Durbenis

Durbenis (LE hm Wiz 15 (Def))

Str 9 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 24 Wis 14 Cha 16

Magic items: Amulet of Mind Blank (obsidian circle on a silver chain), bone Ring of Protection +3 with a small sapphire, four vials containing Blood of Durbenis (see below)

Description: Durbenis is a lean man just over six feet tall. His has the pale complexion and short cropped hair that are common among Balicans. He typically wears light gray tunics and togas and carries himself with a sense of command. His dark eyes hint at confidence, and is has a firm but polite manner when dealing with others. When angered, his jaw becomes clenched and he looks at the source of his ire with barely contained outrage.

Durbenis served under Andropinis for decades before the sorcerer-king was banished to the Black by Rajaat. He prudently disappeared before House Wavir seized control of half of the city and retired to his villa in southwest Balic, the area of the city that House Rees seized. Because he was a relatively unknown figure in Andropinis's government, he was able to hide in the open. Certainly, if the populace knew of his past, the defiler would find himself the focus of a significant number of angry citizens.

Durbenis has done years of research in an attempt to optimize his spell casting power. His research with magically enriched blood has born fruit, allowing him to partially power his defiling magic through the use of this blood along with plant life. The blood must be completely drained from the body of a human or demi-human and run through an alchemical process involving powdered bone and obsidian. He continues his research with the eventual goal of powering his spell casting through living beings. As a side benefit to his experiments, he animates the blood-drained bodies and uses them as zombie guardians of his estate.

PCs could encounter Durbenis's press gangs attempting to kidnap someone and seize them for use in the blood experiments.

Durbenis's villa

Durbenis�s home is a three-story villa on Shalastes Way constructed of white granite and marble that backs up to a silt ravine in southwestern Balic. A graceful building, each storey is set back, providing every level with a pleasant patio. A low stone wall marks the boundaries of the grounds with decorative planters at each corner. The grounds themselves, though quite small in size, are covered with white marble veined with grey.

The entrance to the villa is covered, the roof supported by fluted pillars. Tall windows grace each wall, and the rear of the home has a spacious patio at the edge of a silt ravine. Subtle decorations demarcate each storey from one another. Ornately carved stone fences topped with planters filled with lush green plants provide a degree of privacy for those on the patio.

Inside, high ceilings, spacious rooms, and excellent furnishings mark this the home of a wealthy Balican. The house is decorated in subdued colors, and much of the furniture carved from the dark woods near Gulg. Plush rugs cover most of the floors and beautiful statues and paintings decorate the place.

Three individuals, besides Durbenis, are normally present in the villa. Two, Amentesses and Ordateli, are simple housekeepers and cooks. The third, Yeventes (NE hm Rog 6), has a much wider role to the defiler. He acts as Durbenis's spy, fetches ingredients, deals with local thugs to get victims for his experiments, and any other task that Durbenis assigns to him. Yeventes relishes his position and is quite loyal to his employer, both out of the wealth provided for him, and out of fear of the consequences should the rogue try to betray his master.

Below the house is a simple basement used for storage. Beneath this lies the sub-basement, reached by a hidden staircase (Search DC 27.) This is where the defiler conducts his nefarious experiments, and this level contains laboratories, a prison to hold victims before experimentation, and a natural cave complex where he stores the zombies created after the victims have been murdered.

Outbuilding

A comfortable one-story home sits between the larger mansions along Shalastes Way, slightly out of place in its neighborhood, but nice nevertheless. The home well-maintained and covered in yellow stucco with a wide entrance nook. The door is handsomely carved wooden door and several windows are covered by dark brown curtains. The rear of the house ends at a silt ravine with a small patio from which the owners could enjoy a few quiet moments.

Inside, the door opens into an L-shaped combined used room used for dining and family gatherings. To the left is the kitchen, with several counter for food preparation, and a small stove and a nook for boiling water. There are no walls separating these room, just pillars to support the ceiling. At the end of the "L", another door exits to the rear patio. Directly across the front door is a short hallway which contains two doors. The rooms behind these doors are comfortable in size and in each room is a closet.

Though obviously well-cared for, the entire house is curiously absent of any furnishing or decorations except for the curtains to hide curious passers-by of looking inside.

The closet corner bedroom has a concealed lock in the door (Search DC 20). Inside the closet is a trapdoor (Search DC 27), which opens to reveal a ladder descending to a tunnel that runs underneath the grounds of the neighboring Durbenis estate, ending in a room in his basement. Just inside the trapdoor is a Symbol of Insanity that affects those without a special bone token that Durbenis provides to his most trusted servants.

This connection between the empty house and Durbenis�s villa are to create deniability if the experiments should ever be discovered. Thugs in the employ of the defiler leave victims in the closet where they will find a pouch of ceramics, silver, or gems. A short time later, Yeventes retrieves the victim and moves them through the secret passage to the basement laboratories for use by his master.

Though the house appears unwatched, entering through any door or window causes a silent Alert spell to notify Durbenis that someone has entered the house. These intruders usually end as unwilling participants in the defiler's experiments.

Blood of Durbenis

The vials Durbenis carries with him contain the blood of humans and demi-humans that, through an alchemical process, has condensed to volume of a body to fit into a large vial. When used as an extra component in a spell, the blood can be used to power defiling magic, reducing the need for plant life. The blood is used as a source of power in addition to plants, and it halves the radius of plants destroyed by the casting of a spell. After the blood is used to power a spell, it becomes a viscous gray fluid and can no longer be used as a spell component.

Though the reduction in plant destruction may seem a benefit to Athas, the fact that living beings must be murdered during the creation of the Blood of Durbenis is certainly evil. Currently, an entire body is required to create a vial of Blood, but Durbenis is constantly refining the process, hoping to more efficiently use his victims to power his magic, and eventually not need go through a seperate process at all, powering magic directly through living creatures.