Two Kingdoms Calendar

The Two Kingdoms divides the 320-day year into 12 months of 26 days each, plus 8 extra intercalary days at the end of the year. The months are divided into 3 weeks, the first two of which are 9 days long and the third (the "robbed week") 8 days long.

Months:

1. Thoukelphaophi (Before The Rain)
2. Kelphaophi (The Rain)
3. Kelphaophyr (The Rainbow)
4. Koikelphaophi (After The Rain)
5. Matbaya (Childhood)
6. Mamshara (Adolescence)
7. Mamhata (Adulthood)
8. Marmada (Elderhood)
9. Nābiskelpashons (Killing the Weak)
10. Nābiskelpaoni (Killing the Average)
11. Nābiskelepip (Killing the Strong)
12. Nābiskelmutnābis (Killing the Immortal)

Years are counted in regnal and dynastic years, making the present year the 23rd year of the Pharaoh Menmātra, the ??th Pharaoh of the ??th Dynasty.

Two Kingdoms Currency

The basic unit of Two Kingdoms currency is the copper coin known as the akchē (128 to the pound). 3 akchū are equal to one silver pārah (64 to the pound); in turn, 40 'apprāh equal one gold gurrûsh (160 to the pound) and 100 gurārish equal 1 platinum aril (80 to the pound).

To summarize:
1 akchē (a) = 1/3 pārah (p) = 1/120 gurrûsh (g) = 1/12,000 aril (ar)
3 akchū = 1 pārah = 1/40 gurrûsh = 1/4000 aril
120 akchū = 40 'apprāh = 1 gurrûsh = 1/100 aril
12,000 akchū = 4000 'apprāh = 100 gurārish = 1 aril

When looking at published costs:
1 cp = 1 akchē
1 sp = 10 akchū = 3p1a
1 gp = 100 akchū = 33p1a
1 pp = 1000 akchū = 8g4p

The Rainy Season

The Two Kingdoms enjoy a hot but consistent climate most of the year.  In early spring and early fall, however, changing winds and the collision of hot and cold weather fronts cause a torrential rainy season that lasts up to 3 weeks. During the rainy season, storms constantly thunder overhead. The rain may clear up for an hour or so, but always pours down again soon.

Without the rainy season, the Two Kingdoms would dry up and most of its creatures would die. The rain fills the numerous basin lakes that hold water but have no external feed; without the rain, the lakes would be but shallow depressions. Once filled, these basin lakes sustain the plant and animal life of the country for months to come.

Celebrations mark the rainy season whenever it arrives. In the city of Zep Tepi, vendors raise brightly colored awnings of oiled canvas over their stalls to shield them from the rain. Most hang chimes of brass or silver from the awnings, and their musical chimes sound constantly as they sway from the weight of rain on the canvas. Hawkers travel the stalls with buckets of steaming cider or mulled wine for sale, and young people gather in mobs for barefoot dances on muddy street corners.  Though Haon’s presence in Zep Tepi is limited most of the year, during the rainy season his faithful conduct parades, hand out shells for good luck, and receive special treatment from merchants, innkeepers, and citizens alike.

Zep Tepi

South of the lands of Aporuë, sprawling across a valley of blazing-hot sand, is one of the most incredible and wondrous cities in all the world: the great desert metropolis of Zep Tepi. Within its sandstone walls, anything one wishes can be bought, sold, or traded—for the right price. Zep Tepi is a city of organized chaos where cash is king and commerce is the highest god.  Perhaps only its long history of trade with both Aporuëna and Ndata-mbanyiti traders (and do not forget the occasional Aprasahami or Haeno, even!), balanced against the novelty of the goods one can acquire in the Free City makes the latter a larger trading city.  And novelty, of all things dreamed of by kel-Biann in his wandering sleep, fades.

Through all of the trials and tribulations Zep Tepi has weathered, from its beginnings as the “Golden City” to the bustling metropolis of today, it has retained its mercantile importance no matter who or what has occupied it. Some believe that it is Zep Tepi’s divine purpose to one day become the greatest center of commerce in all the world.

The city holds more than 200,000 souls, and each one wants to sell you something. At first glance it appears there are more businesses than residences in Zep Tepi, because so many merchants sleep in their shops, as they are there most hours of the day anyway, and it provides a deterrent to thieves.

Thievery isn’t as big a problem as one might expect in Zep Tepi. Crammed full of stores, stalls, tents, warehouses, hawkers, and purchasers as it is, the teeming city seems a thieves’ paradise. The edicts of the Dealmakers, however, make it clear that anyone interfering with trade in the city faces death—or worse. While the occasional petty theft is to be expected, organized or chronic crime threatens to disrupt a merchant’s everyday business. The Dealmakers come down hard on those who endanger the city’s economy (sometimes using constructs powered by the souls of slaves, called alumu, when necessary), and ignore everyone else.

While the Dealmakers maintain control over the city, day-to-day business and governance is left to Dealbroker Hashmot-ib-Diyyas. Hashmot-ib-Diyyas has a reputation for upholding the Dealmakers’ judgments and enacting their laws, whatever his personal feelings. Some suspect Hashmot-ib-Diyyas has a personal agenda that will someday come to light, but for now he enjoys a stable and respected position.

Hashmot-ib-Diyyas also presides over the merchant council, which makes decisions about Zep Tepi’s trade policies and ensures the market remains free. In practice, the merchant council rarely interferes in citizens’ daily lives; their attitude is laissez-faire, if not downright apathetic.

The Nightstalls garner the most attention in Zep Tepi.  The bazaars there sell items that are more than unusual—they’re immoral, addictive, or ephemeral. The Nightstalls is where one can buy a dragon’s tongue, feathers from a couatl’s wing, drugs and poisons of all kinds, or a devil’s regret.

After mahjoun, Zep Tepi’s biggest export is slaves. Though some slaves are available in the Nightstalls, most are sold through the Fleshfairs of Okeno.

