Ialenar

Ialenar is a Varran bonelord who has the form of a whirling storm of bones. Skilled in magic, it has developed its own arcanum, which it continually works on broadening and empowering, taking advantage of its incompatibility with other arcana to produce enchantments that are nearly impossible to cancel. Ialenar has used its arcanum to produce bizarre minions unlike any other creature on Varra.

Appearance

Ialenar is a pleotic entity comprising a myriad of floating bones and bone shards, whirling around in a vast osseous cloud averaging some two or three hundred meters in diameter. The individual bones don't necessarily stay a part of the bonelord for long; it does frequently release bones from its being, but for every bone or bone fragment it yields it incorporates another, keeping its total mass more or less constant.

Through most of Ialenar's volume the bones are relatively sparsely distributed, only slightly occluding visibility and little impeding passage, though the moving bones can still stab, cut, or bludgeon people within the cloud and do damage. Parts of the cloud, however, are considerably denser; in particular, floating within the cloud at most times are four huge, skeletal hands with skull-like faces in their palms, made up of smaller bones like those in the rest of the cloud but clustered much closer together. Like the rest of the cloud, Ialenar's hands are not really the constant features they appear to be, but are continually changing their individual components. For all practical purposes, however, they behave as solid objects. Ialenar even speaks through the mouths on the palms, though not often. While Ialenar is not actually limited to those particular features, but may create more floating appendages if it wishes, it rarely chooses to do so.

Powers

Most of Ialenar's powers come from the new arcanum it has developed, a system called alakal. Alakal is a subtle art that involves coördinating multiple separate influences and principles, but it is an art that Ialenar has perfected, as to a lesser degree have the most capable of its servants. Conscious of the advantage it has in wielding a type of magic unfamiliar to others, Ialenar guards the secrets of alakal jealously, and never reveals the full extent of its power.

Ialenar did possess magical powers before it developed alakal, however, and has not lost those powers by developing new ones. Ialenar commands power over electricity, and can deliver powerful electrical shocks or blast foes with lightning. It rarely uses these powers nowadays, favoring the diversity of alakal, but some of its servants remain electricity-based.

Servants

Ialenar has a huge variety of servants, the weirdest of which are the products of its unique powers of alakal. Some of its minions, however, date from before that development, such as the nune, which resembles a cloud of sparks and bone dust, and the erasil, a thing like an oversized hand (though not as oversized as the floating hands of Ialenar itself) that walks on spidery legs made of electricity.

Stranger are the creatures Ialenar has created since it came up with the arcanum of alakal. The tchorum is a cylindrical thing that slides over the ground with no visible means of propulsion, its top sporting an everchanging appendage. The dionde is something like a floating squid made of bone and orbited by pulsing osteal orbs. The monost is like a gigantic single bone with its surface inscribed by continually altering glyphs. The orean has the form of four hollow spheres made of bone, their sizes and relative positions variant.

Domain

Ialenar calls the part of the deathfields that it rules the Cays. Floating above the surface, Ialenar has created a large number of shees, each no more than a few hundred meters across, but plentiful enough to dot the skies of the Cays in numerous layers. Being artificially created relatively recently, the shees of the Cays are free of the élan crystals that dot the rest of the world.

Still, the Cays also include a good part of Varra's surface that does have élan crystals, and Ialenar, hungry for more magical learning, has not neglected their study. In fact, it has spread its dominion into several world crystals, using its custom arcanum to shape the crystal worlds inside to its whims. It may even be that Ialenar has found a way to create its own crystal worlds, though this remains dubious.

Personality and goals

For the moment, Ialenar seems to be focused mostly on furthering the development of its own arcanum, alakal. With the passage of time, this arcanum becomes more powerful and versatile, and Ialenar's power grows. If Ialenar has some specific end in mind for this project other than just its general increase in magical might, it has kept it a secret, but that general increase in might could well be reason enough.

Ialenar does retain some interest in other magics, however, and in particular has a penchant for the collection of potent talismans, the most prized of which it keeps on the highest shees where they're the hardest to reach. It has even managed to acquire a number of eximia, some of the most notable of which are the Carmine Rod, the Halberd of Ruin, and the Thamestone.

Some of Ialenar's agents lately seem to be making observations of the floating castle of Thamarand. It seems certain Ialenar has some plans involving the castle, but whether he intends to attack Thamarand and plunder its mysteries or to ally with it remains to be seen. It's entirely possible that Ialenar is still considering both courses of action, and awaits more information before it makes a decision. The apathy of Thamarand's current leader, Carron Shanmar, suggests he would be of limited utility as an ally, but however little he has chosen to do so far with the powers at his command, enough latent power remains in Thamarand to make its conquest a difficult proposition.