Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mahavira 12-26-07, 06:05 PM	Like most of us, I am generally dissatisfied with the paragraph or two typically devoted to X in Eberron in various sourcebooks. Elder Evils is no exception. Thus I thought that with the combined brainpower of these forums, we could probably manage to make the various ancient horrors and attendant plot elements a bit more Eberron. Atropus: I must confess my first instinct is to say Atropus is the 13th moon, the one bound to the mark of death. During the age of demons, it orbited the planet much as the other moons, but the sacrifice of the Coatl and creation of the silver flame gave off so much positive energy, the negative energy-charged moon was knocked out of orbit. In the countless years since then, the moon has attempted to return to its place, but a celestial realignment has occurred since its expulsion and it has no place (or at least not the one it thinks it does, hence coming too close and ultimately risk of collision). The mourning served as a beacon, and the 13th moon now knows the way home. Caira Xasten was a Cyran soldier who had the luck to be in a prisoner of war camp (your choice as to which country) when the mourning struck, killing every member of her family. Like many Cyrans, she could not accept the destruction of her homeland and all that she knew, and she soon decided upon a scapegoat: the nation that held her prisoner. Unlike most Cyrans, her mad perseverance has brought her to a means of revenge: the 13th moon, and a spell she thinks will replicate the Mourning in the homeland of her enemies (apocalypse from the sky). Gorguth the bleak general: here I am somewhat torn. I like the idea of the Lord of Blades for this, armed with some artifact from Xendrik that allows him to command large numbers of undead. As Atropus nears, and his sign grows strong, the Mournland shall give forth its dead, and who better to direct them in the obliteration of the breathers than the LoB? He may even have assisted Caira in her research into Apocalypse from the Sky, as a second mourning serves the LoB, creating another area where his people can 'live' without difficulty but the hated breathers cannot. Alternately, Gorguth could be a risen general from the Last War who takes charge of the zombie legions. As a final bit of fun, perhaps the only way to really stop Atropus is to somehow get Erandis d'Vol back in a living body, so her dragonmark can serve as a focus to shift the moon to something resembling a normal orbit. Or perhaps the moon's proximity makes her dragonmark work properly even though she's undead. Some key cites for the campaign: (I've only got one, but am open to suggestions) 1) the boneyard: as Atropus' sign nears, the boneyard may awaken. Perhaps the PCs must battle Gorguth/LoB's minions and somehow ward the site to prevent thousands of skeletal dragons from joining his army.
mahavira 12-29-07, 06:05 PM	Kyuss, the Worm that Walks The book suggests Kyuss could be the result of a Rajah possessing or somehow fused with a mortal necromancer. Myself, I prefer Kyuss as an epic level necromancer from the Age of Giants, a believer in the philosophy that eventually became the Blood of Vol. The connection to present day Eberron is Colonel Edwin ir'Tolstoff, former Karnnathi army necromancer and member of the Order of the Emerald Claw. Originally involved in fouler than usual necromantic experiments at the height of the war, he was sent on a special assignment to Xendrik to find the source of some of the fragments the Karrns were using to create Spawn of Kyuss, Uligastras and the like and he found himself on Wormcrawl island, and with the personal attention of the greatest necromancer in Eberron history. He returned to his homeland and continued the experiments with Kyuss undead, but eventually his new form was discovered, as was the unusually difficult to control nature of the Kyussite undead (they obeyed Edwin because he was all but the avatar of Kyuss, other necromancers, not so much) and he eventually ended up walled into a crypt in his family castle and his projects disbanded and covered up. The campaign would then take something of a Full Metal Alchemist feel, with 'abandoned' facilities being operated by corrupt branches of the military, division within the Emerald Claw (to some, becoming a worm that walks is a greater step towards immortality than becoming undead, as the component worms are actually alive, leaving you with loyalists to vol and progressives who follow Edwin), and control of the army slipping out of Kaius' fingers as warmongers use various Kyuss related undead as the spearhead of a new assault on Aundair or Thrane.