KATAPESH
Size Metropolis nonstandard (plutocratic merchant council with alien overseers); AL N
GP Limit 100,000 gp; Assets 1,075,000 gp
Demographics
Population 215,000
Type mixed

• 63% human = 135,450 souls
• 6% ratfolk = 12,900 souls
• 6% halfling = 12,900 souls
• 5% asherati = 10,750 souls
• 5% bhuka = 10,750 souls
• 4% half-elf = 8600 souls
• 4% gnoll = 8600 souls
• 2.5% miscellaneous (including ifrit) = 5375 souls
• 2% elf = 4300 souls
• 1% dwarf = 2150 souls
• 1% orc = 2150 souls
• 0.5% half-orc = 1075 souls

Authority Figures
Hashmot-ib-Diyyas (Dealbroker of Zep Tepi); Angruul, Jivnar, Krimiltuk, Morvithis, and Tzandarkon (Dealmakers of Zep Tepi)

Creatures of the Two Kingdoms

Many animals on the plains and in the desert are native to the Two Kingdoms, known in other lands only because of the luxurious pelts traded in the marketplace. On the plains, the most common creatures are Two Kingdoms lions (great golden beasts with white manes), gazelles, zebras, blink dogs, camelopards (a variety of giraffe), and small, beautiful antelopes called calopi. Jungle areas include such wildlife as alligators, giant snakes, lizards, stirges, and rare tribes of lizardfolk. In the desert, one finds camels, sand eels, basilisks, behirs, wild horses, scorpions, and buzzards. In the mountains, giant frilled lizards known as razorscales prowl next to mountain lions, wild goats, dragonnes, and gnolls.  Gnolls are the most common monsters in the eastern portion of the Two Kingdoms, and arguably the most dangerous.  Gnolls are feared and reviled throughout the land (an opinion tinged with not a bit of xenophobia regarding Ndata-mbanye, widely considered their homeland), but the Dealmakers’ open trade policy means that gnolls may freely enter the city of Zep Tepi, so long as they come to barter and behave themselves.

Two Kingdoms (II)

The Two Kingdoms! Land of adventure, faith, excitement, fate, addiction, and poetry. The present blurs into the past as ancient ruins and weathered monoliths, once hidden, come to light. Scouring sandstorms whip away the dunes to reveal the planed sides of pyramids.  Caravans gone astray on the savannah find the bones of old settlements, their inhabitants gone but their relics left behind. The tokens and trinkets of bygone Phaetia all make their way to the great city of Zep Tepi, to find a place among the stalls and shops of the city of trade. There, the battered gold necklace that once hung around the neck of a pharaoh sits scandalously in a tangle next to smooth balls of mahjoun, while one of the enigmatic Dealmakers glides by, his madness-inducing visage concealed behind a bizarre mask.

The Two Kingdoms may be many things: hostile, brutal, dishonest, opportunistic, uncivilized, pious—even beautiful. But it is never dull.  Welcome to the bazaar of the bizarre, stranger.

The Two Kingdoms encompass many different land types and climates  (especially as half of it is below the sea!)  To the east, looming mountains slope like spearheads, blocking the way to Koboro and the continent of Ndata-mbanye beyond it. Flatter foothills and mountain passes offer passage to the eastern country, but most travelers prefer to reach Koboro by ship. Gnolls live in those mountains, and they know the passes and easy crossings as well as anyone. Unprepared souls who attempt to traverse the mountains generally wind up on a ship anyway: in the belly of a slave galley on its way to the Fleshfairs.

West of the mountains, warm green savannahs stretch for miles. Clusters of tall trees, with long branches that extend only from the very tops of the trunks, stand like open umbrellas to offer moderate shade. Thin rivers and still pools provide water for the many animals that roam the fertile plains, such as camelopards, Two Kingdoms lions, gazelles, and more. At times, the savannah gives way to lush jungles that develop around hot spots: underground heat vents that warm the area, turning fresh water murky and sulfurous and fostering the growth of plant life.

Farther west still, the plains dry up into arid stretches of desert. Here lies the breadbasket of the Two Kingdoms, the heartland from which many of its citizens’ livelihoods spring. In the desert reaches, mahjoun grows.  The bulbous, spiny cacti produce the milk farmers ferment into mahjoun, the euphoric, addictive stimulant for which the country is famed (among many other things). The potential to cultivate mahjoun and make large sums of money from its sale makes the dangers of desert life—scorpions, jackal rats, sand eels, and ancient curses—worthwhile.

The Two Kingdoms are ruled by an ancient and evergrowing dynasty of half-angel ghosts with Divine Rank 0.  How can you have a dynasty of ghosts, you ask?  At some point during a pharoah's reign, Tum incarnates upon a woman somewhere in the Two Kingdoms as a flash of light that impregnates her with the upcoming pharoah.  When this happens, the reigning pharoah knows that e is in the last years of eir reign but not how many years e has left, for e has no way of knowing when that child will be violently killed, as they always are.  The people of the Two Kingdoms see this as a way of gaming the cosmological system; if the fallen world is a prison and the pharoah one of the jailers, the only candidates Neziru will accept are those the people dislike.  The best way to convince Neziru that you dislike someone is to kill them, as violently as possible.  Once the new pharoah is killed, e becomes a ghost and takes eir place among the others, who are now treated as generals and special ops agents in the hierarchy of the Two Kingdoms.

Merfolk (I)

Only the merfolk knew the secret of tanning whaleskin into parchment that could outlive centuries, and it had been long years since honest folk learned that a deal made with mermaids was no simple thing. They deemed it their right to demand a favor from anyone who used or even carried their goods. Such favors usually resulted in bloodshed and sunken ships. No honest man would be willingly beholden to a mermaid, and any wise ship captain would toss anyone carrying such a map into the sea—after dumping a load of bloody chum to draw sharks.

Gnolls II

Since gnolls, like most other canines, pant rather than sweat, they generally smell better than humans—except, of course, for their breath.

In the Two Kingdoms, they tell the following story to explain the origin of the gnolls:

"In the beginning, when Khro perfected the way of destruction, the lands were littered with the dead. Crows, maggots, beetles, worms, and the other crawling things of the earth complained to Khro.

'You destroy and maim too quickly!' they cried. 'We cannot devour all the meat you give us! Please, destroy the people of the earth more slowly.'

'What?' shouted Khro, in a voice that toppled pillars. 'My glorious destruction shall never cease nor slow!'

Yet in the dark, delighting in the destruction god’s slaughter, watched one of Khro's daughters -- those who are death -- and she heard the base things cry. In those black days when all the land was covered with death and all the air stank, she watched as a few tribes of men, her followers and devout worshipers, ate the flesh of corpses as the crows did, plucking out eyes, savoring the bloodiest cuts. To these cannibals she led packs of hyenas, and their ways became as one.

