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Before Glerran took over that role Yihn-Tol was the village that most suited climbers. Now its smaller (only 1,800 people) and no longer as important. It is the lowest halfling village and therefore the closest to the swamp and the effects of Rajaat's Curse, so mutations are especially common here. And of course the swamp is full of death-monsters who are quite happy to try and climb up the cliffs to eat some halfling faces. It is also the first target of the Reggilids (you'll find out about them later) and assaults by the thri-kreen empire to the west.
Ray of Enfeeblement: can weaken life-shaped weapons and armor. weapons suffer -2 to hit and -1/die to damage, armor suffers a 2 point AC penalty.This is a functional short sword, on top of the normal short sword damage it also functions the same as the life-leech mentioned in the weapons section: +1d12 damage on the first hit as it rapidly absorbs water and nutrients, then +1d6 on each hit afterwards because of a sedative. Included in the book is an intro adventure: Into The Swamp, for characters of 4-6th level. It claims that it can be used for rhul-thaun characters or for general Dark Sun PCs. To make matters worse the Thri-kreen have their own version of life shaping, its just instead of breeding other creatures and objects, they alter their own biology: adapting their soldiers to the conditions of the swamp, to make them tougher, stronger, better climbers, etc. Each new generation of thri-kreen is harder to fight off than the old one. And unlike halflings, the thri-kreen are making new techniques while the life-shapers lose them. The rhul-thaun use ritualized ceremonies and practices for every sort of interaction. major events such as weddings, legal disputes or political activities can take ages just from the layers of formality involved. Even minor interactions involve extremely specific protocols.
Like a clingbag, but rope. Mainly it lets you just loop the rope around something and hold it in place without knots. Cowboys with wings. Like Climbers and Windancers the book's already covered them fairly well...and frankly the concept doesn't need much elaboration. It is pointed out just how cool the rhul-thaun think the windriders are. The lifeshapers and haur-etil might be more important, but everyone wants to grow up to be a windrider when they were a kid. The bartender is right and since its apparently absolute impossible (as the adventure says) for the PCs to locate any other Chahn or their base in town so they have no choice but to follow.Thri-kreen are the halfling's greatest enemies. Not the nomadic, hunting obsessed thri-kreen of the Tyr region...the thri-kreen to the west of the Jagged Cliffs are an expansionist empire whose desire for conquest is stymied only by the barrier of the Jagged Cliffs. As far as the halflings are concerned the Thri-kreen are not a part of nature and should be exterminated for the sake of all other living things...of course they don't have anything like the resources needed to challenge the thri-kreen empire and can only hold their own, aided by the natural barrier of the cliffs. Better hope no PCs from the east come with a Kreen in the party. Strength: improves life-shaped objects. Weapons get +1 to hit and damage, armor gets 1 point better in AC. Anyway, status ranges from Very Low (hobo), Low (poor), Average (working class), High (well off) and very high (totally rich). The table is weighted heavily towards Average and High status characters, so its good to see that the rhul-thaun have a thriving middle class. While Pareth is the village for windriders, Glerran is the village for climbers (because apparently you've got to have a theme). The village is home to about 2,500 inhabitants. Beyond catering to climbers it really only has two notable features: Here we get a bit of info on the care of life-shaped creatures. First, we're told that they don't eat or drink normally. All living life-shaped objects subsist on cam-rahn, a nutrient solution which provides them food and water in one, and all require one "dose" of cam-rahn per HD per day (no guidelines are given on how much a "dose" actually is). Grafts are an exception, unless they are unattached. They are capable of breathing on their own. A life-shaped creature will die in 2-5 days if not fed its daily broth, and a tissue will die in 2-3 days.
You're meant to roll a 1-in-6 chance for an encounter every 4 hours...but we are never actually told how far the PCs have to travel from the cliffs to the citadel in the swamp. I mean, we get this map: The place is under such danger that there is no life-shaper sanctuary here. Life-shapers are flown in when needed to repair buildings (especially the city's walls, which are a unique feature among the halflings) and then flown out again once their done. Everything else must be imported.They also have an odd hatred of halflings in general and life-shaped objects in particular. They've even developed a spell (Organic Disruption) specifically to kill the life-shaped. It's a 10 ft radius AoE which is a save-or-die to all life-shaped as well as any non-living organic matter. Non-life-shaped creatures take 2d6 damage (save for half). The rhul-thaun equivalent of a farmer, this is the most common profession for the rhul-thaun. Their job is to make sure life-shaped creatures stay alive and healthy. They know nothing about actually making them but they know enough to feed, water and harvest from them. In addition to helping to produce basic goods like food, tools, leather, cloth, etc they also can be sort of construction workers: keeping life-shaped buildings alive to grow while the life-shapers themselves prune and direct their growth. Of course then things went to shit. The halflings were trying to work on a way to make the sea a better source of food to expand their civilization further, but accidentally created a brown algae which killed natural and life-shaped organisms in the water (i.e. pretty much everything). The ancient life shapers were apparently completely unable to stop this and the only solution they could come up with was the Pristine Tower (heloooo metaplot). The Pristine Tower is a huge...thing. It's presumably life-shaped but its abilities and function doesn't really jive with lifeshaping in any sensible way. One notable difference in living along the Jagged Cliffs is called Rajaat's Curse (those who know Dark Sun's weird metaplot know Rajaat as the "father" of arcane magic in general and defiling in particular. His involvement will be explained later). This is a general term used for deformities or any other disease without a known cause. Living above the swamps has given the rhul-thaun halflings an unfortunate tendency to develop mutations which range from minor changes in skin color or relatively normal birth defects all the way up to fully functional extra limbs, gills, tough skin, and bonuses to stats. Being a mutant would be kind of rad if it weren't for the fact that it gets you shunned.
First, its home to the only full-fledged psionicists in rhul-thaun society: a pair of twins named Kal-Odot and Fren-Anan. In addition to being powerful psionicists, they have a special talent which allows them to communicate telepathically at all times and (by agreement) even swap minds. They are both self-taught and have used their psionic abilities and cunning to rise to great power in the city (one serves as the city administrator while the other serves as a false critic and opponent).So, want to hear about awesome heroes fighting psionic sand-sharks and chopping evil sorcerers in half with jawbone axes while wearing armor made from a giant bug's face? No? The Sun reports Hadley’s reaction to the Kemps using their hit Gold last month for a cheesy TV advert for the washing powder Bold. It saw Gold’s lyrics changed to “Bold”: Thamasku is, culturally, more conservative and clan-focused than other cities, probably because this is where the most clan politics happen and the law-making Conclaves gather. The whole place is the economic center of Rhul-thaun society, so much so that it even has its own thieves guild! Although the ancient life-shapers who built Thamasku were masters of the forces of life itself they knew shit about city planning. That's why this is what Thamasku looks like: Basically some lungs and some tubes. Air Pumps are normally used in underwater structures like the Thamasku Sanctuary or clearing the air in large structures that would otherwise get filled without foul odors or smoke.
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