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Thursday, January 18, 2018

Blacksand without Lord Azzur

What would happen to Port Blacksand without the venerable Lord Azzur?  

Everyone knows that he leaves the port once in awhile to go off pirating.  But what if he died? From doing a bit of brief reading on Lord Azzur it seems he may have made a pact with a devil to stay alive.  That in itself could be a interesting adventure.  How do you take out Azzur?  It seems that he swore allegiance to the Night Prince Zanbar Bone , who is not a villain that you can just fight straight up.   Fighting him is a matter of choices and decisions.  (as per the lore). 

So to take out Lord Azzur, one must destroy Zanbar Bone first.  Of course Azzur would probably be aware of the death of the demon and make some precautions.

This alone could be a very interesting adventure. 

But what if all of that already happened?  What would happen to the "city of thieves"?

I think it would be an all out turf war.  Not akin to a excellent mafia movie.  Intrigue and death.  It seems that most of the thieves guild is organized into one main version, which is probably ruled indirectly by Lord Azzur in some form.  Obviously like in any criminal enterprise there are people who want to move up the ladder.  The death of Azzur would probably cause the entire guild to fold, and create mass chaos in Blacksand (not that there isn't already). 

The "heroes" could be out in the trenches fighting with rebel faction of the broken thieves guild.  Assassinations would be even more common place than they already are. 

At some point, there would be a break in to the palace.  Maybe the heroes would be met with Zanbar, or the lich version of Azzur?  I'm sure there would be more than one group of thieves wanting to get into the palace.

Who would be the important figures left over in the ashes of the thieves guild to rise up and start their own versions? 

Would the pirates just skip town? Would they join in.

The whole idea would be super interesting.  A already chaotic city thrown completely into the void. 

I hate to quote star wars but blacksand is Mos Eisley!  

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." "You don't need to see his identification."

The fall of thieves guild quest ideas: 

1.  Meet with a former higher up in the original guild to discuss plans for a take over of the city. 

2.  Return the body of Lord Azzur to Fire Island, meet with the shade of Zanbar to bring him back from the dead.  Then take the city back! 

3.  Assassinate all rival leaders and factions. 

4.  Spend time in the streets recruiting thieves to your own guild. 

5.  Infiltrate the palace

6.  Steal Lord Azzur's boat. 

I'm sure I will come up with a few more twists and tables. 

In the original adventure for AFF, there are plans to try and take back the city.  Source

Port Blacksand is at the centre of the plot of the role-playing game Advanced Fighting Fantasy set on the world of Titan. There, the evil wizard Xortan Throg, a descendant of the rulers of Carsepolis, strives to regain the domain of his ancestors by overthrowing Lord Azzur and taking over Port Blacksand (which "replaced" Carsepolis). He stroke and alliance with the corrupt prince of the city-state of Chalice to gain enough military strength to invade the City of Thieves, but was thwarted by a group of adventurers.

However, this defeat was just a setback for Xortan Throg, who was in fact based in the ruins of Carsepolis (the sewers of Port Blacksand) and preparing his attack from within. Throg was building an army of the local Fish Men and the dead city guards, which he raised from the grave, and stroke deals with pirates under Lord Azzur's nose.


But the adventurers did not give up on defeating the wizard. They ventured in Port Blacksand and, with help from Arakor Nicodemus, pursued him into the ruins of Carsepolis. They then stroke a deal with the ghost of the evil priest Sargon and following his advices, they obtained on a Crystal of Power in the sunken temple of the Ocean God Hydana. Xortan Throg confronted the adventurers and cast a Death Spell at them, only for the Crystal of Power to reflect it back at him and put an end to his ambitions.

I found a few links on Azzur, some of them cover the same material, but its worth a read if you are interested. 

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_Varek_Azzur

http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Varek_Azzur

http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Zanbar_Bone

http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_Azzur%27s_Palace

http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=211&Itemid=37



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