Who was Uvae?

[Havard]

Uvae Khundun


Uvae Khundun was one of the first dwarves to arrive in the North. He was a Cleric of Hemgrid and accompanied Uberstar Khazakhum to the North on the dwarf-lord's quest to find a new realm for the dwarves. Uvae had a special care for miners and those who were digging the deepest tunnels in the dwarf realm became his flock. He would preach to them and keep their spirits high even if they worked under the most harsh conditions deep underground. There are many risks in the life of a miner and Uvae used the healing gifts bestowed upon him by Hemgrid to aid the workers. On one day while the workers were digging a tunnel deep beneath the Crystal Peaks, the entire earth shook.

Uvae saw the tunnel beginning to collapse in front of his eyes. The miners found themselves trapped in a dome-like room. Then the earth shook again and the ceiling of that room was also about to collapse. Hundreds of dwarves were about to be killed. In this moment he called out to Hemgrid for aid. And the divine magic flowed into the tunnels as if protective hands covered the miners. As the dust settled, they saw that all the miners had survived except for one. Uvae was dead. he had given his life to protect the others. To this day, miners pray for Uvae's blessing.

Behind the scenes:
Uvae's Durable Dome is a 4th Level Clerical Spell in the Miner's Sense Domain (DAB CS p 95). Ferros, Hemgrid, Kadis, Kela are Deities who supply this domain.

Some other considerations:
* Uvae means grapes in latin.
* Ovum is latin for Egg.


Notes: Placing Uvae's life at the time of Khazakhum's expedition would allow us to connect it to the Age of Id.

Has anyone come across other references to Uvae in the D20 Blackmoor line?



Edit: Thanks to Ripvanwormer and MrFilthyIke for sparring with me on this topic on FB.


-Havard

[Havard]

Interestingly, Uvae is one of a few items ZGG specifies in their books to be ZGG IP, along with Skelfer.

-Havard

[Rafael]

Just saying, "Uvae" is homophonic to the fairly common German first name "Uwe". My guess would simply be, that's his name, and people went creative about the spelling. After all, Dwarves being proto-Germans is a pretty common trope in fantasy RPGs - though I don't remember how ZGG treated Dwarves in Blackmoor, in that respect.

[Havard]

Just saying, "Uvae" is homophonic to the fairly common German first name "Uwe". My guess would simply be, that's his name, and people went creative about the spelling. After all, Dwarves being proto-Germans is a pretty common trope in fantasy RPGs - though I don't remember how ZGG treated Dwarves in Blackmoor, in that respect.

Great

I suppose there are many reasons why Dwarves could resonnate an early Germanic culture. Probably not the least the association to the Niebelung Ring.

The name Uvae does not appear in the typical names lists of any of the D20 Blackmoor races, but I do like the idea of him being a dwarf, not the least because of his association with Miners. Is this the first appearance in D&D history of a Divine/Clerical spell named after a person? Wizard spells are often named after their creators, but this seems to be less the case with Cleric spells.

I find it interesting that Uvae would be named along with Skelfer as specifically being ZGG property. Was this a character ZGG had greater plans for, but which never came to fruition?

-Havard

[Rafael]

I find it interesting that Uvae would be named along with Skelfer as specifically being ZGG property. Was this a character ZGG had greater plans for, but which never came to fruition?

Not sure about the rest, but as to the legal implications, it would technically be possible to create and sell works derivated from the d20 line. (The same way that, say, Neil Gaiman was allowed to reuse characters in different comic book lines from different companies, that Gary Gygax beheld to the Zagyg property, that Janet Morris could use her Stepsons IP, that Ray Feist could borrow elements from Tekumel, and that Tracy Alley got away with novelizing her Mystara campaign.) Now, my personal guess is, the respective copyright would have to be contested on a case-by-case basis, and that something not having been brought to court yet is not necessarily a proof of it being legal. Also, as past, high profile lawsuits about similar topics have seemed to prove, two parties going to war about IP can be a tedious process. Speaking as a fellow media guy, I would not go down that path if it could be helped.

Now, looking at the cases when this has been done recently, it's usually been cases in which common sense dictated that it would be legal; as in, when the characters existed prior to the contractual regulation, or when the IP dispute was marginal to the product's individual identity.


As to Blackmoor, and ZGG, I would have liked to see the line continue, even though I didn't really like what I saw of AotW. Even if it's six years after its demise, the books, while sometimes a bit random, were pretty good work, especially when compared to other d20 projects. If at some point we'd get a Blackmoor Apocrypha, well... Why not?