Of those louse-ridden beastmen rose the first gnolls, half-hyenas who love the stench of carrion and praise each corpse as an offering to their dark mother. And the demon queen delighted in her own perversion and reveled in these monsters’ terrible howling songs.

Born of devastation, and insanity, and the corrupt of soul, the man-beasts spread upon the world, and where they prowled they indulged in their hunger for murdered flesh. Surely, they are to be despised by any sane god, and so we make ceaseless war on those who seek to feed on the bodies of heroes and innocents.

And somewhere in the madness between the stars, that daughter of Khro and his sister/wife/self Alav still laughs her wicked laugh, as her ravening spawn, the bone gnawers and carrion eaters, grow fat off our flesh.

Gnolls are among the first abominations, and their death is a blessing. Remember this when their laughter haunts your steps."

Wormhollow tribe

Kikkling the Slight killed the pack leader of the Wormhollow tribe—a monstrous flind called Ghaldahag—in his sleep 3 years ago. He quickly claimed that he did so with Nga/ani the Warrior Queen’s blessing, though since his tribe has joined the ranks of the Carrion King, he claims the assassination was actually Khro’s will. In truth, the rest of the pack cared not one way or the other about what god slight and seemingly sickly Kikkling followed, for his rule has proven far less severe and significantly more beneficial than their past leader’s. A toady and false zealot, Kikkling the Slight opportunistically panders to the Carrion King, sending regular, needless tributes to the warlord while seeking out word of other tribes who denounce the worship of the god of wrath. From their cavernous lair—one of the oldest gnoll holdings near Pale Mountain—the Wormhollow gnolls follow Kikkling’s whims, watching for signs of dissension and faithlessness in their fellows.

Symbol: Pyramidal pile of bone-white rocks.

Size of Tribe: 45 gnolls, 4 flinds, 6 gnoll slaves.

Leader: Kikkling the Slight (NE male gnoll rogue 7), deceitful sycophant of the Carrion King.

Notable Members: Korkor (NE male gnoll rogue 3), inquisitor; Sinvew (CE female gnoll ranger 3), stalker and spy; Glos (NE male gnoll cleric of Khro 4), eldest faithful of the god of wrath.

Territory: The Wormhollow tribe controls a shallow cave system that winds through the base of Pale Mountain.  None outside of this tribe know how deep the caves go, and other tribes believe the caverns bore all the way into the land of the dead. The truth is far less dramatic, but the Wormhollow gnolls enjoy the fear and awe their eerie home lends them. Members of the Wormhollow tribe rarely venture outside the caves except to hunt and spy upon their supposed allies.

Lair: The entrance to the Wormhollow tribe’s domain is the largest cave entrance on Pale Mountain. An opening in the cliffs on the mountain’s lower western slopes bears the crudely sculpted visage of a snarling hyena or gnoll.  Within lies a cramped and heavily trapped cavern leading to a constantly manned guard post and the main hall of the Wormhollow tribe. Within this trapped corridor, the gnolls keep two giant solifugid “guard dogs,” huge spiderlike desert insects with a hunger for hairless flesh. In the caverns beyond lie numerous chambers, including the cave of Kikkling (high on the wall of the main room) and a large shrine once dedicated to Nga/ani and reconsecrated to Khro. Beyond lie caves that wind to hidden escape routes, though one tunnel hides a crevice known only to Kikkling that leads all the way to the Darklands.

Society: The Wormhollow tribe used to be the most secretive of all tribes around Pale Mountain. With the coming of the Carrion King, though, their white-dyed fur and squinty eyes have become synonymous with deception and fanaticism—if not for Khro than for the Carrion King himself. Scouts of the Wormhollow tribe regularly make their ways among the disorganized lesser tribes and warbands of their warlord’s horde, seeking to garner their tribe leader’s and the Carrion King’s favor by rooting out the lazy and unfaithful, or simply the weak. Not powerful warriors or great hunters, the Wormhollow gnolls seek to elevate themselves above the other tribes through information, falsehood, and perceived loyalty.

Service to the Carrion King: The Carrion King realizes that Kikkling panders to him, but the praise and tribute pleases him. He also enjoys the fear the Wormhollow tribe provokes in the other tribes, increasing fear of the warlord but deflecting anger and resentment toward Kikkling’s people. The Wormhollow gnolls also possess useful skills as spies and liars, services at which few other gnoll tribes excel and which the Carrion King readily takes advantage of in his deals with distant tribes and keeping tabs on the hordes of the Red Sultana—another gnoll warlord—to the south.

Adventure Hook: The other gnolls have grown tired of the Wormhollow tribe’s endless scrutiny and accusations.  Drovoag the Lame was driven from his tribe when Kikkling’s spies accused him of worshiping old demons. He encounters the PCs in their travels and begs for their help in infiltrating the Wormhollow caves, destroying their shrine to Khro, and leaving a message that the god is displeased with Kikkling. The gnoll ranger knows a back way into the tribe’s caves, but the way is infested with the eggs of giant solifugids. In return for their aid, Drovoag offers to show the PCs the way to the hidden caves where the Wormhollow tribe stores its ancient treasures.

Three Jaws tribe

The barely remembered lore of the Three Jaws tribe speaks of a time when the gnolls were led by three warriors, brothers of peerless skill and savagery among all the tribes. Supposedly the Three Jaws conquered all the gnolls of Pale Mountain, drove the other races from the surrounding Agawu Highlands, and took hundreds of slaves. How long ago this time of gnoll glory was or how it ended none—not even the Three Jaws—can say.

Today, the members of the Three Jaws view themselves as the elite of the local gnoll tribes.  While their skill as warriors and berserkers is impressive, little in the lands or wealth they hold distinguishes them from the other gnolls of Pale Mountain. Only the appearance of Three Jaws warriors sets them apart, the tribe’s members having a long tradition of adorning themselves with trophies and precious ornaments collected from their fallen foes through piercings, skin pockets, and similar painful disfigurement. Their current leader, Hakkur, wears the crown of his father through his shoulder and four bejeweled rings in his face—items many whisper grant him all manner of magic protections.

Symbol: This pack doesn’t bear a standard so much as living “banners” of their tribe. They typically adorn themselves with objects from defeated enemies. Ears are the most heavily pierced, usually with fangs, claws, and bits of weapons seized from fresh kills.

