Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Syltorian 07-07-07, 08:50 AM	I don't know if this has been addressed yet - a search has revealed nothing (btw, how does one get the Search not list posts where either of the search terms appears, but only those where both are?), so I thought I'd ask. When the Mourning happened, it killed all the people in Cyre, including the various armies that had been invading it or were trying to stop other nations from getting through. It would appear that this did not kill the Warforged who were in Cyre at that point. But how about the Karrnathi undead legions? Did they 'survive' the Mourning, or was their unnatural life-force snuffed out as well? If they made it, did they retreat? Stay and entrench themselves? Continue to fight the Cyran warforged? If they were left standing as the last on the battlefield, this could even be a Karrnathi victory, of sorts. Albeit a Pyrrhic one. But what I'm asking for is this: If an expedition was sent into the Mournland a few days after the disaster, to find out what happened... would they have run across a diminished (officers, apart from Dread Marshals, and the living parts are gone), but still functioning Karrnathi legion?
Edymnion 07-07-07, 11:37 AM	What makes you think the Warforged in Cyre survived the mourning? Its true that warforged have since moved into the mourning, but I don't know any evidence suggesting that any warforged that were actually caught up in the mourning survived.
yrogerg 07-07-07, 11:50 AM	What makes you think the Warforged in Cyre survived the mourning? Its true that warforged have since moved into the mourning, but I don't know any evidence suggesting that any warforged that were actually caught up in the mourning survived. Cadaver Collectors? Warforged Titans? Granted, those two aren't living, per se, but at least IMCs, Warforged somehow were unaffected by the mourning. After all, most of the Warforged fielded in the war *did* seem to come from Cyre, by most of the material I've seen thus far.
yrogerg 07-07-07, 11:59 AM	I don't know if this has been addressed yet - a search has revealed nothing (btw, how does one get the Search not list posts where either of the search terms appears, but only those where both are?), so I thought I'd ask. When the Mourning happened, it killed all the people in Cyre, including the various armies that had been invading it or were trying to stop other nations from getting through. It would appear that this did not kill the Warforged who were in Cyre at that point. But how about the Karrnathi undead legions? Did they 'survive' the Mourning, or was their unnatural life-force snuffed out as well? If they made it, did they retreat? Stay and entrench themselves? Continue to fight the Cyran warforged? If they were left standing as the last on the battlefield, this could even be a Karrnathi victory, of sorts. Albeit a Pyrrhic one. But what I'm asking for is this: If an expedition was sent into the Mournland a few days after the disaster, to find out what happened... would they have run across a diminished (officers, apart from Dread Marshals, and the living parts are gone), but still functioning Karrnathi legion? There's a lot of interesting ideas, here, and being a giant eldritch machine of a disaster, you can really go hog-wild with it: -Perhaps the mourning brought them back to life, in some form, human-looking, but not quite human in form or outlook. -On the other hand, the overriding theme of the Mournland seems to be stasis: spells made permanent as Living Spells, dead bodies that don't decay... So perhaps the undead army was warped to fit the theme. Perhaps they were Petrified, in as sense: Imagine a field littered with statues of an undead army, whereupon a closer look you notice that they are made of the same stuff as the blasted landscape, as though the Mournland simply absorbed them.
Syltorian 07-07-07, 12:02 PM	Hm, I could have sworn I saw a description of warforged simply standing around in the Mournland because nobody was giving any orders anymore. I can't seem to find that, though, now that you mention it. Yrogerg's suggestions of Cadaver Collectors and Warforged Titans are not what I initially thought about, but they are good examples that some things survived largely unchanged. There is also the rumour that the LoB was the commander of the Cyran armies. I admit though thtat it's shaky as a support for the theory that warforged may have survived, as it's a rumour and as, even if it is true, he may have been somewhere outside Cyre. But the question doesn't change much: What happened to non-living things that were in the Mournland at that time? I know novels are not cannon, but in one a deathless seems to have survived, and though she is quite mad, I'm not sure that's entirely because of the Mourning.