Hellcow 12-29-07, 09:39 PM	The book suggests Kyuss could be the result of a Rajah possessing or somehow fused with a mortal necromancer. Really? Cool. I haven't had a chance to read Elder Evils yet, but this was the explanation I used for the Age of Worms adventure path - Kyuss being the incarnation of the rajah Katashka. Given that I didn't have anything to do with EE, I'm pleasantly surprised to see the continuity with the AP conversion. (Not to try to stop you from from following a different path!)
AvonRekaes 12-30-07, 12:08 AM	Kyuss being the incarnation of the rajah Katashka. Yeah, they even mentioned Katashka too (calling the merged overlord/mortal "Kyuss-Katashka"). I'm actually suprised you didn't have anything to do with him being mentioned.
mahavira 12-30-07, 01:21 AM	Really? Cool. I haven't had a chance to read Elder Evils yet, but this was the explanation I used for the Age of Worms adventure path - Kyuss being the incarnation of the rajah Katashka. Given that I didn't have anything to do with EE, I'm pleasantly surprised to see the continuity with the AP conversion. (Not to try to stop you from from following a different path!) The things you learn when you hear from people in any way involved with Dungeon magazine. I keep hearing tantalizing things about Savage Tide and Age of Worms, but I get neither Dungeon nor Dragon so I end up having to take the base concept and make my own version. I never really thought of Rajahs being particularly necromantic (it strikes me as more a preoccupation for creatures that actually die), so the rajah incarnation idea didn't really ring true. Had I known it was the idea of the setting creator, I'd have given it more consideration. Even so, I think I like the idea of it being a necromancer from the age of giants better, as described in the book Kyuss seems more like a mortal descending the steps of perdition than a merger with an older and fouler being.
Hellcow 12-30-07, 11:17 AM	I never really thought of Rajahs being particularly necromantic (it strikes me as more a preoccupation for creatures that actually die) The rajah Katashka isn't interested in necromancy; rather, he is the embodiment of death and undeath. The Overlords of the Age of Demons are the manifestations of concepts that mortals fear - death, madness, rage, and so on. Just as Tiamat embodies the evil that lies within the hearts of dragons without truly being a dragon herself, Katashka embodies death and the fear of death though he himself cannot die. The basis for Kyuss being a human of Sarlona - as opposed to, say, a Qabalrin elf (the antecedants to the line of Vol) - was twofold. The first is that it isolates him. Qabalrin culture accepted necromancy, and as such nothing would drive Kyuss away or turn him against his people. The second is that it placed him on Khorvaire - driven from Sarlona because of his foul research, yearning for vengeance against all. Again, this approach was something I originally developed for the Age of Worms adventure path, which was set in Khorvaire; it brings the threat closer to home instead of placing it off in distant Xen'drik. Driven from Sarlona, he sought a greater source of power with which to take vengeance on life itself - and this set him on the path to his unholy merger with Katashka, the embodiment of death and undeath. Again, no reason you have to follow this - but this was the basis for the approach I took.
