Uthex Kathiasas

Uthex Kathiasas (? - 6521 Second Era) was a highly regarded Loremaster during the Wars of Dominion in the ICE Age history. As a Loremaster of Karilon, he was most likely High Elven. Uthex was one of the greatest researchers of his time, focused on finding ways of fighting the Dark Gods and the most powerful forces of Unlife. Seduced by The Dark Path, Uthex fell to ever darker magics, eventually working with forging extra-planar entities. These were all named in Iruaric, but were also known by other names, implying their origin in Lord of Essaence experiments. While this concept is esoteric, it still exists in modern demonology, as verlok demons are speculated to have begun the same way.

Uthex was killed by his fellows in 6521 Second Era, the same year the kingdom immediately to the south was crushed by the Ordainer Kharuugh, serving the dark conqueror Lorgalis who was a former servant of Kadaena. While these events never happened in modern Elanthian history, much of The Broken Lands would be considered non-canonical in Shadow World. A monastery of Cay (Kai) was founded to guard the portal, so servants of the Unlife would not be able to return. Eventually, these monks were corrupted by the evil texts, transforming themselves into liches. The hooded figures regained control of the gateway, and a Sheruvian Monastery was constructed a few years later.

Behind The Scenes

Sage Uthex was retconned to be a member of the Order of Lorekeepers for the release of Miracle (Spell 350) in 5107 Modern Era. The Broken Lands was treated as the surface of Lornon for the story, but it was originally written to be another plane of existence, possibly one of the parallel material planes which were almost impossible to access. These are not necessarily self-contradictory possibilities, as there was a source book (though published in 1995) that said the Lord of Essaence war began when Kadaena was performing extreme planar experiments on Charon (Lornon), forming a coexistent dual of it on an artificial prison plane of existence that was much more habitable than the actual moon. It was infested with various extra-planar entities over the millennia, which is consistent with The Broken Lands. There was supposed to only be one surviving portal to that forgotten place, though on the moon of Charon itself, which was sealed by the Lords of Orhan (Liabo).

This interpretation of the Broken Lands originates in the non-canonical "Curse of Kabis" source book of Shadow World. Kabis was an immensely powerful Void demon of shadows, who the light and dark gods imprisoned inside this artificial demi-plane at the end of the Wars of Dominion. While this thread would be a convenient basis for modernizing the story, possibly replacing Kabis with Althedeus, the Broken Lands is much more likely based on the Loremaster theory that the Dark Gods escaped from some inter-dimensional prison upon arriving in our world. The portal to the Broken Lands was a Lord of Essaence style gate, like those on Charon (Lornon), which were "naturally" unsealed by the comet releasing the Dark Lords. This would explain why the story refers to the portal as a "natural" gateway in spite of clearly being Lord of Essaence in origin. It is unclear if Morgu (Marlu) used his Dark Shrine in the Second Era, but he probably did because The Dark Path was tied to Orgiana.

The surrounding hills were intended by GM Kygar as an idyllic contrast to the dark struggle being waged in the mountain, which was due to the impossibility of destroying his foul experiments. The monks would have been fighting the hooded figures for centuries, who implicitly were probably being reincarnated by the crystal dome. Incarnating spirit to corporeal being is the distinguishing power of Eissa (Lorminstra), which is the most immediate meaning of "spirit born of death." That Uthex was incarnating extra-planar beings from pure energy implies his work could have been twisted toward fashioning demons and dark gods. The Shar story line would later refer to the Broken Lands as "The Arkati Workshop", part of her quest to ascend herself to godhood. (Shar herself was a dark goddess of the underworld in Dungeons & Dragons.) The Monastery makes only very opaque allusions if at all, but the ki-lin of eastern mythology appeared with the birth and death of immortal sages.

There are numerous allusions to "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" in The Broken Lands. Kadath was a cold waste of mountains where the "Great Ones" lived, the gods of earth, where climbing them would lead to madness and none knew what lay beyond. These gods would correspond to the Lords of Essaence. However, the "feeble" gods of earth were actually guarded by the hidden Other Ones, who resided beyond this world in incomprehensible horror. The mountains that are seen from the windows of the Dark Shrine correspond to the "jagged peaks" of the fungous "blasphemous plateau" of the dark side of the moon, and possibly the mountain of Hatheg-Kla where reality warps at night under the unnatural eclipse, which would be impossible to exist on Charon in the Shadow World source material. This is keeping with the numerous allusions to Lovecraft stories in The Graveyard. The emphasis is the great demonic "gods of the outer hells" and the dreamlands. Of special interest is that when the quest seeker reaches unknown Kadath, the gods are replaced with a malevolent presence, having gone to the physical world as the Dark Gods did in the Wars of Dominion. In particular the material world of Charon was only the size of an asteroid, whereas the Dark Lords were extra-planar entities, and so The Broken Lands may reflect the moon of the dreamlands. In this way it is possible for the cold wasteland to be both the moon of the dark gods as well as another plane of existence, which justifies the presence of the Sheruvian monastery that was built by GM Sayzor.

Known Works

• Hooded figures
• Dictics (Giant fog beetles)
• Lug'shuk traglaakh (Magru)
• Kiskaa raax (Myklian)
• Dyar rakul (Dark vorteces)
• Crystyls
• Hoard
• Traag