Syltorian 07-07-07, 12:09 PM	-Perhaps the mourning brought them back to life, in some form, human-looking, but not quite human in form or outlook. That'd be interesting... even if they are humans. Stumbling back out of the Mournland with no memories of what happened since the last time they died... Hm, could be an interesting NPC or even PC in there, too. -On the other hand, the overriding theme of the Mournland seems to be stasis: spells made permanent as Living Spells, dead bodies that don't decay... Good point, though some things seem to have become warped rather than put into stasis (the Mistlings, for example, as well as a number of aberrations, I believe). So perhaps the undead army was warped to fit the theme. Perhaps they were Petrified, in as sense: Imagine a field littered with statues of an undead army, whereupon a closer look you notice that they are made of the same stuff as the blasted landscape, as though the Mournland simply absorbed them. That sounds great too. Frozen in time. The mists part, and the characters see a battle-ready Karrnathi legion arrayed against them, their banners flapping in the wind, spears of the Phalanx lowered against them. But they don't move, and won't react if anyone gets close (though they cannot be harmed or looted, either). Something like the Terracotta Army, made of flesh and bone... And once the characters have become used to them, spring a small Karrn raiding party on them which have hidden amongst the 'petrified' soldiers (I assume undead can stand pretty still if they want to). That should deter other scavengers from looting the battlefield first.
Hellcow 07-07-07, 01:38 PM	I don't know if this has been addressed yet... Actually, I've run an adventure based on specifically this topic. With that said... It would appear that this did not kill the Warforged who were in Cyre at that point. I don't know if this has been stated in a sourcebook I haven't worked on, but I strongly disagree with this as a blanket statement. In my opinion, the warforged are well-suited to surviving in the Mournland TODAY, because they don't heal naturally anyway and don't need food or drink; as a result, the followers of the Lord of Blades and others have traveled to the Mournland to create new outposts of warforged civilization. But I am adamantly opposed to the idea that the Mourning left all warforged in Cyre completely untouched. It may have left MORE warforged alive than humans (because there were humans who survived as well, as mentioned in City of Towers), but there's no reason it would leave them all alive. The Mourning didn't just affect organic material or living creatures - and even if it did, warforged are both living creatures and have organic material in their bodies. The Mourning transformed magic into matter, twisted soil into glass, and did a thousand stranger things. The only absolute rule of the Mourning is that there was no absolute rule - that it produced a wide multitude of effects on those creatures trapped within, the most common of which was death. I'm willing to run with the idea that a greater number of warforged survived exposure than humans; as I said, a situation like that is the basis of the adventure I just ran. But I'll strongly argue with anyone - Eberron author or otherwise - who says that ANY type of creature - warforged, human, undead, or otherwise - universally survived the Mourning. Certainly not all the warforged of Cyre. I may have had an adventure with warforged survivors, but I've also had an adventurer with a warforged twisted into a monster (and warlock) by exposure to the Mourning - and I've always assumed you could find battlefields with the pitted remains of warforged whose lifeforce was snuffed out (raising the question of whether a warforged corpse could be preserved in pristine condition in the Mournland, escaping the usual "adamantine components decay" issue - although they'd still be lost when you left the Mournland). (As a side note, while they're not true living constructs, in Eye of the Wolf you can see a warforged titan theoretically destroyed in the Mourning towards the end of the comic.)
Hellcow 07-07-07, 01:42 PM	After all, most of the Warforged fielded in the war *did* seem to come from Cyre, by most of the material I've seen thus far. Cyre used more than any other nation, but all of the Five Nations used warforged by the end of the war - even Karrnath had a few. Hence the debate with Thrane over the soul and such. If you read "Steel Shadows", it specifically calls out the fact that you are dealing with warforged of different nationalities.
