Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Titanic Ego 10-26-07, 10:26 PM	So on Argonessen there is a rather nasty magical location, a spreading magical cancer, the site of the first rajah/Overlord casualty (a two-headed Overlord type) of the war between the dragons and Khyberspawn. My problem is this: if defeating a rajah leaves such a massive after-effect, and a rajah reforms 4d6 hours later unless bound with a divine force like the Flame (and the killing of this rajah occurred long before the formation of the Flame by the couatl), why isn't the planet covered with thousands upon thousands of such things? Did this two-headed rajah just choose to turn into a magical location using the occasion of being dissipated by the dragons and could take on his two-headed form at will?
Romulus LoneWolf 10-27-07, 11:01 PM	Maybe that's why they ultimately decided Trapping the Rajahs was better then futily trying to kill them over and over again...
Alex_ 10-28-07, 01:04 AM	Haven't gotten a hold of Dragons of Eberron yet, but wouldn't the death of a Rajah be sort of a rare event? Defeat in battle might be more common, but to outright kill a being of deific power probably wouldn't be the kind of thing you could reliably do thousands of times. So maybe they kill this one guy, ruin stuff, and then go a long time without killing any other (or killing very few) until they perfect the whole Silver Flame binding thing to contain them.
Identitystolen 10-28-07, 11:08 AM	My thought on the subject was that it sacrificed itself in order to establish a beachhead in Dragon territory. Its essence remain in that valley so that it could be a staging ground for an very long time to come for the Demonic forces to invade Argonnessen. I've come to this conclusion after reading that it was a seemingly suicidal charge deep into enemy territory and the fact that the Demon Cysts remain and continually produce new demons. So it was a calculated sacrifice to further the goals of the Demonic forces.
Hellcow 10-28-07, 05:20 PM	This puzzles me, because I specifically discussed this issue with Nic Logue, who wrote the Vale. I think this may have become muddied in the editing process. Looking at my conversation with Nic, what he said was that the fact that the rajah "died" was supposed to be bizarre and intentional on his part - that he chose to give up his corporeal existence to create this area of corruption. Hence, the fact that his attack was "seemingly pointless", and the Eyes of Chronepsis were concerned - and rightfully so. So essentially, he was defeated (which is possible), but to the surprise of the elders, he DIDN'T reform. He seemed to have truly died, something which seemed too good to be true... because it was. Perhaps he was tired of his existence and wished to remerge with Khyber. Here's something I said in the discussion while we were developing the book... My thought is that he's "mostly dead" - because if he's not dead at all, why hasn't he popped up to cause trouble directly? I like the idea that he essentially transcended life and death - that he gave up his corporeal existence to become this permanent taint on the land. This ties to the idea that he actually spawns fiends (Vrocks, etc). The idea of immortal outsiders is that they don't breed, but that their numbers remain static - conservation of celestial or fiendish energy. You kill a Quori, eventually another one appears to take its place. The outsiders are essentially ideas given form, and you can't destroy them forever. Essentially, Yad gave up his existence as a rajah - but it his energy that now spawns the vrocks and other fiends, who are effectively shards of him. So when you destroy the vrock, it will eventually reform in the Vale. He's become a fiend-spawning demi-plane of one. Nick's response to this was "I totally agree with this interpretation, I was kind of going for the demi-plane of one thing". So it may be that this got fuzzed up during editing. Nic is active here, so hopefully he'll be able to clarify. But this is supposed to be an unusual area charged with the power of a rajah... not the typical response of the defeat of a rajah, or a contradiction of the assertion that rajahs are immortal spirits.
lugnut71 10-30-07, 01:21 PM	Actually I basically got that from reading it too. That the Rajah sacrificed itself to create an area of evil. So basically I think the idea is there maybe just not written in the best way to imply that (or maybe it is since at least two of us saw it that way).
PEBKAC 10-31-07, 03:48 PM	While we are talking about this, I’m pretty sure that the scale on the map insert is inaccurate. I don’t have the book on me but if I remember correctly the scale is 10ft per square. That just doesn’t seem to fit with the text.
ZeroSD 11-03-07, 08:42 AM	I'm oddly reminded of the movie The Grudge :) While we are talking about this, I’m pretty sure that the scale on the map insert is inaccurate. I don’t have the book on me but if I remember correctly the scale is 10ft per square. That just doesn’t seem to fit with the text. I found the maps in DoE pretty disappointing in general.