The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

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The Family
Azarak, Zamelak and Bastirak are all more than
human. They are all the children of different
dragons – one red, one white, one silver – begotten
on draconian mothers while they were in human
form by the ambitious King Hazrad of Argantia. He
kept a harem of many different creatures, including
demonesses and dragonesses of all kinds. King
Hazrad paid the price for his exotic tastes when
his harem finally turned on him and tore his palace
down, and the tiny kingdom of Argantia is long since
gone.
The three half-siblings grew up under the guidance of
Bwarran Yin, one of the golden dragons of Kandang,
in the era when those wise creatures ruled the region.
Bwarran Yin’s guidance kept the evil in Bastirak and
Azarak in check but could not remove it altogether.
Zamelak, child of a silver dragoness, grew up good
and true, while her brothers hated lesser creatures
only slightly less than they hated each other.
The fall of Kandang sent the half-dragons fleeing out
into the world as nobles cast down from their place.
Bastirak and Zamelak lost no time in building power
bases and attacking one another, at last free to give
vent to the hatred that consumed them. Zamelak
stayed by Bastirak’s side (as she was more able to
tolerate his icy home than Azarak’s fiery realm) and
tried to persuade him to stay his hand.
However, it was Bastirak that changed his sister’s
mind, not the other way around. With a combination
of vicious magic, torture and mental manipulation,
he perverted her to the cause of evil, finally marrying
her in a twisted, incestuous ceremony. Zamelak
abandoned the worship of her benign goddess and
embraced the cult of Gahaira, the devastating north
wind. Together the two of them fought and overcame
Azarak.
Victory came at a price. The sight of her brother’s
battered, defeated form brought home the truth of
what Zamelak had done and how far she had fallen.
This cracked her already weakened mind. Unable
to reconcile the evil deeds that she had done with
the good in her blood, she sought refuge in insanity.
She now raves in continuous madness, reliving her
childhood, while Bastirak lords it over his arctic
palace, his brother Azarak locked forever in a sphere
of ice.
Bastirak’s Circlet of Chill Bone
Legends of this potent magical item were what
first drew Bastirak to the Waste. He bored great
tunnels in the ice seeking for it and finally opened
the Cyst where the circlet’s bearer, a lich-lord named
Venderesc, lay in torpid slumber. Bastirak wrested
the Circlet from the lich and destroyed him.
The circlet appears to be a set of bleached finger
bones strung together with wire. The item’s features
are as follows:
• The circlet’s wearer is treated as a creature of
the Cold subtype for as long as he wears it.
• The wearer gains resistance to fire 20.
• The circlet’s wearer may move large quantities
of snow and loose ice fragments at will, as
if by the move earth spell cast by a 20 th level
wizard, affecting snow rather than earth. This
ability cannot be used to reshape solid ice.
• The circlet’s wearer may shape ice at will, as
if by the stone shape spell cast by a 20 th level
wizard, affecting solid ice rather than stone.
• The circlet’s wearer may produce a wall of
ice three times per day, as if by the spell cast
by a 20 th level wizard. The ice created does
not disappear at the end of the spell’s duration
and will remain indefi nitely if the background
temperature is not suffi cient to melt it.
Bastirak used this power to build the citadel.
• The circlet is evil-aligned. Any non-evil
wizard who touches it is dealt 16d6 points of
damage.
• Immersing the circlet in the heart’s blood of
a red dragon, which must be a wyrm or great
wyrm, can destroy it.
bone ridge running along it; this last is a reminder of
his dragon parentage. He wears a long ragged-edged
robe of dirty white silk, embroidered with characters
in the language of Kandang that proclaim the royalty
of his line.
Nightwatch: This intelligent dagger has a silvery-blue
hilt and a long thin blade. Set into the cross guard is the
wet, living eye of a young dragon, which swivels and
looks around.
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8