Great. But where the other SKs? Where was the Dragon?
Here's my point. The construction of the ziggurat had taken a century and was a major undertaking. For a hundred years all life in Tyr rotated one way or another around its construction. There was no way that Kalak could hide its construction, not that he even tried. The other SKs and the Dragon had to wonder what it was all about. They are all ancient beings with unparalleled occult knowledge. They also have powerful divination spells at their disposal and they certainly would have had no problem infiltrating spies into Tyr. It would take them only short time to discover what Kalak's plan was. So why didn't they do something to stop him?
When Boris was transformed into a dragon, he went crazy and rampaged for a hundred years. SKs had to lock themselves in their cities and wait. When Dregoth was about to become a dragon, they killed him. But when Kalak was about to become a dragon, they did nothing? And what about Boris. Something tells me that he would not tolerate a rival.
Even if for some reason they didn't mind Kalak becoming a dragon, the destruction of Tyr and its iron mines would throw the entire Tyr Region into economic chaos, completely cut off supply of iron and shatter the balance of power. And all of that without counting the new dragon going crazy and destroying everything in his path.
The SKs could not afford to sit back and do nothing, yet it appears that this is what they did.
If you're looking for an in-character justifcation for every divination spell there is a counter-spell. With that in mind, we can throw out the idea of the other SK's learning it remotely. No-one in the Veiled Alliance, any of Kalak's workers, or even Kalak's head advisors knew why he was building it - Kalak made sure about that by having so many head advisors and routinely killing them. So we can throw out the idea of spy's learning the true motive.
That only leaves natural paranoia or intuition. Kalak was becoming a dragon in an unusual way (all at once), so the other SKs may not have expected it. Many of the other SKs are also half-dragon, so I imagine the SKs are not extremely diligent at making sure none other gets too powerful these days.
The SKs knew that the process of becoming a dragon like that would fail spectacularly.
The SKs are ALL in the process of becoming dragons, and at some point decided (formally or informally) to leave each other alone during that process.
The SKs knew that if Kalak became a dragon, Borys would step in and kill him, and they weren't worried.
In my game...the SKs DID do something, working covertly through their agents; the VA, Rikus, Agis, etc. were all unknowingly propelled by the hands of the SKs.
Kalak was about to cross all the lines. Imagine that he had succeeded in becoming a dragon. What then? Borys would not accept him? (So, even if the SKs didn't mind, why didn't Borys do something?) The two would fight it out and that would not be good for those in the middle. At best, there would be a short but titanic war between two dragons that would laid waste to the Tyr Region. Also, Tyr itself would be destroyed and the only source of iron shut.
Worst case scenario, there now would be two dragons and the SKs would need to bow to both. No SK would accept either possibility. Besides, we do have the example of Dregoth. When he was about to become a full dragon, the SKs took action.
Borys needs the life energy from a number of people each year, and certainly that number does not go down just because some SK killed some other SK. The death of a SK and destruction of a city, then, means that the thousand slaves that city-state has been responsible for each year has to be paid by someone else (much like how another city-state...was it Nibenay or Balic, I forget?...had to pick up Tyr's levy the first year it skipped paying). Logically, the SK that kills another SK would have to take on that levy, so it is pretty rarely worth marching on/destroying another city-state if it means that for the rest of time you have to pay TWO thousand slaves every year.
The way I run it, the "thousand slaves per city-state" is what people say, but the reality is a little more complex. The various city-states actually pay different levies by this point in history, because often when a city-state defeats another in the hundreds of constant wars going on, they will demand concessions from the defeated foes including things like preferential trading rights, direct payments in money or slaves, and...taking on some of the burden of the levy. All these are part of whatever peace terms get worked out at the end of each war (much like in real life, when defeated nations are required to sell pieces of their land to the victors at a cheap price--think Mexican-American War--or give cultural/trade preferences--think Japan after WWII).
So when Urik destroyed Yaramuke, it became responsible for Yaramuke's burden. However, in the years since then, Urik has fought multiple wars with Tyr, Raam, Nibenay, etc and has offloaded various responsibilities. At this point Urik only pays around 1300 slaves each year, while Raam is saddled with around 1600 despite never having destroyed another city-state, because it's been repeatedly defeated by other city-states. Balic has been pretty successful in trade and wars and only pays 500-600.
In 2nd edition boxed set, when they talk about Eldaarich, they say that Daskinor is so paranoid and crazy that at one point he assumed that Borys wants to kill him and took steps to defend himself. And now the Dragon no longer goes anywhere near Eldaarich. This is written as a throwaway line, but think what it mans.The Dragon is afraid to go near Eldaarich because Daskinor, a "mere" SK will kill him, or at least pose a serious danger.
If a mere SK can threaten the Dragon like that, then perhaps Kalak, also a "minor" SK, might have came up with means to protect himself from the Dragon and other SKs. Maybe the ziggurat is not just a dragon metamorphosis machine, but generates some sort of field that surrounds Tyr and keeps the Dragon, the SKs and their magic away.
In game system, KAlak was about to advance from 20th level defiler and 20th level psionist, which means he was weaker than, even!, Tectututtitlay. All Sorcerer-Kings knew, how painful and complex is trasnformation, so the they surely knew he won't succeed. The let the fool to distroy himself.