Syltorian 07-08-07, 07:54 AM	I don't know if this has been stated in a sourcebook I haven't worked on, but I strongly disagree with this as a blanket statement. As I said to Edymnion, I thought it had been published somewhere, but it looks as though I misremembered something. I must have read quite a bit between the lines, somewhere. Bad things to built an entire post on, I assume. :D It helps a lot to know that, though. This way I know I'll have to find other ways, maybe use mutated undead or having the skeletons be an expeditionary force sent in to explore after the Mourning. I believe I'll go with the frozen-in-time suggestion above. On a slightly different note: Given how well-suited Warforged are to live in that blasted landscape, I assume undead must be quite well adapted too (provided they don't need blood to survive). Karrnath could still have an advantage in old Cyre, ironically having their undead be the major bastion against the Lord of Blades. Thanks again all who answered!
Hellcow 07-08-07, 11:14 AM	I have no issue with SOME undead in Cyre surviving the Mourning, Syltorian - All I was saying is I wouldn't make it a rule that they ALL survived. And yes, like warforged, undead who don't require a regular infusion of blood or life energy would certainly have an advantage in the Mournland.
Syltorian 07-08-07, 11:58 AM	I have no issue with SOME undead in Cyre surviving the Mourning, Syltorian - All I was saying is I wouldn't make it a rule that they ALL survived. Understood... I was merely backtracking from my misunderstanding that it only killed living things made of flesh (and some of the landscape, admittedly), and left the warforged alive (if lost, in the absence of orders). But if the undead did not survive as a general rule, those who made it are probably rather disorganised. Of course, nothing can be generalised about the Mourning, and a single, but mostly complete company may have survived. But it seems that finding such a group would be a fairly major event that goes beyond the 'random encounter' and into highly classified military secret or even world-shaking mystery. If it is only rare individuals who made it, they would have to organise themselves first if they want to take control of the battlefield immediately after the Mourning. Karrnathi undead are intelligent, but from what I recall you saying about them, they are not good at innovating. Though, of course, organising themselves into companies with other survivors may be part of their 'instincts' and come natural to them, without thinking. I had forgotten about the surviving humans caught in the Mourning itself. But if I recall correctly - it's been some time since I read that novel - even those suffered quite a lot from the effects. Am I right in assuming that their afflictions are more than "natural" post-traumatic stress disorder, which those who managed to flee will most likely suffer from? If so, it could turn undead mad as well as humans and related mortals, I assume.
Nuclear_Buddha 07-08-07, 08:01 PM	A person could run a "lost fleet" type plot, with a nearly intact army of Karrn undead waiting out in the Mournland for orders that are never coming. The Karrns want it, the Order of the Emerald Claw wants it, the other nations want it neutralized, and so on. To make it a multi-part plot, the army will only respond to a certain set of codes and the last codebook disappeared at sea or something...
(Psi)SeveredHead 07-08-07, 08:13 PM	Didn't the Dreaming Dark trilogy suggest that the Lord of Blades had a forge operating in the Mournland before the Mourning? Those strange, individually-designed warforged that Daine and company saw there (and later forgot about)? The Mournland didn't kill him, nor those three warforged that the party met in Xen'drik, but that incident could have caused one of them to go (more) insane.
Need_A_Life 07-09-07, 05:41 PM	Didn't the Dreaming Dark trilogy suggest that the Lord of Blades had a forge operating in the Mournland before the Mourning? Those strange, individually-designed warforged that Daine and company saw there (and later forgot about)? The Mournland didn't kill him, nor those three warforged that the party met in Xen'drik, but that incident could have caused one of them to go (more) insane. Now, I didn't read Gates of Night all the way through (sorry, mr. Baker, it just got too surreal), but I always understood it as: being a warforged outpost older than the kingdom of Galifar, Quorforged or something. Now, it would be fun to see a Karrnathi unit (like: 1-2 Karrnathi undead, 10-20 skeletons and 1 mummy cleric) entrenched in the "hostile territory" of Cyre, fighting those "d**ned Cyran warforged" Who's to say they ever got word of the Treaty of Thronehold?
The Dreaming Duck 07-09-07, 10:06 PM	Didn't the Dreaming Dark trilogy suggest that the Lord of Blades had a forge operating in the Mournland before the Mourning? Those strange, individually-designed warforged that Daine and company saw there (and later forgot about)? Well, according to The Gates of Night... That forge was being operated by Lei's parents. Are you suggesting that one or both of them is the Lord of Blades? Certainly Harmattan was in that building and survived the Mourning, but he did get transformed from a Pierce-like warforged to a severed head animating a pile of metal chunks in the process.
