Arianis

  A few years after the Dragon left the world a powerful sorcerer transcended the mundane plane and rose to great power. He changed into a huge, leathery-winged demon and called himself the Lord of Ash. At the same time, a skilled warrior by the name of Arianis learned magick, but followed the preserver's path, and in time the two battled. Arianis won the fight, driving the Ash Lord from the mundane plane, but it took such a great amount of power from him, that he fell into a magickal sleep deep beneath the sands.

Several hundred years later, the Lord of Ash returned to the mundane plane to seize power. His arrival somehow awoke the sleeping Arianis, and after a short time, the two fought again. This time the Ash Lord created large numbers of undead that slew everything they came across. Arianis's power was stronger, too, and after a spectacular night-long battle in the skies of the Tablelands, the Ash Lord was once again driven from Zalanthas.

A third time, after the passage of more than five centuries, the Lord of Ash found a way to return to Zalanthas. He found a promising defiler named Vesarius (or Vesar) and gave him the gift of immortality. In exchange, Vesar captured and slew people in the Ash Lord's name, and with each sacrifice the demon gained more and more power. Finally, Vesar was defeated by a large war party led by a dwarf named Thao. But this only sparked the final step in allowing the Ash Lord to re-enter Zalanthas.

Only ten years later the Lord of Ash found his way back to the mundane plane, but his arrival once again awoke Arianis. The Ash Lord brought with him powerful allies known as mephits. These creatures were various sub-elementals that the demon had corrupted and twisted into hideous forms. Arianis spent many weeks recruiting allies to help fight the demon, and finally found his allies in a mul named Aldane, the whiran Alkyone, and the gypsy tribes led by Belya. After weeks of small fights, the two sides clashed in the desert far south of Allanak. The battle has since been known as the Battle of the Salt Flats, where nearly a hundred gypsies fought against some two-to-one odds against the Ash Lord's troops. As the battle raged around them, Arianis, Alkyone, a vivaduan named Enaias, and the powerful sub-elemental named Marit performed a ritual that permanently turn the Lord of Ash to stone. However, the power of the ritual was gained by the sacrifice of Arianis's life.

 Not long before his death, Arianis and Belya thought they could somehow avoid his demise by temporarily 'storing' Arianis's soul inside Belya's gwoshi mount. When his body was brought to the mount, Arianis's soul reinhabited his body. But this lasted only a few minutes. The magick Arianis tried to use was unstable and his soul was forced to flee his body.

Arianis still exists, but for all intents is a ghost. On rare occasions he will visit Belya as a sort of spiritual guide, but has no power to interact with the real world.