Size of Tribe: 25 gnolls, 11 flinds, 6 goblin slaves (bought at great expense due to the continent between the Two Kingdoms and the lands of the Haeno), 15 guard hyenas.

Leader: Hakkur (CE male flind barbarian 5), brutal hulking chieftain and slayer of death worms.

Notable Members: Chinew (CE male gnoll barbarian 2), hunt leader and second-in-command; Lakkur (CE female flind barbarian 1, cleric of Khro 3), Hakkur’s sister.

Lair: A small collection of huts built by the Three Jaws spans the banks of a cascading feeder stream that runs from the upper reaches of Pale Mountain. Patrols of warriors guard the encampment, while groups of hunters prowl the nearby slopes—the Three Jaws make little distinction between intruders and prey. Within the camp, chief Hakkur makes his home in a grim tent crafted from sewn-together animal pelts and the skins of intruders. To the chieftain’s pride, the skins of his father and younger brother provide the door flaps to his home. Outside, Hakkur keeps the cramped hut of his six remaining goblin slaves. He once had 10, but in the 4 months since the goblins’ capture several have died from the poor conditions, the tantrums of gnoll warriors, and battles they engage in for the chieftain’s entertainment.

Society: Three Jaws life revolves around hunting trophies, with the term “hunting” referring to ambushing and killing any humanoid they encounter—but other gnolls and, in particular, members of the Circle tribe are prized above all.  Hakkur organizes daily hunting parties, usually sent forth under the command of the tribe’s second, Chinew.  When the Three Jaws discover and murder a beast or foe, they quickly strip the body of its distinctive adornments, fangs or teeth, and weapons. Then, back home, warriors often pierce their bodies with their new trophies.

Treasures: Each warrior of the Three Jaws has precious metals and gems affixed to his body worth a total of about 5 gp. The warriors carry such adornments not as currency but as trophies of their past kills and for the flashy sparkle.  Gold teeth or earrings still bearing a scrap of tattered skin make far more impressive trophies than otherwise indistinguishable fangs or fingers.

Service to the Carrion King: Known as deadly warriors, the Three Jaws serve at the forefront of the Carrion King’s legions. Their self-inflicted deformities strike fear in the hearts of their enemies and other tribes of gnolls. When a tribe under the Carrion King’s command displeases him, it’s often a member of the Three Jaws he sends to exact punishment.

Adventure Hook: The Three Jaws tribe has a reputation for savagery and making attacks on non-gnoll communities throughout the Pale Mountain region. In recent months, though—owing to the support offered by the Carrion King—the merciless raiders have become increasingly deadly. While striking back against the gnolls might prove a daunting task, many mercenaries have come to the region to do battle, rumors of the copper and precious jewels the gnolls weave into their flesh inspiring the greed of many sellswords. Unfortunately, the Three Jaws prove dangerously capable of defending their trophies.

Lesser Tribes of Pale Mountain

Along with the larger tribes tenuously united under the bloody banner of the Carrion King, dozen of smaller tribes, warbands, and groups of raiders obey the gnoll warlord’s call.  Listed here are but a handful of diverse groups of hunters, murderers, and thieves moved by the Carrion King’s claw.

kel-Vohr’s Hunters: This band of six accomplished gnoll hunters follow the flind kel-Vohr, a living legend in the Pale Mountain region who supposedly single-handedly slew a roc in its sleep and fed upon its eggs—some claim he was a normal gnoll before, and that the experience made him grow into a flind. kel-Vohr and his followers are skilled trackers who enjoy ambushing their prey at night.

The Ghulveis: The remnants of a gnoll tribe of the same name, the Ghulveis were afflicted with a terrible, flesh-wasting disease said to be punishment from Nga/ani the Warrior Queen for their weak fertility. Now only five gauze-wrapped flinds and a pack of mangy hyenas—who lick their masters’ wounds—remain.  The Carrion King employs the leper-like gnolls as threats, sending them among those who displease him.

The Sordaiv: This isolated, inbred tribe of human nomads has long been estranged from the other wanderers of the central portion of the Two Kingdoms, believing some great wrong was committed against them in the distant past. Numbering no more than 20 ash-robed raiders, these dull-witted but skilled desert trackers now lend their services to the Carrion King.

Wyrmslaves: These 18 gnolls were once of the kel-Drogat tribe, but their people were wiped out by the fat behir Lazzairhage. While the behir claims the gnolls as slaves, several of his servants are considerably more cunning than he is. Thus, the gnolls have convinced him to join in the plots of the Carrion King.

The Circle tribe

Secreted highest upon Pale Mountain lairs the Circle tribe of gnolls, engaged in a sacred duty given to them by the Carrion King himself. Their task is simple: construct the greatest weapon Pale Mountain has ever known for the greater glory of Khro. At least, this is what most people believe—no one aside from the Carrion King and gnolls of the brazen peaks his minions knows for certain what the reclusive gnolls are doing up there, and the gnolls themselves do nothing to illuminate their secret plans.

In truth, the gnolls possess little actual engineering, smithing, or arcane talent with which to create anything, much less a weapon of such destructiveness as to please the god of devastation. Instead, they stumbled upon ancient ruins near the mountain top which they now excavate—if “excavate” can be applied to their wanton destruction of an entire slope as they search for an amulet that their leader, the mysterious figure known only as the Witch, claims rests there. The Circle’s scaffolding-strewn dig site led to rumors that the gnolls were constructing something, which the tribe has encouraged.

Symbol: Anything representing a simple circle. The amulet the tribe searches for supposedly looks like a gold disc, which they recreate in their symbol.

Size of Tribe: 38 gnolls, 9 flinds, numerous trained wild dogs, and nearly two dozen slaves of varying races.

Leader: The Witch (LE female human cleric of Khro 6), an emissary of the Carrion King and supposed seer of the god of disaster.

Notable Members: Badilur (CE male flind fighter 4), the Witch’s slave-master and chief enforcer; Lakkickkish (CE male gnoll fighter 3), a cowardly warrior who dreams of finding the treasure his tribe seeks and using it to overthrow the Witch and the Carrion King himself; Purkor (CN male gnoll rogue 3), a scheming gnoll who doesn’t realize he possesses the amulet for which his tribe searches.

