For many hundreds of years, all of Lleu was ruled by the cruel, decadent medusa Empire of the Silver Wheel, under the Arianrhod dynasty of sorcerer medusas. Only the great eagles of Lleu resisted their rule, and they were relegated to the high mountains and rocky islands far out to sea.
Blodeuwedd was the medusas' homeland, where they built their great cities. Goronwy was riddled with great mines and caverns, where the medusas' human and goblin slaves (perhaps obtained from Maj by sorcery) dug for precious metal and gems. Dylan was the empire's breadbasket, where more slaves grew hardy ice apples and storm wheat.
Above each island hovered a huge ball of white fire, like a tiny sun, that provided light and heat. These balls of fire had been created in the distant past by same unknown ancient race that created the great tunnels. They dim and brighten to follow a day, night and seasonal cycle as Maj, and at night are as bright as Selene is in Maj's sky. They are above most clouds, so they are hidden by them as the sun is on more normal worlds. Air heated by the suns helps drive Lleu's storm system.
Fifty years ago, when spelljamming contact was first made with Maj Space, an alliance of mind flayers negotiated with the Empire of the Silver Wheel for a base on Lleu. They were attracted by the already built tunnel complexes on Goronwy (particularly as they connected at some points to the mysterious great tunnels in the depths of Lleu that connected all three islands), and the ready supply of humanoid slaves the medusas were prepared to sell them.
However, the medusas were arrogant and careless: they let their slaves learn what they planned too soon. Slaving for the medusas was bad enough, but being sold to mind flayers so your brains could be eaten was just too much. There were massive slave revolts on all three islands, aided by the great eagles. The medusas triumphed on Blodeuwedd and were winning on Goronwy when the mind flayers decided to take advantage of the chaos to renegotiate the deal: they turned on the medusas and invaded Goronwy.
The resulting three-way battle was vicious, but the mind flayers' triumph was assured after they extinguished Goronwy's sun. The surviving free rebels fled through the great tunnel to Dylan, and collapsed it behind them as best they could with the aid of a rrakkma (mind flayer hunting band) of githzerai who had been stalking the mind flayers.
When the dust settled, the medusas controlled Blodeuwedd, the mind flayers controlled Goronwy, and the eagles and human and goblin ex-slaves controlled Dylan. This situation has endured since, but it is hardly stable, as all three groups intend to rule all of Lleu themselves.
Blodeuwedd is still ruled by the sorcerers of the Arianrhod dynasty, although their hold on power is a bit shaky these days. However, with the external threats of the mind flayers on Goronwy and the eagles, humans and goblins on Dylan, and the danger of further slave revolts, none of the potential usurpers has yet dared to make a move. The current queen, Echidna V, feels her rivals breathing down her neck, and plans reconquest of the lost territories for the sake of her own survival and her people's. Her greatest fear is that the mind flayers will extinguish Blodeuwedd's sun like they did Goronwy's, and she plans to strike first; but against whom is unclear. The medusas have been building a fleet to transport their armies, but they have few experienced sailors.
Blodeuwedd has three great medusa cities: Enyo, Stheno, and Euryale. Euryale is the largest and the capital. They are all beautiful cities full of graceful white, pink and blue stone buildings. However, examined closely they begin look less pleasant. The streets are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues. These statues are of humans, goblins, eagles, mind flayers and other races. And each and every one of the statues is at least partially headless.
Neither are the slave pens very nice places, either. Since the medusas lack the ability to control minds directly like some slave-keeping species, they rule through terror and fear of sudden death. The slave quarters are always quite clean, and are decorated with even more headless statues than the streets of the city.
GM Note: It is likely that the medusa have the missing heads stored somewhere, so that to restore the statues the parts needed to be reunited, and something like a Make Whole spell, followed by something like a Stone to Flesh spell used. However, while the medusa may intend the heads to be neatly labelled and stored in a vault somewhere, just in case they might wish to restore one of them, someday, their rather decadent culture probably means that, in other than exceptional cases, the clerks responsible for head storing are probably just throwing them in heaps, somewhere.
Also noticeably missing from the city are mirrors, and most mirrored surfaces. The medusa supposedly don't like anyone to be able to look at them indirectely, but there are stories among the slaves that even they can't stand to look at their own hideous faces. (GM Note: before 3rdEd a medusa who saw her own reflection could be turned to stone, but even if there is no risk of this (which probably more accurately matches mythology) then they might really dislike being reminded of their appearance.)
