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. There have been modern storylines with humanoids being transformed into extra-planar entities.

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. They were not reunited with the nightmare god himself, as he was on the moon of our world.

Research

His work was focused on giving "physical form" to a "new source of power", which amounts to making conscious entities out of pure energy. These were implicitly extra-planar beings who he apparently morphed into unnatural hybrids with each other. He had acquired access to a power draining dome in The Broken Lands that was left over from the rule of the Empress Kadaena, with ruins implying her role in the origins of the Dark Gods. This was presumably discovered by Bandur Etrevion as a result of his dream visions, or possibly from studying the journals of Selias Jodame at Nomikos.

His surviving works were "other standard" extra-planar entities from Rolemaster, which were not demonic or necessarily malevolent but typically violent from being so alien. These were given Iruaric names based on their characteristics, with Uthex making copies or perhaps modifying existing templates. However, the implication is that these beings had their origins in Lord of Essaence experiments, providing an easy path for perverting his work toward the demonic. The vruul were awakened by the dark priests using necromancy, and the confiscated texts must have included the Ritual of Black Eternity.

Crystal Dome

The mechanism for the fashioning and telepathic control of synthetic life is the crystal dome on the jagged plain. It is implicitly a Lord of Essaence artifact left over from the First Era of the Shadow World history. More subtly, it is probably an esoteric allusion to the Shining Trapezohedron from "The Haunter of the Dark", an ancient artifact that was "a window on all time and space." Gazing into its abyss awakened the consciousness of Nyarlathotep, and provided visions of other worlds and their horrific entities. It faintly glowed through its paneled angles and was found in an abandoned lair of evil lore. It was more ancient than the Old Ones who had fashioned life synthetically. In the Shadow World context the Empress Kadaena was the mother of many dark races from her tortured experiments.

[The Broken Lands, Jagged Plain]
A large crystal dome rises above the jumble of huge boulders and jagged rocks, breaking the monotony of the terrain.  There is no question in your mind that the dome is man-made and not a natural feature of the area.  A dense fog swirls around the base of the dome, and generally obscures your vision.
Obvious paths: north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest

The crystal dome pulses with a dim, multicolored light.

R>look dome
The crystal dome is about 12 feet tall, and some 15 to 20 feet across.  The multi-faceted surface is highly polished, and the reflective planes make it impossible to see into the crystal.

R>prep 416
You gesture and invoke the powers of the elements for the Piercing Gaze spell...
Your spell is ready.
>cast dome
You gesture at a large crystal dome.
The surface of the crystal dome shimmers in your vision, its reflective planes become insubstantial, and you can now see inside.  Peering closer you see flashes of swirling elemental energy.  Surely this dome must hold an immense amount of mana.

The dome is a concentrator of great deals of magical power, which would otherwise spill out in violent bursts. Teleportation spells and devices fail in its vicinity, and it suppresses the ability to "reach out with your senses" in communicating telepathically. This is relevant because a number of his entities were actually mentalist in nature, and were named in the partially telepathic language Iruaric.

>prep 704
You begin drawing a faint, twisting symbol while softly intoning the words for Phase...
Your spell is ready.
>cast dome
You gesture at a large crystal dome.
Suddenly you notice the crystal dome's form dim slightly as it becomes insubstantial.

The interior of the dome begins to flash and spark as whatever was contained inside now has an easier way out.  As you begin to pass into the dome, a wave of pure energy gushes forth, burning you with its intense heat!
   ... 45 points of damage!
   Left arm incinerated.  Unfortunate.
   You are stunned for 10 rounds!
The surface of the dome returns to normal as if nothing happened.

>think Hello world
You concentrate on projecting your thoughts but something seems to be blocking them.

The Dark Gods

The Loremasters had conflicting theories on the origins of the Dark Gods, who were not known to exist until early in the Second Era as a result of the comet Sa'kain disrupting portals on Charon (Lornon). Some believed they had a similar origin as the Lords of Orhan (Liabo) or had somehow escaped from some interdimensional prison. However, others believed they were the result of "failed" Lord of Essaence experiments with creating non-corporeal life, fashioned of more chaotic essence associated with the corruptive power of The Unlife. Similarly, the surviving former followers of the Empress Kadaena (specifically Lorgalis and the Master of Malice) were wielding demonic armies with Ordainers, which were essentially demi-gods thought to have been fashioned somehow artificially.