Territory: The Circle makes its semi-permanent home high on the slopes of Pale Mountain. Most of the steep slopes the tribe occupies host shallow mines and the ruins of collapsed dig sites.

Lair: Aside from those who must descend the mountain to hunt, the gnolls rarely leave their crude tent village or the deep caves where the Witch performs strange ceremonies in worship of Khro. Nearby, a jagged stone palisade surrounds the tribe’s largest dig site, which serves both as workplace and prison for numerous slaves. Patrols of gnolls and their constantly hungry dogs make the rounds of the dig site, eager to catch any prisoner who even looks like he harbors the notion of escaping.

Society: The Circle passes each day digging deeper into the mountainside in search of its prize. All members are somehow involved in the task, whether directly digging, hauling the debris, or supporting the pack by hunting for food. Their awkward, inexpert mining has led to numerous casualties over the course of the past 8 months, including a landslide that killed a dozen tribe members and almost half of the group’s prisoners. Although devoted to finding the deadly arcane amulet she swears lies within the area, the Witch grows more despondent and meditative every day, having expected to discover the relic long ago. That her god has not sent her any new visions in months and kept the nature of the amulet hidden from her has started to undermine her sanity.

Service to the Carrion King: When the Witch appeared before the Carrion King, telling him of their shared faith and her visions of a powerful weapon, the gnoll warlord eagerly granted the strange human the resources she sought to find the unholy relic. Thus the Witch took command of a legion she came to call the Circle. Months have passed since then, and the human’s search has yielded little fruit. The Witch knows the Carrion King’s patience might expire at any moment and fears his warriors coming to claim her head. Thus, every day her demands on her tribe and its slaves become more desperate and hopes to actually discover the amulet grow less unlikely.

Adventure Hook: Months ago, the gnoll Purkor found a hunk of green rock with a sun-like semicircle extending from it. Not knowing what it was but suspecting its value, he hid it away, eager for a chance to trade it to another tribe or flee to Zep Tepi and sell it there. What Purkor doesn’t know is that within the rock rests the amulet for which his tribe’s leader searches and a power beyond his understanding. When Purkor finally does flee the Circle, the Witch’s agents give chase, following their mistress’s all-too-true delusion that he knows something of the amulet. When Purkor runs into the PCs, he begs for their aid against his former kin, and might even trade them his treasure in exchange for protection.

kel-Chorhaiv Tribe

The fate of the kel-Chorhaiv tribe changed during a nighttime thunderstorm. It began when Vaskjaw, the tribe’s white-crowned leader, stumbled from his harem pavilion, his belly distended and shuddering like a frog’s bladder.  A labored and gurgling moan grated from his clenched teeth as his limbs flailed like a dropped marionette.  A moment later the old chief collapsed and the rest of the tribe hurried to surround him, his writhing form illuminated by bursts of harsh light in the driving rains.  His eyes widened underneath the lightning flashes and his lips curled back in pain so terrible none could forget the sound of his cracking, clenched fangs. No one dared touch their leader out of abject fear and revulsion. Then, with a widening of eyes and a simple, sick pop, all life fled the old hunter. All was silent for a moment, and even the thunder seemed to pause as gnoll looked to gnoll, knowing that bloodshed always marks the passing of a leader. It was Vaskjaw’s corpse that broke the silence, his broken jaws falling open, spilling the fragments of yellow teeth into the mud. Slowly, from pale lips, crooked legs picked their way out of the dead chief’s mouth and the opalescent form of a vhagshea—a deadly demon blood scorpion—crawled forth into the rain. Shocked, few noticed the naked form of Ahrikvask the Foot Washer, third wife of Vaskjaw, stride from the harem pavilion. At her passing, the mud swirled with blood, fat drops slipping from her long knife and draining from the severed heads of Dhorhaalva and Jhokgral, Vaskjaw’s first and second wives. Standing over the soaked body of the dead old gnoll, Ahrikvask threw her dagger down, impaling the scorpion there. Lifting the still squirming arachnid upon her knife, the gnoll concubine devoured the deadly insect in a swift series of small bites.  Looking to the tribe’s eldest members, most skilled hunters, and deadliest warriors, the bloody gnoll threw down the heads of her mistresses and claimed her kill: “By my venom the feeble have fallen,” she said. “Follow me now, or suffer far worse a death.” With her words, young scorpions crawled from the usurper and the assembled gnolls drew back in fear. None of the kel-Chorhaiv defied their new chieftain.

Symbol: Lengths of intestine hanging from a hyena skull.

Size of Tribe: 46 gnolls and countless scorpions.

Leader: Ahrikvask (NE female gnoll druid 5/rogue 3), a deceptive murderess and master of scorpions who proves immune to most forms of venom.

Notable Members: Isvhag, a Large monstrous scorpion, travels alongside the chieftain, serving as her companion and occasional enforcer; Vamaag (CE female gnoll adept 9), former sacred mother in the service of Nga/ani the Warrior Queen, silent opponent of the chieftain.

Territory: A nomadic people, the kel-Chorhaiv recognize no territory. They roam anywhere they can find meat, be it giant insect, highlands animal, or that of another other humanoid race. Currently they range through the mountain passes of the Brazen Peaks near Pale Mountain, though they occasionally descend when food grows scarce or to raid.

Lair: The kel-Chorhaiv live in the open and are fearless, thus they have no centralized lair or specific defenses. They’re light sleepers and their watches have served them well enough over the years. Since Ahrikvask’s ascent to chieftain, deadly vhagshea scorpions infest the tribe’s stopping points and frequently aid in warding off intruders.

Society: The kel-Chorhaiv live to serve their mistress Ahrikvask. While life under the tribe’s former chieftains was brutal, fraught with lean times and arbitrary violence, Ahrikvask and her scorpions have ushered in a time of both fear and bounty. Although the infestation of poisonous arachnids unnerves the entire tribe, all can agree that times haven’t been better. Food proves more readily available—even if it is just the meat of giant insects and poisoned beasts—and the other gnoll tribes of the region fear the supposed scorpion-lovers, telling tales of their venomous mistress and the tribe’s immunity to even the most deadly poisons. In addition, Ahrikvask extols faith in a kind of morbid naturalism and the will of savage natural forces. While such faith angers many more traditional members of the tribe who cling to Nga/ani’s perverse tenets, those who have spoken out in the defense of the old ways have been found dead, riddled with stings and leaking deadly venoms.