In real life we were able to devolop the atom bomb in near complete secrecy by compartmentalizing the tasks. Everyone knew they were in some top secret @#$% but had too small a piece and no idea where it plugged in to put it together. If I recall correctly there were some dozen or fewer people on planet Earth that knew the full extent of what was up. If Kalak was smart enough and paranoid enough (and he was) to similarly compartmentalize the assignments to Templars and contractors, why would the result be any different? What would a spy or divination be able to find out?
The answer just seems straight forward to me. But, again, maybe in the books they didn't play it this way and I just don't remember
Who, besides Kalak, had any idea what was going on? So other than getting into Kalak's head, how was any other major player supposed to figure out the big ziggarut was the focus of a mega ritual instead of some ploy to one-up Tectuktitlay's sacrifice/games pyramid?
Every SK wasted countless lives on their vanity projects, there's no reason for them to think this one was any different.
One major flaw in this thinking comes from the history of Kalidnay. If you recall, Kalid-ma attempted the very same thing (building a giant ziggurat to use as a focus to transform himself into a dragon). His attempt was foiled by the united efforts of Kalak, Hamanu, and Borys. There's no information as to whether the other sorcerer-kings knew or not, but Hamanu and Borys would certainly find reason to suspect the true nature of the ziggurat. By the way, it is from Kalid-ma's attempt that Kalak got the idea in the first place.
At the same time, the Tablelands existed on a very precise military balance. No one army had the strength to conquer another city-state without their SK leading the way, but at the same time, for a Sorcerer-King to lead his army, they have to leave their city-state open to attack. Kalak's action was not without precedent. Dregoth had attempted the exact same thing, to become a Dragon, and the other SKs banded together to destroy him. If they had known about Kalak, they would've done the same thing.
Actually, Hamanu is known to have been involved in the death of 3 other SK's, all of which took place away from Urik. Not to mention that the city-states go to war against each other regularly. Hamanu makes a habit of leading his men personally, as does Tec (IIRC). Gulg is constantly at war with Nibenay. Recent accounts of Urik talk of battles with Tyr, Nibenay, and Raam (it seems I'm remembering a reference of Draj as well). Raam and Draj have also been known to battle one another regularly.
**Please note, I'm referencing pre-4th edition material.
Balic/Andropinis - Can barely control his own city. Not the worst location to attack Tyr, but tended to favor staying far way from the other SKs in their southern location. Total coward and weakling SK, definitely could not handle the shame of possible defeat for many reasons.
Draj/Tectuktitlay - Far far way from Tyr, passing many enemies on the way.
Gulg/Lalali-Puy - Focused on defense from Nibernay.
Nibernay - The SK Nibernahy is reclusive. The city-state Nibernay opens themslves to attack from Gulg if they attack Tyr.
Raam/Abalach-Re - See Balic. Has to go around Urik to attack Tyr.
Urik/Hamanu - Warred with Tyr constantly. I think it is fair to reason that Tyr can defend themselves for Urik themselves if Urik is unassisted by others.
Also in the original campaign setting see the following:
- To make matters worse, other cities that depend upon imports of Tyrs 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 rave warnings concerning the consequences of failing to resume iron production.
I think we can conclude that they likely knew what he was upto. It takes a great act of trust for a second SK to attack Tyr. Urik can attack them solely, but they would be stuck in a protracted conflict that denies them Tyr's Iron.
Even if the other SKs had an idea, banding together to actually take down Kalak (and Tyr) would be an arduous task, as Tyr was the most powerful city-state and had resources the other city-states relied upon. Plus, there is the whole "doing it in one go is pretty much impossible, so it'll fail anyway."
Also, in general with fantasy, I don't like thinking in terms of "X doesn't make sense," and prefer to think in terms of "why didn't X happen." The former just leads to people going, "well, that doesn't make sense." The latter leads to people figuring out reasons WHY it makes sense, and thus opens up new opportunities for stories.
Squidfur, you mean Gulg is constantly at war with Nibenay?
Yeah, that's what I said.....definately didn't edit anything....of course Gulg
Also, in general with fantasy, I don't like thinking in terms of "X doesn't make sense," and prefer to think in terms of "why didn't X happen." The former just leads to people going, "well, that doesn't make sense." The latter leads to people figuring out reasons WHY it makes sense, and thus opens up new opportunities for stories.
Beautifully said
The other SKs are ancient, subtle, patient, and undying. They can send in groups of spies and agents repeatedly until they have just the right people in just the right place, then deliver just the right piece of equipment (it looks like a spear) to somebody who cannot be traced back - directly or indirectly - to them. The necessary deed is done. Each SK can say his hands are clean ... but everybody on Athas knows different, and is left more overawed at the full extent of their power and capabilities.
Now I have to figure out why they allowed a Free Tyr government to form - that rocks the foundations of Athasian society even more than killing off a Sorcerer-King ! Change is the last thing the SKs want people to think about; it is just as revolutionary as conceiving Time to be a line rather than a circle.
OK so i didnt get into DND untill 3rd edition, and i found dark sun in 4th, and loved it!!!!!! i never knew there was so much history in darksun, between the sorcerors and city states!!!! Please... books and authors to read? is akot of this information in the original box sets?!
cowleymen wrote:
Damn. Now i have to hunt one down. Thank you
The actual novel series that totally changed the Dark Sun political landscape right after the initial 1991 boxed set is called "the Prism Pentad," by Troy Denning. The 1995 revised boxed set incorporated the changes from the novels.