Ras Nsi

Ras (or "Duke") Nsi was one of the seven barae, the Chosen of Ubtao. He was infamous for seeking bloody and violent revenge against the Eshowe tribe of Chult and for the creation of the majority of the undead that roam that land.

"If you are asked to deal with the outcast, remember that he will do anything for Mezro - and that is what makes him truly dangerous."

- Mainu, the bara of River Olung

Description
Ras Nsi dressed the part of a Cormyrean noble, wearing a sky-blue cloak and bearing a rapier. He had soft features, but his eyes supernaturally glowed bright red whenever he became irritable or spoke of his zeal for the city of Mezro.

After the Spellplague, he resembled a yuan-ti malison, with his torso and face wrapped in bandages, and bore a flaming longsword. He additionally wore a set of bracers of defense, and carried a sending stone matched to one carried by his agent, Salida.

Personality
The first impression one might receive when meeting Ras Nsi was that he was decadent and weak-willed.

Nsi, despite his exile, maintained a powerful devotion to both Ubtao and his holy city. He strongly opposed King Osaw's opening of the once hidden city to non-Tabaxi.

Abilities
Like all barae, Ras Nsi was immortal and could not age or grow sick. He had been granted several special abilities common among the Chosen of Ubtao:
 * He could utter a magical command.
 * He regenerated health rapidly.
 * He could detect evil at will.
 * He had improved reflexes and physical and mental resistances.

If within the Temple of Ubtao (within Mezro, from whence he had been exiled), he could also cast the following spells:
 * Remove blindness or deafness
 * Remove disease
 * Cure critical wounds
 * True seeing
 * Forbiddance
 * Restoration

In addition, Nsi had been granted a special power that ultimately made him the most powerful of all the barae; he could animate the dead at will.

After he was stripped of his status as a bara, he lost all of the formerly described powers.

Possessions
Ras Nsi controlled a fleet of ships off the coast of Chult, which included the stolen Cormyrean galleon, Narwhal.

Nsi lived in a literally moving palace. The four-towered mansion, complete with low defensive walls, stained-glass windows, waving banners, and white stone, was built upon a massive platform carried by twenty-four gigantic skeletal tortoises. By the late 1480s, the palace had been abandoned, as it had been ruined by rampaging undead.

Ras Nsi wielded a flaming greatsword, a flame tongue blade, in the late 15 century DR.

Activities
Ras Nsi controlled a massive army of undead, including dinosaur skeletons and dwarven, goblin, human, and pterafolk zombies. These zombies served as his slaves, and he sent bands of them around Chult to collect taxes from the villages to fund his crusade.

Under the guise of the "Refuge Bay Trading Company", he also raised money to fund his goals by the sale of slaves and lumber to the other countries of Faerûn. This latter activity resulted in the destruction of great spans of rainforest. He made use of earth elementals and dinosaurs to uproot and transport the large trees. The slaves and lumber were taken to Refuge Bay and shipped using his personal fleet.

Ras Nsi would sometimes trick adventurers into raiding dwarven mines to steal their gems as another source of income.

Nsi had many spies in Chult, such that it was difficult to enter the country through any of its main ports or visit any of the larger villages and avoid his detection.

Nsi believed that his army would be used to serve and defend Mezro, the city he still loved, despite his banishment from it. He bided his time, assuming that when a future disaster would come to Mezro the other barae would call him home to aid them. If this failed to occur, he would simply attack the other six barae and take control of Mezro for himself, expelling all outsiders from the country.

History
Ras Nsi was one of the seven original Chosen of Ubtao, and by 1372 DR, he was the only one of the original barae still alive. However, it should be noted that this was partly because he had been resurrected several times.

At the end of the great civil war between the Tabaxi and Eshowe tribes, so great was his zeal to protect his city, Nsi began a crusade to slaughter every last Eshowe in punishment for their attack on Mezro. For this, he was exiled by the other six barae.

In 1360 DR, a figure claiming to be Ras Nsi stole the egg of the female Topaz dragon Kraxx, and hid it within his volcanic lair located on an island near the coast of Chult, believed to have been the Mother-of-Mists. Upon having been confronted by a group of pirates hired by the dragon, the individual claiming to be Ras Nsi transformed himself into the shape of a Blue dracolich and confronted the pirates, chasing them out of his lair, whereupon the dracolich was attacked and slain by the larger Topaz.

When the city of Mezro was "destroyed" by the Spellplague, it was assumed that Ras Nsi was destroyed along with it, as the barae were prophesied to crumble to dust if ever the city were annihilated. In truth, when the Spellplague started, the barae used their magic to shift the city into a magically constructed demiplane transporting the buildings and its citizens to it and creating false ruins to misguide those searching for the city. Bara Alisanda Rayburton and the naga Saja N'baza theorized that it likely wouldn't return to Toril until Ras Nsi died.

However, this was not the case&mdash;Ras Nsi instead joined a yuan-ti cult dedicated to the return of the primordial Dendar, later being transformed into a yuan-ti himself and taking leadership of the cult. He allied himself with the Oerthan lich Acererak to help him achieve this goal.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Tomb of Annihilation
 * Novels
 * The Ring of Winter
 * Video Games
 * Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms