As Regent of Thay and the supposed leader of the Eight Zulkirs of the Red Wizards, Szass Tam is a powerful force of evil in Faerun.
Szass Tam is the Zulkir of Necromancy, the leader of the Red Wizards of Thay, and by extension the Supreme Regent of Thay as well. Hey, being at the top of a Magocracy has its perks. And being an undead monstrosity who devours the souls of the living to continue an unending, immortal life has even more perks.
But who really is the supreme lich of Thay? Do any now remain who remember the mortal? Or are they, like his greatest secrets, scattered forever upon the desert winds of Thay?
Szass Tam – A Dark Dawning
Portentously enough, Szass Tam was born in 1104 DR, also known as the Year of the Dark Dawn. This puts the birth of Tam around 400-ish years before the current timeline (which is set around 1501 DR), and little enough is known about the man before he shed his mortality.
This is in part because he built much of his power under a false name, Tarloth Narmandur. He sponsored adventuring companies to bring enchanted items, only to destroy them when they were on the verge of becoming dangerous. As a young Red Wizard, he accumulated magical power and trinkets and elixirs and all the usual power grabs that an ambitious Apprentice would do.
Success
But Tam succeeded where many others failed. He led a group of his comrades against one of their masters, the Vampire Zulkir known as Nyressa Flass, slaying her to become the Zulkir of Necromancy. As the ascendant master of Necromancy, Tam proved to be far more practical than his peers. He would not sneer at using others’ enchanted items to bolster his own power in magical duels, a fact that kept him alive when he hurled an entire necklace of fireballs at the Zulkir of Evocation in a duel.
But before long, Szass Tam’s mastery of Necromancy led him down the even darker path of Lichdom. In an invasion of Rashemen, Tam suffered mortal wounds on the battlefield, and his own magics preserved his essence, and fueled his transformation into a lich.
Then began his true rise to power. Around the year 1201, or just three hundred years before the present, Szass Tam and two of his fellow Zulkirs planned an invasion of neighboring Aglarond. When it failed, Tam slew one of the other Zulkirs; both eliminating competition and cementing his rise to the top of the Red Wizards in Thay.
Tam’s pragmatism led him to ally with a rogue Harper, feeding the ambitious Rundorl Moonsklan information on his rivals. Rundorl used Tam’s information to slay other Red Wizards, gaining prestige among the Harpers, while Tam used the Harpers’ actions to secure his power among the Red Wizards. Eventually, Tam betrayed Rundorl, turning whole undead legions of Harpers back against their fellows in a war that has left bitter enmity in the mouths of the Harpers to this very day.
Schemes And Dreams
Over the next hundred years, Szass Tam became the defacto power in Thaymount. Those who opposed him were either destroyed or sent far away. He had put down several attempts to unseat him from the throne, and by 1377 Tam was unopposed. Or if not unopposed, at the very least, unable to be defeated without costly efforts.
And then the Spellplague struck. The tide of chaotic magic that swept over Faerun was devastating to any wielder of arcane magic. In Tam’s case, it nearly cost him his life. However, he escaped a magical disaster. He eventually summoned the Lord of Tyranny, Bane himself, to bargain for knowledge of the strange magic of the Spellplague. Tam agreed to give up his soul after 1,000 years in exchange for the arcane knowledge. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
By the year 1432, Tam had absolute control over Thay. Now, Tam has been focusing on reestablishing his power in Thay. The Magocratic Nation has been through some lean years, and lost many living Wizards. While their undead ranks are bolstered, it seems as though Tam has been spending time rebuilding the armies of Thay.
And where they cannot replenish living soldiers and spellcasters fast enough, undead and demons will have to suffice. What the future holds is uncertain; but whatever it is, Szass Tam’s ambitions will continue to be a plague upon the world.
The problem is that Szass Tam keeps having to reconquer Thay!
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Source: Bell of Lost Souls
