Item record / VNUM 14436
the Isle of the Necromancer Kings
A book about the Isle of the Necromancer Kings is here.
Object specs
| Item type | NOTE |
|---|---|
| Wear locations | TAKE, HOLD |
| Weight | 3 |
| Cost | 90 gold |
| Load probability | 100% |
| Value 0 | 0 |
| Value 1 | 0 |
| Value 2 | 0 |
| Value 3 | 0 |
Flags
Wear
- TAKE
- HOLD
Extra
- NOINVIS
Magical affects
No magical affects are defined.
Detailed descriptions
seventh 7
Thus Sumulael and I raised up the inhabitants of Toal from their crypts and tombs to serve us. We lived there like exiled royalty for many years, until my husband's insanity and revolting habits grew intolerable. I ended up killing the monster, eventually with the help of adventurers who had discovered the secluded city in the wilderness. That is how I met my second husband, Talib. He was one of the explorers who assisted me in destroying Sumulael and helped me find my long-sought talisman. I soon came to love Talib, after a fashion. I taught him all of my hidden secrets. We were happy together in Toal, rebuilding the city to its former glory. But in the end, that marriage also failed, for I found that you cannot practice the Art when you are happy, nor advance in its study if you are content. So I left behind my beloved, to write this book in solitude and focus my mind on the difficult road ahead.
sixth 6
At first, when my husband and I beheld the bones of the city's former citizens, we amused ourselves by raising the moldering remains to attend us as ghastly servants, skeletal porters, and shadowy messengers. When the quest for the talisman yielded nothing immediately, we animated more of the city's dead to expand the search. Before long, our new slaves uncovered royal cemeteries where the kings and queens of Toal had been buried for centuries before the city's disastrous end. I remember quite vividly my delight at this discovery. With a wave of my hand, I cracked open the tombs' monolithic stone doors, while Sumulael, cackling with wicked glee, called forth the city's ancient royalty, commanding even the oldest of padishahs to stumble forth, wrapped in their worm-eaten shrouds or burial robes, from the corrupted depths of the crypts and into our eternal slavery. And while the dead gave up their age-corrupted treasures, none carried my coveted talisman.
fifth 5
The ruins of Toal were cloaked by the jungle when I rediscovered the broken city walls with my first husband, Sumulael. That was in the early years of our marriage, when my devotion to the Forbidden Arts ran strong with the careless impetuousness of youth. We had been led to the city by disgruntled spirits, in search of a legendary talisman. Even with our ghostly guides, the ruins of the vine-choked city were extensive, and the exact location of our prize eluded us.
fourth 4
Thus the age-old conflict between king and high-priest began again in Uruk, transplanted from the mainland by its colonists, and it sprang forth anew with all the vehemence of old. As it destroyed the Old Dynasty, so too did it unravel the Necromancer Kings. The New Dynasty eventually withered and died, leaving only mournful spirits to glide over the still black waters by the ruins of Nycopolis. Now only their histories and their mysterious artifacts remain as sad, silent testimonies to their former power and glory.
third 3
The worship of this forgotten god, known as the Cult of Worms, soon flourished again under an ambitious priestess named Yola, one of the first nobles to accompany Ysawis into exile on Uruk. But the King was jealous of Yola's mounting influence, and he conspired with his most powerful nobles to destroy her. Yola disappeared soon after from Nycopolis. When she did, the Cult of Worms floundered without her direction, and Ysawis reigned supreme once again in his mighty new kingdom of necromancers.
second 2
Now, Uruk was not entirely uninhabited when Ysawis founded the New Dynasty. The colonists found the traces of an even more ancient civilization on the island, based on the low, sandy shores. They discovered entire ruined cities of antique metal towers, sundered and dilapidated, lapped along the coast by the hungry sea. In these mushroom-shaped spires, exotic totems and strange shrines were unearthed, temples of some forgotten god called the King of Worms, and Lord over Life and Undeath. Many of the New Dynasty began to worship this ancient god whose first followers had long since abandoned Uruk to live forever beneath the cold waves of the sea (or so the ancient legends say).
book first 1
Long ago, when the Old Dynasty began to fail on the mainland, Ysawis Ligat was exiled with a whole cadre of his supporters for practicing deviant and forbidden magic. Ysawis departed the jungle valleys of his youth in search of a new home. He crossed the sea and discovered Uruk, a large island of mysterious beauty that resembled, in many respects, his beloved homeland. The island was divided into a low-lying coastal region, an inner high plateau embraced by jungle, and a high ridge of mountains rising from the center of the island like the spine of a vishap. On the high plateau, by the shores of a sepia lake, Ysawis built Nycopolis and made his city the capital of a new monarchy. He built the Great Summer Palace out of solid ivory and erected a mighty Colossus in his image to guide visitors safely to his island. Ysawis was the first and most powerful of the Necromancer Kings, and he ruled Uruk, some say wisely, for many hundreds of years.
Carried by mobs
- the bookstore ownerMob 21205 / inventory
Placed in the world
- a bedInside item 14407
Sold by merchants
- the bookstore ownerMob 21205 / 108 gold