In the aftermath of the loss of Dylan's farmlands, the medusas have had to place as much of Blodeuwedd's land surface under cultivation as possible. They have also built many small fishing ships and sent slaves who had family members that could be held hostage out to sea to gather what they could from the storm-tossed waters.
However, since the revolts and the wars, the medusas are terribly short of slaves. They have made some use of undead, but undead are stupid, require supervision and are needed to fight the mind flayers. The medusas have tried to make good the shortfall by creating a new type of construct, the flower folk.
Created by sorcery from the flowers of a tree native to Lleu, a flower man (or woman, they are made in both sexes even though they can not breed) looks like a human with pale ivory skin, white hair and white irises. They are beautifully proportioned.
Medium-sized Construct
Hit Dice: 2d10+20 (31 hp)*
Initiative: +1
Speed: 40 ft.
AC: 13 (+1 Dex, +2 natural)
Attacks: By weapon
Damage: As weapon
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Qualities: Construct, Darkvision 60', Low-light Vision
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +0
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 12, Con -, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 10
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: -
* under D&D 3.0 Constructs do not receive the +20 hit points
Flower men and woman are heartless creatures with no real sense of right or wrong. Because they are beautiful, sometimes a human will fall in love with one. It never ends well. The flower folk are loyal to their creators (because they have no choice). They are proficient with light armor and simple weapons, but they were not built for warfare. Being constructs, they are immune to petrifaction, making them ideal as body servants for medusas.
The intelligence of flower folk comes from the binding into them during creation of a lesser elemental spirit from the Plane of Air. At creation time either a specific individual is chosen as their master (it need not be the creator) or they can be set to follow the orders of any medusa.
Because the flower folk can not breed, but must be manufactured by sorcerers, there are never enough of them, forcing the medusas to continue to depend on unreliable goblin and human slaves for most work. Note that because they have minds, the flower folk do not have the mind-less construct immunity to mind-affecting spells and abilities, which is another reason that they wouldn't be used as troops against the mind flayers.
The medusas had ample opportunity to purchase helms from the Arcane/Mercane before the slave revolt and invasion, but no one knows if they did or not.
The mind flayers put themselves in something of a bind by extinguishing Goronwy's sun, since it killed off most of the new slaves' food sources. This forced them to ship in grain by spelljammer in the short term. As a long-term solution they fetched varient thermo fungus from Anubis to warm their caverns and to supply energy to grow edible fungi of various sorts. The Sun Web that this creates is still pretty faint, but if you looked carefully for it... Then there is the question of what Anaput might do if she realises she has a new sister growing. The mind flayers have also needed to send their slaves out to fish, but losses tend to be high due to the dark and the storm.
The mind flayers have imported large numbers of grimlock slaves to use as troops against the medusas, as well as other blind monsters such as destrachans and yrthaks. They have also stocked the lower levels of the mines and the great tunnels beneath with all sorts of aberrations, since those beasts are little danger to them, but make it difficult for any of their enemies to use the great tunnels.
The mind flayers, with their superior spelljamming forces, have firm control of space around Gwydion. However, the mind flayers have lost several spelljamming craft to Lleu's storms and the eagles' attacks, and now are very reluctant to use them offensively within Lleu's atmosphere. The major advantage they gain from their fleet is the ability to bring in supplies and mercenaries to bolster their position.
It is clear that in the long term the mind flayers mean to conquer all of Lleu, but characteristic of their species they are being patent and building up their forces. Eventually they will suddenly erupt and attack one or the other of their enemies with overwhelming force, but no one can predict which.
The mind flayers have built a spelljamming port in the central mountains of Goronwy, by the shores of an alpine lake and in the depths of the mountains surrounding the lake. The chief elder brain of Lleu lives deep below one of those mountains, but mind flayers of course keeps its location a secret.
The population of Dylan is about 40% human, 40% goblin, 5% eagle and 5% assorted other humanoid races, such as halflings, hobgoblins and gnomes. The primary factors that have shaped society on Dylan are the need to defend against the medusas and mind flayers, the great eagles, and the githzerai.
The need to defend for the peoples of Dylan to defend themselves is clear: the medusas badly want to reconquer Dylan and the mind flayers intend to conquer it as well. This has resulted in a militarized society. Martial, arcane and mystical orders abound, all dedicated to the destruction of the medusas, the mind flayers or both. Practically every inhabitant of Dylan is in an order or associated with an order in some way. They are the primary social and political organizations in Dylan's societies. Even peasant farmers will either be part-time members of an order, or hold their lands from an order, or trade a portion of their harvest to an order in return for protection and education for their children.
