Advanced Dungeons & Dragons GREYHAWK ADVENTURES 2nd Edition Ivid the Undying by Carl Sargent Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition GREYHAWK ADVENTURES Ivid the Undying by Carl Sargent Credits: Table of Contents Introduction . 2 Design: Carl Sargent The Millennium Empire . 3 Editing: Jean Rabe, William Allman Powers And Factions . 9 Layout: William Allman The Grand Gazetteer . 26 Rauxes and the Lands of the Overking . 28 TSR, Inc. TSR Ltd. North Province . 44 201 Sheridan Springs Road 120 Church End The Twin Cities . 62 Lake Geneva Cherry Hinton, WI 53147 Cambridge CB1 3LB The Adri Forest . 69 U.S.A. United Kingdom The Naelax Lands . 80 ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, The Sea Barons . 88 DUNGEON MASTER, FORGOTTEN REALMS, GREY- HAWK, and MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM are regis- The Free Cities . 96 tered trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is a trademark owned by TSR, Inc. The Ruins of Medegia . 104 All TSR characters, character names, and the distinc- The Grandwood and the Lone Heath . 108 tive likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. The Lands of Darmen . 118 This material is protected under the copyright laws of South Province . 128 the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork con- The Western Lands . 137 tained herein is prohibited without the express written consent of TSR, Inc. The Almorian Lands . 145 Copyright © 1995 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Whispers and Ventures . 153 Forces of the Empire . 159 Introduction The Great Kingdom is sundered, collapsed into chaos royal houses, merchants and peasants, powerful factions after the terrible Greyhawk Wars. An insane overking, (armies, mercenaries, humanoids, fiends, and others), advised by a malefic priesthood and conversing with commerce, trade, and more. fiends atop his malachite throne, slew and revivified Following these chapters are a number of gazetteer- many of his local noble rulers as animuses, undead style sections that describe the fiefdoms within the Great creatures of cold, hateful passions. Kingdom. Cities, towns, settlements, mysterious and Great armies once the envy of the Flanaess wander the magical sites, castles, keeps, ruins, natural hazards and lands as freebooting mercenaries and pillagers, stripping many other features are covered, along with profiles and the once-abundant treasures of this great nation. More descriptions of major NPCs of the lands. These chapters than 300 years of slow degeneration and decline have take up the bulk of Ivid The Undying and provide DMs climaxed in an appalling tragedy. Hundreds of thousands with all the information needed for campaigning in the of men, women, and children have perished, and many Great Kingdom. more will follow in the years ahead. The chapter, Whispers and Ventures, contains rumors, In this merciless nightmare of insanity and cruelty, only adventure hooks, hints and allusions, suggestions for a few pockets of resistance fighters, good and valiant game masters, and mini-scenario themes for PCs of all rebels, can be found. Made up of rangers, druids, bards, levels of experience so the richness of the Great Kingdom and woodsmen of the great forests of Aerdy and the Lone as a campaign setting can be fully exploited. Heath, they struggle against the growing evil and The final chapter lists the major armies of Aerdy and oppression. mercenary companies of note. Ivid The Undying is an extensive guidebook to the Great From the ghastly fiendish magics of Duke Szeffrin's Kingdom and its many lands, expanding on the informa- Almorian Lands in the west, to the barbarian-haunted tion presented in From The Ashes. The first chapter islands and treasures of the Sea Barons to the east, the summarizes the history of the Great Kingdom of Aerdy. Great Kingdom awaits! The following chapter details its peoples and rulers, laws, 2 The Millenium Empire The current year is 585 CY (Common Year). It is more the first to establish independence in CY 254 and Veluna than 2,000 years since the original inhabitants of the and Tenh following soon after with Perrenland Flanaess, the Flan tribes, were driven from their lands by re-asserting its independence. The decisive blow was the Oeridian and Suloise invaders fleeing magical cataclysms division of this royal house in CY 356 when the Nyrond far to the west. branch rebelled. Only much later, some 700-800 years ago, the strongest The attempts of the then-overking, Portillan, to recon- of the Oeridian tribes, the Aerdi, settled the rich lands to quer Nyrond were stymied by an assault on the North the east of the Nyr Dyv and founded the Kingdom of Province of Aerdy from Flan barbarians which forced Aerdy. A century and more of growth saw the Great Portillan to defend his own lands rather than reconquer Kingdom