Post/Author/DateTime	Post
BRISKbaby 05-10-05, 11:44 AM	Does anyone have/know where a writeup for Sammaster is? I found this old copy of a 2nd edition writeup for him and the story behind him. It's very neat and I was thinking of having a campaign set around Sammaster's return to power. The "story" of Sammaster ended with a dozen Paladins of around 20th level coming to kill him. After nine of them dieing they finally killed his body but not the good 'ol phylactory. Well his phylactory is about a foot long uncut diamond. I was thinking of having this found by some temple, Lathander proabably because I enjoy irony. (Lathander killed sammaster at one point but sammaster had contingency and chain contingency spells on his person to transform him into a lich.) But anyway have it in a huge statue or something of ritual importance to Lathander. Anyway have him come back but he cannot act directly against anyone because of his hesitance to die and spend another century spanning sleep in his phylactory. I had the idea of him beginning this campaign in Chult with the characters around 6th level. After that I'm not really sure. Any help would be appreciated. Especially story lines, writeup for sammaster, and reasons he doesn't just kill the gnat PC's. Thanks!
Kuje31 05-10-05, 11:55 AM	Does anyone have/know where a writeup for Sammaster is? I found this old copy of a 2nd edition writeup for him and the story behind him. It's very neat and I was thinking of having a campaign set around Sammaster's return to power. The "story" of Sammaster ended with a dozen Paladins of around 20th level coming to kill him. After nine of them dieing they finally killed his body but not the good 'ol phylactory. Well his phylactory is about a foot long uncut diamond. I was thinking of having this found by some temple, Lathander proabably because I enjoy irony. (Lathander killed sammaster at one point but sammaster had contingency and chain contingency spells on his person to transform him into a lich.) But anyway have it in a huge statue or something of ritual importance to Lathander. Anyway have him come back but he cannot act directly against anyone because of his hesitance to die and spend another century spanning sleep in his phylactory. I had the idea of him beginning this campaign in Chult with the characters around 6th level. After that I'm not really sure. Any help would be appreciated. Especially story lines, writeup for sammaster, and reasons he doesn't just kill the gnat PC's. Thanks! There's been no update of his stats since Cult of the Dragon but he has returned in the Year of Rogue Dragons novels by Richard Byers. There's also 2 anthologies that tie in with that event.
SammasterT 05-10-05, 10:05 PM	I have been running a campaign for a few years now in which the Cult of the Dragon and the Cult of Tiamat have played very large roles. A campaign log can be found here ... And Dragon's Shall Rule ... (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=350538) In it I make Sammaster the offspring of Tiamat, birthed to herald the return to the Age of Dragons under the rulership of Tiamat, but divorced form this destiny, in part, by the tampering of Mystra, who had the babe carried to the West. Mystra's attempt to turn Sammaster from the destiny that was "encoded" in Sammaster's "dna" is used as an explanation for his eventual madness .... ie. the pushing of powerful forces within him that he can't *quite* grasp. Nevertheless, as divorced from his destiny as he was, the pull of it was so strong that when he finally came across Maglas' prophecy it struck a profound chord in him that led to the birth of the Cult of the Dragon. Unfortunately, Algashon had none of the true reverence for dragonkind that moved Sammaster, and it was through his guileful manipulations that the First Speaker misinterpretted the prophecy, with the eventual goal of subverting dragonkind to slavery, making them little more than the pawns of mere men. Once Sammaster was out of the way, courtesy of Lathander, Algashon was able to fully advance his secular vision, but in time a more religious strain, touch and influenced by Tiamat-worshippers in the Vilhon Reach and southern Unther, began to emerge and oppose the secularists. In the end however, Algashon summoned up a rage of dragons and obliterated this religionist faction. Less than 20 years ago a high ranking priestess within the Untherite Church of Tiamat was sent to the West, and she would eventually gather a follwoing a come to odds with the secularists, preaching as she did of Sammasters true origins and the ultimate destiny of the Cult of *the* Dragon, the Cult of Tiamat, to usher in a new Age of Dragons when all shall become as it was in the beginning and once again dragons shall rule the world entire. The pc's are used as dupes at first to locate information stolen from the Cult of Tiamat by a rogue agent, and concerning the location of Sammaster's phylactery ... because they want to bring him back to unite the scattered cells and unleash the wrath of dragonkind. During the course of these adventures the CoT managed to get the pc's in trouble with the local law, playing the nice guys all along, got some hot women involved and interested in party members, and lurred them with promises of wealth, free training, and travel to exotic locales if they would join the cult .... or at least continue to work for it. A couple chose to join. This led to a quest for a powerful work of Necromancy, an artifact penned during the fall of the Raurin Empire, called the Necronomicon, which had the power to gate Tiamat, and all five of her heads, into the realms. That quest was successful, and these days the remaining original characters are pretty much in opposition to the Cult of Tiamat. They are presently one of five bands searching for the five Orbs of Dragonkind, in the probable event that the forces of man fall before the gathering hordes of the Chaos-Queen and He who is both her son and consort.