 
comfortable and secure. Some say that many 
of these slaves are sculptors who are kept 
busy carving reliefs of each templar into the 
locks of Nibenay's  hail covering the side and 
rear of the palace
	This is completely feasible, as strange 
tastes in architecture seem to be the norm in 
Nibenay. Every building is carved with stone 
reliefs. Although the craftsmanship is 
flawless, the subject matter is peculiar. 
Often, the relief portrays the self-satisfied 
smirk of a wealthy noble - usually the person 
who owned the building when it was first 
built. Sometimes, the building is carved with 
the figures of the builder,s
entire family, all engaged in some sort of 
strange dance. In other instances, the building 
is decorated with fantastic reliefs of various 
monsters in the superstitious belief that if the 

city is visited by one of the terrible beasts it 
will be flattered by the depiction and leave 
the inhabitants in peace.
	Nibenay sits just outside the northern edge 
of the Crescent Forest, stop several hundred 
acres of bubbling springs. The nobles each 
own one of these springs, which they use to 
irrigate the fields of rice that feed the city.
	Nibenay's  merchant trade is based on the 
sale of weapons made from wood obtained in 
the Crescent Forest. Nibenay's  craftsmen are 
busy day and night felling agafari trees and 
shaping their extremely hard wood - the next 
best thing to bronze - into shields, spears, 
and clubs. This is the basis of Nibenay's  
rivalry with Gulg, for the hunters and gath-
71
erers of the forest city fear that if left 
unchecked, Nibenay's devastating practices 
would soon leave them without a home.
	The core of Nibenay's army consists of a 
thousand half-giants armed with agafari 
lances and clubs.

Raam
	The sorcerer-queen of Raam, Abalach-Re, 
calls herself the Great Vizier. She lives in a 
beautiful palace with ivory walls and an 
alabaster roof built atop a grassy knoll 
overlooking the city. Unfortunately, the base 
of this knoll is surrounded by a complicated 
and ugly series of defensive breastworks, 
ditches, and walls, for Abalach-Re is the 
most insecure of all the city rulers. When I 
visited there, the people
 spoke of organizing a rebellion and openly 
praised the last attempt to overthrow their 
queen (though it

apparently occurred previous to most of 
their lives, for no one could remember how it 
had ended).
	Abalach-Re professes to be the 
representative of some greater power, and 
claims that her powers are gifts from this 
mysterious being. According to 
Abalach-Re's theory, this mysterious being 
has picked her to watch over the city of 
Raam and its people. When she is no longer 
performing his task well, this same 
mysterious being will strike her dead and 
assign someone new to the office of Great 
Vizier.
	This is one of the more original ploys a 
sorcerer king has used to legitimize his or her 
power. By claiming to be the humble servant 
of a higher power, and by claiming that this 
same being approves of what she is doing, 
Abalach-Re hopes to focus the inevitable 
discontent of his subjects away from herself. 
Unfortunately for her, the citizens of Raam 
are smarter than she thinks. Although they 
pay lip service to the being she professes to 
serve, and may even attend the ceremonies 
the templars of Raam organize to honor this 
mythical creature, few people truly believe in 

its existence. Instead, they secretly despise 
Abalach-Re for being such a weak ruler that 
she must resort to these ploys, and they flout 
the authority of the Great Vizier whenever 
they feel they can get away with it.
	As a consequence, Raam is the most 
chaotic city I have visited. Templars hardly 
dare to show themselves alone in the streets 
for fear of being assassinated by the nobles. 
The nobles are little better than raiding 
tribes. Each noble owns at least a small tract 
of land abutting the roads, and his guards 
demand a hefty price from anyone who 
wishes to cross the noble's land. The 
merchant houses hire small armies of 
mercenaries to defend their trading 
emporiums from armed bands of thieves. 
The situation is so bad that elves are 
commonly accepted in the ranks of high 
society as if they were upstanding citizens!
	Of course, it is the slaves who suffer most 
under these conditions. Because most of 
Raam's fields lie untended and wild, food is 
expensive and difficult to come by in large 
quantities. Consequently, slaves
72
are fed only what is absolutely necessary to 
keep them alive - and then only as long as 
they are needed. As soon as their usefulness 
is at an end, they are sent to the arena to 
entertain the mad crowd with a pitiful 
exhibition of fighting.
	The only thing that prevents Raam from 
being overrun by another city-state is the 
sheer numbers of the army it can field. 
Abalach-Re maintains a huge armory beneath 
her palace and, if desperate, can arm every 
citizen in Raam with a wooden shield, 
flint-tipped throwing spear, and an 
obsidian-spiked flail. Of course, she is 
loathe to place such might in the hands of a 
populous that clearly despises her, but the 
option exists nonetheless.
Tyr
	Tyr is ruled by the sorcerer-king Kalak, 
who calls himself simply King Kalak or, as 
he sometimes prefers to be addressed, the 
Tyrant of TYR A pragmatic and ruthless man, 
Kalak is perhaps the most honest of all 
sorcerer-kings. He rules by the might of his 
magic and tremendous psionic powers, 
placing his own security and the stability of 
Tyr above all other considerations.
	If Kalak's attitude seems unjust or 
inequitable, it is at least predictable. The 
residents of his city understand that the best 
way to insure their own survival is to do 
what benefits Kalak. The surest way to find 
themselves working in the slave pits is to 
oppose Kalak's will. As a consequence, 
Tyrian society has functioned very 
efficiently for the thousand years that Kalak 
has ruled the city.
	The Tyrant of Tyr has always made his home 
in a magnificent palace adjacent to the 
gladiatorial stadium. The eastern wall of this 

palace overlooks the arena itself. During the 
games, Kalak himself can often be seen sitting 
on one of the hundred balconies that overlook 
the arena, accompanied by a   handful of 
templars and other favorites.
	Of late, old King Kalak seems to have 
become senile. For the past twenty years, he 
has diverted much of the city's slave labor to 
building a mighty
ziggurat (directly across the arena from his 
palace), claiming that it will protect Tyr from 
attacks by the dragon. At first, the nobles 
were tolerant of his folly, for the burden it 
placed on them was not great. Over the last 
year, however, Kalak has grown frantic to 
finish the massive structure, appropriating so 
many slaves that there is almost nobody left 
to work the fields.
	Kalak has also taken the slaves out of the 
mines, completely shutting down iron 
production. This has caused the city's 
economy to crash, leaving merchant and 
noble alike destitute. The slaves are 
starving, and even free craftsmen receive 
only meager grain rations in return for their 
services - and then only if their work 
contributes directly to the construction of the 
ziggurat.
To make matters worse, other cities that 
depend 
upon imports of Tyr's  raw iron to supplement  their 
economies are up in arms. Many of them, 
most notably Urik and Raam, have sent 
emissaries to King Kalak with grave 
warnings concerning the consequences of 
failing to resume iron production.
	Can it be any wonder that in their private 
gatherings, nobles are whispering plans of 
rebellion and that merchants are fleeing the 
city in droves? Surely, even the iron grip of 
the templars cannot keep the city from 
erupting into a violent inferno for much 
longer.
	When the final battle comes, it will be a 
terrible thing. The Royal Guard consists of 
two thousand mercenaries led by five 
hundred half-giants and Kalak's loyal 
templars. In fact, the latter are all armed with 
steel swords. Against them will be arrayed 
the varied armies of the nobles - who are far 
superior in number, if not armament. 
Considering the advantages of Kalak's magic, the contest will be a 
close one. Ironically, it may well be decided 
by the lowliest of all Tyr's citizens. the 
slaves.
	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 life giving 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 
Atlas of the Tyr Region
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 Off uselessness within 
days.
Villages

	There are hundreds of villages in the Tyr 
Region. Even if it were possible to describe 
them all, there would be little point in doing 
so. By the time you visited any particular 
village, there is a good chance that it would 
be gone - having been destroyed by raiders 
or simply deserted after serving its purpose. 
Therefore, only the villages that seemed to me 
more or less permanent are described below.
75
Altaruk
	Located at the heal of the Big Fork of the 
Forked Tongue Estuary, Altaruk is a client 
village of the merchant houses of Wavir, 
Rees, and Tomblador (based in Balic). As 
villages go, Altaruk is heavily fortified; it is 
surrounded by a fifteen-foot wall and 
defended by five hundred free mercenaries 
armed with mekillot-hide shields, wooden 
lances, and daggers of sharpened bone.
	This contingent of warriors is commanded 
by Arisphistaneles, a powerful Preserver. 
Because of Arisphistaneles, influence, the 
Veiled Alliance is openly tolerated in 
Altaruk, and the city is fast becoming known 
as a safe meeting place for 
Preservers - though Defilers are strictly 
forbidden entry.
	Despite its formidable defenses, Altaruk is 
destroyed on a regular basis by giants from 
the islands of the Forked Tongue Estuary. 
The sponsors always rebuild the village 
promptly, for its garrison is a key deterrent to 
the raiders that would otherwise prey on the 
heavy caravan traffic at this critical junction. 
This protection is extended to caravans of 
other houses in return for payment of a heavy 
toll as they pass through Altaruk.
Makla
	Makla is a client village of Urik, located 
on the shore of the Lake of Golden Dreams. 
It is a rugged town serving as a supply center 
and base camp for the slave gangs quarrying 
obsidian from the Smoking Crown. Makla is 
rarely harassed by raiders, for 500 Urik 
soldiers armed with obsidian-edged swords 
and spears are stationed here. They are 
supplemented by 50 half-giants armed with 
lances and clubs and a force of 25 halfling 
hunters assigned to track down escaped 
slaves.
North and South 
Ledopolus
	These two dwarven villages are located on 
opposite sides of the Big Fork of the 
Forked Tongue Estuary. The inhabitants of 
North Ledopolus are trying 
Atlas of the Tyr Region
to build a stone pathway to Ledo Island from 
their north shore of the estuary, and the 
inhabitants of South Ledopolus are trying to 
do the same from the south shore of the 
estuary. Their intention is to bridge the entire 
estuary, opening a shorter caravan route from 
Gulg and Nibenay to Balic and other cities 
south of the Tyr Region.