Most of the orders contain members of any race that meets the order's standards. This has resulted in a society with very little racial prejudice. However, while relationships between races are generally good, relationships between orders is not always so good. While many of the orders view their roles as service, holding themselves in wait for the inevitable battle for the future of Lleu, other orders see themselves in competition for members, property and leadership roles. Clashes between various orders fill the streets of Dylan's five cities -- Harmony, Strength, Vigilance, Wisdom and Skill -- on a daily basis.
Still, so far the orders have managed to unite under the overall leadership of the great eagles whenever there is a threat of an invasion.
The great eagles have enormous moral and political influence on Dylan society, since without them the revolt would have not succeeded in freeing Dylan from the medusas. They are also felt to be essential to Dylan's continued freedom, since they are the first line of defense of Dylan's sky and sun from mind flayer spelljammers, as well as watching the seas for invading fleets.
The great eagles of Dylan follow the description of the Giant Eagles from the Monster Manual, but they are more intelligent (+2 to Int), and a high percentage of them grow to huge size. Many of the elder eagles have levels in wizard or cleric or both. These eagles make awesome spelljammer helmsmen, with a +4 racial bonus to any maneuver checks.
A few of the eldest, largest and wisest of the eagles are Storm Masters, able to predict and control Lleu's violent weather. These are a particular threat to mind flayer spelljammers and thus particular targets of mind flayer malice.
The eagles are the origin of many of the militant and arcane orders on Dylan, and the grandfather of them all is the Nestguard. The Nestguard is an order of humanoid warriors and wizards (and, if psionics are present, psions) whose sacred task is guard the nests and young of the great eagles against all harm. Since the mind flayers particularly hate and fear the eagles, they have targeted them repeatedly with mind-controlled agents and paid assassins. The Nestguard's sacred duty is make sure that every eagle egg hatches and every fledgling survives to adulthood.
Another eagle-derived order are the Winged Knights, who fly primitive hang gliders in Lleu's stormy skies on patrol for invaders by sky or sea. Higher level winged knights gain wings of their own, and the highest-level Winged Knights gain a mystical ability to shape change into giant eagles themselves. (A Winged Knight PrC should be written up for this.)
The rest of the orders on Dylan, particularly the mystical ones, were the responsibility of the githzerai. The githzerai rrakkma fought alongside the rearguard of rebel slaves during the great retreat. This was a series of desperate last stands, ambushes and suicide attacks against the advancing mind flayers and the remains of the defeated medusas, fought along the length of the great tunnel connecting Goronwy to Dylan.
The githzerai were moderately impressed, by the rebels, and they stayed a while to teach them how to fight "properly" and the ways of the fist (and to kill the occasional mind flayer attempting to make their way through the remnants of the great tunnel). Since then, wandering parties of githzerai have made their way to Dylan from time to time, using it as a base from which to raid the mind flayers of Goronwy, and making sure that their students stay true to their teachings.
Dylan has by far the most efficient fishing fleet on Lleu, using relatively large, well-built crew-owned vessels. Many of these fishing ships are large enough to double as warships, and they almost always include enough order members in their crews to make them formidable in a fight. This fishing fleet, combined with the eagle's and the Winged Knight's patrols, makes it nearly impossible for an enemy fleet to approach Dylan unseen unless it used the most potent magic to shield itself.
During the fighting, the rebels managed to capture a mercenary spelljammer hired by the mind flayers. Once they managed to crew it and sneak it off planet loaded with treasure looted from the palace of the former medusa governor of Dylan, they have managed to purchase a small number of additional helms. These have been put to two uses: three or four of them have been built into fast, maneuverable craft (such as viperships) and used as blockade runners to bring experts, mercenaries and magical supplies needed to help fend off Dylan's enemies. The rest of been used to build armored rams (treat these as an armored variant of the squid ship; maneuverability decreases by one and armor rating improves by one), crewed by mages and monks (and psionic classes if in use), intended to attack and board any mind flayer ships that attempt to approach Dylan's sun or cities.
It should be noted that means of turning stone back into flesh are remarkably popular on Lleu, in particular on Dylan, and there are as many as they can make or import.
There are six segments of the great tunnel, connecting to each other each of the three major islands on Lleu and a mysterious fourth spot near a scattering of rocky islands. The great tunnels are not single tunnels, but bundles of interconnected tunnels of various sizes that twist around each other like individual fibers in a rope. Additionally, there are also connected caverns, and side tunnels of various lengths, some connecting other caverns, and some simply dead ends.