Service to the Carrion King: The kel-Chorhaiv know much of the land around Pale Mountain, and it’s said that Ahrikvask’s insects bring her news from even farther afield. The Carrion King’s minions regularly come among the kel-Chorhaiv seeking news of the surrounding lands, exotic poisons, and use of their skills as deadly archers and assassins.

Adventure Hook: Vamaag, the former spiritual leader of the kel-Chorhaiv, plots to claim leadership of her tribe.  She seeks the most deadly poison in the Two Kingdoms or beyond, planning to challenge the tribe’s leader to imbibe it with her. While Vamaag can rely on her magic to cure herself of the poison, Ahrikvask’s strange beliefs should result in the chieftain’s painful death. As the gnoll leader proves strangely immune to most forms of poison, though, Vamaag travels far searching for agents capable of fetching her a deadly—preferably extraplanar—toxin. She willingly pays in gemstone fetishes for venoms that prove their lethality.

Tribes of the Carrion King

From his throne upon Pale Mountain’s slopes, the Carrion King commands hundreds of gnolls, his emissaries and slaves having compelled or subjugated numerous tribes of slavering warriors into his service. Among the ramshackle hordes, bands of raiders and slavers, and lone murderers, four noteworthy tribes have come to serve the cruel warlord. Each known and feared in its own right, these four tribes existed before the Carrion King’s rise to power, having shared and warred over Pale Mountain for decades.  Now they find themselves allies but, even under the claws of their brutal master, the resulting peace is a weak and little-enforced thing.

Of the tribes serving the Carrion King, each possesses a similar structure. A strong leader commands the activity of the whole pack, organizing hunts, placating the tribe’s deities, and leading them in preparations for raids and inevitable intertribal skirmishes. Even in this time of supposed truce between rival tribes, bloody conflicts are not uncommon. As individual tribes prove too small to sustain prolonged battles there might be weeks without any direct conflict, but a season cannot go by upon Pale Mountain without groups of gnolls dying in the jaws of enemy tribes. The Carrion King punishes conflicting tribes—often with murder and impossible commands — but such castigations are swiftly forgotten as rivalries and slights stir the embers anew.

kel-Biann (III)

Kel-Biann, the supreme deity of the Two Kingdoms, sleeps with his faded head laid down on the rock of ages, where he dreams horrible dreams and the eternal lion and eagle remain to devour him.  The Prophet Bleghet says of this Eternal Man: "He is kel-Biann, our Ancestor, patriarch of all the world, whose History Preceded that of the Eldest Race and in whose Sleep, or Chaos, Creation began."

Kel-Biann is said to have a wife, kel-Ainatib, who birthed him a daughter, kel-Asurej.  Before the world existed, a jealous kel-Biann hid his daughter from her intended husband, kel-Sej, and turned his back on kel-Sej's Divine Vision, sinking into his deadly sleep.  Kel-Biann embraced Vala, rendering her Veil; but although the Eternal Eagle gave Vala to kel-Biann as bride, and took kel-Asurej for his own, both kel-Biann and Vala were overwhelmed with guilt.  His children and his whole universe were driven forth and separated from him by his disease of shame.  The Prophet Bleghet says that he cried out, "All is Eternal Death unless you can weave a chaste Body over an unchaste Mind!"  Therefore kel-Biann commits himself to the materialism of the Moral Law, which is Vala's Veil.  The Prophet Bleqhet says of this event: "Every ornament of perfection and every labour of love in all the World and in all the Brazen Peaks was become an envied horror and a remembrance of jealousy, and every Act a Crime, and kel-Biann the punisher and judge.  All these ornaments are crimes, they are made by the labours of loves, of unnatural consanguinities and friendships horrid to think of when enquired deeply into; and all these hills and valleys are accursed witnesses of Sin.  Neziru therefore condensed them into solid rocks, stedfast, a foundation and certainty and demonstrative truth, that Man be separate from Man.  He sat by the Gallows and underneath his heel shot up a deadly Tree: he nam'd it Moral Virtue and the Law of the God who dwells in Chaos hidden from the human sight.  From willing sacrifice of Self, to sacrifice of miscall'd Enemies for Atonement: kel-Biann began to erect twelve Altars; he nam'd them Justice and Truth."

This loss of the Divine Vision had terrible consequences. Kel-Biann's Emotions (Havul) usurped the place of his Reason (Neziru) when those two Animals were fighting over kel-Biann's body sleeping in the holy tent. Neziru left Havul to pour his fury on kel-Biann. Havul did this when kel-Biann worshipped the Shadow from his wearied intellect. Havul smote him with boils, whereupon kel-Biann dismissed him, limiting his senses.

Kel-Biann's sleep is a wandering, says the Prophet Bleghet: "He drew  Vala's Veil, woven for Cruel Laws, and cast it into the Sea Deep to catch the Souls of the Dead.  Now kel-Biann was come to the Palm tree and the Oak of Weeping which stand upon the edge of Halweb, and he sunk down from the supporting arms of the Eternal Lioness, who dispos'd the pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality upon the Rock of Ages, Watching over him with Love and Care as the Sea of Time and Space thunders aloud against the rock.  Here kel-Biann remains, deadly pale outstrech'd and snowy cold, storm cover'd, a Giant form of perfect beauty outstretch'd on the rock in solemn death, hereafter all that ensues takes place in his dreams until the Last Judgment, when he will Wake upon the Couch of Death.  Thereupon will he sneeze seven times, a tear of blood will drop from either eye, and he will again repose in the Lioness's arms, in the arms of tender mercy and loving kindness.  Kel-Biann will then collect up the scatter'd portions of his immortal body into the Elemental forms of every thing that grows.  Wherever a grass grows or a leaf buds, The Eternal Man will be seen, will be heard, will be felt, and all his sorrows, till he reassumes his ancient bliss."  Meanwhile, kel-Ainatib elects the seven Eyes of God (kel-Temkhes) to protect the Eternal Man, whose inward eyes are closing from the Divine Vision, and all his children wandering outside are fleeing away from his bosom.  Kel-Biann, in a last effort on his couch of death, delivered his sovereignty to Neziru.

The Prophet Bleghet's Scripture of the Night Journey begins:  "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from ??? to ???, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing.  Bleghet wept and walked forth from kel-Fams Vale clothed in Clouds of blood, to fall thro' kel-Biann's heart which is the bosom of death, travelling outside of Humanity*.  Kel-Biann's Circumference was clos'd: his Center had begun dark'ning into the Night of Halweb."