	Occasionally, the giants living on Ledo 
Island wade out to tear down some of what 
the dwarves have built. This usually 
occasions a fierce battle between the two 
contingents.
Salt View
	Salt View is a slave tribe village located 
on the eastern face of the Mekillot 
Mountains. Like most slave villages, it is a 
boisterous, unruly place filled with ex-slaves 
of all races, yet it is also known for its fine 
theater. The former slaves of Salt View have 
recently begun to supplement their normal 
means of making a living (raiding caravans 
bound for Gulg or Nibenay) by sending out 
acting troupes to put on shows for wealthy 
merchants (they will have nothing to do with 
nobles). Salt View's leader is an exgladiator 
mul named Xaynon.
Ogo
	Ogo is the home of the halfling chief, 
UrgaZoltapl. It consists of a massive 
step-pyramid rising just high enough so that 
its summit sits beneath the shade of the 
forest canopy (about seventy-five feet). 
Urga-Zoltapl's palace sits atop this pyramid, 
and it is here that he receives his tribesmen. 
A dozen stone buildings, homes for his 
servants and wives, stand scattered around 
the base of the pyramid.
	Ogo is unique among halfling villages in 
that an outsider may hope to visit it without 
being eaten -  but I would suggest 
undertaking the journey only in the company 
of halflings from Urik. Otherwise, you'll be 
taking your chances as to whether 
UrgaZoltapl thinks you would be more 
interesting as a conversationalist or as a 
meal.
Walis
	This small village is hidden away up an 
obscure side canyon in the foothills of the 
Ringing Mountain - and that's the way the 
citizens like it. From the outside, it looks like 
the long-deserted ruin of an ancient castle, 
and many travelers no doubt pass right 
beneath it without a second thought. Walis 
sits atop a high spire of rock that can only be 
reached by scaling a five-hundred foot cliff, 
by flying, or by being hoisted in a 
cargo-bucket that the natives operate for that 
purpose. Those who do know of Walis's true 
nature must stand at the bottom of the cliff 
and ask to be lifted, and the natives will 
oblige only if the individual is known to 
them.
	The reason for all this secrecy and security 
is that Walis sits atop the only gold mine in 
Athas that I know of. Lest you get any ideas 
about getting rich quickly, however, I should 
warn you that all commercial transactions in 
the village are handled by the Tomblador 
merchant house, which also pays a small 
company of Defilers to live in the village 
and protect it. Like the iron mine of Tyr, the 
gold mine here gives up its precious treasure 

only at great cost in sweat and blood.

Oases
	Athas is an arid world, but it is not entirely 
waterless. In various places, springs and 
underground streams bubble to the surface, 
forming small pools around which a verdant 
belt of vegetation grows. The desert is fairly 
dotted with oases - but they are so small and 
spread so far apart that unless you know their 
exact locations, you are apt to die of thirst 
looking for them. Then, too, oases come and go 
with frustrating irregularity. Sometimes the 
underground water source dries up; other 
times, the wind buries them beneath tons of 
sand and dust. Even when you do find an 
oasis, it is wise to remember that the water is 
sometimes poisonous.

	The largest and most reliable oases are 
marked on the Map of the Tyr Region. There is 
little reason
76
to describe each oasis individually, 
however, so I have included in the atlas only 
those that have some unique feature, which 
you may be likely to visit in your own 
travels.
Bitter Well
	The waters at this oasis are actually very 
cool and sweet. For centuries, as the caravan 
drivers crossed the scrub plains surrounding 
this oasis, they could hear running water. 
They could never locate its source, however, 
until a small group of dwarves set up a 
village and dug a well through a thin mantle 
of rock. It turned out that there was an 
underground stream below the rock mantle, 
which was acting as a sounding board to 
amplify the sounds of the stream. The 
dwarves, who had hoped to make a fortune 
selling water to the caravan drivers, were 
understandably bitter when they realized that 
the stream was too small to support even 
their own families, much less earn them the 
fortune they had hoped for; hence the name 
of the oasis.
	I would advise against relying upon 
watering at this well when making your 
travel plans; there is at least a 50% chance 
that the caravan ahead of you has already 
depleted the well. When this happens, it 
often takes up to six days before enough 
water flows back into the well to fill a 
typical caravan's waterskins.

Black Waters
	Black Waters is located in the heart of the 
Yaramuke (see Ruins below), halfway 
between the cities of Urik and Raam. 
Whatever you do, don't drink from either the 
pool or the stream that runs out of it. When 
King Hamanu of Urik destroyed Yaramuke, 
he used such terrible magic that he poisoned 
this oasis forever. Now, whoever drinks this 
water feels a chill fall over him and grows 

deathly ill. You would
 also be well advised to avoid camping near 
this oasis; it is haunted by the spectres of 
those who did not read (or heed) this warning.
77
Lake Pit
	This lake, located at the northern end of the 
Dragon's Bowl, is the largest body of water 
in the Tyr Region. Its cerulean surface 
covers more than twenty-eight square miles. 
Despite the fact that it is less than thirty 
miles from Urik, it remains in pristine 
condition, its shores teeming with both flora 
and fauna. Perhaps the reason for this is that 
to reach it, travelers must descend the steep 
cliffs of the Dragon's Bowl, or perhaps it is 
because Lake Pit is also under the protection 
of the druid who lives in the Dragon's Bowl 
(see Landmarks below).
	In either case, if you visit Lake Pit, do 
nothing to befoul the crystalline waters. And 
for your own protection, don't even think 
about trying to reach the Sunken City 
rumored to lie in the submerged caves 
beneath the lake. All those stories about 
rooms full of gold and halls filled with 
treasure are probably just fairy tales, 
anyway.
Lake of Golden Dreams
	The Lake of Golden Dreams lies on the 
western side of the Smoking Crown, where a 
thick yellowish steam constantly rises from 
its boiling waters. Where the yellow water is 
not too deep, it is possible to see that the bottom 
of the lake is laced with hundreds of tunnels 
and passageways. According to rumor, these 
tunnels lead to an incredible city that lies at 
the heart of the Smoking Crown. It is difficult 
to say whether there is any truth to this story, 
however; those who have survived the 
scalding waters long enough to swim into the 
tunnels have never returned.
Silver Spring
	There is nothing silver about this oasis the 
water is foul-tasting and brown, the bushes in 
the surrounding scrub plains are dun-colored 
and thorny, and the rocks are burnt orange, 
just like in the stony barrens of the rest of 
Athas. The reason the oasis is called the 
Silver Spring is because the elven chief 
who settled his tribe here demands a piece of 
silver (or something equivalent) of anyone 
who wishes to water at the pool. He and his 
warriors generally attack anyone who fails to 
pay.
Grak's  Pool
	The pond at this oasis is protected by a 
large mud-brick fortress. If you want to 
water here, it costs one copper piece (or the 
equivalent) per animal (they count intelligent 
beings as animals). Otherwise, the half-elf 
Grak and his fifty mercenaries won't allow 
you inside - unless, of course, they realize 
that you are more powerful than they are. 
According to rumors, there is a vault beneath 
Grak's fortress that contains all the treasure 

