Calim

Calim was the noble djinni lord who founded the Calim Empire in what is now Calimshan. For millennia his body and mind were split and imprisoned in the Calim Desert.

Description
There are no records describing Calim when he had a physical form. His manifestation within the Calim Desert was known as "Calim's Breath".

Calim's Breath was a low, mournful tone on the winds, or a whispering breeze, or a thundering boom in a storm. However, on rare occasion, when Calim gathered the remnants of his magical power together, he could shape the clouds or dust with wind and appear in the form of a 50-foot-tall genie.

Personality
In his solid form, Calim was a tactical genius and innovator. He saw his rule as that of an artist. Every city and battle plan was seen as a masterpiece in his eyes. For this reason he was slow and calculating in all of his plans both civic and military.

Abilities
In his disembodied and imprisoned form, Calim bore a strong resistance to spells and magical effects, apart, of course, from the elven high magic that was binding him. He could create water as rain, cast advanced illusions, create gusts of wind, control the weather, and grant the ability to walk on wind to others. He could also focus his power into the form of a 250-foot-tall whirlwind.

Possessions
One of the most powerful possessions held by Calim was his magical scepter. The scepter of Calim was a golden, club-like rod of metallic fire. Calim sacrificed the artifact in the Shattering. (See below.)

A vast collection of Calim's treasures were said to be stored in the Altar of the Air in the ruins of Dashadjen. The delusional mummy priestess El Sadhara guarded those treasures and had pledged to return them to Calim upon his return.

The majority of Calim's riches, however, were hidden in an extradimensional palace located in the Forest of Mir. These were guarded for millennia by an ancient crystal dragon named Klaruuotur and several djinn.

Family
Calim was known to have had at least one queen and two twin sons. They survived Calim's defeat and slept in temporal stasis within the same palace in the Forest of Mir where Calim's treasures were guarded, awaiting his release.

The Great Arrival
Calim arrived in Faerûn, in a region around what was later Calimport, in approximately -7800 DR, bringing with him a massive following of genies and halfling and human slaves. This group was collectively called the Djen, and the event was known as the Great Arrival.

Calim's reasons for coming to Faerûn are unknown, nor is it certain whence he came. Some scholars claimed the Djen came from the Elemental Plane of Air, while others claimed he came from Zakhara. Some legends told that Calim had been a former slave to wizards on another world and escaped to Faerûn with those he freed from bondage.

The Calim Caliphates
Regardless of the reasons for immigrating, within a few months, Calim's slaves had built the city of Calimport. Other cities followed shortly thereafter&mdash;such as Dashadjen (a garrison city), Teshyll (where Calim's impressive Harem Palace was located) , and Keltar &mdash;and by the end of the year the Calim Empire, also known as the Calim Caliphates, was founded. The Empire grew quickly over the next thousand years, clearing trees south of the Marching Mountains and driving out the giants and dragons who once lived there. The Calim Empire soon became the first civilization on Faerûn populated primarily by humans. By -7690 DR The Empire reached as far north as the River Agis and as far east as the Alimir Mountains, at which point it stopped expanding due to agreements made with the elves and dwarves.

The Dragon Wars
In -7790 DR, dragons had sacked and burned Calim's capital of Calimport. In retaliation, in what was known as the Dragon Wars, Calim slew every dragon in the Marching Mountains, leaving them free of dragons for 6,000 years. He also drove the remaining giants away.

The Steam Clashes
During the Dragon Wars, a number of genie nobles defected from the Calim Empire to form their own kingdoms. Of note among these was the marid kingdom founded by Ajhuu, located between the River of Ice and the Alimirs and with its capital city of Ajhuutal. When Calim returned home from his war with the dragons in -7687 DR, he was enraged to discover this betrayal and declared war.

These battles became known as the "Steam Clashes". Calim slew two of Ajhuu's lieutenants in the Alimir Mountains, the marids Haj and Luar. The magical destruction caused in these fights supposedly led to the creation of Azure Falls and the Maridflow river.

By -7684 DR, Calim had still not managed to defeat Ajhuu, however, so in that year, he resorted to using powerful dao magic and sacrificed the artifacts he had used to bring the Djen to Faerûn to utterly destroy the city of Ajhuutal with a great earthquake. This magic was so powerful that it destroyed hundreds of square miles of his Empire, forming the inland bay southwest of the Alimirs and creating what would later be called the Spider Swamp. This catastophic event was known as "The Shattering"

The First Era of Skyfire
In -6800 DR, another genie entered Faerûn by magic who would become Calim's archenemy, the efreeti lord Memnon. Memnon founded the kingdom of Memnonnar north of the River Agis, and for a few hundred years, many skirmishes between the djinni and efreeti armies occurred before open war erupted by -6500 DR, beginning what was known as the Era of Skyfire.

Over the next 400 years, a series of 22 major battles took place between the two genie-led armies. The centuries long war destroyed the nearly every city of Memnonnar and half those of the Calim Caliphates as well as the lush farmlands that once existed in both empires.

The Night of Binding
This all ended in -6100 DR due to actions taken by the elves. On Ches 4, at the 22nd battle of the Era of Skyfire, the Battle of the Teshyllal Fields, at the site of the ruined city of Teshyll, the two genies unleashed the full power of their armies and magic and set the fields ablaze. Then, unexpectedly, the elf High Mage Pharos appeared. Calling on the ancient power of elven high magic, he enacted a spell that split Calim and Memnon's bodies from their consciousnesses. Memnon's mind was sent into the ground, while Calim's was sent into the air. Their bodies&mdash;and those of a hundred other genies&mdash; were entrapped and fused together into a more-than-sixty-sided gem, now known as the Calimemnon Crystal.

In this way, Calim and Memnon were each imprisoned in two places at once. Still with some level of will, the two disembodied genies continued to fight for millennia, and this perpetual, magical battle, where neither could ever reach the other nor the gem where their bodies were encapsulated, formed the Calim Desert.

Within the Calim Desert, the Calimemnon Crystal was itself protected by a magical structure, the Spinning Keep of Siri'wadjen. This 70-foot-wide structure hovered 40 feet above the desert floor, had twelve sides, and was made from crystalline stone of the color of pearl. Neither Calim nor Memnon could penetrate the keep to reach the crystal within. If ever they did, they would be freed. The crystal was considered to be one of the most powerful artifacts ever to have existed in Faerûn.

The Second Era of Skyfire
During the Spellplague, the Calimemnon Crystal shattered, freeing Memnon and Calim and beginning the Second Era of Skyfire.

Appearances

 * Star of Cursrah