Editing Banewarrens (section)

==The Exposition==
Ptolus is on the world Praemal, a prison-planet for eeevil like the world of ''[[Midnight]]'' and, more to the point, the Land in Stephen R Donaldson's ''Thomas Covenant'' series. As such, should something Bad get in Praemal or ''form'' in here, the locals cannot fling the dead cat into some other plane's yard. Destroying the Bad would, if Bad enough, let loose Bad energies which might just spread Bad around, to infect something else.

Herein, Donaldson's "bane" concept: it's something Bad that you haven't the time and will to flush down whatever toilet passes for Mount Doom here. It's magical nuclear-waste.

One enterprising paladin named Danar [[derp|figured]], let's sweep all this Bad under a thick magical rug and lock it up with magical wards. And let's do this under my own castle, Mosul Pearl. Danar convinced enough idiots to go along with his inane scheme, and thus the Banewarrens were born. But then the banes seeped their maleficent energies throughout the cavern-network, interconnecting into a "Banemight".

The Earth herself cried out in pain (metaphorically) and tried to eject all this crap (literally), but Danar's wards were too good so it all rose up in an unnatural spire. Danar's wards did pretty well at keeping the Banemight in, too... until it started trickling into Planes Man Was Not Meant To Know. Danar was seduced by these forces and became a bane himself, Eslathagos Malkith; his castle got renamed "Jabel Shammar" like the badlands of Saudi Arabia. (Why all the Arabic? Monte probably just thought it sounded cool.) The sequence of events is contested: ''Ptolus'' says Spire first then Malkith, as here; ''The Banewarrens'' in reverse.

There was a war - which Malkith ''né'' Danar lost, some various other stuff happened, and now it's the present day and the wards are failing.

There's some mild retconning, in that the 'Warrens in the module are 500-1000 years old but over 8000 in the later [[Ptolus]] book. As Monte revised the setting, he'd decided to make Malkith's legacy the [[Elder Evil]] thereof.

Oh, and ''The Banewarrens''' last chapter and the near-last part of the penultimate chapter ''do'' allow the party to bugger right off this prison for some other plane. Probably, again, because Monte hadn't finished; he'll throw some provisos around these exits in ''Ptolus'', 61-2. By that point, the party is in a concentration of baneful might - so the DM might allow it anyway. They'll probably end up in a demon's S&M dungeon, and back home the eeevil - the Galchutt - stand a good chance of learning about the exit.

Uh oh.

{{spoilers}}