#abeir

A Journey to the True World

A Guide for the Adventurer

" faithful children of the god go! " " leave this place in the halls of your past, " " for a future ordained by Zeltec awaits. "

" take your children by the hand, priest! " " lead them south toward the valley of your future, " " where mighty destiny calls. " " now my children claim the world, all! " " from their island in the sun they send their armies, " " to gain the final glory for their god. "

MAZTICA ALIVE!

A Guide for the Dungeon Master

GODS AND BATTLES

Portfolios and Statistics for the Dungeon Masters

Logan: Ah, only a handful do, most are said to be on Abeir. Not much is known about Abeir though, some say it’s only myth and the primordials we have are all there are.

(Logan shrugs.)

~ AL-QADIM ~

Step into Zakhara the Land of Fate one of the most unique and overlooked settings in the history of Dungeons & Dragons.

Inspired by the legends of Arabian Nights, Al-Qadim presents a world where honor, hospitality, and destiny shape every life. Here, humans, elves, and even traditionally monstrous races live within a shared culture, guided by the teachings of the Loregiver and the unseen hand of Fate.

Explore the structure of Zakharan society, from the city dwelling Al-Hadhar to the wandering Al-Badia tribes of the desert. Uncover the meaning of Enlightenment, the role of the Great Gods, and the strange presence of genies who rival divine power.

But beneath this unity lies something more complex savage gods, foreign beliefs, and forces that exist beyond the reach of order.

This is not just another D&D setting.

This is a world where belief shapes reality… and Fate decides the rest.

🐫ZAKHARA🐪

🗺MAP🗺

🐫 ANAUROCH DESERT 🐪

🗺MAP🗺

Logan: Well, it is said that many millennia ago, that there were not two different worlds as Abeir and Toril are now, but they were together as Abeir-Toril. However, a conflict between the main primordials and the oldest of our gods was fought such so that an even greater force spilt the two worlds, leaving most of the primordials on Abeir, along with other older races that had been formed at that point.

"I'm not quite sure." Replied Red. "She's not from any of the planes I have known, or even read about. I suspect one, but it wasn't named, just mentioned in the back of the oldest books in the library. Pre-formation, I believe."

"How could she have shown up here?"

"The Library itself isn't particularly constricted to the planes, but the exits are almost completely exclusive to this plane--there's one or two in the fey, and probably a smattering of others, but the vast, vast majority go somewhere in Abeir-Toril."

"Abeir-Toril? What's the Abeir part?"

"Oh." Red looked like she had just ran straight into a brick wall, and abruptly stopped her quick pace. "Right. You don't know about that."

"What's Abeir?"

"Go check some of the books in the Library while I see what she left behind. It's better if you do some reading first."

"How is it spelled?"

"Common, A-b-e-i-r. It translates queerly into draconic. It's really inconsistent. Check an encyclopedia for it, or a translators guide. It's somewhere between a few tens of terms and a few hundreds of terms."

"How important is it?"

The Shalarin originally come from the Sea of Corynactis on the far side of Toril. That is true now, but what if it had not always been so.

In an alternate version what if the Sea of Corynactis was one of the areas of ocean surrounding the continent of Laerakond before the Tearfall.

What if the Sea of Corynactis was taken to Abeir along with Laerakond when the worlds were separated.

Thus the Shalarin are from a different world and at the same time hail from the Sea of Corynactis which returns to Abeir-Toril in -339 DR along with the rest of Laerakond.

The Shalarin exist in a rigid caste structure that exists from the moment they are conceived. This structure is so inherent to their nature that they even apply their behaviours to non-Shalarin. The origin of this caste system lies in the Shalarin's distant past when they were a servitor race to the batrachi before they ventured onto land. The batrachi modified the Shalarin to be naturally subservient and obedient, something that persists to the present day.

They were abducted to Toril by the Wildtide Gate which was constructed by Dagon who had a personal vendetta against the gods of the Shalarin who were also the gods of the batrachi and who foiled Dagon's plans to dominate that ancient creator race.

The worlds Abeir and Toril were separated millennia ago by Ao in an effort to save the planet from destruction.

The separation was nearly perfect except for in a few places where the worlds collided. One such place was way out in the Trackless Sea, a rift between two worlds allowing travel between them.

In an effort to keep the worlds separated and prevent a resumption of hostilities between the primordial and the gods, Ao placed a powerful antipathy effect that would cause everyone to flee away from the rift. Such an effect placed by an overgod would be impossible to resist.

And so it was that in the Sword Coast, a dwarven priest of Marthammor Duin was magically scouting the sea for the next exploration expedition. He just happened to scry the exact location of the rift and peering through the other side he was affected by the antipathy placed by Ao.

The dwarf was drawn to the other side of the rift and the planet of Abeir. The antipathy effect was so powerful that it spread to all his fellow dwarves. Soon the entire nation set sail out into the depths of the Trackless Sea, searching for another world.

In tying together the timelines of Abeir and Toril, one event I got to keep was the landing of H'Calos, this time on the continent of Abeir.

This great devouring worm is a primordial all of his own, but with an aberrant twist. H'Calos the star worm supposedly came from a planet filled with beholders so I decided to work that link into the article.

Another inspiration for this article came from my favourite monster film of recent years, Cloverfield. I especially loved the scene where smaller monsters dropped from the enormous rampaging menace and set about killing the people.

By linking the two themes together I came up with an idea for the possible origin of beholders. A worm with a single eye and magic powers, spawned by H'Calos himself.

These worms burrow into the heads of their intended victims and then begin remodelling the skull so that the eye protrudes from the front. Then the worm begins to reproduce inside the host, filling every available cavity with dormant star worms. Once the host is killed, or the host is filled to capacity, the star worms burst forth and infest every living thing in the area.

Sometimes this process goes wrong and secondary star worms become active early, burrowing out the side of the skull to give the host additional eye stalks with magic powers. The host then over produces star worms becoming a horrific bloated monster.