mahavira 12-30-07, 12:10 PM	The rajah Katashka isn't interested in necromancy; rather, he is the embodiment of death and undeath. The Overlords of the Age of Demons are the manifestations of concepts that mortals fear - death, madness, rage, and so on. Just as Tiamat embodies the evil that lies within the hearts of dragons without truly being a dragon herself, Katashka embodies death and the fear of death though he himself cannot die. The basis for Kyuss being a human of Sarlona - as opposed to, say, a Qabalrin elf (the antecedants to the line of Vol) - was twofold. The first is that it isolates him. Qabalrin culture accepted necromancy, and as such nothing would drive Kyuss away or turn him against his people. The second is that it placed him on Khorvaire - driven from Sarlona because of his foul research, yearning for vengeance against all. Again, this approach was something I originally developed for the Age of Worms adventure path, which was set in Khorvaire; it brings the threat closer to home instead of placing it off in distant Xen'drik. Driven from Sarlona, he sought a greater source of power with which to take vengeance on life itself - and this set him on the path to his unholy merger with Katashka, the embodiment of death and undeath. Again, no reason you have to follow this - but this was the basis for the approach I took. Thanks for the insight. For understandable space reasons, you rarely get more than a paragraph of X in Eberron in sourcebooks, and this fills out a lot over the fairly bald "fusion of an ancient necromancer and the Rakshasa overlord Katashka". On a completely unrelated note, I wonder if a "Demons of Eberron" sourcebook about the rajahs, lords of dust, hags, demon wastes and khyber might not have been a good idea (obviously with a title less likely to draw censure). As it happens I also intended that my pseudo age of worms campaign concept take place in Khorvaire, with only a side trip or two to Xendrik for research purposes: Edwin already brought a lot of Kyuss' lore back home and it's been festering in Karrnathi black ops for decades. I also intended Kyuss to have been a giant, not a Qalabrin elf (perhaps one of the masters of the elves who eventually came to be Qalabrin, and some of his teachings could have formed the basis of their philosophy). As to Kyuss being isolated and exiled, in ancient china the confucian and legalist schools were always exiling and censoring each other whenever one or the other was ascendant. He happened to be the wrong giant at the wrong time (the war with Dal Qor, for example, might have been a great time to start making undead who neither sleep nor dream, or an unusually bad time to be shaking up the established authorities and potentially compromising the empire's ability to fight the nightmare invaders), and instead of being hailed as a visionary, he got stuck in an obelisk on wormcrawl island.
Hellcow 12-30-07, 02:22 PM	In ancient china the confucian and legalist schools were always exiling and censoring each other whenever one or the other was ascendant. Certainly. In fact, the Eberron Expanded article on Libris Mortis specifically says that feuds between rival Qabalrin factions resulted in many of the ancient lichs and vampires being sealed in prison-tombs. Again, the difference to me is that I like Kyuss' pursuit of necromancy to be something that is in direct conflict with his culture as a whole - that he essentially seeks vengeance on life itself, in a way that is utterly abhorrent to his people. While there were certainly feuding schools of thought among the Qabalrin, the practice of necromancy itself was understood and accepted. This wouldn't prevent a Qabalrin sorcerer from seeking greater power than his fellows, seeking to dominate them with new techniques, or what have you - but he's still among people who will understand the fundamental principles of his work. I like him as the loner whose only allies are the children he creates. But again, nothing wrong with the alternate approach. In point of fact, I've been talking about the Qabalrin, who are elves as opposed to giants. Per existing accounts of the Qabalrin, the neighboring giants were supposed to have shunned the Qabalrin and considered their necromantic practices to be abhorrent. Thus, a giant necromancer who pursued this knowledge would in theory be equally shunned. So if your Kyuss is a giant as opposed to an elf, you're on equally solid ground. To a certain degree, I like Kyuss as human just because most of the great magics DO come from the Age of Giants; I like to give some credit to the mages of Ohr Kaluun and the sorcerers of Corvagura as well. You don't have to be a giant or an elf to be cool. ;)
mahavira 12-31-07, 01:38 PM	Thanks again to the mighty hellcow for your input. Back to the elder evils themselves. Ragnorra: I think this one works best as the other shoe dropping. The first half of the campaign, all the way up to faint sign, should revolve around the plots of the Children of Winter hatching some grand scheme to bring about a "cleansing" winter. Once the mad druids have been put to the sword, the PCs discover to their horror that the Children were right. Ebberron IS out of balance, and Ragnorra's spores have begun infecting the world (the Daelkir are responsible for fewer abominable creations and ruined worlds than originally thought). Cue the malshapers: freed from persecution by the Children of Winter (possibly even rescued by PCs at some point), they begin their wretched work to bring the Mother of Monsters to land on Eberron. When Ragnorra has finally come and been defeated, the PCs are left with a terrible dilemma: do they hope that Ragnorra was the worst/only consequence of the world's imbalance, or should they take up where the children of winter left off, and bring Winter to the lands? 10 years later in gameworld time, a new set of 4th edition PCs begins their quest to thwart the heroes of yesteryear...
