Encyclopedia Dominia: Early Volumes I

 The Encyclopedia Domnia had various stories, lore, and information of the worlds of the multiverse.  Here we're restoring some of the online duelist's tales.  The Encyclopedia was gathered by the planeswalker Taysir, here are Tande's Journal and the City of Brass.  We are continuing our reproducing of them: they are not original content, but created by Wizards of the Coast for the Online Duelist in the 1990s. 

Tande's Journal

Although the mage Tande is perhaps best known for his musings on the principles of artifact consciousness, this particular journal entry is far more pragmatic--and at the same time more fantastical--than his other known writings. Scholars differ strongly on whether Tande and his lover Trebecia actually visited Phyrexia, or whether the entire story is a hoax or a particularly vivid fever dream. After all, Tande was bedridden for almost two years with a mysterious illness around the time he scribed this entry.--Taysir

As I write these words it seems a wonder that my hand can hold even the weight of my quill. Until a few hours ago I was convinced that the impressions of the past day and night would forever be carved into my mind. Yet, already the jagged, knife-edged memories begin to blur. Perhaps it is my mind protecting my sanity? For I am certain no man could carry these images in his mind and not lose himself to the horror. I must record now what I have seen, while it is still clear.

Two days ago I was just entering my workroom when I witnessed my love, Trebecia, an artificer like myself, fall through a Phyrexian portal. Phyrexia, that dreadful plane, is a place I have long known of, and debated and discussed with other artificers. How and why the portal opened I still do not know, but I managed to throw myself through before it closed.

And thus did I enter Hell.

I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing of the passage. I awoke lying in a bed of strange silvery vines. If I hadn't been wearing several layers of woolen clothes, the sharp edges of the almost metallic leaves would surely have sliced my skin. As it was, I had to abandon my outer tunic, shredded in my efforts to extract myself from the strange plants.

I looked around in an attempt to regain my bearings. But how can any sane man find his bearings in an insane world? A soot-streaked sky lowered over a broad, dusty plain spotted with clumps of oily trees that could as easily have been machines as plants. A small stream meandered nearby. Apart from myself and the lethargic stream, this plain was silent and stifling and still; the omnipresent haze of grime gummed even the air itself, which left its foul reek as residue in my mouth.

I bent down on one knee to splash water on my face. But I immediately changed my plan, for the water in the stream was slick with oil, while congealed soot clung tenaciously to its rocky bed. Rubbing at the tacky coating with my sleeves only smeared it deep into my pores, and I could feel airborne grit building up on my palms and fingers.

Stumbling away from the stream, I looked down to find in the glittering, sticky soil a series of human footprints staggering away across the plain, as though made by one moving hesitantly. I immediately forgot my own fear at the thought of Trebecia wandering this place alone.

I jogged rapidly across the filthy land, maneuvering around piles of cogs and gears, and the rusting remains of tormented artifacts. Several saurian creatures wandered in the distance, their immense bodies glistening with oil, their motions easy and fluid in the oppressive stillness. They struck me as being both organic and mechanical, as if they were machines grown instead of made. I passed perhaps three, perhaps four of these monstrosities as I crossed the charnel plain.

Although occasionally it seemed that fierce red eyes glowered at me from clumps of metallic vegetation, the only other creature I encountered on the dark plain was a dragon engine. Of course, I have seen a number of the engines Mishra created. Yet none of those clumsy creatures could compare with the lithe form before me. As sinuous and quick as any dragon of flesh and blood, the creature was still, quite obviously, a machine. There is such a thing as horrible beauty, and this personified it.

Moving on, I soon reached a tunnel piercing the very heart of the plain. Here my heart fell, for now Trebecia's footsteps were echoed by those of smaller, clawed feet. A foul, hot wind from the tunnel had obscured those prints closest to its opening, but their implication was inescapable: at least half a dozen creatures had surrounded Trebecia. Their footprints replaced hers en route to the tunnel entrance.

Praying to every god I had ever heard of, I entered the heart of darkness.

The tunnel wound downwards for what seemed hours. My eyes wept constantly, and my skin alternately itched and burned in the choking exhaust that flowed over and past me. Sweat and tears barely kept my vision clear, but finally, I emerged, dazed and half-blind, my lungs burning with sulfur, on another part of Phyrexia. It was as if the tunnel burrowed through this hellish plane to reveal a second layer inside the first. The land I now faced was different from the dread plain above. Here the air burned even hotter, an almost palpable weight to my seared lungs. Within moments, I was indistinguishable from the rest of the blackened, blasted landscape.