he has gained through controlling this oasis 
over the years.
Lost 
Oasis
	This geyser sits in the middle of a salt flat. 
Over the years, the steaming waters have 
washed the salt away for several miles 
around the fountain, and now it is surrounded 
by a beautiful forest of pinion trees. The 
Lost Oasis and its grove are protected by the 
thri-kreen druid Durwadala, whom you will 
never see - even if she attacks you for 
defiling the oasis.
The Mud Palace
	This huge mudflat is located in an inland 
silt basin in one of the most deserted parts of 
the Tyr Region. Even if you can persuade a 
friendly giant to carry you to it, as I did, I 
advise against going there. The entire 
mudflat is populated by horrid monsters, the 
like of which you have never seen before.
At the center of the island, where the foliage
78
Atlas of the Tyr Region
grows so thick it is a veritable jungle, a 
magnificent castle of white marble rises out 
of the mud. What may lie inside is 
impossible to say. The grounds are haunted 
by venomous spiders and snakes of every 
sort. To make matters worse, there are no 
windows, doors, or entrances of any sort on 
the castle - save for the windows at the 
highest levels of the tower, which gush forth 
a constant stream of water.
Islands
The Sea of Silt is filled with islands, and I 
must admit, not having the ability to fly 
(magically or otherwise), that my visits to 
them have been limited.
	I have learned the names of many, 
however, and these islands are listed on the 
Map of the Tyr Region. Most of them are 
inhabited by giants, I believe. But not every 
island on the map is described here; as I have 
said earlier, in this atlas I am including only 
places that I have visited personally. 
Therefore, the list below includes only a few 
of the many islands in the Tyr Region.
Ledo
	This rocky crag is inhabited by a clan of 
ten to fifteen giants (the inhabitants were 
intentionally vague as to their number and 
took steps to prevent me from getting an 
accurate count). They are convinced that the 
dwarves of Northern and Southern Ledopolus 
(see Villages above) are trying to reach Ledo 
in order to steal their mineral wealth, which 
consists of a single flint-laced mountain. 
Ledo is too rocky for grazing, so the giants 
make their living by hunting and by trading 
bags of flint to merchant caravans traveling 
the road from Balic to Altaruk.
Dragon's  Palate
 This long, narrow island is formed by a small  
range of very high mountains. The northern 
face of  the mountains receives quite a bit of 

rain and has

Three fairly large streams that cascade down 
the
steep slopes before forming mudflats in the 
Forked Tongue Estuary.
	The giants on this island make their living 
by herding sheep and tending olive orchards. 
They rarely resort to raiding, except in 
search of some material they cannot produce 
themselves. They are especially fond of 
kank nectar and are sure to welcome any 
visitor bearing a tub of the rich green honey.
	I should warn you, however, against trying 
to capture or kill any of the exotic birds that 
inhabit the northern slope of the mountains. 
Although the tail feathers of these birds are 
worth a small fortune in any city, the giants 
seem strangely attached to their feathered 
friends. If they catch you bird hunting, they 
will most assuredly toss you into the Sea of 
Silt to suffocate.
Siren's  Song
	Though I have not actually visited this 
island, it seems wise to warn you about it. 
Caravan drivers traveling the area north of 
this island have taken to plugging their ears 
as they pass, for a strange, haunting song 
drifts out over the stony barrens from Siren's 
Song. This song casts a magical spell over 
those who hear it, and they find themselves 
compelled to follow it to its source. 
Unfortunately, the source lies on Siren's 
Song Island, and as the enchanted men 
attempt to wade out to the island, they 
inevitably suffocate in the half-mile of silt 
that they must cross to reach it. Foolishly, I 
was determined to hear this song, so I 
deliberately left my ears uncovered. I nearly 
killed my companions before they succeeded 
in restraining me and saving me from this 
terrible fate. To this day, its memory haunts 
me and I often feel a longing to seek out its 
source.
	Some claim that an ancient sorceress is 
imprisoned on the island, and that she is 
singing her beautiful song to call a hero to 
her aid. Others say the song is nothing but 
the cry of some foul creature inhabiting the 
island. Whatever the reason, be 
forewarned - the song is fatal.
79
Atlas of the Tyr Region

Waverly
	In the center of this large island sits an  
ancient, walled city. In the town square, the  
primitive fountain still sprays water into the  
air. The town's sewers act like a network of  
irrigation canals to carry away the overflow,  
so the region in and about the town has  
become a well-watered scrub plain over the  
years. At the edges of the city lie several  
piers and ancient craft that may have been  
used for sailing when the sea was filled with  
water. Although these were clearly crafted of  

wood once, they have become petrified either  
with the passage of time or via some arcane  
enchantment. The area between these piers  
and the Sea of Silt is rocky and barren.
	According to legend, a horde of several  
thousand pounds of silver is buried  
somewhere beneath the city. Even if this  
legend is true and you found the horde,  
however, I think you would have more  
trouble transporting it back to shore than  
finding it in the first place. Other than a flock  
of wild erdlus and several hives of wild  
kanks, the island appears completely  
deserted.
Lake Island
	Lake Island is a huge volcano that has  
gradually thrust itself up out of the Sea of  
Silt over the course of the last five hundred  
years. Though it has never erupted violently  
to my knowledge, the summit grows a little  
higher each year as a fairly constant stream  
of magma trickles forth from cracks in the  
side of the cone. The scrub plains of the  
island's lower slopes are covered with a lush  
grass that serves kanks and erdlus well as  
fodder.
	In the crater at the mountain's summit there  
is a large, deep lake of clear blue water. A  
plume of bluish steam rises from this lake  
and hangs over the mountain s crown at all  
times. Some psionicists claim that breathing  
these vapors while perched on the edge of  
the crater in a state of trance helps them  
achieve a deeper understanding of their inner  
powers. The giants on the island think it is  
great fun
80
to see if they can sneak upon these  
individuals and push them into the scalding  
waters of the lake.
 .

	As noted in the chapter on geography,  
there are ruins all over Athas. You will  
encounter them practically wherever you go,  
lying half-submerged in dust basins, rising  
out of the endless salt flats, or towering  
above the stony barrens. The ruins described  
below are some of the more interesting ones
that It I have visited
Bleak Tower
	This circular, marble tower rises more than  
a hundred feet above the surrounding plain.  
Once, a wooden stairway ascended the  
interior, but it has long since rotted away.  
Other than the stairway, the tower remains  
exactly as it has stood for at least a thousand  
years. Not a stone has fallen from its walls.  
From its crown, a magical lantern still casts a  
macabre green light out over the Sea of Silt.  
When the wind stirs up a good dust storm, a  
loud, painful bellow sounds from the tower at  
regular intervals. The local natives attribute  
the roar to the ghost of the tower's lady who,  
they say, lost her betrothed on such a night  
long ago, when the Sea of Silt was filled with  

water.
Arkhold
	This ancient village of stone huts was once  
protected by a large castle perched atop a  
hill overlooking the town. The village seems  
to have been a healthy one, for it had  
outgrown its walls several times and built  
new ones to protect the outer buildings.  
Now, much of the village is covered by  
drifting sand. My guides told me that every  
time they come back, a new part of the town  
is uncovered and a section that they had  
previously explored is buried in sand.  
Arkhold's isolation makes it a good place for  
treasure hunters. Although we tarried here  
only a few hours, my guides each found a  
steel sword (I  
about it. When I tried to climb the hill to 
explore it, my guides restrained me bodily, 
claiming that it was the home to a foul race 
of insane humanoids. Then, as nightfall 
began to approach, they insisted upon 
leaving the area altogether, fearing that those 
same humanoids would come and take us 
kicking and screaming back to their castle. I 
would like to return there someday, however, 
for the castle looked amazingly well 
preserved. I am sure that it would prove to 
be an excellent place to learn something 
about the ancients.
Kalidnay
large as I Tyr and as wealthy as Balic I he 
sorcerer king who ruled it lived in an 
immense palace in the heart of the city, 
surrounded by the mansions of his nobles 
and templars. Judging from all of the 
abandoned trading emporiums, it must have 
been a wealthy city indeed. In the center of 
the city, there was even a huge ziggurat. 
Now, the streets are littered with skeletons, 
the palaces have fallen into ruin, and the 
ziggurat has been cracked open like an 
immense earthen egg. No one knows what 
disaster caused the downfall of Kalidnay, but 
there can be no doubt that it came rapidly 
and unexpectedly.
Bodach

Bodash, lying at the tip of peninsula projecting 
into one of the great inland silt basins was 
undoubtedly one of the mightiest cities of the 
ancients. lts ruins cover many square miles 
of the peninsula. When you stand at the edge 
of the silt basin, you can see its towers rising 
above the silt for many miles beyond.
	Unfortunately, Bodach and the surrounding 
territories are not good places to linger. As 
the crimson sun goes down, thousands of 
undead zombies and skeletons crawl out of 
the cellars, sewers and hidden dungeons, 
then begin scouring the city and the 
surrounding countryside. If you're here after 
dark,

you will spend the entire night fighting one 
long, pitched battle.
	l have talked to those who say that the 
undead are controlled by a powerful Defiler who 
is using them to keep treasure hunters away 
from the city while he systematically loots it. 
Others claim that the undead are the original 
inhabitants of the city, and they cannot rest 
because there is some terrible secret buried 
in the heart of ancient city that they do not 

want discovered. In either case, if you go to 
Bodach, be prepared for an intense battle 
against this gruesome army.
Giustenal
	Giustenal is another of the great cities of 
the ancients. The city has many different 
walls, some of which wind down into the Sea 
of Silt. it is possible to wade several miles 
into the dust by walking along the tops of 
these walls, but I would advise against such 
foolishness. There seems to be an unusual 
concentration of silt horrors around the city.
	Giustenal appears relatively deserted, 
perhaps even peaceful, and it is. However, 
there is something lurking out there in the 
quarters buried by the Sea of Silt. Psionicists 
claim that it is a being - or an object - of 
incredible power that makes contact with 
vulnerable minds and calls to them.
	l have never felt this pull, but one night 
while we were camped inside the city ruins, 
a glassy look came over my psionicist 
companion and he began conversing with an 
unseen partner in a strange language. Two 
days later, he went insane and murdered our 
kank drivers. I was forced to kill him to 
defend myself.
Yaramuke
This ruined city was once ruled 

by the Queen of Yaramuke, a beautiful 
sorcerer named Sielba. She
Atlas of the Tyr Region

and King Hamanu of Urik became embroiled 
in a bitter dispute concerning quarrying rights 
to the obsidian on the Smoking Crown. 
Hamanu resolved the dispute by razing 
Yaramuke to the ground, using such terrible 
magic that even the water was fouled 
forever. According to legend, Sielba's 
treasure is still buried beneath the ruins of 
her palace. If you journey to Yaramuke in 
search of this treasure, I wish you good luck 
in determining which pile of rubble was once 
Sielba's palace.
Landmarks
	Never let it be said that Athas is a dreary 
or monotonous land. It is strewn with 
interesting and beautiful landmarks, as I'm 
sure you will discover during your travels. 
Here are a few of my favorites.
Dragon's  
Bowl

