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treehouse916 03-04-06, 03:37 PM

About a year ago, I started this thread (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=428019) regarding my take on the Day of Mourning. I know a bit more about the setting now than I did when I first posted the thread, so I'd like to go back to the original ideas and flesh them out some more now. I'll quote the relevant passages: 1) Cyrans fear that the Last War will finally consume their nation entirely. Top Cyran officials secretly commission a top-notch magic defense system from House Cannith. (992 YK) This would actually be much earlier than 992 YK, as a project of that magnitude would take more than two years to complete in secret. Also, is it realistic to assume that elements of House Cannith in Cyre might be more loyal to their country than their house? I'm not thinking many, just a small team of them that Queen Dannel would know to contact for 'special operations', meaning technology that she doesn't want sold to Cyre's enemies. But they'd also have to be the Einsteins and Oppenheimers of their generation to pull this off. One of my PCs is in this category - he's a Cyran-born scion of Cannith (unmarked) who places his loyalty with Cyre-That-Was, not House Cannith; he hasn't even maintained contact with House Cannith since the Day of Mourning, when he was presumed dead along with so many others, and he is using a false identity while he searches for the perpetrators behind his country's destruction. His real name is Amalien d'Cannith, but he goes by Morgan Ironwright for now. 2) Servants of the daelkyr (Cultists of the Dragon Below) learn of the defense system. They infiltrate the artificer team working on the project. (992 YK) Alec d'Cannith, a famous artificer responsible for some of the greatest (and most terrible) inventions of the latter years of the Last War, is also Morgan's old mentor. He seemed like a good man, and Morgan believes he died on the Day of Mourning . He's wrong, of course; Alec lives somewhere underneath the Mournland with some of the other surviving cultists and daelkyr-spawn. 3) The Cannith artificers finish the defense system's main component (for now, Eldritch Machine A), which is placed underneath a government building in the capital. The system required a large amount of power to operate, so they developed an arcane power generator (Eldritch Machine B) made of a complex pyramid of dragonshards and placed it deep underground. Unbeknowest to the Cannith team, the Cultist mole had corrupted the project. He made subtle but powerful connections from Eldritch Machine B to another eldritch machine (Eldritch Machine C), deep in the bowels of Khyber. Eldritch Machine C taints the power source provided by Eldritch Machine B, but it is hard to detect without turning the defense system on. (993 YK) Gotta start thinking of some details for these eldritch machines. I like the idea of machine A, B or both requiring lots of dragonshards, because that could be a good lead for Morgan. Dragonshards are rare enough that someone would notice House Cannith buying them up all of a sudden. Also, Morgan already knows that at one point Alec (who he was working for as an apprentice the year before the Day of Mourning) WAS developing some sort of arcane power generator made of dragonshards, but he believes it was sold to House Kundarak to help power some sort of defensive grid in the bank at Sharn. Investigation into this will show that Kundarak is more than satisfied with their existing defenses, and did not commission any special projects from House Cannith during the latter years of the Last War. I'd also like to change the locations of the eldritch machines - A (the main component, which projects the defensive field outward) was placed in Making, while B (the generator) was placed in Metrol. C (the corruptor) remains deep in Khyber, at the bottom of the Glowing Chasm. 4) The Cannith artificers place small beacons (similar in appearance to conductor stones) all around the borders of Cyre. This activity is noticed by some scouts from other nations, but it is disregarded as a more mundane defense (magic landmines, anyone?). (994 YK) Not so sure about this one. I'd like some logical reason why the Dead-Gray Mist stopped at Cyre's borders on all sides rather than spreading throughout all Khorvaire, but this seems kinda weak. Any ideas? 5) Armies from Thrane, Breland and Darguun are seen heading towards the Cyran borders. With the defense system completed, the Cannith artificers decide to test it. They warm it up, and it seems to work well in lower power settings. However, one member of the team working alone from the location of Eldritch Machine A notices that there is a strange fluctuation of power moving through the conduits. Powerful fields of abjuration are being pushed out to the border markers as normal, but several other auras are detected as well. He shuts down the main component and begins investigating. However, the Cultist Mole arrives on the scene just as the artificer discovers the hidden connection to Eldritch Machine C. They struggle, and the Mole eventually kills the artificer. Meanwhile, the armies of four different nations clash in an epic battle not far from the location of Eldritch Machine A. The Mole manages to get Eldritch Machine A powered up again, and the defense system is completely powered up. The corruption of the defense system is suddenly apparent to the other artificers, but they cannot shut off the machine. They watch helplessly as their project falls apart, and the madness of the daelkyr takes form in a nation-spanning arcane disaster unheard of since the fall of Xen'drik. (20 Olarune, 994 YK) I bolded places where I made changes to the original text reflecting the reversal of locations for machines A and B. As I said, I've decided that the cultist mole is Alec d'Cannith. Not sure if I want to change anything here, except to add that the power generator (machine B) has been continually absorbing tainted energy from machine C. At a time not yet specified, this process will be completed, and Alec will be ordered by his daelkyr master to take the machine out of the Mournlands (see below). 6) The next day, the chaotic destruction subsides somewhat, and the terrible reshaping of Cyre is apparent. Of particular note here is that where Eldritch Machine B is, now stands the Glass Plateau. The ground has opened up where Eldritch Machine C is located (or rather, above where Eldritch Machine C is located) and that place is known as the Glowing Chasm. If anyone cared to look, they would notice that there are still tenous lines of magic energy flowing between The Glass Plateau, the Glowing Chasm, and the ruined city of Metrol. If this triangle were noticed by explorers in the Mournlands, they would have their first clue as to what happened to the nation of Cyre. So, the machines are still running. If they can be shut down somehow, the ongoing effects of the Mourning will disappear soon after. Of course, Cyre will still be a desolate wasteland full of freshly decaying corpses, tainted monsters and so on, but a few years of intense groundwork by arcanists, druids and most importantly, the PCs, may make the place suitable for living again. Later in the campaign (probably at the start of the high levels, so 14th-16th), Morgan will be contacted by his long lost mentor, Alec. He will 'confess everything', which is to say he will tell Morgan that the Day of Mourning was a catastrophic accident resulting from House Cannith experiments that he was at the head of. He will beg Morgan to go to the ruins of Making in the Glass Plateau, so that eldritch machine A can be shut off. As soon as Morgan and company do this, Alec and the cultists will load eldritch machine B into an old-yet-fully-functional lightning rail that has been sitting unused in the ruins of Metrol since 994 YK. Alec has made special arrangements with another cultist cell that has infiltrated House Orien, and there will be no other lightning rails running on the route from Metrol to Korth that day. I'm stealing right out of Batman Begins for this next part, but that's okay. Once the lightning rail approaches Karrnath, the cultists will turn on eldritch machine B again, but this time, there will be nothing containing the energy or projecting it to certain places. It simply projects its tainted power out in all directions. Using the rail routes, the machine will be quickly moved around to all of civilized Khorvaire, so that the taint can be spread more quickly. If no one stops them in this short time period, the Five Nations will be completely destroyed. So, nitpick please :D This is, of course, just a rough draft, so I'm sure there are plenty of errors, inconsistencies, and logical loopholes, but I'd like some help weeding them out. One thing I noticed immediately is that the current lightning rail route wouldn't allow this, since the destruction of the White Arch Bridge prevents rails from crossing Scion's Sound into the western nations. I've already made a big deal about a proposal by House Orien to rebuild the White Arch Bridge, but both King Kaius of Karrnath and the Council of Cardinals in Thrane are against this. I would have to move that story along (maybe with the help of the PCs) before all of this. But I've got several in-game years to do that.