Athet the Mossy

Location: Dothion

Character: Easy streets, brotherly love, ashtray heart.

Ruler: Twin dragons with golden scales rule Athet. They generally take human form. Dagmar has beautiful rose streaks in his wings; he is the dominant brother, always-launching grandiose social reforms and programs of exploration. Silrammir, a smaller dragon tinged with bronze, does much of the actual day-to-day work of governing.

Behind the Throne: Athet has a second city within the greater one ruled by a small group of wizards known as the Fireveils. The second city, known as Paradise, is built around a dormant volcano. Here, the day-to-day mundane life of the Mossy is replaced by busy explorations into the heart of magic, constant researches and a flow of minor magical devices.

Description: Mosses of all sorts cover the landscape to the horizon, some with unusual properties. Great trees shade the landscape, largely masking the sky, though an orange streak can be sometimes seen above Athet proper. Every building, every window, every street is filled with thick green growth, most of which is harmless, though memory moss lurks in some of the alleyways, something that encourages the wizards to hide in their sanctum. The average citizen of Athet is used to the cool green-hued light of Athet's buildings, and thinks nothing of it. In the center of the city, on top of a vast hill, is a city within the city. Over a wall the cool mossyness of Outer Athet is gone, replaced with the flaming pit of a dormant volcano. Tunnel mouths gape all along the interior: the homes and laboratories of the city's wizards.

Militia: The city militia is composed of mounted cavaliers armed with holy-water sprinklers and lances. Most of the wizards have no special combat abilities.

Services: Athet grew up along a major Dothian trade route, and most of its citizens are merchants. The primary local product is moss, naturally. The wizards of Paradise provide many magical products and services in exchange for raw materials the city's merchants and moss farmers provide them with; it seems many of the mosses make excellent spell components.

Current Chant: Silrammir is missing, leaving Dagmar at a loss. He has recruited some of Paradise's wizards to help with Silrammir's duties, all of which are extremely surly at having their researches interrupted.

The dark is that several ages ago the land was uninhabited except for a single moss spirit. The moss spirit, seeking companionship, found a tunnel leading deep within the layer, exploring places that even the monstrous ancestors of the gnomes had never visited. She followed her heart into the inner heat of the land, and there discovered a spirit that glowed with the fire of creation.

Moss invited her new friend back to her home, and so they went. They made an admirable pair, Moss cool and connective, Heat vibrant and representative of the chaos that keeps Dothion from sliding up Mount Celestia. When children of the lower worlds ventured into their nest, a mage called Armacycilus with his two dragon guardians, they were welcomed as well. For a time all were happy.

Initially Armacycilus only wanted a place to perform his experiments on the magic of gas and flame, but things changed when Heat and Moss produced a child.

The child, a creature of mild green warmth, was named Meat Hoss by its unfortunately unimaginative progenitors. Meat Hoss was unique in that she needed no one; she fed on the energy she herself created. That left her alone and separate, and she left the plane for the Beastlands before sixteen seasons had passed.

Moss and Heat were devastated. They begged Armacycilus to help them retrieve their darling, and he agreed to send Dagmar and Silrammir to look for her. Sixteen seasons passed, and the dragons returned, reporting that Meat Hoss was flying with the herons and did not want to be called. Moss and Heat imported herons into their growing city, and convinced the dragons to ask again. Again they returned after sixteen seasons, saying that Meat Hoss was crawling with the centipedes and did not want to return. Great Centipedes like caravans were brought into Athet and the process was repeated, with the same result. The spirits of the place lamented, "Our daughter will not come because she cannot, as others can, depend on an other to be complete. Would that she were twins and not this selfish whole!" Armacycilus brooded over this and over his experiments and said, "You know, Patrons, it may be possible." So the menageries were dismissed, scattered throughout the planes. Armacycilus retired to his laboratory and labored while Dagmar and Silrammir ruled the city. And Heat and Moss sent for more wizards and more wizards to support the city's wealth while others labored on the artifact that Armacycilus would build.

At last the great magus emerged from his cave, his assistants (of many races) beaming with pride. "I call it the Five-Armed Prism," he boasted, and demonstrated its efficacy by becoming at once a tyrant-king named Xonos, an Arcane called Greius, a child named Bright Wisp and an eladrin called the Dancing Lord.

"Wondrous!" exclaimed the spirits, but Armacycilus no longer knew them. He wandered off in every direction, leaving the artifact behind. Silrammir reassured his friends Moss and Heat. "Do not worry. I will take the artifact to Meat Hoss and Dagmar will watch the city." "What?" Dagmar cried in dismay.

But Silrammir's journey had begun. While in the Outlands, he was mugged by a gang of Anarchists mounted on something that can mug dragons. The Prism was stolen and taken to Carceri and the dragon was sold to the khaasta.