	This great basin was formed when the first 
great dragon was born, tearing his body out 
of the living rock. Obviously, I was not 
present at this event, but when I entered the 
valley eons later, an intangible sense of awe 
crept over me, filling me with emotions of 
such apprehension and triviality that I fell 
trembling to my knees.
	Perhaps this is why, despite lying between 
three busy caravan routes, Dragon's Bowl 
remains a hushed and desolate place. Or 

perhaps it is because no matter how you 
enter the Dragon's  Bowl, you must descend a 
thousand feet of steep, treacherous slopes 
that often end in sheer, rocky cliffs. In either 
case, you will find the bottom of this large 
valley eerily quiet, especially around lake 
Pit at the northern end (see Oases above). 
The entire region is under the Protection of the mul 
Enola.
Mekillot 
Mountains
	From a distance, these mountains look like a 
huge mekillot crawling across the plains. The 
core of these mountains is composed of hard 
granite, and wherever this bedrock is 
exposed, it protrudes from
82
the surrounding soft rock in beautifully 
carved shapes - domes and pillars, huge 
walls. immense tilted slabs, etc.
	It is well worth the trying trip across the 
salt plains to walk among these natural 
monoliths, but beware of two things when 
you arrive: klars and Salt View. Klars are 
huge nocturnal bears that hunt via psionics 
and Salt View is a slave village.
Estuary of the Forked 
Tongue
	This silt-filled channel is over two hundred 
fifty miles long, and is one of the primary 
barriers to traveling north and south in the 
southern areas of the Tyr region. It is filled 
with small islands, only a small portion of 
which are shown on the Map of the Tyr 
Region. Most of these islands are inhabited 
by at least one or two giants. On breezy 
evenings, when the crimson sun is just setting 
and a silver haze of dust hangs over the 
channel, it is one of the most beautiful sights 
on Athas.
Dragon's  Crown 
Mountain
	As far as I know, I am the only living man 
who has ever seen this ancient volcano. 
Shrouded in black cinders, it rises out of the 
scrub plains of the Hinterlands like a lonely 
sentinel. On the northwest side, the steep 
wall of its slopes is broken by the jagged 
outflow of an ancient river of lava.
	If you make it this far into the Hinterlands, 
take the time and effort to struggle up the 
broken ground of this river. At its heart lies a 
beautiful pine forest, filled with gentle 
creatures. Deep within the forest lies an 
alabaster palace. When I visited, the gates to 
this palace were closed and it appeared 
deserted, but I could peer inside and see that 
the gardens were beautifully maintained. 
Though I camped outside the gates for more 
than a week, I never did see any inhabitants. 
I reluctantly decided to leave when I noticed a 
huge, dark shape circling high overhead. 


p.83 contains a picture from Dungeon Master's Book

	Life is a mysterious and resilient thing. Even in
the starkest wastes of Athas, the careful observer
finds it clinging to the horns of sand dunes, peeking
out from beneath wind-raked boulders, and creep-
ing along the cracked plains of sun-baked clay.

	To survive, almost every form of life has become a
monster. On the increasingly infertile world of
Athas, these adaptations have taken an almost dia-
bolical turn. The land is so barren that every form

of life, to one extent or another, is both predator and
prey. Some of the more notable of these monsters
are described in the pages that follow.

	Over the course of the next few pages, you will
learn a little about the most common, interesting, or
dangerous creatures that I have encountered in my
travels. Again, I must caution the would-be adven-
turer that even the most passive beast or sweetest
flower is often deadly on Athas.



      
Animals. Domestic

                    Erdlu       Kank            Mekillot        Inix
CLIMATE/TERRAIN:    Tablelands  Tablelands      Tablelands      Tablelands
                or Hinterlands  or Hinterlands  or Hinterlands  or Hinterlands
FREQUENCY           Common      Common          Rare            Uncommon
ORGANIZATION:       Flock       Hive            Solitary        Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE:     Day         Any             Day             Day
DIET:               Omnivore    Omnivore        Omnivore        Herbivore
INTELLIGENCE:       Animal (1)  Animal (1)      Animal (1)      Animal (1)
TREASURE:           Nil         Nil             Nil             Nil
ALIGNMENT:          Neutral     Neutral         Neutral         Neutral
NO. APPEARING:      50-500      50-500          1 or 2          1 or 2
                    (5d10x 10)  (5d10x 10)
ARMOR CLASS:        7           5               7 (underside 9) 6
MOVEMENT:           18          15              9               15
HIT DICE:           3           2               11              6
THAC0:              17          19              9               15
NO. OF ATTACKS:     2           1               1               2
DAMAGE/ATTACK:      1d6/1d4     1d6             1d6             1d6/1d8
SPECIAL ATTACKS:    Nil         See below   Swallow or crush    Crush
SPECIAL DEFENSES:   Nil         Nil             Nil             Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE:   Nil         Nil             Nil             Nil
SIZE:               M (7' tall) L (8' long)     G (30' long)    H (16+'long)
MORALE:             Average (10) Elite (14)     Elite (14)      Steady (12)
XP VALUE:           65          35              6,000           650
Psionics Nil        Nil         Nil             Nil             Nil

        There are numerous domesticated animals on Athas. 
Some of the most common ones, at least in the Hinter 
and Tablelands. are described here.

Erdlu
        Erdlus are flightless, featherless birds covered with 
flaky gray-tored scales. They weigh as much as 200 
pounds and stand up to seven feet tall. They have 
powerful, lanky legs ending in four-toed feet with 
razor-sharp claws, and can run at great speeds over short 
distances (no more than half-a-mile). Their bodies are 
massive and round, with a pair of useless wings folded at 
their sides. Attached to their yellow, snake like necks are 
small round heads with huge wedge-shaped beaks.

        Erdlus make ideal herd animals, as they can eat many 
forms of tough vegetation, as well as snakes, lizards, and 
other small reptiles. They instinctively band together in 
flocks for protection. When threatened, their first impulse 
is to flee. If this is not possible, the entire flock will turn 
and give battle as a group. When they fight, ~ they strike 
at their attackers with their sharp beaks and then rake
them with their 
claws.
        Erdlu eggs are an excellent food, containing all the 
nutrients that a human or demihuman needs to survive 
for months at a time. If eaten raw, they can even 
substitute for water (1 gallon per egg) for periods of up to 
one week. In addition, the hard scales of their wings 
make excellent shields or armor (AC 6), their beaks can 
be used to make fine spearheads, and their claws are 
often crafted into daggers or tools,


Kank

        Kanks are large docile insects. Their bodies have a 
black chitinous exoskeleton. and are divided into three 
sections: head, thorax,
and abdomen. Kanks often weigh as much as 400 
pounds and stand up to four feet tall at the back, with 
bodies as long as eight feet from head to abdomen. 
Around their mouths, they have a pair of multi-jointed 
pincers which they use to carry objects, to feed 
themselves, and occasionally to fight with. On their 
thoraxes, they have six lanky legs ending in a single 
flexible claw with which the kank can grip the surfaces it 
walks upon. Their bulbous abdomens have no 
appendages, and are simply carried above the ground.
        Kanks are often used as caravan mounts, as they can 
travel for a full day at their top speed, carrying a 
two-hundred pound passenger and two-hundred pounds 
of cargo. They also make decent herd animals and are 
especially valued by elves. Because they can digest 
nearly any sort of organic matter, these hardy beasts will 
thrive in almost any environment. In addition, they 
require little attention, for a kank hive instinctively 
organizes itself into food producers, soldiers, and 
brood queens.
        The food producers secrete melon-sized globules of 
green honey that they store on the their abdomens to 
feed the young and, when food is scarce, the rest of the 
hive. Humans and demihumans can live on this nectar 
alone for periods of up to three weeks, but must 
supplement their diets with meat and/or vegetation after 
longer periods. The sweet taste of this nectar makes it 
very valuable, and it is this that has caused the kank to be 
domesticated. It should be noted that wild kanks produce 
far fewer globules than their carefully breed cousins.

