Muls were a sterile demihuman race of human–dwarf hybrids native to the desert world of Athas.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
Etymology[]
The word "mul" was derived from an Athasian Dwarven term, mulzhennedar, which translated into Common as "strength." Pronunciation of "Mul" varied throughout the Tyr region, with some common pronunciations including mool, mull, or derogatorily mule.[2]
Description[]
The mul body inherited its height from its human parent, with the average adult standing around 5′8″‒7′0″ (1.7‒2.1 m) tall and weighing around 250 to 300 pounds (110,000 to 140,000 grams),[2][5][6][7] with particularly large and strong muls exhibiting the latter weight.[6] Due to a high metabolism, muls had wide, lean, muscular bodies with very little in the way of body fat.[4][5][6] They often had broad shoulders, thick arms, and powerful thighs. Female muls, though not as heavily muscled as males, were equally tall and athletic in build.[2]
Their overall appearance was more similar to that of a human than a dwarf,[2][4][5][6] though taller.[2] They were distinguished from Athasian humans by their small pointed ears[2][4][5][6] that ended in subtle tips, stern facial features that reflected their dwarven heritage,[2] prominent brow ridges,[4][5][6] and a complete lack of body hair[2][4][5][6] regardless of sex. Due to this last factor, the majority of muls were bald,[2][4][6] with a small few able to grow top-knots of dark hair.[2]
A menacing escaped slave mul sporting a top-knot.
Muls had skin that was as tough as an Athasian gith's hide[7] and a light skin tone, sometimes copperish in coloration[2][4][7] or deeply bronzed, with eyes that ranged from green-gold to honey-gold in coloration. They were often fond of tattoos, favoring simple geometric patterns reminiscent of dwarven motifs.[2] Most muls who lived at any point as slaves had their heads and bodies decorated in tattoos that served to denote their occupation, who owned them,[2][6] and their training,[2] or if they were a gladiator it served to denote how many victories they'd had in arenas.[2][6]
Personality[]
Due to the dreadful conditions in which they typically were born and raised on Athas, muls often exhibited gruff personalities,[4][5] pragmatism, and little remorse or sympathy for others.[2] Many had their daily thoughts consumed by malice and hatred over their lot in life,[5][3] becoming violent misanthropes[2] that leaned towards evil.[3] However, some, having found ways to work the slave pits in their favor and earn the favor of other slaves, didn't view their lives so harshly.[5]
Muls who managed to escape bondage often handled social situations better,[3] but most remained wary of strangers,[4][3] often finding it difficult to open themselves up to trusting or befriending others.[2] They might be paranoid that any non-mul they encountered could be a bounty hunter seeking to return them to slavery. And though other muls were trusted more than other races, they were still treated with suspicion.[4]
Abilities[]
Due to their mixed parentage, muls were a hardy, very strong, and adaptable people. Their incredible endurance inherited from dwarves[4][5][6] allowed them to work harder than most other demihumans and for greater periods of time.[5]
Like many creatures on Athas, muls were also naturally psionic.[3][4] About three-fourths of all muls were wild talents, only exhibiting one or two psionic abilities, while one-fourth possessed a wide array of psionic talents under the disciplines psychokinesis or telepathy. Common psionic powers possessed by muls included conceal thoughts, contact, control body, inflict pain, invisibility, levitation, mind blank, mind thrust, telekinesis, and thought shield.[4]
Combat[]
An irate manacled mul slave strikes back at its captors with a large stone.
Those living outside of bondage on Athas typically wore leather armor and carried a small- or medium-sized shield, both likely taken with them from an arena if they had escaped from that life, and fought with a long sword. Other commonly used weapons included flails, maces, polearms,[4] warhammers, greatclubs,[1] and most rarely short swords. While these weapons were typically made of bone or stone, it was not unlikely to encounter muls carrying obsidian or even metal weaponry.[4]
Muls typically favored being gladiators, fighters,[2][8] dedicated psionicists, thieves, or even clerics or druids.[8]
Society[]
Muls had no distinct, unified culture or racial identity of their own,[2][3][5][6] nor their own language.[8]
The majority of muls in Athasian society were slaves to tribes, to the nobility of city-states, or to merchant houses, having been born into the life in their slave pits. As slaves they worked as either gladiators in arenas or as laborers,[5][6][9] the latter typically taking the form of combat training, construction, mining, and quarrying.[5] They were highly valued for both professions because of their raw strength and great endurance,[2][5][6] to the point that slavers often pampered those who performed well in arenas and jealously guarded them,[5][6] even going so far as to pay bounty hunters highly for the retrieval of a runaway.[6]
Some muls on Athas did live free lives, having either won or purchased their freedom,[2][9] escaped bondage or even more rarely been born free, such as in dwarven villages.[6] Free muls generally did not gather together into communities or villages of their own,[5][6] but sometimes formed small clans[4] or tribes,[1] the former typically consisting of two to seven individuals who likely escaped from bondage together. Such wild clans tended to settle in the rocky barren areas of Athas, near where the deserts and plains of the Tablelands met.[4]
Free muls often found ready employment as mercenaries,[2][9] guards of a noble family, or the sentries of a merchant house.[9] But if a mul slave had run away from their captors, they rarely ever entered city-states, lest they be captured and face a public execution.[4]
Diet[]
