Ooltul
Ooltul, city of Tyrants
(Upper Buried Realms)
Beneath Anauroch thrives a nation of beholders, secretly governed by phaerimm satraps. Most surface dwellers don't live long enough to see the influence of the phaerimm rulers at work, but the three phaerimms known as the Triumvirate hold complete sway over every beholder in the city.
Ooltul (small city): Monstrous (Magical. AL NE; 15,000 gp limit; Assets 5,475000 gp; Population 444 free; Isolated (beholder 71%, beholder mage 28%, phaerimm 1% 6,852 slaves (goblin 44%, orc 30%, asabi 14%, ogre 12%).
Authority Figures: Phindounma the Abominable (NE phaerimm sorcerer 20 Scalmarel the Sage (LE phaerimm sorcerer 20 Ygnaroth the Necroseer (CE phaerimm sorcerer 25).
Important Characters: Irixis the Sorcerorb (LE beholder of 20 HD/beholder mage 4), who serves as Scalmarel's assistant and secretly plots to overthrow the phaerimm; Gourshnaxt (CE gouger of 22 HD), assassin and enforcer for the Triumvirate; Zommist (NE beholder of 18 HD), Master of Secrets.
The bell-shaped cavern of Ooltul features hundreds of huge, hollow stalactites that house the living beholder population. These stalactites are studded with glowing gems that give off enough luminescence to dimly light the entire cavern. Zorx, the sand island at the bottom of the cavern, is surrounded by a freshwater "moat" called Sand Lake. Visitors must cross on flat-bottomed ferries pushed by beholders using telekinesis. The ferries run at regular intervals, and a one-way trip costs 1 gp.
Visiting Ooltul
Considering that Ooltul is a city of evil geniuses dominated by monstrously unhuman aberrations, it is reasonably welcoming of outsiders. Though it could not, perhaps, be described as friendly, travelers and traders need not worry about being attacked, eaten, or taken as slave fodder as long as they keep special passes visible and do not provoke any beholders.
A pass is a heavy, rectangular chunk of bronze with runes carved into its surface. One is issued to each visitor upon entry. As long as visitors display their passes openly, they may travel freely on Zorx, but not on or into Zorx-ka. Under city law, any visitor whose pass is lost or stolen may be claimed as a slave by anyone with the power to capture the individual.
Ooltul's chief trade good is information, which has been codified to a form of currency in Ooltul. The phaerimms have devised a complex formula to determine information's worth, which includes the seller's estimate of the information's cost in gold, who the secret involves, how wide-ranging its effects could be if popularly known, whether it involves magic, and most importantly, whether the Triumvirate already knows it. Zommist, the Master of Secrets is the keeper of the formula, and it personally assigns a gold piece value to any information presented to it.
Any beholders that interact with outsiders can barely contain their loathing. Fortunately for all concerned, the dominion of the phaerimm is more powerful than the beholders' hatred, though the latter constantly strain against the command to be accommodating. They do not understand the compulsion to open their city to creatures that are so clearly beneath them, but they obey it with poorly disguised disgust.
Irixis the Sorcerorb, Scalmarel's beholder mage assistant, understands it too well. The beholder mage schemes to overthrow the phaerimm by sponsoring a slave uprising through Kronnak Eyebiter, a recently captured orc chieftain who has not yet had the fight beaten out of him. Certain other beholders also have broken the phaerimm hold and can freely plot against them. The phaerimm are completely aware of Irixis's traitorous nature, but they keep the rebellious beholder nearby to toy with it. They are not aware of Kronnak, who might be a wild card in any sudden slave rebellion.
Brief History
Ooltul used to be the eastern outpost of Xun'Qoroth, a great beholder nation beneath what is now Anauroch. When the phaerimms destroyed the ancient lands of Netheril with their lifedrain spells, they did it from the safety of their underground strongholds. Such spells might have spread to devastate all of Faerûn, but the sharn stopped the phaerimms and imprisoned them behind the Sharn Wall, a magical barrier that prevented them from passing or affecting anything outside it.
The Sharn Wall overlapped most of Xun'Quroth except for Ooltul, so the crafty phaerimms enslaved the beholders of Xun'Qooth. They then used their new thralls to communicate with and pass items to those few phaerimms who remained outside. Among the handful of phaerimms outside the Wall were the three elders who make up the Triumvirate. These mighty sorcerers subverted the beholders of Ooltul in -350 DR and have lived and ruled there ever since.