      When the tribe stops in an area that looks as though there is a
considerable amount of vegetation, the brood queens lay a clutch of
twenty to fifty eggs. The soldier kanks, along with the rest of the
hive, ferociously defend this area from all predators, and will not
leave until the eggs hatch. Herders must delay their migrations or
abandon their hives when this conflicts with their plans.  In a
fight, the soldiers attack first, striking with their pincers for 1d6
points of damage. In addition, any victim hit by a soldier is
injected with Class O poison save vs. poison or be paralyzed in 2d12
rounds). If pressed, the food producers will also fight, but they
lack the poison of the soldiers. The brood queen never attacks, even
in self defense.

      Although predators may attack kank for the food producers'
honey globules, only the foulest carrion eaters will eat kank flesh.
As soon as a kank dies, its meat emits a foul smelling odor that not
even a starving man can stomach. The chitinous exoskeleton of kanks
can be scraped and cut into solid plates of armor (AC 5), but it is
somewhat brittle and each time it is hit there is a 20% chance that
it will shatter.

Mekillot

        Mekillots are mighty lizards weighing up to six-tons, with 
huge, mound-shaped bodies as long as 30 feet. Their backs 
and heads are covered with a thick shell that serves as both a 
sunshade and protection from attacks by other large 
creatures. Their undersides are covered with much softer 
scales (AC 8).

      Despite their vicious dispositions, mekillots are often used as
caravan beasts. A hitched pair can pull a wagon weighing 10-20 tons
at a slow, plodding pace. Mekillots are never truly tame, however;
even when they are hitched to a wagon, the stubborn creatures have
been known to turn off the road and go wandering off for days -
without any apparent reason. They are also noted for making snacks of
their handlers. Because of the difficulties of controlling 
these beasts, most caravans rely on psionicists with the 
appropriate powers to drive them.

      In a fight, mekillots attack with their long tongues, striking
for 1d6 damage. On a natural roll of 20, the tongue grasps the victim
and tries to draw him into his mouth. He must save vs.  paralyzation
to avoid being swallowed and slowly killed by the great beast's
digestive system. Swallowed individuals are helpless to employ any
form of attack other than psionics on the mekillot that consumed
them.

        Mekillots protect their vulnerable undersides by 
instinctively dropping to their bellies when anything crawls 
beneath them. This causes 2d12 points of damage to the 
creature they drop upon and may injure the mekillot, 
depending on what it is trying to flatten.

Inix

        The inix is a large lizard midway in size between a kank 
and mekillot. It weighs about two tons and grows up to 
sixteen feet long. Its back is protected by a thick shell, while 
its belly is covered with a layer of flexible scales.
        Inix make spirited mounts, and are capable of carrying up 
to a seven-hundred and fifty pounds. They move at steady 
pace for hours on end, and over short distances, their charge 
is as fast as that of a kank. Inix riders often travel in 
howdahs, small box like carriages that are strapped to the 
beast's back.

        The one major drawback to traveling by inix is that these 
large herbivores need vast amounts of forage. If they don't 
get enough to eat they are nearly impossible to control. 
Thus, they are seldom used in regions where forage is at a 
premium.
        In combat, inix slap with their immense tail (1d6 damage) 
and bite 1d8 damage). On a natural biting attack roll of 20, 
they grasp man-sized or smaller opponents and do an 
additional 1d20 points of crushing damage. Their shells are 
useful for making armor (AC 5), and their scaly underbellies 
can be used to make a type of fine leather armor (AC 7). 


        Belgoi

        CLIMATE/TERRAIN:        Tablelands
        FREQUENCY       Uncommon        
    ORGANIZATION:   Tribe
        ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
        DIET:   Omnivore
        INTELLIGENCE:   Low
        TREASURE:       M, (I)
        ALIGNMENT:      Lawful evil
    NO. APPEARING:  1-10
        ARMOR CLASS:    7
        MOVEMENT:       12
        HIT DICE:       5
        THAC0:  15
        NO. OF ATTACKS  2
        DAMAGE/ATTACK:  1d4+2
        SPECIAL ATTACKS:        Constitution drain      
    SPECIAL DEFENSES:   Nil
    MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
    SIZE: M (6' tall)
    MORALE: Average (8-10)
    XP VALUE: 650

    PSIONICS SUMMARY:

        Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense Score  PSPs
           2       2/1/5       EW,PB/M-        12  35

Telepathy - Sciences: domination; Devotions: attraction,
ego whip, psionic blast mind blank, contact.


Note: These psionics are common to most belgoi. It is not 
unusual for individuals of higher status to have more 
powerful psionics, however.


At first sight, the belgoi appear human - and then you notice 
the long claws on the end of their fingers, their puckered, 
toothless mouths, and their webbed, three-toed feet. They 
are a race of ignorant demihumans who dwell in the most 
forlorn wastes of Athas. They have a taste for the flesh of 
intelligent races and no ruler will tolerate them within five 
day,s travel of his city.
Combat: Belgoi usually attack by sneaking up on their 
victim,s camp and selecting a juicy looking target. Each 
belgoi rings a small bell that allows it to make contact with 
its victim, then attempts to use domination to take over the 
victim's body and have him leave camp, or attraction to lure 
the. victim into the darkness. If the belgoi's contact is 
successful, only the victim can hear the bell, but if it fails, 
then the entire party hears it.
        Once the victim is lured out of camp, the belgoi caresses 
and touches the victim, temporarily draining 1 d6 points of 
Constitution per round (duration: 1d4 turns, victim loses 
all bonuses due to high Constitution). Upon reaching 0 
Constitution points, the victim falls unconscious, and the 
belgoi sits down to feast.
        If forced into melee combat, the belgoi strike with their 
wicked claws, inflicting an 1d4+2 points of damage. Each 
time they hit, the victim must save vs. poison or lose 1d6 
points of Constitution (as described above).

        When a battle starts to go against the belgoi, they will flee 
and fetch replacements for any of their fallen comrades, 
then return a short time later to attack again. Therefore, 
battles with belgoi often turn into long, running fights that 
last for many days. The only way to prevent the belgoi from 
returning time after time is to kill them all before they have 
a chance to escape.
Habitat/Society: Basically, the belgoi form huge raiding 
tribes and behave as such. They tend to make their homes in 
forlorn parts of the desert, but journey forth in great 
numbers to harass the trading routes, settled villages, and 
anywhere else they can find a plentiful supply of poorly 
defended people.


    Belgoi hosts tend to move in small parties of 1-10
individuals. When they encounter likely-looking prey, the 
scouting party usually attacks, looking to its own dinner first. If 
they have stumbled across a large group, however, they will 
fetch other members of their tribe and return to attack with 
greater numbers.
Ecology: Belgoi often leave the land barren and desolate 
behind them, stripped of all animal and vegetable life. They 
are second only to the foulest of defilers in the destruction 
they cause to the world about them. 

        Braxat

CLIMATE/TERRAIN:    Tablelands, Mountains, and Hinter-
lands
FREQUENCY   Rare
ORGANIZATION:   Solitary

ACTIVITY CYCLE: Night
DIET:   Carnivore
INTELLIGENCE:   High (13-14)

TREASURE:   R, V
ALIGNMENT:  Neutral evil
NO. APPEARING:  1 or 2
ARMOR CLASS:    0
MOVEMENT:   15

HIT DICE    10
THAC0:  1 1
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  by weapon + 10
SPECIAL ATTACKS:    Breath Weapon
SPECIAL DEFENSES:   Hit only by magical or steel weapons
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: H
MORALE: Fanatic (18-19)
XP VALUE: 5,000

PSIONICS SUMMARY:

        Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense Score  PSPs
    6       1/2/10      MT,PB,PsC/      15  80
                        IF,MB,M-
                        TS,TW


Telepathy - Sciences: psychic crush, tower of iron will.
Devotions: mind thrust, psionic blast, intellect fortress, 
mental barrier, mind blank, thought shield, awe, contact, 
inflict pain, invincible foes.


It is difficult to tell whether the braxat are of mammalian or 
reptilian stock. Their backs are covered with thick, 
articulated shells their heads have a squarish lizard-like 
shape giving them a reptilian appearance, and the crowns of 
their heads are defended by three to five horny protrusions. 
At the same time, they walk upright on two feet, can speak 
with a human-like voice, have a fully opposable thumb, and 
are warm-blooded.

Combat Braxat are hunters by nature, and their fighting 
tactics reflect this. They will often use psionic attacks 
(inflict pain or invincible foes) in an attempt to disable their 
opponents and reduce the risk to themselves.

        After attacking psionically, the braxat wade into 
hand-to-hand combat, usually carrying a massive spiked club 
that inflicts 2d4 points of damage.

      They use their breath weapon only as a last resort, for it
tends to render the prey unsuitable for consumption. This cone of
acid is one foot in diameter at the base and extends for ten-feet,
where it is five feet in diameter It does 2d10 points of damage to
anything it touches (save vs. breath weapon for 1/2 damage).

      Braxat suffer damage only when hit by steel weapons or those
with a magical enchantment upon them. All other weapons glance off of
them harmlessly, although they may be knocked prone or otherwise
affected by them.  Habitat/Society: Braxats are found throughout
Athas, wandering the forlorn wastes in search of prey. They are
usually solitary creatures, but may rarely be found in mated pairs
(in this case, the young are usually safely hidden away in a remote
cavern).