Of course, there was no true sky. Instead, twisted beams and metal structures formed a dark ceiling high above my head. Red light spilled balefully across the rusted, pitted metal, casting twisted shadows that somehow managed to look like scenes of torture. The light itself came from vast, smoke-grimed chimneys thrusting upwards almost to the ceiling-sky above. Fire and soot spewed from their tops, and in some unrepaired spots, long fingers of fire scratched through cracks, as if a terrible flame beast sought escape from its metallic prison.

Ignoring the horror of my surroundings as best I could, I followed the small pack of renewed footprints. They led me easily through the ashen wastes, filled with random and numerous piles of broken machinery. Though lighter than the soil above, this ash had been so compressed by the company's passage that not even the constant streaming of the foul air could disturb it.

Somehow I traversed that expanse without stumbling upon any other creatures. Cries and grinding movement echoed near me several times, but never did an actual beast move close enough to distinguish itself from the clouds of soot and ash.

Once again the footprints led me to a tunnel, and once again I followed them. The tunnel floor soon grew rough, and as I neared its end, pipes and tubing also sprouted from the floor, causing me to often stumble and fall. I soon took to crawling like an animal.

At the end of this latest journey I looked out upon a massive labyrinth of ancient metal pipes and beams, begrimed with congealed oil. Staring at the vast, confusing network below me, I at first despaired of following Trebecia and her abductors. Then my eye was caught by one small piece of pale blue cloth, crammed into the juncture of two pipes. Looking further, I saw another piece of cloth. Trebecia was alive! She was leaving me a way to find her through the infernal maze.

Steeling myself, I pressed forward. Even with Trebecia's aid, the journey was terrible: there were brief stretches when I could walk upright, or even slightly hunched, but these infrequent breaks merely underscored the wretchedness of my sojourn. I was often forced to navigate pipe junctures that left hardly enough room for a man to pass. Sometimes I could only partially expand my chest, which made breathing the hot, fetid air still more difficult. I spent an eternity inside a broken segment of pipe without being able to move at all, staring at the hard, close darkness around me while my own pulse boomed in my ears. Had I not been coated in oily grime, I would be there still--but I eventually dragged myself free like a snake shedding its skin.

I know I called upon my magic more than once to survive the long hours, but just what spells I can no longer recall. My thoughts crawl with images of corpses hanging from chains and shoved into tubing; a child-sized figure splayed across a mammoth pipe; two men--one blond, the other dark--forever struggling, each clutching the other's throat; a single skeletal hand reaching out to me from blackness.

I can write no more of this. Suffice it to say that I did, at last, reach another tunnel. For the last time, I went deeper.

Phyrexia undoubtedly contains more rotting spheres, but I at last found Trebecia within the fourth. This one reminded me of a burned-out mansion I once hid within as a child. Everywhere hollowed, decaying structures loomed, while a constant drizzle of oil rained down. Instead of celestial bodies, there were cogs and wheels, gears and clockworks, hanging like macabre trophies from the rusted piping overhead. Fitful bursts of light emanated from the furnaces that dotted the landscape. Their cheerless illumination only served to emphasize the utter blackness of this terrible realm.

And the noise! As the sights reminded me of ruins from my childhood, so the sounds were that constant, jarring din that frightened children hear in fever dreams. Around me, all whirred and crunched fruitlessly, constant creaks and groans producing a ceaseless, agonizing cacophony.

I believe if I had not heard my love's cries only moments after I entered this plane, I would have gone mad. But Trebecia's voice formed a net around my soul, and I followed the strands as desperately as any drowning man ever clung to the rescuer's rope.

When I found Trebecia she was surrounded by over a dozen coal-black creatures with gleaming red eyes and soot-encrusted teeth. These Phyrexian gremlins constantly gibbered, occasionally turning on one another, biting and clawing their neighbors. Several of the feral creatures held tightly to Trebecia, but their true attention seemed focused on a tall, twisted being at their center. It was motionless, but I did not trust it to remain so. The gremlins were a chittering swarm at its feet, kneeling and falling over one another in obscene and frenzied supplication.