Like other demihumans, muls were an omnivorous race. However, wild mul clans were often forced into a largely carnivorous diet because of the scarcity of plant life in the areas where they tended to settle, occasionally even resorting to attacking and eating other humanoids.[4]
Languages[]
Though muls did not have a distinct language of their own,[8] they typically knew Athasian common,[2][3][6] being taught it in the slave pits, and any other language they knew was likely learned from other captured slaves.[3] The other language commonly known by muls was Athasian dwarven.[2]
Relationships[]
Wild muls typically had animosity with Athasian thri-kreen, as thri-kreen tribes sometimes hunted them down.[4]
History[]
Muls had existed on Athas as far back as humans and dwarves were in contact, but did not achieve significant enough numbers to be considered a distinct race until the Sorcerer Kings began breeding them in large numbers as a slave force.[6][5] The Sorcerer Kings had hoped they would make for the perfect race of soldiers, but they quickly abandoned the idea of mul armies after it became apparent they were hard to control and quite independent in nature.[6]
In The Year of Despair, Malatran calendar, late 14th century DR, a group of heroes of the Living Jungle were sent from the Malatran Plateau through an elemental gate to the faraway world of Athas. Immediately upon arrival, the group was captured by Athasian elf slavers.[10] A young Athasian thri-kreen named Ka'cha was among creatures captured by the elves, and he lamented being separated from his clutch.[10] Subsequently, the heroes escaped when the elven caravan was attacked by a hungry sink worm. They seized the opportunity and freed Ka'cha, fleeing from their pursuers across the desert.[11]
After two days of travel across the hot sands, guided by Ka'cha, the group stumbled across his tribe, the Windrunners, and their leader, Ki'rik'ku. Ka'cha convinced them that the strange adventurers were friends, not food. Happy with one of their number returned, chief Ki'rik'ku gifted the aliens four large erdlu eggs (an invaluable source of nourishment in the Athasian desert) and two apples of healing. The thri-kreen then explained to the Malatran heroes how to reach the Ringing Forest, which was their way back to Toril.[12]
While on the way to this forest the adventurers came across the Lost Oasis, a village built around an oasis by a clan of around fifty muls and led by a famous ex-gladiator mul, Miralte the Wolf.[13] The Malatran heroes, being unfamiliar with muls, mistook them as Nubari with broad builds.[13][14]
Appendix[]
Trivia[]
- Notably, prior to being introduced in Baldur's Gate the character of Minsc was originally a mul ranger from the city-state of Gulg instead of a Rashemi,[15] played by Cameron Tofer in a real pen-and-paper campaign that was run by lead designer James Ohlen,[15][16] set in a version of Athas where Toril was the pre-cataclysm state of the world and Gulg was situated where the nation of Rashemen used to be.[16]
Appearances[]
Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
External Links[]
Mul article at the Dark Sun Wiki, a wiki for the Dark Sun campaign setting.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Richard Baker, Ari Marmell, Chris Sims (August 2010). Dark Sun Creature Catalog. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-0-7869-5494-0.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26 2.27 2.28 Richard Baker, Robert J. Schwalb (August 2010). Dark Sun Campaign Setting 4th edition. Edited by Michele Carter, Greg Bilsland, M. Alexander Jurkat, Ray Vallese. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-7869-5493-3.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 David Noonan (May 2004). “Dark Sun: Player's Handbook”. In Matthew Sernett ed. Dragon #319 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), pp. 27–28.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 Tom Prusa, Louis J. Prosperi, Walter M. Bass (1992). Monstrous Compendium Dark Sun Appendix. Edited by C. Terry Phillips. (TSR, Inc.), p. 59. ISBN 1-56076-272-1.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 Bill Slavicsek (October 1995). “The Age of Heroes”. In Dori Hein ed. Dark Sun Campaign Setting: Expanded & Revised (TSR, Inc.), p. 17. ISBN 0-7869-0162-4.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 Bill Slavicsek (October 1995). “The Wanderer's Chronicle”. In Dori Hein ed. Dark Sun Campaign Setting: Expanded & Revised (TSR, Inc.), pp. 26–27. ISBN 0-7869-0162-4.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Troy Denning & Timothy B. Brown (January, 1991). “The Wanderer's Chronicle”. In William W. Connors & J. Robert King ed. Dark Sun (boxed set) (TSR, Inc.), p. 16. ISBN 1-56076-104-0.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Bill Slavicsek (October 1995). “The Age of Heroes”. In Dori Hein ed. Dark Sun Campaign Setting: Expanded & Revised (TSR, Inc.), p. 8. ISBN 0-7869-0162-4.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Troy Denning & Timothy B. Brown (January, 1991). “The Wanderer's Chronicle”. In William W. Connors & J. Robert King ed. Dark Sun (boxed set) (TSR, Inc.), p. 20. ISBN 1-56076-104-0.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Tom Prusa (September 2002). Dark Suns. Living Jungle (RPGA), p. 9.
- ↑ Tom Prusa (September 2002). Dark Suns. Living Jungle (RPGA), p. 13.
- ↑ Tom Prusa (September 2002). Dark Suns. Living Jungle (RPGA), p. 14.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Tom Prusa (September 2002). Dark Suns. Living Jungle (RPGA), pp. 18–19.
- ↑ Tom Prusa (September 2002). Dark Suns. Living Jungle (RPGA), p. 11.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Six Siders & Space Hamsters (Web). (2017-12-28). Archived from the original on 2023-07-09. Retrieved on 2023-07-19.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Developer Journal: Baldur's Gate II, pt. 3 (Web). (1999-12-24). Archived from the original on 2002-02-17. Retrieved on 2023-07-19.
Connections[]
Related Races
Athasian dwarf (Mul) • Azer • Derro • Duergar • Durzagon • D'tarig • Korobokuru • Maeluth • Ysgardian dwarf