The tunnels are clearly artificial, but exact method used to make them is unclear -- the rock appears to have been melted or simply removed as necessary. In places pillars were either left behind or built afterwards in order to provide support for the roof. In other places ramps, bridges or causeways of stone were created in order to make travel easier. Despite the fact that the tunnels are all below Lleu's sea and are ancient to boot, there is no sign that ocean has leaked in anywhere. This is believed to be due to spells of great power, but no direct sign of the spells can be found.
The tunnels connect to the surface in multiple places on each island. The fourth location, where there is no large island, has connections to several tiny rock islets. These islets have vague remnants of ancient foundations. The seabed between the islets is ragged and broken, as if a large island was pulled off the planet's surface by some unimaginable force.
When the medusas first came to Lleu from Maj, the tunnels contained nothing but fungus and a large variety of insects and other arthropods, including giant-sized ones. However, once the medusas had obtained human and goblin slaves from Maj, escaped slaves began to make their way into the tunnels, particularly the goblins. The medusas didn't peruse them very vigorously -- after all, there wasn't anything to eat down there but mushrooms and bugs.
However, some escaped goblin slaves stumbled upon a secret. A few of the caverns in the tunnel system had runes carved into the walls in certain places. A mage who placed their hand on one of those runes would cause the ceiling of the cavern to light up with artificial daylight. The caverns with light also had plentiful water and soil. Soon escaped goblins were raising food in those caverns.
Escaped goblin slaves and a few escaped humans began forming vest-pocket kingdoms in caverns up and down the great tunnel. The medusas, being lazy, raided these regularly for slaves and to make sure that they didn't get too strong. The deeper caverns and those under the missing island were pretty much never bothered.
All this changed with the coming of the mind flayers. First, the retreat from Goronwy to Dylan forced all the inhabitants of that leg of great tunnel to flee for their lives. Then, the mind flayers started systematically raiding the underground kingdoms, forcing more of them to flee to Dylan. Then the mind flayers seeded the tunnels with all various sorts of aberrations (such as Otyughs, Gricks, Gibbering Mouthers, Chokers, and various types of Illithidae (see Lords of Madness)), in order to make them dangerous for their enemies to traverse. This has made life very difficult for the few remaining underground kingdoms.
The sections of tunnel underlying Dylan were collapsed during the great retreat, but since the great tunnels are actually bundles of interconnected tunnels, the tunnels were not completely sealed off. There remain a few, well-guarded paths from Dylan to the tunnels, and perhaps there are other paths not yet detected by Dylan's inhabitants.
The seas of Lleu are cold and rough, resembling the North Atlantic in fall and winter. However, they are rich in food fish and other life. The top predators are Orcas, Dire Sharks and Giant Octopi. There are no known intelligent sea-dwelling life forms, unless the mind flayers have imported some for some inscrutable reason.
There are a lot of speculations about what race might have built the great tunnels and the little suns. While their handiwork is easy to find, it provides remarkably little solid evidence one way or another. The popular belief on Dylan is that the tunnels and suns were created by Radiant Dragons, and that someday they'll notice that one of their suns have been extinguished and return to Lleu to punish the mind flayers. This theory appears to be primarily wishful thinking.
No known mortal creature currently in Maj Space could create the suns, leading to the other leading theory, that the gods made it all. This does not explain the great tunnels, which would seem to be an odd thing for gods to have created. Scholars from Maj and the Great Lunar University regularly take the risk of travel to Lleu, in order to directly examine the suns and tunnels themselves. There is a small industry grown up around escorting them safely into the tunnels and back again.
The medusa and their slaves came originally from the area of Greece, a little before 335 BC. They were driven out of Greece by Alexander the Great. The way they got away was to make a deal with the Gods of the Underworld, who allowed them to take a short cut through Hades, to a 'safe haven'. They've been paying for this deal with blood sacrifices, ever since, and if they fall behind their royal house has to be sacrificed!
Their initial slaves were those they had at the time, who they took with them. However, they also summoned more slaves through gates opened back to their old homes in Greece (to which they still had a magical connection), and anyone who had moved in them in the years since they fled was sucked into them. Eventually these homes were demolished, or in the case of those near goblin haunts filled with rubble and walled-off, as being cursed or 'haunted'.
The medusa claim mortal descent from the two immortal sisters left behind when the Medusa of Greek myth was killed, and they claim that their race is named after her as they, like her, are mortal.
(c) Dreamer Publications, 1980 - August 2006
Permission granted to use for non-profit making purposes