Viewing such chaotic motion, unable to separate the creatures' endless chatter from the discordant whine of machinery overhead, I began to sicken and swoon. As I stumbled, I spied the partial and still functioning remains of a hapless brass man between the gremlins and their totem. Although the brass man still seemed conscious, its struggles grew weaker still as I neared the awful scene. With a dreadful certainty I knew that this token offering would soon be replaced with one of considerably more value to their masters . . . and immeasurably more value to me.

At my approach, the gremlins took up a concerted howl of discovery. The pack had at last noticed my presence. As they came away from their ritual, I clearly saw the statue of the Yawgmoth demon they were capering beneath. Its eyes flashed as it grinned at me, though I could not determine if it had always been so oriented, or if the terrible head had actually swiveled to greet me. Meeting its eyes, I was seized with a terrible knowledge: that one day Phyrexia would rise up to yoke all planes to its dark designs.

I truly don't remember how Trebecia and I fought our way through the gremlins to the dying brass man's side. If I had not been granted the sight of her struggling to break free, I daresay I could not have done the same. Snatching up an unfortunate gremlin that had not survived the encounter (or perhaps it had not succumbed to the orgy of worship--I am still unsure), we bound its flesh and the brass man's body in dread ritual. A portal opened before us.

And then we were home.

I know this last piece of narrative makes even less sense than the first, but I can only relate what my poor mind remembers. Even now, the healers come for me. Although they say we will both live, I can tell they are concerned for us. They may even believe us mad. Perhaps we are. But if Phyrexia is madness, then I believe that madness exists within each of us. 

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The City of Brass

by She Who Watches

It should come as no surprise that the first tales I gathered to place in my encyclopedia come from my birthplace, Rabiah. I find this tale compelling because it leaves the reader with several tantalizing references to a place of power that lies on the cusp of a plane. Of course, it is also a tale of high passion and pain, and my youthful self knew too well where such emotions can lead. -Taysir

While a memory lives, so shall its maker. . . . For those of us who tell stories and write down the great and infamous doings of our people, these words carry greater weight than a hundredfold gold bars. Today, my tale is brief; the lesson drawn from it perhaps a bit longer, perhaps twice as short. Only my readers will know.

Princess Fatima was the wealthiest of women. She had riches galore, camels and silks, and a lover who was one of the most powerful men in her kingdom. She also was rich in magic. In Fatima's land as in many of our backward kingdoms, women have little control over their own lives. Their husband or father controls them. But Fatima's father was dead, no uncles or brothers lived, and she had not yet married. Every night, Fatima whispered in the ear of her lover, al-Abin, "Ask me not to marry you, and I will love you forever." To which al-Abin would reply, "Do not marry me, dear one."

For months, their strange arrangement lasted, until one night Fatima whispered, "Ask me not to marry you, and I will love you forever." To which al-Abin replied, "Marry me and make me the happiest of men." Furious, Fatima declared that she would never marry him. Despite al-Abin's begging, Fatima remained adamant. That very night her lover left Fatima for good.

Furious at al-Abin and the land that birthed him, Fatima went into a rage that lasted for days. At the end of this time, she turned all of her attention to her magic. Determined to build a place where none would ever dare disturb her, Fatima chose to create a City of Brass that blazed with the heat of her fury.

With every month she worked on her city, Fatima's power grew until it was so great she could stride across the planes and leave her people behind. She moved her city to the very farthest edges of Rabiah, where she worked in complete solitude. Yet, after a number of years, Fatima felt a touch of loneliness. Although she did not wish to see her people again, she wished some companionship. Thus, Fatima built the first of the Brass Men.

Fatima cared deeply for her brass creations, who bore the grief she never allowed herself to feel and thus often stopped to mourn after performing any task. As was her city, her brass men were cold as al-Abin's betrayal and hot as Fatima's wrath. Yet they were--and are--her children, and Fatima loves them to this day.

Go not to the City of Brass, unless you can bear great pain. For if you venture within its molten walls you will find yourself burned by the heat of its fires and by the rage and grief of its lone mistress.

 

The Encyclopedia Dominia: Taysir's Journals and A-D

Dominia (not Dominaria) used to be the name of the magic multiverse.  For a time, in the pre-revisionist era of Magic, there was one planeswalker interested in catalog and study of the denizens and peoples of the various planes, and so, Taysir started and created the Encyclopedia Dominia.  Here we have recovered his progress on such a vast and monumental task, and have put forth all his notes and entries from it.  

Here is the first part of this restoration process.  