Bocamb 01-01-08, 07:23 PM	I'm enjoying Elder Evils, but I don't like the suggested uses for some of the entities either. Here's another option for making Father Llymic work with Eberron: Father Llymic is one of the first rajahs to be imprisoned by the couatls during the Age of Demons. His glacial prison is located in Risia, the plane of ice. Whenever Risia is coterminus with Eberron every 5 years during the midwinter month of Zarantyr, Father Llymic (whose true name the dragons and the elves know to be Llymixsquarn) exerts his influence on the local populace near the manifest zone, appearing as an elderly man and beckoning individuals to follow him (further into Risia). Of course anyone who follows the old man is ultimately transformed into one of his brood. As the rajah gathers its young to his bosom, he is slowly chipping away at the planar boundaries between Risia and Eberron. The PCs begin the campaign by exploring the mystery of Clan Noldrunhold and unraveling the fate of its former inhabitants. The party could be hired by House Kundarak, or possibly a man claiming to be an heir of Noldrunhold (Llymic in a new guise) who has gathered sponsorship for an expedition into Noldrunhold. Having rediscovered the descendants of the Frostfell dwarves in the Iron Root Mountains of Khorvaire (who fled his influence on Frostfell thousands of years ago), Father Llymic has begun calling his children home. It is Father Llymic who is responsible for the emptying of Noldrunhold 400 years ago, and it is his brood that are now populating Noldrunhold’s desolate dungeons. Llymic's influence in Noldrunhold (now an ever expanding manifest zone of Risia) threatens to swallow Khorvaire from the heart of the Ironroot Mountains, beginning with the Mror Holds (a variant on the Dead Sun Sign). The rajah’s influence on Eberron allows the party to explore Noldrunhold (levels 5-10) before stumbling into and out of Risia all over the face of the world. Of course the Jhorash’tar Orcs of the Ironroot mountains are also being drawn into Noldrunhold’s deep dungeons and into the embrace of Llymic, providing plenty of savage encounters with volatile barbarian tribes not yet transformed into brood but every bit as savage and cruel. The PCs discover that Llymic’s claiming entire shifter tribes across the Tashana Tundra of Sarlona (levels 11-15). Frost giant clans roaming across Everice on the continent of Xendrik are now being warped into aberrant brood-brutes (levels 16-20). And another attempt by the Aundairian crown to populate Desolate’s derelict halls in the Demon Wastes with Cyran refugees in the wake of the Last War will provide Llymic with a particularly spiteful brood. From Desolate, the party sees the impending signs of Llymic’s return as the Cold War tensions of the Last War threaten to plunge Khorvaire into chaos once rival nations recognize the potential benefits of an extended coterminus period with Risia. Kaius’s warlords (manipulated by Vol) are making persuasive arguments to the king about the strategic benefit Risia’s coterminus period provides for undead troops unhampered by the cold. Meanwhile the Lord of Blades has been training his troops to cope with the impending cold in order to capitalize on the fact that his men don’t eat – but the fleshbags do. As famine strikes from the harsh winters, the Lord of Blades begins striking at Breland and Thrane from Mournland. And on Risia (which is growing more and more coterminus with Eberron), as Llymic’s family grows, his glacial prison slides closer and closer toward the heart of Khorvaire and it is only a matter of time before his hold on Eberron is complete. The heroes must stop Llymic from spawning a new Age of Demons while Cold War tensions across Khorvaire heat up by rushing to the glacial tomb of the rajah to put down the fiend once more…
