Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Bert 03-21-05, 03:10 AM	Question first, background info second as it is quite longish. At the end of our last adventure the group unwittingly released a Daelkyr, what next? Background: The group consists of a Warforged Fighter, Human Artifacer and Kalishtar Psionic Warrior. A Npc Cleric rounds out the group. A while ago I ran the first Eberron adventure that was published in Dragon. The group kept the amulet with the map of Xen'drik on the back. They finish thier business, and end up passing the amulet off to a contact they made at Morgrave University to see what could be discovered about the amulet. Once everyone gets into Sharn the Cleric goes off to the temple. A week after staying in town, a knowck at the pcs door begins a search for the missing cleric. During the search they find the corpse of the cleric that had been dead for about a week. They also find out that someone looking like the dead cleric picked up the amulet from the university 2-3 days prior to the discovery of the body. The university gets a copy of the amulet to the pcs that they made from a mold before giving the original to the "Cleric." The Pcs rush off to Xen'drik intent on getting to the location on the map. On thier way they come across a camp set up for 5 and find 4 dead bodies. When they get to their destination they find an area with effects similar to the Mournlands, bodies do not decompose dead and dying vegetation. Healing work but after a delay of a few minuets. They enter what looks like an old temple, and on thier way up to the top they find they body of the 5th member of the group with the original amulet. The group move up to the top and finds an eldrich machine. They put the amulet in a matching slot on the machine and follow the inscription. The machine comes to a stop. Then the Pcs take a few minuets to make sure the machine can never be restatred again. On thier way out, from a passage that the pcs did not explore, a Daelkyr. The daelkyr after a bit of conversation, activates his madness aura everyone fails. The two pcs with the amulets the original and copy, roll on the confusion chart and they must flee. The artifacer tells me that in order to get as far away as possble he goes and opens the door out of the temple. And the Daelkyr walks out. I made it obvious to the charecters that they coiuld fight and die for no good reason or they could just open the door. Everyone had fun, and they all have long term charecter goals. :) I was thinking that the machine was drawing energy from the surounding area to keep the daelkry enprisoned, it just had a side effect of producing a "lite mournlands effect." After the game, the artifacer was thinkinh out lound when he wondered if there were other such prisions in the mournlands. Any ideas would be apreciated. If anything needs to be clarified let me know its late. Thanks
zambuka 03-21-05, 07:10 PM	Hmmm.. a Daelkyr imprisoned in Xen'drik. There must be an interesting story behind that since their invasion occured mostly in Khorvaire. Figure out the back story to this and I guarantee that the rest will start to fall into place. The Daelkyr is now free, he would probably first seek to set up in more civilised lands ie Khorvaire. Then he would restock his supply of symbiont weaponry. This is where the PCs come in, they can race the Daelkyr to various powerful symbiont items and either destroy them or keep them for personal use. Once he has a base of operations he would likely gather some entertainment and toys (read as kidnapping and torture) and start making more abberations. He may seek others of his kind (unlikely), or maybe seek a way to re-open the way to Xoriat. That prison seemed pretty easy to open up. Perhaps there is a way to draw the Daelkyr back in and reseal this prison. The PCs could take trip to Darguun to find some ancient texts to find out exactly what they are dealing with. Find out about some ancient artifact that was taken from the Daelkyr's prison. Replace the artifact to strengthen the prison but they have to first trick the Daelkyr into returning.
Demon in Shades of Gray 03-22-05, 11:08 AM	Ya know... The Daelkyr are creatures of madness... not necessarily of destruction, torture, and evil. Chaotic? very... but there's plenty of good chaos stuff, too. Madness isn't always evil. For that matter, I think the Daelkyr's alignment should be changed to Chaotic Neutral. That said, who's to say he won't do something completely unexpected and eccentric? Like open a kitten farm, transform into a harmless breed of ooze for a while, or spend some time in a sanitorium conversing in terms he's comfortable with. You never can tell EXACTLY what a mad person will do. I think it'd be even harder to predict the actions of a near deity of madness.
zambuka 03-22-05, 05:39 PM	The Daelkyr are creatures of madness... not necessarily of destruction, torture, and evil. Chaotic? very... but there's plenty of good chaos stuff, too. Madness isn't always evil. For that matter, I think the Daelkyr's alignment should be changed to Chaotic Neutral. Madness is not inherently evil but the Daelkyr are. They are creatures of destruction, just reread the description where it states they make destroying worlds an artform. They may be artists, even musicians but their prefered canvas is the flesh of living creatures. They are creatures of torture, just look at the Dolgrim for instance, it is literally 2 goblins smushed together. It would have been a long and torturous process to make these creatures breed true and the Daelky would have probably revelled in every agonized scream. Sure, a Daelky may stop for a few years to start a kitten farm. But these kittens would probably be hideous abberations that mutate into child eating monstrosities not long after being released into an unsuspecting city. The Daelky will then sit and listen to the symphony of children screaming. Re-read their description. It presents a creature that used chaos to spread its own incomprehesible evil agenda.