Taysir's Journals 

Entry 1: I have existed for thousands of years, one person amid a multitude too vast for even a planeswalker such as myself to comprehend. Yet each of this great throng, each person who exists upon any of the planes in Dominia, weaves his or her thread into the tapestry of history. Unfortunately, few beings can actually gain any perspective upon the worlds they live in or the peoples with which they live. Life is too short and the planes too vast.

Here I presume to take my experience and my knowledge, and set to paper history, legends, and tales from the immense array of cultures found in Dominia. Hopefully, others will come to gaze upon this collection and learn from it. Throughout these volumes I shall provide commentary, yet I vow to never censor the words of others within their own stories.

In my youth, I would not have had the patience for this lengthy task. But, having lived and died--and lived again--I have come to a greater understanding of the necessity for the quietest virtue.

Long ago I loved a woman with greater passion than any other man had ever loved . . . . Of course this isn't true--my love was no greater or lesser than any others, but I was then convinced of its unique worth. It brought me only grief because it was a selfish love that did not truly care about the woman at its center. Since that time, I have learned much.

I dedicate this compilation, which I shall call the Encyclopedia Dominia, to Kristina . . . and also to my adopted daughter, Daria. Both women are brilliant, and the fabric of the world is richer for the shining threads of their lives. 

Entry 2: While I sit among the creature comforts of my library, I can't help but muse upon how important our environment is to who we are.

Imagine, if you will, that I choose to clone a young mortal. The boy and his other self would be identical in all things. If, however, these two identical people were placed in very disparate environments, they would rapidly grow different from each other, no longer truly identical. For example, if one boy spent his time in a tranquil place where he faced nothing more terrible than the teasing of his siblings and the occasional minor injury, where all his physical and emotional needs were met, would not his character and personality reflect this environment? Would not the identity of the other boy, living in a place of constant want, with no one to care for him, grow (or wither) in very different ways?

A truly wonderful or terrible environment leaves a deep imprint indeed upon its inhabitants. The best and worst of places may even affect the other realms with which they coexist. Thus, the literature and myths of numerous cultures again and again reference certain places. One of these places is the realm known as Phyrexia, a black abyss of pain and terror. It is astounding that creatures manage to not only exist, but occasionally even thrive in this place of charnel smoke, metal, and ash; a place where the only light is belched forth by huge soot-spewing furnaces.

The impact of such an environment on any who spend time there is surely great. Undoubtedly the unrelenting misery crushes the bodies and spirits of most creatures, but it is also true that only in the hottest forges are the truest blades formed. Without adversity there is seldom heroism. Without evil, good is meaningless. Thus, I feel it is just as important to record the history and culture of a place such as Phyrexia as it is of one more palatable, such as Llanowar. 

 

Entry 3: I have spent many hours contemplating the way in which the elves of Llanowar have managed to create and maintain a world unto themselves. Though they do have some contact with their neighbors, the Llanowar have done a remarkable job of keeping other peoples and cultures from influencing their home. Some scholars claim it is the tremendous size of the forest that has long protected the elves, but although the forest of Llanowar is, indeed, quite vast, it is not in any way unique in its size. There are other elves in other vast forests throughout Dominia who have been much more "infected" by neighboring cultures.

There are reportedly up to ten separate elven cultures (or "elfhames," as the Llanowar term them) contained within this sprawling forest realm. Each of the elfhames supports in its own way the elves' desire to keep their culture and traditions safe from outside influence. Some elves disappear into the trees and rarely, if ever, venture from their homeland. Others trade with the outside world of humans, minotaurs, etc., but maintain a strict belief, grounded in religion, that they must keep some distance from other peoples in order to retain their mystical connection to nature and their forest home.

This isolationist philosophy is taken to its most disturbing extremes by the Order of the Steel Leaf, a select cadre of Llanowar said to have been first brought together by the goddess-planeswalker Freyalise herself. The Steel Leaf are zealous in their efforts to maintain the purity of Llanowar. To this day, any non-Llanowar risk their lives when entering territory controlled by the Order, which has been known to kill intruders (not merely goblins) without trial. A few arrows and the unfortunate strangers' bodies soon "feed the forest."

The Steel Leaf have even been known to direct their isolationist zeal against other Llanowar, for they disapprove of any cooperation or "collusion" with non-elves. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that someday the Order might turn their swords and arrows on those of their own people whom they consider traitors for consorting with outsiders.