Hellcow 01-01-08, 07:52 PM	Interesting. I still haven't seen Elder Evils, but the funny thing is that I created a rajah bound in the Frostfell - the Heart of Winter - for a piece that was planned for Dragon but ended up slipping through a hole in the schedule. Bocamb, the one thing that strikes me as slightly odd in your adaptation is the idea of a rajah being imprisoned on another plane. In my opinion, the rajahs are primal spirits of Khyber. What makes them immortal is that they are bound to the essence of the plane itself; in a sense, they ARE Khyber. As such, with the story you've woven, I'd be more inclined to make Llymic a malefic spirit of Risia itself as opposed to an exiled rajah; after all, the Xoriat incursion shows that inhabitants of other planes do occasionally try to reach through the barriers. Another possibility would be to make it the essence of an ascended white dragon. The dragons say that the Sovereigns are ascended dragons; if they are correct, and it is possible for dragons to transcend mortality, Llymic could be a dragon who sought godhood but was imprisoned in Risia by his enemies. Of course, I don't know anything about Llymic, so this make no sense at all... and beyond that, your story is fine as it is. I wouldn't put a rajah in another plane, but hey, that shouldn't stop you or anyone else from doing it. So lest I come across as being too negative, bravo to both you and Mahavira for coming up with new ideas for people to work with!
Bocamb 01-01-08, 08:14 PM	Bocamb, the one thing that strikes me as slightly odd in your adaptation is the idea of a rajah being imprisoned on another plane. In my opinion, the rajahs are primal spirits of Khyber. What makes them immortal is that they are bound to the essence of the plane itself; in a sense, they ARE Khyber. I want the rajahs to be tied to Khyber also. In my head, I rationalized the placement of the rajah in this way: when the couatls gave up their lives to imprison the rajahs, some of their magical abilities "bonded" with the world itself in the sacrifice. Traveling deeper into Noldrunhold, the halls become coated in ice that is chipped into what appears to be snake-like scales. I would imagine that the passage is in fact the fossilized remains of a sacrificed couatl and that the passage to Risia is a materialization of the couatl's plane shift ability. In my mind's eye, I imagined hundreds of couatl's coiled around the "limbs" of the rajah's avatar during the Age of Demons (that last time the rajah was on Eberron) all of them plane shifting simultaneously to bind the demon's darkness to Risia. Speaking of which ... Hellcow, if you ever get the chance, I would love to know more about the couatls and their role in the Age of Demons and the modern world of Eberron. And I should also confess that I was riffing off of your explanation elsewhere - I believe in your adaptation of "The Savage Tide" adventure - that Khyber could have pocket dimensions or demi-planes. I see the passage to Risia in Noldrunhold (and elsewhere) as an analogous sort of thing. Indeed I've toyed with the idea that the 13 planes came into existence as a byproduct of the Age of Demons...
Hellcow 01-01-08, 10:36 PM	I would imagine that... the passage to Risia is a materialization of the couatl's plane shift ability. Good idea! The ability of the couatls to move across the planes is something that hasn't been explored in depth. And I should also confess that I was riffing off of your explanation elsewhere - I believe in your adaptation of "The Savage Tide" adventure - that Khyber could have pocket dimensions or demi-planes. I see the passage to Risia in Noldrunhold (and elsewhere) as an analogous sort of thing. That seems reasonable. Speaking of which ... Hellcow, if you ever get the chance, I would love to know more about the couatls and their role in the Age of Demons and the modern world of Eberron. I don't have the time right now, but it's certainly a subject I'd like to address. I was glad to be able to touch on the Age of Demons in a little more detail in Dragons of Eberron, but that really only scratched the surface.
Garandene_Lyrandar 01-12-08, 02:37 AM	How about using the mourning as an elder evil? I don't have the book so I am not sure how it would work but its worth a shot.