NPC - Deity Malikat Al'afeaa

NPC  - Deity Malikat Al'afeaa

With the reawakening of Sutek other deities from ancient Zeif have reappeared. The most recent is a minor goddess, Malikat Al-afeaa. She rules over snakes and her return has set the Yuan-ti of Hepmonaland astir. Her ancient temples in Zeif are destroyed or choked with sand, her worshipers gone for millennia and her memory cursed by the Bakluni. But to the Yuan-ti she is the Great Mother and they have called to her for centuries.

No living women or man has seen her face. She has appeared to the diviners across the Flanaess as a crawling nightmare, her face hidden, her torso that of a lovely woman surrounded by adoring snakes. Soon, soon, she will reveal herself and she will bring terror.  

NPC/Deity - Sutek the Destroyer

NPC/Deity  - Sutek the Destroyer

Sutek was an ancient Bakluni deity of death, oblivion and destruction. He was trapped in limbo by his brother and sister deities managing to wreck havok on the Baklunish pantheon before he was trapped in a limbo-prison between the prime and negative material planes. 

After the Invoked Devastation some of the wards to his prison were damaged and his malign influence began to seep out. The Bakluni have always had a strong connection with death and this helped to lead to a rediscovery of Sutek and the rise of necromacers and his cult. It is rumored that an ancient Necropolus has been discovered in the Dry Steppes and  is the heart of a growing necromantic controlled army. What connection this actually has with the Prison of Sutek is unknown.

Recently the release of Zuggtmoy from the Temple of Elemental Evil triggered a sympathetic fracture in the prison wards of Sutek and the power of his clerics has never been greater. They are a rising threat among the Baklunish states and a contingent of priests, cultists and necromancers are headed toward Verbobonc to investigate the Temple and any links to Sutek's wards.

The priests of Sutek are unable to heal, but have many necromantic powers. Their bodies will continue to function past their physical death and do not suffer natural rot or corruption but they do dry out and become stiff and brittle or if submerged become bloated with liquid. Once slain the priests will continue to function for weeks before finally releasing their spirits to the Prison of Sutek where they will serve him for eternity.

Adventure (Seed) - Listener to the Sphynx

Listener to the Sphynx

In the Dry Steppes the old wastelands hold many mysteries. Its borders are not a place for men or even those who walk as men, but amid its wind-swept desolation can be found the ruins of man. Old  tales tell of the lost towns and cities in that terrible place, but only the statues and obelisks of that ancient land can be found jutting from the surface of the cold and barren tundra.

A cult of wild-monks, driven mad by the dark and malevolent desolation all around them speak with the statues of man, God and monster and they listen for a reply which is more than the moaning of the wind. These mad men speak of a vast necropolis, of a terrible otherworldly music that floats on the wind, of the things whose shape twists the mind and the bodies which must be gathered and burned by touch since none can see such things and live. 

It is said that the heart of the Dry Steppes was saved by the power of the last Bakluni God-King and that the hordes of nomad barbarians dwell in this place. If any of the wild-mad monks can be talked to it will be found in what high regard they have for these suppossed nomadic tribesmen and a hint at a greater organization and purpose behind them.

What relics of the ancient Baklunish past might be found in this vestige of the green and pleasant land which existed before the culmination of the war with the Suel? What power the God-King and his Magi possessed to protect their own land and yet destroy, utterly, the home of the Suel Imperium? And so twin expedition are said to be prepossed to seek the heart of both the Dry Steppes and the Sea of Dust. What answers can be found except perhaps those whispered from dead statues which have already driven mad the wild-monks of the Dry Steppes.

Event - The Invoked Devastation Falls Upon the Bakluni

Event - The Invoked Devastation Falls Upon the Bakluni

Once the Bakluni were a single nation and places like Ket, Zeif, Ekbir were just provinces within this vast land. This was a land of sun and earth dried orange brown, but also a land of vast oasis, waterways carved across the land to feed the hungry green of farms and bring life to villages, towns and cities.

The God-King Ardashir ruled this last dynasty of the Bakluni. He it was who warred with the Suel Emperor and saw the power of the Suel lay waste to his people and the land. The Invoked Devastation came upon the Bakluni as a cloud and many were reduced to dust in its passing. The sands spread, the green plains became harsh steppes, the people died as did the land. 

No magic however powerful could harm Adrashir, worshipped by his people he was half-devine though time would consume in its course as it consumed his ancestors and he would pass the mantle of his rulership to his children his own body laid to rest in a hidden tomb, but it was not to be.

Even as the power of the Suel descended upon the land Adrashir and his Magi fought against, saved perhaps one in ten of his people, saved what green lands and lifegiving water they could. Then as his power waned the devstation came to his wife, his children, all those of the sacred blood. Only Adrashir survived.

Holding the body of his oldest child Adrashir raged. Here his protection of the Bakluni lands failed and his Magi died. Adrashir summoned their power, drew upon his near divinity and he looked upon the Suel in their homeland. Adrashir was the Sun and his tears fell like fire upon the land of the Suel. Where the fell, they burned and what burned became ash. The great mountain-walled homeland of the Suel died and as his tears ceased Adrashir faded, his near divinity was as smoke that the wind dispersed and the Sun was the Sun once more, but the great land of the Bakluni was broken and choked with sand, and the homeland of the Suel was dust and ash, or so it is spoken of by the old scholars in Zeif, and Ekbir and Ket.

Cities of Greyhawk - Verbobonc Part 7 - Bakluni House

Cities of Greyhawk - Verbobonc Part 7 - Bakluni House

Set near the west wall of Verbobonc Bakluni House is part tavern and part embassy for all interests of the people of the west, though mainly Bakluni. It is only a small building (pictured in center) run by a Baklunish merchant named Aqa Zarif. While he handles trade his bodyguard, Zeev, is a Baklunish spy. Both work for another merchant/spymaster Korath the Bald who runs the Baklunish interests in the City of Greyhawk.

Two of the House's dancing girls are actually trained assassins.

Tolora

And 

Sefa

Adventure - A Baklunish Tomb Opens

In the trackless lands of southern Zeif and the Plains of the Paynims a vast and ancient Bakluni tomb has been desecrated and an army of undead warriors is released.