expand, with the Flan driven north and the Nyrond. With the Urnst states and the Theocracy of the Suloise driven south to the margins of the Densac Gulf. Pale swiftly following Nyrond's path, Aerdy's dominance At its height, the kingdom stretched from the lands of the was broken. Sea Barons to the borders of modern Perrenland, and While further secessions would follow, such as from Sunndi to the south to the forbidding Griff-Corusk Almorian independence and a relatively short-lived mountains in the north. attempt to ally the South Province with the Iron League, The Aerdy calendar dates from the crowning of the first these would not be of major importance. overking, Nasran of the House of Cranden, in Rauxes in However, the second element of the Great Kingdom's CY 1. Proclaiming universal peace, Nasran saw defeated decline now came to the fore. While some overkings had Suloise and Flan—rebellious humanoid rabbles of no been less than masters of warfare or diplomacy, the consequence and no threat to the vast might of Aerdy. House of Rax produced a succession of inept rulers. The high history of the Aerdi people is a tale very long Galren, Portillan's son, was a half-wit. In turn, Galren's in the telling. Hundreds of warriors, mages, seers, and son and heir, Sonnend, was a drunkard who left all affairs others are much more than footnotes to that history. of state to his advisers. Further ineffectual and weak Aerdi history before the founding of the Great Kingdom rulers followed their dismal reigns. Some were said to be is a rich, fabulous tapestry; and the lands the Aerdi came insane, but this was mostly untrue—save for feeble- upon were hardly bereft of legends, wonders, and mindedness now and again. luminaries of their own. Those histories, however, would This produced a vital change in Aerdi society. Local fill books on their own. So it is the Great Kingdom's own rulers who were members of other royal houses began to history we consider here. use their titles of prince rather more aggressively. They The ruling house of Aerdy became the Rax-Nyrond began to enact more laws of their own, to administer local House after the death of Nasran's grandson, Tenmeris, in taxes increasingly independently of the overking, to build CY 75. Tenmeris's Queen, Yalranda, was a formidable fortifications not only for themselves but for their own diplomat and mediator who had done much to support leigemen who came less and less to answer to the overk- her husband and was the true power behind the throne. ing and more and more to obey only their own local Tenmeris, it was said, had a brain as small as his flatulent lords. belly was vast. Mercenary armies became more common, and some Yalranda was accepted as the only overqueen in Aerdy princes conquered slices of other princes' lands. The history because of her prowess in establishing dynastic drunken, enfeebled, or effete overkings allowed this to marriages between the royal houses of Aerdy and her happen. uncanny gift for forging alliances (and because of her The House of Naelax was the first to use humanoid strange, magical allure and ability to calm angry or mercenary troops around the Adri Forest for provisioning confused nobles). That she died young, at age 40, is one of raids late in the fourth century. And it was this royal Aerdy's great tragedies. house which came increasingly to the fore. Her eldest son, Manshen, broke with tradition and took At this time, the Great Kingdom still had a relative the name of the Rax-Nyrond Royal House. This house freedom and equality of many priesthoods, although was to rule for nearly 400 years. (Aerdi Royal marriages those of Lawful alignments were dominant. In Rauxes involved the lesser party taking the familial name of the itself, the priesthood of Pholtus still played a command- more elevated partner of the marriage, so that any spouse ing role as advisers, judges, and mediators. However, of the Crandens normally became a Cranden.) Naelax aligned itself firmly with the burgeoning priest- hood of Hextor. In a land with increasing strife and strug- A Long, Slow Fall gle, this aggressive evil priesthood became more influential as the decades passed. The subsequent inexorable decline of the Great Kingdom Before many years went by, Prince Ivid of Naelax acted can be seen in two stages. The first is the beginning of the decisively to oust the wretched Rax ruler. many secessions from the Overkingdom, with Furyondy 3 The Millenium Empire The Turmoil Between Crowns overkings it produced, and most of its noblemen and women, were dangerously insane and "fiend-seeing." This name is given both to the decade of internal schisms Dangerously insane because the typically paranoid form under the rule of the last Rax overking, and to the civil their madness took did not take any toll of their intellect; war which followed Ivid's ascension.