Naitash, the Covering Cherub, is kel-Biann's Spectre.




*The actual word used here refers to a wide variety of humanlike races.

kel-Biann (II)

Kel-Biann, the supreme deity of the Two Kingdoms, sleeps with his faded head laid down on the rock of ages, where he dreams horrible dreams and the eternal lion and eagle remain to devour him.  The Prophet Bleghet says of this Eternal Man: "He is kel-Biann, our Ancestor, patriarch of all the world, whose History Preceded that of the Eldest Race and in whose Sleep, or Chaos, Creation began."

Kel-Biann is said to have a wife, kel-Ainatib, who birthed him a daughter, kel-Asurej.  Before the world existed, a jealous kel-Biann hid his daughter from her intended husband, kel-Sej and turned his back on kel-Sej's Divine Vision, sinking into his deadly sleep. 

This loss of the Divine Vision had terrible consequences. Kel-Biann's Emotions (Havul) usurped the place of his Reason (Neziru) when those two Animals were fighting over kel-Biann's body sleeping in the holy tent. Neziru left Havul to pour his fury on kel-Biann. Havul did this when kel-Biann worshipped the Shadow from his wearied intellect. Havul smote him with boils, whereupon kel-Biann dismissed him, limiting his senses.

Kel-Biann's sleep is a wandering, says the Prophet Bleghet: "Now kel-Biann was come to the Palm tree and the Oak of Weeping which stand upon the edge of Halweb, and he sunk down from the supporting arms of the Eternal Lioness, who dispos'd the pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality upon the Rock of Ages, Watching over him with Love and Care as the Sea of Time and Space thunders aloud against the rock.  Here kel-Biann remains, deadly pale outstrech'd and snowy cold, storm cover'd, a Giant form of perfect beauty outstretch'd on the rock in solemn death, until the Last Judgment, when he will Wake upon the Couch of Death.  Thereupon will he sneeze seven times, a tear of blood will drop from either eye, and he will again repose in the Lioness's arms, in the arms of tender mercy and loving kindness.  Kel-Biann will then collect up the scatter'd portions of his immortal body into the Elemental forms of every thing that grows.  Wherever a grass grows or a leaf buds, The Eternal Man will be seen, will be heard, will be felt, and all his sorrows, till he reassumes his ancient bliss."  Meanwhile, kel-Ainatib elects the seven Eyes of God (kel-Temkhes) to protect the Eternal Man, whose inward eyes are closing from the Divine Vision, and all his children wandering outside are fleeing away from his bosom.  Kel-Biann, in a last effort on his couch of death, delivered his sovereignty to Neziru.

The Prophet Bleghet's Scripture of the Night Journey begins:  "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from ??? to ???, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing.  Bleghet wept and walked forth from kel-Fams Vale clothed in Clouds of blood, to fall thro' kel-Biann's heart which is the bosom of death, travelling outside of Humanity*.  Kel-Biann's Circumference was clos'd: his Center had begun dark'ning into the Night of Halweb."

Naitash, the Covering Cherub, is kel-Biann's Spectre.




*The actual word used here refers to a wide variety of humanlike races.

Kitsune

The kitsune are part of a multi-racial reclusive group of deep-desert nomads who know the secret routes through the dunes and oases and don't interact with civilized folk very much.

Those Who Existed Before the World

In Two Kingdoms theology, only a very small number of beings predate the world and therefore exist, in some sense, outside of it.  They are as follows:

• kel-Biann, the ultimate origin of the world
• kel-Ainatib, the eternal lioness
• kel-Asurej
• kel-Sej, the eternal eagle

kel-Biann I

Kel-Biann, the supreme deity of the Two Kingdoms, sleeps with his faded head laid down on the rock of eternity, where the eternal lion and eagle remain to devour him.  The Prophet Bleghet says of him: "He is kel-Biann, our Ancestor, patriarch of all the world, whose History Preceded that of the Eldest Race and in whose Sleep, or Chaos, Creation began."  Kel-Biann is said to have a wife, kel-Ainatib, who birthed him a daughter, kel-Asurej.  Before the world existed, a jealous kel-Biann hid his daughter from her intended husband, kel-Sej and turned his back on kel-Sej's Divine Vision, sinking into his deadly sleep. This loss of the Divine Vision had terrible consequences. Kel-Biann's Emotions (Havul) usurped the place of his Reason (Neziru) when those two Animals were fighting over kel-Biann's body sleeping in the holy tent. Neziru left Havul to pour his fury on kel-Biann. Havul did this when kel-Biann worshiped the Shadow from his wearied intellect. Havul smote him with boils, whereupon kel-Biann dismissed him, limiting his senses.

Gnolls of the Brazen Peaks

Raiders and warriors, thieves and murderers, gnolls prey upon the spoils of other races—their refuse, their castoffs, and their vulnerable. Gnolls are often likened to hyenas, but with intelligence and the ability to walk on two legs. This comparison is both succinct truth and deadly understatement. Like the beasts they resemble, gnolls survive off the scraps of those greater than themselves, opportunistically preying upon the weak while cowering before the powerful. Unlike base beasts, though, gnolls know the value of organization, the inevitable deadliness of prolonged attacks, and the might of their own tribes. In others, gnolls see only the potential for prey and exploitation, and those too canny to serve as today’s meal might still serve as tomorrow’s feast.

In the shadow of Pale Mountain, gnoll savagery takes on a new dimension. Here, secreted among the dusty foothills and shadowy crags, the beastmen gather in bands of dirty, brutal curs, seemingly with few greater aspirations beyond their next meal. These gnolls are filthy wretches who demonstrate the horrors of inbreeding, seclusion, and murder, ravenous beasts that covetously guard the barren territories they claim as their own. Feared and loathed even by others of their kind, the gnolls of Pale Mountain embrace their brutality with the spread of a savage cult among their people: worship of the Rough Beast, Khro.

