Sshanntynlan

Sshanntynlan is a drow city located in Rilauven in the middledark. It is one of the largest and most powerful drow cities due to the discovery of Hemomancy and its unique protection and cohabitation with Time Dragons. The dragons create a temporal barrier hiding the city from users of Time Magic, and prevent the use of chronomancy within the bounds of the city.

## **Region**

The city has hundreds of entrances, most of which are protected by a combination of patrols, guarded gates, enchantments, curses and traps. However, there are many secret tunnels and entrances leading into the city that have gone unaccounted for. Many drow don’t make it known when they find an entrance: within the drow community, secrets are power.

The nearest Waystone to Sshanntynlan is located near The Abyss, making it a dangerous method of locating the city.

A lowered region rests at the bottom of an enchanted and regularly patrolled cliff, cut off from the rest of the city. Here the drow leave a population of the creatures they keep as slaves live on their own. When they need an army, the go down and corral an army from the creatures living there. The many caves and tunnels leading into this area were collapsed or enchanted by the drow to keep the creatures from leaving. One entrance in particular curses creatures who get far enough to turn into driders. Most who venture down this tunnel are killed by the previous victims of the curse before getting far enough to suffer it themselves.

## People

### The One Without a Name

The One Without a Name is an incredibly powerful drow hemomancer and chronomancer from Sshanntynlan in house Jhalael. He created Hemomancy, one of the pillars of drow magic. His magical prowess caught the attention of Avlon, invited him to join her ranks as a Time Lord. While he mastered chronomancy, he never enjoyed using it the way he did hemomancy. After the events of the Bucklebattle, he left the Time Lords and returned to Sshanntynlan. Working to hide his presence from Avlon, he made an alliance with several Time Dragons and invited them to live in the city where they worked to create a temporal barrier. The barrier proved effective enough to not only hide his presence from Avlon, but also to entirely stop the use of time magic within city. Once the matron grew confident in the city’s safety, she summoned all her most powerful mages, wiped The One Without a Name’s memory, and exiled him from the city.

### Istophyn Nirinath

Istophyn is a Bloodchanger from house Nirinath, the first house of Sshanntynlan. When the drow discovered that Reedus knew where the doors of death were, they sent Istophyn to infiltrate Rivvik’Thun and keep an eye on anyone who wanted to find Reedus. On the way he found and killed Reedus’s brother Glumbar. Taking Glumbar’s form, he infiltrated Rivvik’Thun and remained in Rivvik’Thun, waiting for someone else to attempt to find Reedus.

### Thallica Yauthlo

Thallica is a hemomancer from house Yauthlo, the 4th house of Sshanntynlan. She abandoned the drow and their way of life, eventually being discovered by the Svirfneblin of Stumfenstone. She lives in Lower Stumfen and mostly keeps to herself. She took up fishing, using magic to move her boat around the lake.

### Nulzina Ket’vir

Nulzina is Bloodchanger spy for house Nirinath. If a party attempts to enter the city without the drow’s permission, Nulzina attempts to kill one of their members and take their form to infiltrate their group, delivering their body to the Matron. When the opportunity presents itself, the Matron reveals and offers resurrection of their dead party member, using that and the information Nulzina has gleaned as leverage to control the infiltrating group.

### Bezen Mlezzass

Bezen is a captain in house Nirinath. He has psionic abilities, making him an important asset when dealing with Mind Flayers.

## Houses

### Nirinath

Nirinath is the first house of Sshanntynlan. They are the most powerful house, and their matron rules the city. Lolth grants the most powerful house in the city her favour, giving them an huge advantage to keep their position as the head house.

### Jhalael

Jhalael is the second house of Sshanntynlan. They are known for their mastery of Hemomancy following its conception by The One Without a Name, a powerful wizard from house Jhalael. They have the role of protecting the city from outsiders, a task they were given to keep them from realizing their own potential of challenging the first house.

### Yauthlo

Yauthlo is the fourth house of Sshanntynlan.

## History

### The City Safe From Time

The One Without a Name is a drow wizard from Sshanntynlan in house Jhalael. He became one of the most skilled wizards city had ever seen, eventually creating one of the pillars of drow magic: Hemomancy.

His magical prowess and establishment arcanic law caught the attention of Avlon, who invited him to join her ranks as a Time Lord. Though the drow matron urged him not to, he couldn’t resist the chance to forge another budding magic system, and he became the 6th Time Lord. He left Sshanntynlan and made a quick study of chronomancy, becoming a master of time and blood. Some of the other time lords were disgusted by his blood magic and thought Avlon made a mistake picking him as a Time Lord. This didn’t bother him, he just kept to himself and worked alone.