      Ecology: Braxat are true terrors of the desert, usually
attacking at night in search of fresh meat. Although they will eat
caravan mounts on occasion (with the exception of kanks), they prefer
intelligent races.

    Braxat shells make excellent shields and armor plates (AC 2).
Because of this, they are sometimes hunted by other
creatures living near them. Because of the power of the 
braxat, however, would-be hunters often find the tables 
turned upon them and end up the targets of a deadly ambush. 


Dragon of Tyr

        CLIMATE/TERRAIN Any
        FREQUENCY       Unique
        ORGANIZATION    Solitary

        ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
        DIET:   Omnivore
        INTELLIGENCE:   Supra-genius (20)

        TREASURE        (H)
        ALIGNMENT:      Lawful evil
        NO. APPEARING:  1
        ARMOR CLASS:    -10
        MOVEMENT:       15, Fl 45 (A), Jp 5, Br 6
        HIT DICE:       32 (250 hit points)
        THAC0   -3
    NO. OF ATTACKS: 4 + breath weapon or spell & psionic
    DAMAGE/ATTACK:  2d10+ 15/2d10+ 15/4d12/5d10
        SPECIAL ATTACKS:        Breath weapon 25d12
        SPECIAL DEFENSES:       See below


MAGIC RESISTANCE: 80%
SIZE: G (40' tall
MORALE: Fearless (20)
XP VALUE: 42,000

PSIONICS SUMMARY:
Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense        Score   PSPs
25      6/12/28   EW,II,MT,PB,PsC/       19     Varies
                  IF,MB,M - ,TS,TW              (usually 200+)

Clairsentience - Sciencies: clairvoyance, precognition; 
Devotions: combat mind, danger sense, poison sense.


Psychokinesis - Sciences: detonate, disintegrate, 
telekinesis; Devotions: animate shadow, ballistic attack, 
molecular agitation, soften.

Psychometabolism - Sciences: death field, life draining; 
Devotions: body equilibrium, cause decay, chameleon 
power, ectoplasmic form, heightened senses, reduction, 
suspend animation.

Psychoportation - Sciences: teleport, Devotions: 
dimensional door dimension walk, teleport trigger, time 
shift.


Telepathy - Sciences: psychic crush, tower of iron will; 
Devotions: contact, ego whip, id insinuation, intellect 
fortress, mental barrier, mind blank, mind thrust, mind 
link, psionic blast, thought shield.

Metapsionics - Sciences: ultra 
blast

Defiler Spells: 1) charm person, friends, hypnotism, sleep, 
chill touch; 2) bind, forget, ray of enfeeblement, scare, 
spectral hand; 3) hold person, suggestion, feign death, 
hold undead, vampiric touch; 4) confusion, emotion, 

fumble, contagion, enervation; 5) chaos, domination, 
feeble mind, animate dead, magic jar, 6) eye bite, mass 
suggestion, death spell, reincarnation; 7) shadow walk, 
control undead, finger of death; 8) binding, mass 
charm, sink; 9) mordenkainen's disjunction, energy 
drain.

Fortunately, there is only one dragon in the Tyr Region, and 
perhaps in the entire world of Athas. It is tall and thin, with a 
gnarled bone structure and swollen, bulbous joints. Its 
appearance is reptilian in many ways: 
it has a long, snake-like neck, whip-like 
tail, and scaly hide. Yet it walks on two legs, its hands have 
long, well developed fingers and thumbs, its bone structure 
seems faintly humanoid, and its head is long and narrow, with 
a distinctly mammalian appearance.

Combat The dragon is a terror in combat. It can attack 
simultaneously with its massive claws (2d10+15) its 
fang-filled mouth (4d12), and its whip-like tail (5d10) In 
addition to its melee attacks, the dragon can use one psionic 
power and cast one magical spell per round. For purposes of 
determining psionic power and spell effects, it is treated as 
20th level psionicist and a 20th level defiler. The dragon's 
saving throw numbers are always "2".

        Three times a day, the dragon can breath a cone of 
superheated sand during a round instead of using its psionic 
powers and casting a spell. This cone is five-feet wide at the 
base, fifty-feet long, and a hundred feet in diameter at its far 
end. The cone does 25d12 of damage, which is treated as 
both heat and abrasive damage.

      The dragon can be hit only by +2 or better magical weapons. If
these are not made of metal, the dragon suffers only 1/2 damage from
the attack. Each round, the dragon automatically regenerates 10 hp.
The dragon has an 80% magic resistance to all spells cast against it.

      The dragon usually attacks like a hunter, first stalking and
then chasing down its prey. Next, if its opponent consists of a large
group of individuals, it attacks with its death field psionic power,
but if the opponent is only a handful of individuals, it attacks them
individually with its life draining power.

        The dragon uses its breath weapon only as a last resort, for 
it is so destructive that nothing usually remains of any prey 
that it hits.

      Habitat/Society: The dragon wanders over all parts of Athas,
usually alone. Occasionally, it visits a sorcerer-king, leaving
disaster and chaos in its wake.


Dune Freak (Anakore)

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Any sandy region
	FREQUENCY	Uncommon
	ORGANIZATION:	Small Tribes

	ACTIVITY Cycle	Nigh
	DIET:	Omnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Low (5-7)

		
	TREASURE:	P
	ALIGNMENT:	Neutral evil

	NO. APPEARING:	2-12 (2d6)
	ARMOR CLASS:	8
	MOVEMENT:	9, 15 Br

	HIT DICE:	3
	THAC0	17
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	2
	DAMAGE/ATTACK:	1d4/1d4
	SPECIAL ATTACK:	Surprise bonus, Paralyzation, suffocation
	SPECIAL DEFENSES:	Burrow


MAGIC RESISTANCE Nil
SIZE: M (6' tall)
MORALE: Steady (11-12)
XP VALUE: 650
PSIONICS: Nil

The anakore are a race of dimwitted humanoids with bony, 
wedgelike heads, small ears pressed close to the sides of 
their heads, and sunken, beady eyes covered by clear 
membranes to prevent sand from scratching these delicate 
tissues.

	The bright light of Athas' sun blinds the anakore during the 
day, but at night they can see as clearly as most beings do 
during the day. The anakore do not have infravision, however; 
they do not see body heat. In complete darkness, they are as 
blind as any human But if there is even the tiniest amount of 
light, such as from a star, they see very well.

	The anakore have an unusual dorsal ridge running along 
their spine. This fin is actually a sensitive organ which picks 
up minute vibrations traveling through the sand. With it, they 
can locate a solitary creature walking on the sand from as far 
away as five miles.
Combat: Anakore usually attack their foes by burrowing 
underneath them, then striking from beneath the victim with 
their sharp claws. Such victims suffer a ~ 3 penalty to their 
surprise rolls. The anakore continue to fight from within the 
sand for as long as possible, imposing a - 2 penalty to their 
opponents' attack rolls.

      When an anakore hits a victim with both claws, it holds the
individual motionless for a moment and bites with its short, sharp
teeth. While this bite inflicts no damage in itself, it does inject
poisonous saliva into the wound. The victim must immediately save vs.
paralyzation or be completely unable to move for 1d4 rounds. On the
round following paralyzation, the victim is dragged under the sound,
suffering an additional 1d4 per round suffocation damage.
Habitat/Society The anakore live within any sandy heap, such as sand
dunes or the alluvial fans at the mouths of the canyons. Normally,
they travel and hunt in small packs of two to twelve individuals,
with the largest, most aggressive acting as leader. They are rarely
found outside of sandy areas, but they can walk upright across
various kinds of terrain - though they are unusually vulnerable in this
state and will avoid fighting at all costs.

Ecology: The anakore are nomadic burrowers who are 
constantly moving through the sandy wastes of Athas. It is 
often possible to identify an area through which anakores 
have passed by the dead plants found there - the anakores 
chew the roots away, leaving the upper stalks exposed. In 
addition to their diet of plant roots, the anakores also eat 
meat - mekillot, inix, erdlu, elf, dwarf, halfling, and nearly 
anything except kank. 

	Gaj

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Sands, stony barrens, rocky bad
		lands, and islands
	FREQUENCY	Very Rare
	ORGANIZATION:	Solitary

	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Any
	DIET:	Carnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Very (11-12)

	TREASURE:	Z
	ALIGNMENT:	Neutral evil

	NO. APPEARING:	1-2
	ARMOR CLASS:	2
	MOVEMENT:	12

	HIT DICE:	7
	THAC0	13
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	1
	DAMAGE/ATTACK:	1d6
	SPECIAL ATTACKS:	See below	
SPECIAL DEFENSES:	See below


MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: L (6' diameter)
MORALE: Champion (15)
XP VALUE: 2,000

PSIONICS SUMMARY:

	Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense	Score	PSPs

	8       1/4/13	  II, EW, PB/           17	120
                          IF,MB,M - ,TW

Telepathy - Sciences: domination, mass domination, probe, 
tower of iron will; Devotions: aversion, contact, ego 
whip, esp, false sensory input, id insinuation, inflict pain, 
intellect fortress, life detection, mental barrier, mind 
blank, psionic blast, send thoughts.