Yakman 07-10-07, 10:54 AM	On a slightly different note: Given how well-suited Warforged are to live in that blasted landscape, I assume undead must be quite well adapted too (provided they don't need blood to survive). Karrnath could still have an advantage in old Cyre, ironically having their undead be the major bastion against the Lord of Blades. while undead might have a major advantage, i'm not sure Karrnath could translate that into effective power. after all, someone has to be in charge of the skeletons and zombies, and that someone will probably be effected by the Mourning's limits on food and healing.
GimliGloinson 07-10-07, 11:02 AM	while undead might have a major advantage, i'm not sure Karrnath could translate that into effective power. after all, someone has to be in charge of the skeletons and zombies, and that someone will probably be effected by the Mourning's limits on food and healing. Two words, Yakman: Dread Marshals. They're undead officers, effctively. Man, they rock! Would I personally trust them to follow their orders without wanting to slit a fleshy like me's throat? No. But as far as leading a squad or unit of undead soldiers. Heck yeah!
Yakman 07-10-07, 11:09 AM	Two words, Yakman: Dread Marshals. They're undead officers, effctively. Man, they rock! Would I personally trust them to follow their orders without wanting to slit a fleshy like me's throat? No. But as far as leading a squad or unit of undead soldiers. Heck yeah! haven't read FoW yet. are these guys able to operate autonomously though? or do they need direct supervision?
GimliGloinson 07-10-07, 11:17 AM	haven't read FoW yet. are these guys able to operate autonomously though? or do they need direct supervision? Quite capable of working on their own. And they'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish their orders. Throw in their auras and the dread marshals are just plain nasty.
Syltorian 07-10-07, 01:08 PM	Quite capable of working on their own. And they'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish their orders. Throw in their auras and the dread marshals are just plain nasty. Yes, they're one of my favourite of the recent creatures. And it could be quite interesting if they were loyal to the Blood of Vol instead of Karrnath, and managed to turn in a coordinated fashion, with their undead legions, against the Karrns...
GimliGloinson 07-10-07, 01:14 PM	Yes, they're one of my favourite of the recent creatures. And it could be quite interesting if they were loyal to the Blood of Vol instead of Karrnath, and managed to turn in a coordinated fashion, with their undead legions, against the Karrns... That would be nasty. I'm sure there are some out there, but from what I could tell from the description, they were created to be totally loyal to Karrnath. I assume that meant not just Blood of Vol clerics but true Karrnathi patriot necromancers, as well, to keep things under control. I suppose it depends on when they were created during the Last War. There's no way Kaius would have allowed BoV clerics in on that once he dumped them.
Syltorian 07-10-07, 01:35 PM	That would be nasty. I'm sure there are some out there, but from what I could tell from the description, they were created to be totally loyal to Karrnath. I assume that meant not just Blood of Vol clerics but true Karrnathi patriot necromancers, as well, to keep things under control. I suppose it depends on when they were created during the Last War. There's no way Kaius would have allowed BoV clerics in on that once he dumped them. Well, the entire concept and the ritual by which the undead are created by the patriot necromancers was developed and given to Kaius by Vol and her religion. As far as anyone knows, they are loyal to Karrnath, raised often by non-Blood of Vol clerics, and you are correct. And there is no problem, and they are perfectly safe for Karrnath. But like everything else in Eberron, what everyone knows might not be the truth. Vol might, conceivably, have given them a plan that lets others create her own army... she'd be insidious enough for that. Of course, it might only be a mad conspiracy theory.
GimliGloinson 07-10-07, 01:50 PM	Don't get me wrong, Syltorian. I totally feel that there are "sleepers" within the ranks of the Dread Marshals, just waiting for the word to turn things around. It's part of why I love Karrnath. The intrigue is so under-the-surface. You've got a split populace: Those who feel Kaius is a wimp and those who feel Kaius did what was best for Karrnath. In addition, you've got a religion that's out of favor with the ruler, but still very much ingrained into the populace, especially those who wish to usurp the rightful crown.