In the aftermath of the Bucklebattle, The One Without a Name knew he had to leave the Time Lords. He reflected on why he chose to learn time magic in the first place, and he decided to return to Sshanntynlan. He pledged himself to the matron and vowed to protect the city and its people. Still feeling betrayed by Avlon and the life he had chosen with her, he found comfort returning to the familiarity of drow culture. His renewed loyalty to the drow people and the city of Sshanntynlan became his Temporal Touchstone, granting him in sanity.

After the bucklebattle had scattered the Time Lords through time, Avlon had been obsessively tracking them down and doing whatever it took to restore her order. The One Without a Name knew he had to find a way to hide the city from Avlon or she would destroy it without a second thought should she find him.

During his adventures as a time lord, he had come across Time Magic that did not originate from Avlon - that of the Time Dragons. He knew if anything was going to be able to counter Avlon’s power, it was theirs. Time Dragons create hordes of creatures - sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Occasionally they will form a symbiotic relationship with a city, which becomes their horde.

The One Without a Name sought out time dragons, eventually finding and convincing some to work together and curate a horde of unimaginable wealth: one of the grandest drow cities in the underdark. Together they found a way to create a barrier from Avlon’s time magic, successfully safeguarding the city. The barrier proved to be so effective it blocked all Time Magic within the city, leaving The One Without a Name unable to use chronomancy within its bounds. Adamant in his duties, he stayed within the city and oversaw its defenses and the care for the dragons.

### The Exile of The One Without a Name

After years had passed in safety, the drow matron got overconfident and bold within the safety of her city, and she viewed The One Without a Name as the last possible threat to her city and her house. While he was loyal to the city, he was from a different house: one that posed a threat to her rule should he decide to turn on her. Additionally there always loomed the threat of Avlon or another Time Lord stumbling across a way to track him down to the city. When Teri - the child of a Time Lord - found the city, the matron knew she had to make a move. Despite all the matron’s worries about the safety of the city from chronomancers, Teri still managed to talk her way out of the city and leave safely, bringing with her an understanding of time dragon magic.

The matron knew The One Without a Name had taken safeguards against death and that she couldn’t possibly kill him, so she gathered the most powerful drow in the city and called on the power of Lolth to cast a memory spell powerful enough that he couldn’t even remember his own name, let alone where the city was. Realizing their betrayal at the last moment he tried to use chronomancy to counter them, but the dragon’s magic held fast. The surge of chronomancy he attempted to tap into channeled the memory spell through time, erasing the memory of his name from his entire life - establishing him as The One Without a Name.

His memories were gone, including his loyalty to the drow - which had acted as his temporal touchstone keeping him sane from madness brought on by time magic. The drow exiled him from the city and set him loose in the underdark. However, the spell failed to erase his chronomancy or hemomancy powers. When he was forced to defend himself, his aggressors were rapidly dispatched. While the magic he wielded had immense power, he did not understand it. With hemomancy, ignorance is dangerous. He pushed too far too fast and turned into a bloodchanger: a withered undead with the ability to take the form and mind of any creature it kills.

### Capturing Reedus

The drow of Sshanntynlan captured Reedus Ptolemariusantollistorican in a raid of the Ptolem outpost. When they brought him back, they discovered that he knew the location of the doors of death. They knew this information was incredibly valuable and immediately set to work preparing to use and protect it.

Istophyn, a bloodchanger, was sent to to Rivvik’Thun to investigate for anyone who may be looking for Reedus. On his way there, he discovered a search party lead by Glumbar Ptolemariusantollistorican. He took out the search party, took Glumbar’s form, and returned to Rivvik’Thun. He stayed in the city to discourage and mislead anyone who came looking for Reedus, while also providing intel to the drow about Rivvik’Thun.

Gerald, a white dragonborn sorcerer and member of Terry’s Guild, was captured by the drow and met Reedus in his time as a drow slave. He managed to escape Sshanntynlan and return to Oceanside with the knowledge of Reedus’s whereabouts.

### Istophyn and The Wanderers

15 years later, the dwarves of Rivvik’Thun were opening a new tunnel into a cave system that, unbeknownst to them, was controlled by the drow of Sshanntynlan. In response, the drow prepared an invasion to disrupt the tunnel opening ceremony and collapse as much of the surrounding caves as possible. Their attack was countered by The Wanderers of the Expanse, who were seeking Reedus and the Doors of Death.

Istophyn talked to the wanderers as Glumbar and offered to take them to the last place Reedus was seen, with the intention of killing them once out in the wilds of the underdark. After seeing them repel the drow invasion, he took a more cautious approach and joined them on their journey to keep tabs and subtly mislead them where he could. Eventually, he was forced to reveal himself and narrowly escape when the party encountered Queenie, a tiefling and an antimagic aura. With his identity as Glumbar blown he couldn’t return to Rivvik’Thun, so he returned to Sshanntynlan. After acquiring information in Stumfenstone, the party gave up their search for Reedus.