When return of the City of Shade precipitated the fall of the Sharn Wall, the Triumvirate knew that its purpose must change. Before, it had been the main conduit from the phaerimm locked behind the Sharn Wall to the world outside. Once the Sharn Wall dropped, the Triumvirate acted quickly to retain Ooltul's place as the most accessible of the phaerimm-ruled beholder cities. By opening the city's doors to. Underdark denizens beneath the northern part of Faerûn, Ooltul has grown to rival to Sshamath as a market for magic and a magnet for information traders.
Important Sites
The beholders live in the upper reaches of Ooltul's cavern, where no outlanders are permitted. Their slaves and the markets of the city lie on the cavern's floor.
The Bazaar Of Zorx
Zorx is the sand island at the base of the bell-shaped city. Most of its surface is covered with shanties and lean-tos in which the slaves live.
Along the east edge of Zorx, the beholders sell a mind-boggling array of items in a small bazaar. In addition to standard items such as uncut gems, rare ore, slaves, death tyrants (and accompanying control amulets), water, and Netherese magic, goods as strange as surface produce, silk, and fine art have been found in the bazaar. The beholders do not elaborate on where they find these oddities, and they appear to have no sense of value regarding them because they usually charge wildly inappropriate amounts - either too high or too low.
Zorx-Ka
Zorx-ka is the central pillar running from Zorx to the ceiling of the cavern. This mighty stone column is almost 900 feet in diameter. Its exterior is covered with runes, and its interior is a jumble of tunnels, rooms; and vertical shafts. The members of the Triumvirate live and rule from hidden chambers in the center of the column, and they store their army of death tyrants in the lower portion.
Guest Quarters
Spartan, but dry and well-lit, the unimaginatively named "nonresident quarters" consist of three rows of nine dead-end tunnels, each 20 feet wide, 20 feet high, and 60 feet long, stacked on top of each other. The proprietor, Xenix the Occluded (LE beholder), has been ordered by the Triumvirate to make the nonresident quarters accommodating for visitors, but like all beholders, he deeply loathes non-beholders. Therefore, he chooses the fastest, most violent solution to satisfy a customer's needs and lets his goblin slaves tend to nonresidents as much as possible. Those who complain too much or taunt Xenix about his rude customer service may find their tunnel double-booked with illithid groups, or their important pack animals "accidentally" disintegrated.
Xun'qoroth Portal
The entrance to this portal is located inside the base of Zorx-ka and carefully hidden behind a rock facade. It was built at ground level so that slaves and materials could travel through it easily, but hidden to keep visitors from sneaking through. The two-way portal leads to Xunqaq, the capital city of Xun'Quroth. A regular stream of slaves carrying scrolls, gems, minor Netherese artifacts, and new beholder configurations passes through the portal each night. The portal was more valuable when the Sharn Wall existed, but it's still useful today, and the phaerimms can always use it as an escape hatch in an emergency.
Surrounding Area
Vertical shafts in the tunnels around Ooltul shoot up and down into darkness. Very few of them connect with the surface directly, but many join with other tunnels that lead there. The Buried Realms are a populous area of the Underdark; the beholder cities of Xun'Qoroth lie to the west, while orcs, ogres, goblins, and all manner of other humanoids occupy the mines of Tethyamar to the north and the Stonelands to the south.
The Triumvirate dispatches regular patrols of beholders through all tunnels in a 5-mile radius, with orders to kill any creature that does not claim to have business in Ooltul. This tactic keeps the surrounding areas almost desolate. Free-roaming gougers not under phaerimm control haunt this area in search of beholders to kill.
Xun'Qoroth
Consisting of half a dozen beholder cities, each home to several hundred of the eye tyrants, Xun'Qoroth lies beneath the southeast portion of Anauroch. Other cities of the former beholder nation include Aixlintar, Ginsunlix, Qiptaroth, Viksanmaq, and Xunqaq. These cities occupy vaults similar to Oottul's, though none of the others has a moat in the bottom of the cavern.
The puppet ruler of Xun'Quth is a great beholder known as Rilathdool, who lives in Xunqaq. The only real difference between Ooltul and the other cities of Xun'Qoroth is that the phaerimms openly rule Ooltul, but they conceal their dominance elsewhere. Thus, the beholders of Xun'Qoroth believe the Ooltul beholders to be tainted and try to destroy them on sight. The phaerimms allow this fractiousness to continue because the "rivalry" is a nice release for hate-charged beholders, and conveniently timed beholder battles can provide cover for delicate operations.
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