Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charles Phipps 11-10-07, 06:50 PM	I'm working on an aftermath of the Spell Plague in my games, once the PCs have successfully managed to deal with Sarevok [Of the Bhaalspawn fame] and the War that's going on in Cormyr. With so many wizards out of commission, it occurs to me that the time is now probably right for a Githayanki invasion of the Primes. I'd like to incorporate Sigil into this campaign as a way to shift to the Great Sea from the Great Tree. Basically, the player characters end up there and can travel across the various Astral Domains throughout creation as part of their war against the Githyanki invading their Prime Material Plane. I also want to use a deceased FR deity for the one that Vlaakith wants to claim all the power of. Candidates at this point include Amaunthor, Myrkul, Mystra, Helm, Bhaal, and Kiaranshlee. I'm open to any possibilities there. I figure that the game will climax with the players slaying Vlaakith and destroying the heart of their ancient Empire.
David_Eitelbach 11-10-07, 10:30 PM	Oooh, Kiaransalee is a cool possibility - a githyanki demigod of revenancy. How awesome is that? Out of curiosity, where are you getting this information on the Githyanki? And what is the Great Sea? A cosmology centered around the Astral Plane?
Charles Phipps 11-10-07, 10:43 PM	I have the Planescape: Guide to the Astral for most of my relevant Githyanki informatioon and also the Dungeon adventure where you slay Vlaakith the Lich Queen.
Mr_Miscellany 11-11-07, 12:15 AM	As an aside: That adventure is fricking awesome. One of those Dungeon back issues of such high quality that it could have been turned into a full-blown splatbook, if you ask me.
Charles Phipps 11-11-07, 01:13 AM	Yes, it's a great adventure, though I can't help but wonder what the after-effects would really be. The Githyanki in the Planescape universe were no small power block and you've effectively destroyed the pillar of their civilization. http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f350/Willowhugger/Vlaakith.jpg
Suin Bahhar 11-11-07, 02:32 PM	Awesome. Having Gith invade when the realms is on its knees is certainly devious. If Vlaakith is destroyed the 'yankis would essentially be freed. Their high level heroes would not be absorbed by Vlaakith anymore so a new warlord could rise from their ranks. Their culture would soon seek out a leader in the conquest of eradicating illithids and ruling the multiverse.
MarkusTay63 11-11-07, 03:33 PM	Damn, she's HOT. :love: In a 'Ebil DM' kinda way... :devil:
Charles Phipps 11-11-07, 08:04 PM	My current idea for the Githyanki Invasion is that they're going to launch some large scale attacks against places like Waterdeep, Silverymoon, and Calisham to scare up a bunch of locals and make a big impression. Then they're going to start making deals with existing groups that are spread throughout Faerun (I'm thinking the Cult of the Dragon and the Red Wizards of Thay but I'm not sure if there aren't others that might work better) in order to start preparing for their large scale plunder. All the while, they'll be taking people back to the Astral Plane as slaves in order to psionically dominate in order to become either arrow-fodder when they're brought back as mindless slaves or to serve as people that will help their war effort back there. I'm debating whether Fzoul and the Zhentariam would agree to ally with a being like Vlaakith since he's a man who wants to rule the Realms for himself rather than submit to the servitude of someone like the Githyanki.
18DELTA 11-11-07, 10:39 PM	Dont the Githyanki have an agreement with Tiamat? Isnt that why some Githyanki ride Red Dragons? If so the Church of Tiamat and the Cult of The Dragon could work. They just couldnt know about each other. So when the PCs find out about that, its time to mess up the Githyanki plans. Or you could do something else, like have the Illithids find out and mess the alliance up, which the Mind Flayers would do, or bring in the Githzerai. Possiblilities.:plotting:
Lord Karsus 11-12-07, 12:52 AM	-Damn 'Yankis... -On the issue with the Zhentariam. Initially, I could see Fzoul trying to get in on what's going on, and trying to profit from it. However, once it becomes apparent that the Githyanki only want to enslave, I think he'd back out. After all, aren't one of Bane's primary tenets, "Serve no one but Bane"?
Charles Phipps 11-12-07, 01:01 AM	Yes, I wonder how successful the Githyanki should be. I'm tending to see the Githyanki as mostly ruling through proxies rather than fielding vast hordes on their own. They'll prefer to use the humans to kill each other and all that.
Lord Karsus 11-12-07, 01:04 AM	Yes, I wonder how successful the Githyanki should be. -That could definitley be a "turning point" in your home game. The Spellplague coupled with an "evil, alien empire" really turns the setting into something pseudo-post apocalyptic.
Charles Phipps 11-12-07, 01:12 AM	Yeah, I don't think I want to go that far but I definitely could have some interesting storylines ahead here. I could do the "Shadowdale" adventure with Zhentil Keep as something that is handled by the Githyanki and also perhaps have other cities around the Realms occupied by them (Baldur's Gate? Neverwinter?) It'll be interesting to imagine how that could work. I don't want to wreck the realms for future gaming but a lot of cities could be conquered without them being changed forever.
Lord Karsus 11-12-07, 12:12 PM	I don't want to wreck the realms for future gaming but a lot of cities could be conquered without them being changed forever. -Well, once said cities are freed, things could go "back to normal".