In their fervor to preserve their people, will the Steel Leaf be the Llanowar's savior--or its executioner? 

 

 Main Encyclopedia Entries: 

The Amber Prison: This magical golden stone fits easily in the palm of a large man's hand. Although small, the amber prison contains great power. When wielded by a mage, the prison is capable of trapping a single being (of any size) in its amber depths. The unfortunate prisoner remains in stasis for as long as he or she is trapped in the prison. Although the prisoner apparently retains some vague, dreamlike awareness, time has little if any affect on the physical body. Upon release, the prisoner appears exactly as he or she did at the moment of imprisonment. 

 Asmira, Holy Avenger: Since her youth, Asmira has possessed the gift of prophecy. Although in recent years this gift has grown stronger, even Asmira's early teachers -- Femeref priests -- recognized her ability. Detesting violence and loving all the peoples and lands of Jamuura equally with all her being, Asmira has recently become the reluctant head of the Femeref resistance to Kaervek's advance. Although many Femeref cities have fallen, Asmira remains a shining example of goodness and hope to all the people of Jamuura. Her devotion to Jamuura and her will to see this terrible war ended have forged Asmira into a Holy Warrior of unparalleled skill and power. 

Bassorah is one of the most established cities in all of Rabiah, found in the vast majority of the plane's incarnations. Bassorah boasts a tremendous variety of inhabitants (from bird maidens, to desert nomads, to gypsies) and a truly stupendous bazaar, known for the vast array of merchandise one can find there. Only the Bazaar of Baghdad is larger, and it does not have the same curious variety of goods.

Strange items from other planes somehow make their way into a Bassoran merchant's stall. Often even the merchant has no idea where he picked up an item. Such finds are often called "Shahrazad's gifts" due to their uncanny tendency to fall into the hands of those who most need them.

Bird Maidens: Although bird maidens are found in other lands of Dominia, Rabiah is almost assuredly their true home. A beautiful, flying race of humanoids, bird maidens, as their name implies, are always female. They make their sparse homes high in the craggy caves and outcroppings of rock created by the constant winds and updrafts of the deserts.

One of the more curious arts the bird maidens practice is wind sculpting. Talented maidens place diamond dust in sharply funneled bone tubes, which they tie to rock formations. As the wind blows the dust against the stone, the rock erodes faster than usual. Over the course of several--even tens of--years, the sculpture appears.

Bird maidens mate with humans, and the resulting offspring is either bird maiden if female, or human if male. The human children are given back to their community, while the females are raised by the maidens. All bird maiden births are twins, and all twins are of the same gender. Bird maidens hold their birth-sisters extremely dear, although they seldom feel true kinship to their other siblings. Legends abound about the male offspring's exceptional strength, luck, and magical talent, which is why any village finding abandoned twin boys will almost invariably adopt and honor them.

Brass Man: Clumsy and slow, the brass men are mechanical-magical constructs of limited intellect. Although phenomenally tough and capable of withstanding extremes of temperature and weather, the brass men suffer from a strange malaise. Any action they take seems to use extreme effort, and no brass man will function long without intermittent, regular infusions of mana. Is this a flaw in their initial construction, or in their very nature? Such questions are for planeswalkers and wise ones, and outside the scope of this encyclopedia. 

Breathstealers: The Breathstealers are an ancient assassin guild from Urborg known for their ability to kill with complete accuracy and utter silence. In fact, the Breathstealers pride themselves on being able to kill a man without waking his wife sleeping beside him. The Breathstealers are currently insinuating themselves into Suq'Ata society, and although silent, these killers may be an even greater danger to the noble Suq'Ata than Kaervek's armies. The Breathstealers can work minor magics, including controlling certain darling creatures, and they worship a terrible force known as the Spirit of the Night. It is the ultimate honor for a Breathstealer to sacrifice himself to become part of the Spirit of the Night made manifest. 

The Church of Angelfire is perhaps the most popular church in present-day Benalia. Upwards of twenty percent of Benalkin (a term used by Benalish to describe themselves, particularly within the city of Benalia) proclaim themselves to be worshippers of Angelfire.

The church is named for the legendary warrior Gabriel Angelfire, whose spirit, it is claimed, burns on to this day. The main altar of every Angelfire church glows with the peculiar red-green candlelight of this "spirit-flame." The candles are thought to represent Gabriel's indomitable will, and are almost impossible to snuff once lit. The candle-making formula is considered a religious secret.