Syltorian 07-10-07, 05:36 PM	Don't get me wrong, Syltorian. I totally feel that there are "sleepers" within the ranks of the Dread Marshals, just waiting for the word to turn things around. It's part of why I love Karrnath. The intrigue is so under-the-surface. You've got a split populace: Those who feel Kaius is a wimp and those who feel Kaius did what was best for Karrnath. In addition, you've got a religion that's out of favor with the ruler, but still very much ingrained into the populace, especially those who wish to usurp the rightful crown. I don't say you are wrong: what I am suggesting is merely the worst-case scenario, not what I think is the most likely one. We know from Keith Baker, provided I understood him correctly, and even if it is not clearly stated in the sourcebooks, that the Karrnathi Undead are fairly similar, perhaps even identical to each other, and don't go in for individuality. This makes it possible that they are indeed all completely the same, animated by the very same force, and unable to make choices about where their loyalty lies: in a certain way all are members of the same organism or machine that does the thinking and the choosing of loyalties for them. That force seems to animate the Dread Marshals too, though they are able to command others and have a greater freedom of will, it would seem. All this is of course only what-ifs and assumptions, not canon. (I don't think it's expressly contradicted by canon either, which doesn't make it valid, but at least makes it possible). So, the way I see it, the DM has several options to treat the undead armies: 1) All the undead are loyal to Karrnath and could not care less who happens to be in command of it; but they will stand united behind the current ruler. This is what I think the Karrns themselves believe. It is the spirit of Karrnath, the love for their country and the martial discipline of its people that drives them beyond death, even if they are not the individuals they once were. 2) All the undead are loyal to the Blood of Vol and could be activated at once to overturn the monarchy. This is my worst-case scenario, the catastrophic, for Karrnath apocalyptic vision of all their undead troops turning around, all over the country, at the very same time, leaving the living armies without any time to react and the government either dead (well, more dead) or isolated. 3) The Undead are not all quite the same, and while some are loyal to the Blood of Vol, some are loyal to Karrnath, and a few might even have different opinions about what loyalty to Karrnath means. This might depend on who animated them, who the person was before he died, who is currently commanding them, or on any number of factors. I believe this is the way you are seeing it: Karrnath is a deeply split nation (no argument ), and even its undead troops are, should things come to a head, on different sides. (3) is the most likely one, since even the Dread Marshals are not top commanding officers, but sergeants and corporals, and receive their orders from warlords and other top guys whose idea about what Karrnath should do differs widely from that of the next guy, or even the King. The aim of this campaign would be to determine who is on which side, then proceed to get rid of your enemies. Here you have intrigue and more moral ambiguity, but less dread and desperate action. It is what Karrnath currently is, not what, should the conspiracy theory prove true, it could be. The aim of (2) would be to survive in a dreadful nation ruled by Vol or the Malevenor (sp?), a tyranny even worse than that under Kaius' martial law, and probably with all the Inquisitions that people like to ascribe to the Silver Flame - after all, the Blood of Vol is on fairly bad terms with just about every other religion out there. It also would have to be the topic of a campaign. Simply as a background, this doesn't work. So, in brief: I agree with you that, most likely, some Dread Marshals are sleepers, and some are not. But there is a possibility, a small possibility, that Kaius has been fooled even more than he has found out so far, and that the under-the-surface intrigue turns into a quite obvious and open dread realm that even the majority of the Blood of Vol worshippers (not being evil, in most cases) will not want to live in, but could be powerless to oppose. Thrane will probably invade immediately, claiming to help the people of Karrnath. And some in the Blood of Vol might actually join them. It might even get the rival factions into an uneasy, underground alliance against the new regime. But as I said: that's something that would be the focus of an entire campaign, and is not suitable as background. In the vast majority of cases, I agree (and have never disagreed) your model works much better.