Suin Bahhar 11-12-07, 02:04 PM	I dont think 'yankis would want to control any cities for extended periods when they are essentially after the divine essence of a realms diety. I think they have time on their side (it doesn't flow on the astral) so they can time their invasion at the most opportune moment when the clergy of the to be asurped god is weakest. They could have all sorts of contigencies in place and could pull off the divine spark theft in under a couple days of assault. Coaxing a clergy to summon their gods avatar and binding it somehow might do the trick for Vlaakith to asurp its essence. Or capturing enough souls to create an psionicly charged soul bomb, using a draconic device to steer its path into the divine realm of the victim. Perhaps learning true names could be Vaaktihs ace.
ClobberinTime 11-12-07, 03:13 PM	I love that adventure, and have always wanted to run it in FR, but I always Psych myself out with the constraining details of the great tree, and Vlaakith's low level. The spell plague seems to make things at least a little bit easier, if one supposes either one of two things: 1, The spell plagues doesn't effect Psionics, and use the psionic version of the Gith. or 2, The Gith are already familiar with using magic in the 'new' 4e way and so start off way ahead of the curve. Both suffer from the same problem however and that is that you have to re-write Servants of the Lich Queen either to make everyone psionic and or update it to 4e. The module is so nice in its current 3.5e form that that is both a shame and alot of work. Realmslore wise I always thought that one thing that would make sense is that The gith aren't just new to the FR prime (Toril), but are also invading the Great Tree from the Great Sea. This seems like the way you are going and is a very good plot hook. Gods and Prime in Toril Vlaakith wants the whole thing. I had always thought that you could hook this in with the Dragonfall war between Bahutmat and Tiatmat. One could make Tchzaar or some other powerfull red be Ephemelon, that way Tiatmat and said dragon could be manipulating The Githyanki. Tchazzar could want to recruit an army from the 1/2 Reds that the Gith have been breeding, so he convinces Vlaakith to invade Toril. The church of Tiatmat is already making inroads into the 1/2 dragons in the Gith army, and recruiting them. In this scenario the PCs killing Vlaakith is only 3/4 of the way throught the plot. After she is dead there is a Gith civil war between the 1/2 dragons and the regular Gith. This could end with something even more dangerous happening, i.e. a big red dragon on Toril with an army of 1/2 dragons. You could either have the regular Gith enslaved by the 1/2's or virtually destroyed by them. Either way Tiatmat's followers on Toril now have a big strong army to wage war on Bahutmat's followers. To make this work you need some bait, in the form of what convinces Vlaakith to invade Toril. The obvious one, like the OP pointed out is to have the body of the god that Tunnurath is on be a dead FR deity. To become a god Vlaakith needs to recover some artifacts or some such from Faerun. One Idea that I always toyed with is that the body is that of Auppenser, the ancient now dead patron of Jhaamdath. If you remember the Jhaamdathan's had used Psionics to create Udoxia which are psionic versions of Mythallar's. In order to reach apotheosis, Vlaakith believes (rightly or wrongly) that she needs to collect these and drain them in some ritual on Auppensers body. Since each contains a bit of Auppenser's soul they can be used to wake up Auppenser enough that his magical energy can make Vlaakith a god. Doing this during the problems the Gods are having makes it plausible that they cannot intervene and Vlaakith could become a major player as a deity. To make this particular angle work you should have the Gith invade Chondath-Chessenta-Unther. Also there were 12 Udoxia so put them anywhere you want the PCs to fight the Gith. I.e. one hidden in Blackstaff tower in Waterdeep, etc. etc..... Now suppose that after killing Vlaakith your pcs realize that they are sitting on 12 Udoxia, and a dead gods body that can make someone a god. Now also suppose that the Dragon Queen knows this as well and seeks to raise one of her servants to godhood. Where are your PCs going to hide all of those Udoxia?
Charles Phipps 11-12-07, 03:25 PM	Very nice Clobbering time, My answer to the players was actually rather simple on the Great Wheel vs. Great Tree vs. Great Sea debate. Elminster: "Lad, you want an actual explanation of cross-temporal molecular quantum physics as related to multi-dimensional psychic entities or would you just like me to explain things in terms of this handy chart? It's grossly inaccurate but it'll get the job done for ya." But yes, I think I'm going to make a "Mask of the Betrayer" homage and make it so that Vlaakith is seeking artifacts of Myrkul because she's going to use them in her plot to seize divine essence. Also, I'll be using a mostly psionic Githyanki because my players love it and it works better for my games. It'll be some time until they actually attack Vlaakith's lair and there will be ample time to prepare a Psionic Lich variant of the Lich Queen to handle this matter. (I'll use a machine like the "Divinity Leach" described in the Complete Guide to the Astral Plane to replace the thousands of wishes she required since she's a Psionicist now) However, you raise an interesting point on Ausppenser since my players HAVE expressed a strong interest in him with the Spell Plague's devastating results to Abber-Toril's wizarding population. It might be interesting to either have him be the god she originally wants to use and an adventure where they somehow thwart it.
ClobberinTime 11-13-07, 01:35 PM	Just have the climactic battle be to stop her from draining the life from Auppenser. Thats what forces the PCs to attack her in Tunnurath. It will add alot of tension, i.e. we must strike now before she achieve apotheosis (I love that word). On this angle then the whole invasion was a diversion. The Gith are collecting the Udoxia. Imagine how satisfied your players will be: 'Well, we won, we beat back the Invasion, Hooray'. Then whammy they find out it was all a diversion, and Vlaakith has what she wanted all along, i.e. the Udoxia.