A number of historians believe the Church of Angelfire arose to replace the somewhat similar Church of Serra, whose worship is condemned in Benalia. This condemnation dates back to the days of Benalia's forerunner, the Sheoltun Empire. The growing settlement of Epityr cast off the ruling chains of Sheoltun when a priest of Serra called forth the angels of Serra to free the town. This uprising was the straw that broke the empire's back, and the already fading Sheoltun soon after lost all control of eastern Terisiare.

City of Brass: This mystical city is a shining paean to pain and rage. Legend has it that the city was built long ago by an aggrieved planeswalker who wished solace from some great pain. Located somewhere on the farthest reaches of Rabiah (or perhaps even in the plane of Wildfire), the City of Brass constantly shimmers with heat, easily maintaining a temperature some 20 degrees warmer than the surrounding desert. Constructed entirely of stone and brass, the city's structures reflect the sun, shimmering blood-gold from sunup to sundown, and glowing dimly with heat radiance for hours after nightfall. Even the nearby mountains are coated in brass, and although snow and ice often forms in the peaks at night, it melts within an hour of sunrise.

Due to the unbearable conditions of the city only a few creatures make their home there. Djinns and efreets frequent the city, although brass men are by far the most numerous inhabitants. Other beings who attempt entry often do not survive the experience. Despite all this, the City of Brass attracts a number of magic-workers with its high concentration of readily available mana. Unfortunately, the mana burns as hot as molten brass, and no wizard may use it without pain.

Desert Nomads: Found in even the harshest of dunes, the desert nomads are ubiquitous throughout Rabiah. It is difficult to believe that at one time this hardy people was almost lost forever to a series of terrible plagues. Yet today's nomads are tougher than ever, and they are truly unequaled at moving unseen and unheard through desert wastes. The nomads claim that even a desert child of six years can survive a fortnight lost in the sands. Although this claim is undoubtedly an exaggeration, the nomads do possess unrivaled knowledge of the desert and its ways.

The dragon engines were first introduced to Dominaria by the renowned artificer Mishra. Powerful artifact creatures capable of destroying almost anything in their path, Mishra's dragon engines were nevertheless only pale shadows of the original Phyrexian creations. Phyrexian dragon engines are as intelligent and swift as organic dragons, not in the slightest hampered by their mechanical origins. Many of Dominaria's goblin tribes believe that carrying a gear or cog from a dragon engine will keep other dragons from attacking the bearer. 

 

Dominaria Then and Now: Planar Gates

Planar connections to Dominaria:

Rabiah the Infinite

The Assassins of Suq'Ata
by Scott Hungerford, originally published in the Duelist.

The Suq'Ata originally came from the plane of Rabiah the Infinite, an Arabesque world connected to the plane of Dominaria through a series of huge, magical cyclone gates. In the distant past, when the gates between Dominaria and Rabiah were secure, many people crossed through the gates to make their home in the magic-rich environment of Jamuraa.

A number of these people, who would eventually become known as the Suq'Ata, settled and built cities reminiscent of their distant home. They began to build a trading empire, and soon had caravans traversing the huge continent of Jamuraa in search of valuables and profit. While this mercantile society was well-versed in spells, treasure, and artifice, with them also came one of the oldest arts on Rabiah--the way of the assassin.

Within the modern cities of the Suq'Ata there exists a network of secret guilds wholly devoted to murder. Using spells of summoning, fear, and mind-numbing cold, the assassins of Suq'Ata seek not to defeat their opponents outright, but to poison them over time in a variety of insidious ways--perhaps a cobra trained to remain still until it strikes, or food tainted with a tasteless poison, delivered by an unseen hand.

The Suq'Ata assassins have a variety of spells and charms that generate an aura of fear, allowing them to pass through the most well-guarded halls and chambers. Even the most vigilant of guards will flee from the smallest swampfly if the fear-aura spell is woven well by an assassin. Suq'Ata assassins have been known to walk through the heart of a crowded banquet hall to deliver their poisonous gift, either by knife or vial, no matter how many guards are present.

One of the oldest folktales in Suq'Ata society is about an assassin that trained a venomous serpent to hold itself in an upright position for endless hours. Then a simple illusion would be cast across it, so that the serpent appeared as nothing more than a simple wax candle. Once set into place on a noble's bedside, the snake would strike repeatedly at anyone who tried to put a match to its deadly head.

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