Difference between revisions of "Bayyal"

Latest revision as of 23:14, 29 May 2019

History in Avendar

Wizened nefortu speak grandly of their legendary southern home, roughly to the southeast of modern-day Ashta Harrud. It flourished in the wake of the Sundering's magical storms, giving rise to the young race. Hot, plentiful, and laden with precious stones, this paradise shaped many of the great nefortean loves: glittering prizes, easy living, and copious leisure time. This freedom from need gave them ample time to develop their taste for tricks and invent a truly stunning array of games. It was here that they venerated their oldest deities, Tzajai and Ayaunj. These idyllic, care-free days ended abruptly with the arrival of an unexpected guest: Bayyal.

The ancient nefortu, long given to whimsy and chaos, were unprepared for the coming of the Reaper. Unlike other racial deities, He was not a teacher, nor had He come to nurture their growth. Rather, He had been caught in wake of the Prime Material's creation, and after tearing Himself free, sought to utterly destroy whatever was at hand. Soothsayers claim that it was His presence alone which imbued them with the first sparks of Fire magic. Many nefortu were slain outright, or burned alive for the Reaper's amusement. Droves fled their beloved home for safety to the north. Those who remained were awed and captivated by Bayyal's magnificence. They energetically applied their sharp intellect and boundless imagination to the art of flame. Mad with newfound power, their tricks upon one another quickly turned deadly, and Bayyal thus allowed them to live. It is difficult to know which was ultimately more destructive: the Reaper, or His enthusiastic new acolytes.

As Sythrak and His warlords marched across the north, the War of Fire took on a different cast in the far south. While the Saurian Lord waited for sacrifices to His greatness in Sythtys, Bayyal led His nefortu personally. They marched north, to Ashta Harrud-- then, a plentiful grassland which harbored a rapidly advancing civilization. The Reaper annihilated this cradle of humanity, to the screeching cheers of the nefortu. The death toll was staggering, and the destruction was so extensive that little of this fabled empire survived. His unholy fury was so immense that it ravaged the very earth, transforming the fertile plains into the harsh, desolate Crimson Sands. He and His band of chittering, murderous devoted continued north, leaving only a scorched wasteland in their fiery wake.

With the rousing of Jolinn, the Father once again realized the perils facing His creations. He granted the magics of Water to the aelin and humans who had sought Him, giving them the power to stop the rampaging srryn. However, with Iandir's blessing, Jolinn personally brought Bayyal's horrifying march to a painful end. The Father bound Him in chains of ice and impaled Him on a great spire, to ensure that He could never be free to violate the Compact again. Bayyal's fierce wail as He was imprisoned resounded through all of the Prime and echoed between its great mountains. The Reaper's anger, hatred, and fury have only grown in intensity during the long millennia since. Great wars have come and gone; civilizations have risen and fallen; legends have been forged and forgotten; but the inferno of Bayyal's malice burns still, an unquenchable, everlasting blaze.

Goals and Methods

Bayyal's goals are few and obvious. He seeks to destroy and despoil everything He can. Victims and collateral damage are simply additional pleasures in His rage-fueled binges, and He makes no long term plans. He is driven by an insatiable hatred of life and all of its creations. It should be noted, though, that this is not entirely compatible with the ultimate oblivion of Ashur. While the Dragon seeks to undo all things, Bayyal is far more content to incinerate mortals for amusement and devastate their works. The final existence or non-existence of the Prime Material is so abstract as to be entirely outside His notice.

Even from His permanent prison, Bayyal longs for ever more chaos and destruction, and has little choice but to let His acolytes work in His stead. The methods He supports are very much His own: senseless rage, extensive violence, and heavy loss of life. He revels in the magics of Fire, as its wanton whims closely align with His own. In His weakened state, He still enjoys slaying what mortals He can to briefly slake His endless thirst for agony; however, these mortals are invariably His devoted. He is extraordinarily fickle, and if His followers fail to amuse Him in even the tiniest capacity, He punishes them with hateful glee. The Reaper seeks those who have little left to lose, and most often, former water scholars. Thus, those who subject themselves to Bayyal's spiteful gaze do not begrudge His torturous attention.

Organizations and Followings

The Dire Aesthetes

"I want to destroy something beautiful."

Bayyal's history is marked by the destruction of beautiful things: the nefortu homeland, the Crimson Sands, Ashta Harrud. The Aesthetes seek to emulate this in their own lives: they crave seeing beautiful things broken before them. They might take this out on people around them, or on objects. Adventurers might seek out great treasures, only to break them on the ground before the very companions who helped obtain them. For this reason, Aesthetes rarely volunteer their faith to others, hoping to exploit others' greed or good natures and use them as a springboard to wreak greater havoc. Swordmasters and scholars often find themselves drawn to this method of worship, but anyone who finds themself with too much power and not enough to do with it might walk down this road.

The Bloodpyre

"Kill me if you can! Kill me if you dare!"

