Galen's Shandar Story

The coming of Shandar to Bug Tussle upset a lot of people. Most notably, perhaps, it upset Alzador who'd always thought it better not to inquire too deeply about the wizard he replaced. After the questions asked by the newly formed company of adventurers, however, the junior memember of The Hopeful Seven thought it might be prudent to know the answers himself.

After the company departed his tower on that Flamerule morning, he went to The Fighter's Own and sat at the bar. He put the hard questions to Galen, and the following tale is what was overheard. My agent in the tavern transcribed it word for word, and I reprint it here.

I'm not saying what or how much of what Galen told Alzador was true, but I will vouch that every word he told that wizard he believed.

As I said, this is Galen's side of the story, the only side of the story you're likely to hear...because my side is private, and rarely retold even to myself. But, because you should know what there is to be known, here's what you'd hear if Galen trusted you enough to talk to you about me:

"Shandar the Ashen is a mysterious wizard, and keeps to himself. He always has. If he's out and about, then its because it suits him to be. No other reason. What suits him should make anyone nervous. I've heard that he was building a tower recently out in the Dagger Hills. As you know, he was the original wizard in the party known as The Hopeful Seven. My party. Run by my rules. Rules he didn't think applied to him.

You can't really say we were friends, then. He wasn't really friendly to anyone. He was quiet and performed his function--casting spells and collecting magical items to increase the party's chances when we'd head down into the dungeon. Back then, there was only the one dungeon. Out there in the Hills. We called it the Dungeon of Doom. Each week we'd explore a little further. Our band in hot competition with two or three other adventuring companies going down the same hole and trying to beat the others to the best of the loot.

One of the other companies was run by my brother, Morgan. He was a nutty one, a paladin, as dim-witted as he was brave, I thought back then. He and two other knights actually went into that dungeon on warhorses! Oh, he hated me then, and hated Shandar too. He was always trying to get whatever we were looking for, for the sole reason that we were looking for it--not because he wanted it himself. I could tell you some stories. Morgan's got a patch of land and a castle on the other side of the Hills now that he calls a barony. Lost an arm, I heard, but lives with his wife and son....Happy, I hope. Probably happy. He's competing against himself now, and not with me or my company.

There was another company, run by a centaur...I forget his name...Those were crazy times. Had the most beautiful woman who rode his back. A thief...funny, I don't remember her name either.

Today, all companies have a charter, the rules laid down on parchement, agreed to, and signed off on...but in the old days it was more of an implied code of honor. Shandar and the rest of us had a falling out over the terms of the company policy regarding freelancing...working on your own time either by yourself or with some other company.

This was long before the founding of Bug Tussle, we were living in Voonlar in those days, exploring the Dungeon of Doom whenever we got far enough ahead to afford supplies. We all were hurting for funds then, and Shandar really wanted to build his own tower somewhere remote. He needed a fortune. He was approached by another company of adventurers, seeking his skills as a magic user for a one off hire in order to explore and map deeper in the Dungeon than he'd gone with us. They'd found some evidence of a real important set of artifacts down there.

Shandar didn't even discuss it with us, he just agreed and went with that company without telling any of his companions in The Hopeful Seven. No one is exactly sure what happened on the adventure, except that Shandar returned with several artifacts of great power. The original intention of the excursion was merely to map the dungeon for future exploration, however the discovery of the artifacts changed everything. He screwed that new company that hired him, he screwed us, and if you ask me, he screwed himself in the process.

In the chamber of a lich in one of the lower levels of the dungeon, so the story goes, Shandar discovered The Orb of Omniscience, the Triad of Summoning, and the Triad of Sending. Individually, each is one of the most powerful objects ever created--taken together and used in concert--they are powerful enough to make one as a god to the rest of us.

While the adventuring company who had hired him fought the lich, the evil in Shandar took control of him and he teleported out of the dungeon with the three items, leaving the rest of his employers to meet a certain grisly end. How do I know? A secret that terrible...you can't keep to yourself forever. He told me himself, wracked with the guilt of it. But that guilt wasn't enough for him to do anything about it but keep those items entirely for himself.

He couldn't keep power like that a secret, no one could. When we saw him gaining in power so swiftly without going into the dungeon himself anymore, we got suspicious. We quickly learned of the artifacts as Shandar’s powers began to grow exponentially. When we confronted him about the sudden increase in his abilities and possessions, he confessed to having done some free lance work, though at the time he didn't admit to leaving his other employers to their fate and making off with their treasure.

We argued that he had violated the spirit of the unwritten company charter by working with another adventuring company, and should be fined. In addition, we felt that any items, including these powerful artifacts, still fell under the treasure disbursement clause of their company charter and should be shared with all the members of The Hopeful Seven equally. Shandar, you needn't wonder, disagreed, and said that no provision in the charter excluding outside enterprises had ever been discussed, and that he would never share what he had earned alone. He broke with the company and went off to live in the wild. He seemed pretty happy about that, too. He didn't need us anymore. He didn't need to leave home to get rich. He just had to think of something he might like, ask the Orb if it existed, and if it did, where it was. Once he knew what and where, the Triad of Summoning just brought it to him. You don't find power like that except in evil places, and its because power like that turns you evil pretty quickly. He'd say that's jealously talking, but what would you call it? The hard earned wisdom that comes of experience with evil, I'd say.

In the wild, Shandar realized that if it became known that he had these marvelous items but was without the protection of sturdy sword arms he might fall victim to theft, or worse. As his powers grew, so did his paranoia--knowing in addition to having treasure worth any risk to obtain, the having of the treasure might be perceived as a threat that needed eliminating.

Sure enough, we started hearing word of a powerful sword carrying wizard in a black cloak that was hunting him. Nesha was the name whispered when speaking of him. There was a battle. There's always a battle. Shandar was nearly blown apart by that sorcerer's magical swordplay. In the end, the wizard I'd worked beside for so long was nearly killed, his fancy toys stolen from him, and left to die on the ruins of the tower he was building. But he had no friends any longer, and nothing to buy them with. And he'd unleashed a greater threat than can be imagined.

When he'd recovered, he came to us. Who else could he turn to? He told us of his ill fortune, that this evil wizard Nesha had stolen all his newfound wealth and artifacts, even his spell books.

We felt sympathy for him, of course, but to a one we believed that his poor luck had come from knowingly betraying trusted companions. We refused to help him reclaim his ill gotten gains and informed him that we had already replaced him with you, Alzador.

And that is the last any of us had seen of him before he turned up here...like the proverbial bad penny. Maybe he's learned his lesson, maybe he's trying to make amends for the wrongs he's done in the past, it doesn't matter to me...so long as all the trouble he causes is in the past and stays in the past."