Further east in Ndata-mbanye, gnolls typically worship the demon princess Nga/ani the Warrior Queen (interpreted in the Two Kingdoms as one of Khro's daughters), who is often credited with raising them up from mere beasts. In the Pale Mountain region, the Carrion King—a merciless warlord sworn to Khro’s bloody religion— revels in the debauchery and savagery of his minions’ fear and faith, exulting as they raise icons to the god of wrath and howl his name as they ride to slaughter. As the Carrion King’s power grows, more and more tribes fall beneath his influence, sharing in the spoils of his savage rule and adopting the ways of his mad god. Now all of Pale Mountain quakes with bloodcurdling howls, but whether the gnolls of the Brazen Peaks will turn upon themselves or strike from their lairs, bringing new war upon unprepared Katapesh, none yet know.

From his throne upon Pale Mountain’s slopes, the Carrion King commands hundreds of gnolls, his emissaries and slaves having compelled or subjugated numerous tribes of slavering warriors into his service. Among the ramshackle hordes, bands of raiders and slavers, and lone murderers, four noteworthy tribes have come to serve the cruel warlord. Each known and feared in its own right, these four tribes existed before the Carrion King’s rise to power, having shared and warred over Pale Mountain for decades. Now they find themselves allies but, even under the claws of their brutal master, the resulting peace is a weak and little-enforced thing.

Of the tribes serving the Carrion King, each possesses a similar structure. A strong leader commands the activity of the whole pack, organizing hunts, placating the tribe’s deities, and leading them in preparations for raids and inevitable intertribal skirmishes. Even in this time of supposed truce between rival tribes, bloody conflicts are not uncommon. As individual tribes prove too small to sustain prolonged battles there might be weeks without any direct conflict, but a season cannot go by upon Pale Mountain without groups of gnolls dying in the jaws of enemy tribes. The Carrion King punishes conflicting tribes—often with murder and impossible commands— but such castigations are swiftly forgotten as rivalries and slights stir the embers anew.

Languages

Dune Whispers:  The language of a multiracial reclusive group of desert-dwelling nomads who don't interact much with civilized folk.

kel-'Renīyah:  The predominant language of the Two Kingdoms.  Ratfolk speak a variant called kel-Fahrenīyah.

The Laughter of the Desert:  Gnolls are not fashioned for human speech, but they can shape words around their natural sounds. In doing so, they speak two tongues at once; their yips and snarls and howls carry meaning amongst themselves that is hidden from their human listeners.  The language of the gnolls is, in truth, a dialect of Dune Whispers.  However, the gnolls are hardly a civilized group and tribes sometimes spend generations without interacting with each other.  Therefore, although gnolls from most tribes can understand each other (with quite a bit of effort), a character must name the specific tribal dialect they speak and understand when taking this language.

Vyarĭsitkŭ Językŭ: The language of the Aporuëna realm of Vyarisid.

Almah's Party

The group of people Almah has gathered to aid her in retaking the village includes the PCs and (now that the astrologer Eloais is dead) 14 other characters—Almah’s major domo Garavel, an expert on gnolls named Dashki, a cleric of Bromka named Zastoran, four soldiers, six mercenaries (now five), a pair of camel drivers (now but one), and Almah herself.

Gnolls (I)

In the Two Kingdoms, they tell the following story to explain the origin of the gnolls:

"In the beginning, when Khro perfected the way of destruction, the lands were littered with the dead. Crows, maggots, beetles, worms, and the other crawling things of the earth complained to Khro.

'You destroy and maim too quickly!' they cried. 'We cannot devour all the meat you give us! Please, destroy the people of the earth more slowly.'

'What?' shouted Khro, in a voice that toppled pillars. 'My glorious destruction shall never cease nor slow!'

Yet in the dark, delighting in the destruction god’s slaughter, watched one of Khro's daughters -- those who are death -- and she heard the base things cry. In those black days when all the land was covered with death and all the air stank, she watched as a few tribes of men, her followers and devout worshipers, ate the flesh of corpses as the crows did, plucking out eyes, savoring the bloodiest cuts. To these cannibals she led packs of hyenas, and their ways became as one.

Of those louse-ridden beastmen rose the first gnolls, half-hyenas who love the stench of carrion and praise each corpse as an offering to their dark mother. And the demon queen delighted in her own perversion and reveled in these monsters’ terrible howling songs.

Born of devastation, and insanity, and the corrupt of soul, the man-beasts spread upon the world, and where they prowled they indulged in their hunger for murdered flesh. Surely, they are to be despised by any sane god, and so we make ceaseless war on those who seek to feed on the bodies of heroes and innocents.

And somewhere in the madness between the stars, that daughter of Khro and his sister/wife/self Vala still laughs her wicked laugh, as her ravening spawn, the bone gnawers and carrion eaters, grow fat off our flesh.

Gnolls are among the first abominations, and their death is a blessing. Remember this when their laughter haunts your steps."

Ratfolk

The ratfolk originate in the Two Kingdoms, where they make their warrens in the tangled tomb tunnels of the Tomb-Riddled Cliffs, the great and ornate catacombs.  It is whispered that they are the manifestation of the curses set by the pharaohs upon their tombs to discourage thieves and that this origin is the cause of their interest in and affinity with plague.  It is also whispered that this magic which created them has become somehow twisted, as the ratfolk have found one other environment much to their liking: the bazaars and marketplaces.  Some say that the mysterious and valuable treasures they hock are stolen from the tombs they were intended to guard.  Others reply that the rats prefer barter to selling and their hoards are simply the result of innumerable trades swelling their sacks.

It is the ratfolk who bury the pharaoh, appearing but moments after eir death and performing the sacred rites which help ensure eir transformation into a ghost.

The Two Kingdoms (I)

The Two Kingdoms are ruled by an ancient and evergrowing dynasty of half-angel ghosts with Divine Rank 0.  How can you have a dynasty of ghosts, you ask?  At some point during a pharoah's reign, Tum incarnates upon a woman somewhere in the Two Kingdoms as a flash of light that impregnates her with the upcoming pharoah.  When this happens, the reigning pharoah knows that e is in the last years of eir reign but not how many years e has left, for e has no way of knowing when that child will be violently killed, as they always are.  The people of the Two Kingdoms see this as a way of gaming the cosmological system; if the fallen world is a prison and the pharoah one of the jailers, the only candidates Neziru will accept are those the people dislike.  The best way to convince Neziru that you dislike someone is to kill them, as violently as possible.  Once the new pharoah is killed, e becomes a ghost and takes eir place among the others, who are now treated as generals and special ops agents in the hierarchy of the Two Kingdoms.