The scourging of the fertile southlands occupies a near-romantic place in the Bayyalite heart. Some raise Bayyal's place in these legends to a charismatic figure, and Jolinn that of a villain preventing their leader's blaze of glory. These followers enact destruction for Bayyal's sake, rather than for its own, striving ever-futilely for His freedom from His icy chains. They engage in more and more spectacular acts of devastation, begging for Bayyal to become aware of them and draw strength from their malice; they dare Jolinn to notice as well, and destroy them in a mimicry of Bayyal's original sacrifice. More often than not, it is Bayyal Himself who casts such followers down. What, if anything, He gains from this is for Him alone to know.

The Thakthym

"The man you knew is dead! And you can die with him!"

If Bayyal can be truly said to love any of his followers, it is these, who make of their own selves a temple to ruination. They have one common thread uniting them all: they did not begin this way. Perhaps they once were water magi, dedicated to serving others. Perhaps they crusaded against evil. But something inside them broke, and Bayyal remade them in His image. Now, they destroy themselves in His name, and they destroy everyone around them in the process. The Thakthym always consume themselves the fastest of Bayyal's famously short-lived followers: those whom they strike inevitably remember their names for decades to come, before those too vanish into smoke.

Individual Followers

Poor impulse control and a propensity for violence are the hallmarks of a follower of Bayyal. He will often strike at anyone, anywhere, without reason or compunction. He is unconcerned with his own life, which has little to no real value, even to himself. Instead, he focuses far more on how many lives he can take and how much destruction he can personally cause. He is an enemy to all who uphold any kind of law and hated by all who find value or meaning in life. His rages are frequent and intense, to the point of senselessness, and he cannot be reasoned with, bargained with, or placated. As long as a follower of Bayyal lives, he lives purely to destroy.

Worship of Bayyal is largely confined to the nefortu. The descendents of His ancient followers have taken residence in a canyon not far from the end of His infamous march, which serves as the only place of its kind in the known world. Other, smaller shrines have been erected elsewhere, but they are rarely visited and generally sparse. Outside of the nefortu, His veneration is primarily among fire scholars and templars, whose affinity for the sphere parallels the Reaper's feverish love of the flame. Mainstream society rejects Bayyal, and thoroughly disallow open worship in the name of public safety. Jolinnite establishments in particular have a deep-seated revulsion to any mention of Bayyal or His ideals.

A dedicant of particular value is marked with the Sigil of the Crimson Flame; but once he is, it is a sign to all that his final death is close at hand.

Relationships

Bayyal is an object of scorn to much of the pantheon. He is an enemy to the gods of the light, as His desperate wish for more destruction inevitably harms those who do not deserve it. Ch'taren deities, in a paradoxical way, appreciate the simplicity of Bayyal's approach rather than the endless scheming of the shuddeni. Gods of darkness find a brief but unreliable ally in Bayyal, in that his lust for destruction often dovetails into their schemes or forward their own desires. However, His innate chaos and delight in destroying the spoils of victory make Him an enemy of gods like Serachel. Gods of law despise the Reaper and all that He does. Jalassa is repulsed by His unthinking manner; Iandir abhors His disdain of the Compact; and Rveyelhi has no tolerance for Bayyal's many disruptions. Alil, in particular, welcomes Bayyal's presence in the pantheon because of their shared affinities. Kankoran deities appreciate only Bayyal's anger toward humanity.

Tzajai provides the most obvious foil for Bayyal, in that they are both nefortean deities of chaos. However, their aims are so different that they have little lasting interest in one another. Tzajai is concerned primarily with His own games, gambles, and change; Bayyal cherishes only fire and destruction. Thus, such comparisons tend to be superficial at best. Bayyal's only true enemy, and the object of His boundless hatred, is Jolinn, Father of the Seas. It is He who is responsible for Bayyal's torturous imprisonment and He whose power has prevented His escape. The Reaper's torment drives Him to take any and all opportunities to spite Jolinn, even if such attempts are petty and vain.

Shrines, Sigils, and Mobs

Areas

Kzaya Ha Canyon (vnums 18000-18149)

Rooms

A Charred Stone Chamber (vnum 6343)

Before a Great Pillar of Flame (vnum 18104)

Sigils

Tier 1 - the Sigil of the Crimson Flame (vnum 1266)

• AC 0/0/0/0
• HP +20
• Mana +20
• Damroll +6
• Fight prog 6: Inferno (level 65)

Mobs

A nefortean priest (vnum 6326) - A fire templar mob in the sewers at an altar

Lidjaza (vnum 18017) - Nefortu fire templar within Kzaya Ha Canyon

A charred, hunched nefortu (vnum 18011) - Boss encounter of Kzaya Ha Canyon

God Mark

You notice a terrible burn scar.

+10 resist fire; -10 vuln cold

Notes, Logs, and Other Documents

(Fill this in!)

Helps

Old Bayyal website overview (5/21/2001)

Old Bayyal help file

Lore

A set of dull red wing-blades (lore)

Logs

None