The gaj is a psionic horror. Physically, it appears as a large 
reptile resembling a beetle in appearance. Its body is covered 
by a scaly, rust-orange shell about six feet in diameter. From 
beneath this shell protrude six four-jointed legs which end in 
webbed feet with long, sharp claws.

	Its head is a spongy white globe about two feet in diameter 
Spaced at even intervals around the head are six compound 
eyes. A pair of barbed mandibles as long as a man's arms 
flank six fingerlike appendages that hang over its mouth, and 
three feathery stalks rise from the top of the head.

Combat: The gaj strikes with its psionic attack modes first, 
trying to disable its opponents before moving in for the kill. 
If this fails, or once the opponents are disabled, the gaj tries 
to kill its prey with its two huge mandibles.


      Whenever the gaj makes a successful hit, the victim must save
vs. paralyzation or be held by the mandibles until he breaks the hold
(as if wrestling; see Punching and Wrestling in Chapter 9: Combat of
the DMG). While held, the victim suffers five points of damage per
round. More importantly, the gaj wraps its feathery antenna around
the victim's head and psionically probes his innermost thoughts.
Unlike the standard psionic probe, however, this is a painful,
destructive process. The victim loses 1d4 points of Intelligence or
Wisdom (distributed randomly on a point by point basis) each round he
is held. This loss is permanent, and once the victim's Intelligence
or Wisdom drops to 0, he becomes a mindless husk and will soon die of
starvation and thirst.

	The hard shell covering the gaj's body reduces the damage 
that all non-metallic weapons cause it. Thus, all non-metal 
weapons inflict half their normal damage to these monsters. 
In melee, it can also protect its vulnerable head by pulling it 
beneath its shell. This leaves the dangerous mandibles 
exposed, and does not reduce its combat effectiveness at all.

Habitat/Society: The gaj are solitary hunters that prey on 
other intelligent life forms. They prefer to live in rocky 
areas where their shells serve as camouflage, or in sandy 
areas where they can hide themselves from predators in a 
shallow burrow. Most often, they are found alone, but 
occasionally mated pairs are encountered.

Ecology: Like all carnivores, the gaj eat flesh to provide 
their bodies with physical energy. Unlike most other 
animals, however, the gaj derive their mental energy from 
the thoughts of other beings -  through the effects of their 
probe powers. No matter where they live, the gaj are 
constantly using their feathery antennas to search the 
horizon with their psionic life detection powers for signs of 
their favorite prey - other intelligent races. After a week 
without consuming the thoughts of an intelligent creature, 
the gaj starts losing PSPs at the rate of 1d10 per day. The 
lost PSPs are fully recovered once the gaj feeds, but if his 
total number of PSPs ever drops to 0, he loses his psionic 
powers and his will to live. Within a week, the creature will 
die. 

Giant, Athasian

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN	Sea of Silt Islands, Tablelands
	FREQUENCY	Uncommon
	ORGANIZATION:	Clans
	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Day
	DIET:	Omnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Low (5-7)

	TREASURE:	Y (I)
	ALIGNMENT:	Varies by individual



	NO. APPEARING:	1-20
	ARMOR CLASS:	4
	MOVEMENT:	1 5
	HIT DICE:	15
	THAC0	5
	NO OF ATTACKS:

	DAMAGE/ATTACK	2-16 + 14
	SPECIAL ATTACKS:	Hurl rocks	
SPECIAL DEFENSES:	See below


MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: H (20-30')
MORALE: Champion (16-17)
XP VALUE: 9,000

PSIONICS 
SUMMARY:
	Humanoid giants are not capable of employing psionic 
powers. Because of their huge brain mass, humanoid giants 
are resistant to all forms of psionics. When any form of 
psionics is used against them, they are allowed to save vs. 
spells to negate it. In addition, in psionic combat, they are 
treated as if they have all five defense modes.


	Many beast-headed giants are intelligent enough to make 
good psionicists, however. Although they lack the general 
immunity to psionics that their humanoid cousins possess, 
they have the following statistics

Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense Score PSPs
5       2/3/10          Varies/3  13    75

Their disciplines, sciences, and devotions vary too widely to 
make generalizing possible or practical.

Athasian giants come in only two basic varieties: humanoid 
and beast-headed.

	Humanoid giants resemble massive humans standing 
between 20 and 30 feet tall, and weighing between four and 
eight tons. They have exaggerated and sometimes comical 
features, such as huge noses, ears, mouths, and so forth. 
Their skin is usually dark red to black in color, and their hair 
is coarse and sturdy (giant hair ropes are the best on Athas). 
Most humanoid giants have a Strength scores of 25.

	Beast-headed giants resemble humanoid giants in many 
respects, save that they are slightly smaller (15-20 feet). In 
place of the head of a man or woman, they have the head of 
some beast, and their skin is usually an extremely pale color, 
like pink or alabaster. Beast-headed giants are rarely seen in 
the Tablelands, for they are just short enough to make wading 
through the Sea of Silt hazardous to their safety.
Combat: Giants fight in two basic modes: defensively or 
offensively. When fighting defensively, such as when 
protecting their island homes from uninvited guests, their 
favorite tactic is to hurl boulders at the enemy from as great 
a range as possible (up to 250 yards), doing 2d10 damage to 
anyone or anything they hit.

	Offensively, giants like to get to the heart of the matter, 
melee, as quickly as possible. They will charge into the fray 
swinging their huge clubs. When hit by a giant, any being of 
man-size of smaller must save vs. paralysis or be knocked 
off his feet and fly 1 yard per point of damage inflicted.

Habitat/Society: Generally, humanoid giants are only 
destructive when they want something, or when a stranger 
has landed on their island uninvited. Otherwise, they are 
quite congenial and friendly.

	Beast-headed giants tend to be more hostile, and treat all 
nongiants as vermin. They are magical mutations of normal 
giants, and are treated by their brethren as inferior beings. 
Since beast-headed giants are on the whole somewhat wiser 
and more intelligent than humanoid giants, this makes them 
understandably bitter

Ecology: Most giants feed themselves through herding 
sheep, kanks, erdlus, and other animals. They often 
supplement this simple lifestyle through raiding, simple 
forms of commerce (such as by selling their hair to 
rope-makers), and occasionally by hiring themselves out as 
mercenaries (though this is considered quite dishonorable 
by most giants). 

	Gith

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Tablelands, Mountains	
        FREQUENCY	Uncommon
	ORGANIZATION:	Tribal

	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Day/Night
	DIET:	Carnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Average (10)

	TREASURE: 	M (Individual), I (Lair)
	ALIGNMENT:	Chaotic Evil
	NO. APPEARING:	10-100
	ARMOR CLASS:	8
	MOVEMENT:	10

	HIT DICE	3
	THAC0	17
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	1 or 2
	DAMAGE/ATTACK:	by weapon or 1d4/1d4
	SPECIAL ATTACKS:	Springing
	SPECIAL DEFENSES:	Nil


MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: M
MORALE: Steady (12)
XP VALUE: 175

PSIONICS SUMMARY:

	Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense	Score	PSPs
	5       2/3/10        II, MT/M-,	16	80
	                      TW, MB

Telepathy - Sciences: tower of iron will, project force; 
Devotions: id insinuation, mind thrust, contact, mind 
blank, mental barrier. Psychokinesis - Sciences: 
telekinesis; Devotions: animate object, animate shadow, 
ballistic attack, control body, control flames.


Note: Only leaders commanding 25 or more gith have 
psionic powers. The psionics listed above are 
representative of these leaders, but their powers do vary 
greatly. Gith with more hit dice have correspondingly 
greater powers.
The gith are a race of grotesque humanoids that appear to be 
a peculiar mixture of elf and reptile. They are extremely 
gaunt and lanky, with long gangling arms and spindly legs. 
Their hands have three fingers with no opposable thumb, yet 
they are able to use tools and wield weapons. Both their fingers 
and toes end in sharp claws. If one could get a gith to stand 
up straight, he would measure close to seven feet tall. 
However, most gith appear to be no more than five feet tall, 
for they stand hunched over at the shoulders.
Combat: If possible, the gith attack in mass, usually starting 
with a psionic attack from one of their leaders. Then the 
entire party

moves in quickly to melee. They often accomplish this by 
springing up to twenty feet in one giant leap to close with 
their enemies. When they employ this spring, it gives them a 
+ 2 THAC0 bonus on the first round of combat.
	The gith are generally armed with large, wicked-looking 
spears with giant, razor-sharp heads of obsidian (1d6-1 
damage). Although these spears look like thrusting weapons, 
they are used primarily to slash or chop. The gith often 
armor themselves, especially their vulnerable backs, with 
inix-shell armor (AC 6).
Habitat/Society: The gith live in tribal organizations. The 
individual with the most powerful psionics generally acts as 
the leader. All other social positions are distributed at his 
pleasure.

