Anarea 1-off D: Breaking the Law 7 to 26 Aval 2000
Scenario 13A. (X)
Version A in Red
Versions B & C in Black
The Questers may seek the assistance of ChaosMasters. The World’s greatest ChaosMasters are reputedly to be found in the Underworld Land of Hulmo. They may also have discovered that it was here that Namaja, the so-called ArchChaosMaster, learnt his ChaosMastery.
Version A only: The Questers may have followed Namaja's trail from the Massacre of Lake Zarak back to Hulmo.
Between the Underworld Lands of Hulmo and the Lesser Orcish Empire, on the wide plain of the River Bleyn, lies the War Zone, over which the two Lands have fought a bitter total war for over 1500 years. It is a devastated area of wilderness, up to 400 miles deep, criss-crossed with trench lines, and stretching into the hills fringing the Desert of Pestilence to the West and the foothills of the Mountains of Cloud to the East.
Mount Griht (22,000 ft) is a peak in the Mountains of Cloud, with tracks leading to it from both sides of the front line. The ChaosMasters founded their Academy here because of its isolation - as things can go very seriously and dangerously wrong when one attempts to Master Chaos. It also looks down commandingly upon the War Zone. It is an extinct volcano, and the Academy (usually) sits at the centre of its summit crater, though sometimes it drifts off into Chaos.
The people of Hulmo are Evil / Chaotic men. The people of the Empire are Evil / Lawful orcs. They are natural foes, and have been fighting since before even the Appearance of LOFIR and ZAKEL. But although the front line has moved back and forth across the War Zone over all the years, neither side has ever achieved a decisive victory.
In their efforts to break the deadlock, both sides have resorted to every means at their disposal. The greatest "secret weapon" deployed by Hulmo was the ChaosMasters. They initially achieved devastating results, driving back the previously-advancing Empire in the Chaos Counter-Offensive of 1658, but ChaosMastery is inherently unpredictable and the early ChaosMasters were junior and inexperienced. The Empire eventually rallied and its Clerics started Casting Dispel Chaos, and the war returned to stalemate. Hulmo continued to deploy ChaosMasters in the War, but the initial surprise had been lost, and the problems of unpredictability remained, even though the ChaosMasters became more adept. The Chaos they called up could almost as easily affect their own side as the enemy, and was often more effective at breaking up an attack than starting one off.
The ChaosMasters also became more independent as they grew in power. Though naturally inclined to support the Chaotic side in the War, they were also disinclined to follow orders, and sometimes supplied mercenary ChaosMasters at a suitable price to the Empire (which was not above employing Chaotics to fight for it) or even trained orcs in ChaosMastery (ostensibly from Hell or elsewhere in the Underworld).
Namaja studied at the Academy of ChaosMasters in the early 1990s, where he proved Fyz's most intelligent and able pupil. By 1996 he was outstripping Fyz himself in his Mastery of Chaos, and one day he simply walked off [Versions B & C only:, never to be seen again by the Academy].
Version A only: Namaja returned to the Academy in 1997. He was consumed with frustration at his failure to get the people of the Lawful Empire of the Overworld to embrace ChaosMastery and overthrow their Lawful rulers.
In his subsequent discussions with Fyz and others, Namaja eventually came to the conclusion that any attempt to build up Chaos in the centre of an Empire of Law was doomed to failure, as the Law must inevitably be stronger there. The way to oppose the Lawful Empire with the power of Chaos was to build up his own realm of Chaos. This would counterbalance their excesses of Lawfulness, and give him a power base from which to move more directly against them. He would need to tread carefully, however, as he remained convinced that any attempt to control or direct Chaos was fundamentally flawed. The most he could do was to seek out that possibility which corresponded most nearly with his desired end, and to go with the flow of it. He realised, from his experience of ChaosWalking, that it was not necessary to go outside Anarea to find Chaos. It was part of the very fabric of the World, and it was exactly this Chaos he needed to work with if he were to redress the balance.
So Namaja left Fyz and most of the other ChaosMasters to continue what he now regarded as a futile struggle against the Lawful Orcish Empire. In the Year 1999, with a small group of followers, younger ChaosMasters, friends and others he had picked up along the way, he penetrated deeper into the Mountains of Cloud. He was seeking a pass through into his Promised Land, which could not be found in the "real" Underworld.
Fyz (C) Dean of the Academy of ChaosMasters at Mount Griht: the most accomplished ChaosMaster in the Academy - though that does not mean he can always achieve what he intends.
Yarla (C) probably the second most-powerful ChaosMaster in the Academy after Fyz, she was a sometime lover of Namaja during his sojourn in the Academy, though she says the relationship was purely physical. Version A only: she is chief amongst the followers who have departed with Namaja.
Jopito (N) Mad Seer of the Academy: driven half-mad by his wanderings in Chaos and Madness, Jopito is chief amongst those who predict the End of the World. Nobody takes his babblings very seriously.
Morro (L) Herder of Cats: the chief (and only) administrator of the Academy. Sells information to the Empire of the Orcs, but is in fact a double agent working for the Master of Spies in Huhulmo and mostly feeds disinformation to the Empire.
See above for Namaja's history at the Academy.
Chaotic signs and portents have been on the increase in Hulmo and the Mountains of Cloud since 1 Aval 2000. Some ChaosMasters have Dreaming and Prophetic abilities, and most of them have been reporting that these signify and portend the forthcoming End of the World. However, nobody pays much attention to what ChaosMasters babble on about, least of all other ChaosMasters, and for most combatants in the War Zone the End of the World would be welcomed as a blessed relief.
Version A only: Chaotic incidents have been on the increase in Hulmo and the Mountains of Cloud ever since the departure of Namaja last year. But since 1 Aval 2000 the boundaries between Reality, Chaos and the Dream Kingdoms have been breaking down, and another former volcano, Mount Kharmus (c27,000 ft) has erupted again. It has been shining with strange lights and spitting out odd bits of Chaos. It is these events that have prompted the foretellings of Doom by the Prophets.
Back to Scenario 12A: On the Trail of Namaja: Into the Underworld
Go to Scenario 14: Tripping into Chaos
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