In the Wars of Dominion it was impossible to directly fight beings of such innate might, forming the need for countervailing powers of similar scale and inexhaustibility. In this context Uthex Kathiasas was attempting to provide the means for forming armies of beings with various immunities out of thin air, possibly up to the scale of godlike power while nevertheless being controlled by an artifact. However, the fundamentally alien nature of dark essence from ordinary magic would have misled Uthex into corrupting himself, and his hosts were able to seduce him into pursuing more malevolent and ultimately demonic manifestations of his work. His fellows realized something was horribly wrong when the region was under siege by Lorgalis, and discovered his secret work was too dangerous to exist.

Known Works

These creatures have had multiple names due to both the I.C.E. Age ending and being references to Rolemaster and {Lovecraft}.

• Hooded figures {"High Priest Not to Be Described"; hooded figures of the shining trapezohedron's evil cult; possibly the K'n-yans}
• Giant fog beetles (Dictics) {Beetles that follow the end of the race of man; stand-ins for purple spiders of Leng}
• Lug'shuk traglaakh (Magru; Absorbers) {Shoggoths; "the colour"} (other forms in multiple colors sleeping as ponds, streams, puddles in Shadow Valley)
• Kiskaa raax (Myklian) {Toad-things / Moon-beasts; Reptile Tsathoggua worshippers of the Vaults of Zin} (anagram of "many ilk", spectrum ordered power with purple greatest)
• Dyar rakul (Dark vorteces; Nycorac, Blacar) {Kadath's cold wind vortices; purple fog being S'gnac; Shining Trapezohedron's "vortices of space where wisps of black mist floated"}
• Crystyls {Oblivion, crystallized memories} (crystal forest)
• Hoard {Mud of the nether earth; mud ooze of the colour out of space} (boiling mud sea)
• Traag {Cats of Ulthar; Large Cats of Saturn} (bone pit)
• Blacar {Shantak eggs} (hazy tenebrous orbs, sphere piles)
• Vruul (gogor) {Night-gaunts} (the "fell beasts" from the story, if following the Tolkien convention, though Uthex did not create them)

Behind The Scenes

(A) Lornon

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 and transmogrification 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 unknown 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. This portal is set in a round stone of "strange dark rock that you have not seen before", engraved with "odd runes", which is a typical Lovecraft motif where something falsely seems natural but was made by great ancients. It is unclear if Morgu (Marlu) used his Dark Shrine in the Second Era, but The Dark Path may have served 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 any at all, but the ki-lin of eastern mythology appeared with the birth and death of immortal sages.

(B) Lovecraft

There are numerous allusions to "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" in The Broken Lands. This novella was also alluded to below The Graveyard and Purgatory, which is based on the prose poem "Ex Oblivione" as well, with Uthex Kathiasas likely being a portmanteau of "Utha Kadaena" with "Ex" and "Kadath." The end of the novella might also be referenced by the exit of Shadow Valley. The plateau of Leng was similarly a place whose location could not be identified from the convergence of realities, and was next to the monastery of the wicked pharaoh demon Nyarlathotep. The globe lamps, Dark Shrine windows, telepathy suppression, and temporal anomalies come instead from "The Shadow out of Time", which explains Empress Kadaena being served now long after her death. The implication is that the Lords of Essaence were fashioning the Dark Gods or Ordainers as avatars to continue their own ascended existence following their deaths for which they had foresight.

The crystal dome is probably a reference to the Shining Trapezohedron and its evil cult of hooded figures from "The Haunter of the Dark", which ends with possession by Nyarlathotep and refers to the Poe character Roderick Usher. When using the artifact Nyarlathotep would be felt as a conscious "formless alien presence", which is reflected by room messaging of feeling watched by something. The Dark Grotto with its narrow cracks is "At the Mountains of Madness", which refers to Kadath and the destroyers from "Shadow", with the magru as shoggoths and the bone pit as the excavation. In the context of the Dream-Quest the Dark Grotto refers to the Vaults of Zin and the Enchanted Wood, with the bone pit as the Vale of Pnoth and the pond as the shoggoth lake below the peaks of Throk.

Kadath was a cold waste of mountains with a desolate castle at its peak where the "Great Ones" lived, who were the ancient gods of earth, where climbing the mountains would lead to madness and none knew what lay beyond. These gods would correspond to the Lords of Essaence in the Shadow World history. 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 later by GM Sayzor.

See Also

• The Temple of Darkness Poem
• Maleskari
• Selias Jodame
• Jaron Galarn
• Muylari
• "Kulthea Chronicle: Volume I, Issue V" - "Face to Face with Kygar", page 4