	For every twenty-five gith, there will be a five HD leader, 
for every fifty, a six HD leader, and for every tribe of 100 or 
more, a seven HD leader. In addition to having hit points and 
THAC0 numbers appropriate to their HD, these leaders will 
have psionic powers approximately equal to a psionicist of 
an equivalent level.
Ecology: Mountain gith live in underground lairs, claiming a 
particular canyon or valley as their territory. Gith inhabiting 
the Tablelands tend to organize their society more along the 
lines of a nomadic hunting clan, going wherever the game 
takes them. They do not hesitate to attack human or 
demihuman groups 

Silk Wyrm

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Badlands
	Frequency	Uncommon	
        ORGANIZATION:	Solitary

	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Any
	DIET:	Carnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Low (5-7)

	TREASURE:	(W)
	ALIGNMENT:	Neutral

	NO. APPEARING:	1
	ARMOR CLASS:	3
	MOVEMENT:	12, Fl 12 (C)

	HIT DICE:	6
	THAC0	15
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	1
	DAMAGE/ATTACK:	1d6
	SPECIAL ATTACKS:	See below
	SPECIAL DEFENSES:	Nil


MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: L (501 long)
MORALE: Steady(11-12)
XP VALUE: 1,400

PSIONICS 
SUMMARY:
	Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense Score	PSPs
	6       1/1/0           Nil/Nil  15	45

Psychometabolism - Sciences shadow 
form.

	The silk wyrm is a snake with a hard, chitinous shell that 
measures over 50' in length. They are commonly seen flying 
through the air during the day searching for prey, but rarely 
attack until dusk, when they assume their shadow form and 
sneak into a camp to attack.

	Any creature bitten by a silk wyrm must save vs. poison or 
be paralyzed for 1d4 days (a restore or remove curse will 
reverse this effect). Psionic powers can still be used while in 
this state, as long as the body itself is not required to move.
	The silk wyrm will drag its paralyzed prey away and encase 
it in a sheath of silk, inside which the unfortunate victim will 
linger for up to two weeks. During this time, the silk wyrm 
will occasionally stick its head into the protective cocoon 
and bite the victim's neck, draining a little bit of blood and 
paralyzing him for another 1d4 days Each time this occurs, 
the victim loses one point of Constitution. When his 
constitution reaches 0, all of his blood has been drained and 
he dies.

	The silk casing manufactured by the silk wyrm is valued in 
many cities for use in expensive clothing. It is flame 
resistant ( + 4 bonus on any saves vs. normal fires, + 2 bonus 
vs. magical fires) and very tough. Cutting a captured victim 
free can be quite time consuming. 


      	Jozhal

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Tablelands and Hinterlands
	FREQUENCY	Rare
	ORGANIZATION:	Family

	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Nocturnal
	DIET:	Omnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	Very (14-15)

	TREASURE:	U
	ALIGNMENT:	Chaotic neutral
	NO. APPEARING:	5-10 (Id6+4)
	ARMOR CLASS	3
	MOVEMENT:	18

	HIT DICE:	4
	THAC0:	17
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	1
	DAMAGE/ATTACK	ld6 or by weapon - 2 or 1d4/1d4
	SPECIAL ATTACKS	Uses magical items & spells
	SPECIAL DEFENSES:	Camouflage


MAGIC RESISTANCE 10%
SIZE S (4, tall)
MORALE: Steady (11-12)
XP VALUE: 1,400

PSIONICS SUMMARY:

	Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense	Score	PSPs
	4       2/2/9           EW,PB/IF,TS	14	80

Psychoportation - Sciences banishment. Devotions 
dimensional door, time shift, time/space anchor, teleport 
trigger.

Telepathy - Sciences contact. Devotions: ego whip, psionic 
blast, intellect fortress, thought shield, mind ball

      Spells - 1) detect magic, cure light wounds, detect poison,
locate animals or plants, magical stone; 2) silence 15' radius, hold
person, flame blade; 3) locate object, dispel magic.


Standing about four feet tall, the jozhal is a small, 
two-legged reptile with a skinny tail, a long flexible neck, 
and a narrow, elongated snout. Its mouth is filled with needle 
sharp teeth, and its lanky arms end in small, three-fingered 
hands with an opposable thumb. Although the jozhal's hide is 
covered with scales, they are so small as to be unnoticeable 
at first, and it appears to more akin to a man's skin or a 
baazrag's rough hide. The jozhal can change the hue of its 
skin at will, either to match the color of its environment, or 
to stand out against it.
Combat: Generally, the jozhal prefers to avoid combat. It 
attempts to flee, then use its ability to change skin color to 
hide from pursuers (they must roll their Wisdom or less on 
ld20 to find the jozhal). Should the pursuer get too close to the 
jozhal without actually seeing it, the jozhal will attack. The 
victim must make a surprise check with a -2 penalty.
	During the actual fight, the jozhal attempts to defend itself 
first with psionics and magic, then with any magical items it 
currently possesses (roll on Table 88 in DMG, results 
calling for armor, shields, or weapons count as no magical 
item in jozhal's possession). If that fails, it will bite with its 
teeth for 1 d8 points of damage, or strike with any weapon 
available to it (with a -2 damage modifier.)

Habitat/Society: The jozhal live in small family groups of 
four to five creatures. They are extremely intelligent and 
cunning, but regard humans or demihumans as foolish, 
dangerous creatures and will rarely tolerate them.


	Jozhals are attracted to magic of all sorts, and whenever 
they see humans or Demihumans passing they track the party 
down and attempt to cast a detect magic spell on the group. If 
the spell reveals any magical items, they will try to sneak 
into camp and steal them.
Ecology: Jozhals forage for food (roots and tubers), and eat 
almost any sort of small reptile, snake, or insect. Their 
magic is akin to that of elemental clerics, and is therefore 
not destructive to the environment around them.

	The jozhal clan's intellect is best reflect in its relationship 
to the world around it. They are very careful never to destroy 
the lifegiving world in which they live, always making use of 
every bit of scrap and refuse that they find. They carry this to 
extremes, even practicing cannibalism and using the bones 
of their dead to construct weapons and tools. 


 	Tembo

	CLIMATE/TERRAIN:	Tablelands and mountains	
        Frequency	Uncommon
	ORGANIZATION:	Pack

	ACTIVITY CYCLE:	Night
	DIET:	Carnivore
	INTELLIGENCE:	High (13-14)

	TREASURE:
	ALIGNMENT:	Chaotic evil
	NO. APPEARING:	1-6
	ARMOR CLASS	4
	MOVEMENT	15

	HIT Dice:	4
	THAC0	17
	NO. OF ATTACKS:	5
	DAMAGE/ATTACK:	1d4 (x2)/1d6 (x2)/1d8
	SPECIAL ATTACK:	Level drain
	SPECIAL DEFENSES:	Dodge missiles

	


MAGIC RESISTANCE: 10%
SIZE M
MORALE: Fearless (20)
XP VALUE: 975

PSIONICS SUMMARY:

	Level Dis/Sci/Dev Attack/Defense	Score	PSPs
	5       1/2/5           - /IF, M-	10	80

Psychometabolism - Sciences: death field, life draining, 
shadowform; 
Devotions: chameleon power, displacement, 
ectoplasmic form, heightened senses, immovability.
The tembo is a despicable, furless, tawny-colored beast 
covered with loose folds of scaly hide. Varying between 
three and six feet in length, they usually stand about as high 
as a man's thigh. All four of their lithe feet end in long sharp 
claws, and huge canine fangs protrude from beneath the 
flappy lips of their squarish snouts. The tembo has huge, 
squarish ears which it can turn in any direction, 
independently of each other.

Combat: Though all tembo love to fight, their battle tactics 
are as unpredictable as these vicious beasts themselves. 
Some attack by stealth from a short distance away, sneaking 
as close as possible to their victims and trying to destroy 
them with a death field. Others prefer to play with their 
victims, batting them from one paw to another, using life 
draining each time the paw lands. Still other tembos like to 
leap into the fray immediately, meleeing their victims from 
the first round.
	In such physical confrontations, the tembo are true 
horrors. Their favorite tactic is to leap at their victim, 
attacking with all four feet and their bite at once. The front 
claws cause only 1d4 damage, but the back claws have a 
greater tendency to sink into softer flesh,
ripping through important tendons and organs (which is why 
they do more damage). The greatest danger of the tembo 
comes from its horrid mouth, however When the tembo 
successfully hits with its powerful jaws, the victim must 
make a saving throw vs. death magic or lose one life level. 
This loss is permanent, and a save must be made each time 
the tembo lands a successful bite.
	When attacked from a distance, the dexterous tembo have 
a 40% chance of dodging any non magical missile fire 
directed at them.

	Tembo display no fear, and will always fight to the death 
rather than run.

Habitat/Society: Tembo prowl the desert in small packs 
that seem to have no real social organization or 
cohesiveness. Each tembo does more or less as it pleases, 
not sharing any prey it downs with the others. The tembo's 
one concession to social life is that if one of them is 
attacked, the entire pack will join to fight the enemy.

Ecology: The favorite food of the tembo is the young of any 
other race. Tembo are famous for sneaking into a nomadic 
camps to drag off elven children, for skulking about dwarven 
villages prowling for untended toddlers, even for sneaking 
into populated cities to snatch noble babes from their 
cradles. Needless to say, this makes these despicable beasts 
universal objects of hatred. Even feuding elf tribes, the most 
dedicated of enemies, have been known to call a truce for 
the purposing of hunting down a tembo pack that has 
appeared in the area.