Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charles Phipps 11-28-07, 06:14 AM	I was curious how you used Xvim in your campaigns. How was the Deity of Tyranny in comparison to his father and what exactly was the difference? Is he dead in your campaigns and what sort of legacy did he leave behind in your opinion? I'm currently doing the Planescape game Harbinger House with a now-powerless Xvim being substituted for the villain of the piece. I thought we'd touch on what was different about him and dad.
Stigger 11-28-07, 06:25 AM	Never did get around to using him actually. Never really liked him much to be honest, though that was mostly because of his name more than anything about his portrayal. Honestly, as a deity he was preferable to Bane for reason, but Iyachtu Xvim was just a stupid name so I could never quite take him as seriously as I probably should have. Not that Bane is much better really... Its been a long while since I've looked at him to be honest, but my take on him was as more subtle and insidious than his dear old dad for some reason, though I don't recall why I got that impression. I think it probably came from having to keep a low profile and under the radar in comparison to Bane, particularly after Storm handed him his head in that duel of theirs. Don't really recall if his description backed up that impression though. As to his status in my campaign, he's very dead, as is his dad, who never actually made it back to life as far as I was concerned. His legacy... I suppose he probably left one, but I can't say I ever thought about it too much. My group and I never really had any plotlines revolve around him, or really even touch upon him as a deity. Kinda treated him like a brief footnote more than anything else actually.
Charles Phipps 11-28-07, 07:35 AM	FYI- In my games, it's Eye-Ack-Too Zim for pronunciation. My games had Xvim always trying to play a slightly more cordial hand that Bane. I had Xvim assume a Alu-Fiend Eriynes like form in his avatar, which made him appear as a glowing Angel. Bane was capable of pulling off being a complete tyrant. Xvim was about making you WANT a tyrant.
Tergiversant 11-28-07, 07:50 PM	In my campaign, I started after Bane's return so Xvim wasn't a major role. In the time after that, I ran an adventure where an NPC that once followed Bane asserted that Bane hadn't returned at all - Xvim faked his own death and returned as "Bane". This way, he kept his enemies off balance, reinvented his portfolios a bit, and also gets more respect.
OrderofUhlrik 11-28-07, 08:15 PM	So, this is a definately non-canon storyline that I used, but in my game Xvim actually did play a role, albeit a minor one that the PC's only got to watch in sheer undeniable horror. The first (As in, the first one Bane created) banelich in my game had collected the pieces of Bane's armor and weaponry from various planar travelers and artifact hoarders (Illithid's, Liches, and the like). While that was occuring the PC's were fighting the Baneliches minions across the width and breadth of our gaming realm. The PC's were given a choice and they chose incorrectly (They didn't go after the Lich's phylactery but his physical form instead). They were ultimately unsuccessful in slaying him (He was a lvl 34 cleric after all, according to the rules given for Bane-Liches in 2e.) The Bane-lich used the summoning pearl from the priest necklace of power thing and arrived at Xvim's feet, slaying him with his father's sword and using his innate infusion of Bane essence and by absorbing Xvim into Bane's armor, transformed into Bane, and thus Bane is reborn.
Charles Phipps 11-29-07, 01:29 AM	So, aside from imperosnating dear old dad, anyone have Xvim still alive after Bane's return? Nice story, OrderofUhlrik
MarkusTay63 11-29-07, 03:43 PM	by the time I started up another group, Bane was already back. Normally I get upset when they hand us plot material and then take it away again a year or two later, but this was one instance I was happy it happened. So in MY Realms, he never even existed. ;)
Charles Phipps 11-29-07, 04:58 PM	I guess my biggest problem with Eye-Ack-Too was the fact that he seemed like such a generic clone of Bane and he wasn't even the equal to Dear Old Dad either. The fact that he was stuck at Intermediate God status for so long was something that just made him seem like a guy who was being forced to claw his way up a lot further if he ever wanted to challenge Cyric. I confess that I did like the Banefog because that was just a damn good plot device. Just, at one point, Xvim grew SO DISGUSTED with people not taking him seriously that he slaughtered the entirety of the hosts of Bane worshippers with a plague from the air. It was a nice bit of Old Testament Wrath of the Gods that you rarely get to see in the Forgotten Realms where everyone seems restricted to functioning through their worshippers. Nevertheless, he still seemed too much like Bane when he has Fzoul Chembryl as his Chosen One and is the God of Tyranny. Oh yes and his Church is Based out of Zhentil Keep. Frankly, I was half-expecting Xvim to team up with Garagos and Velsharoon to become the Triad of Insufficent Light (As opposed to the Dark triad). I liked the idea that Ed Greenwood implied though that Xvim was always meant to be a Tiefling/Cambion god though and a leader of Hellgate Keep.
Meldread 11-30-07, 05:42 AM	Frankly, I was half-expecting Xvim to team up with Garagos and Velsharoon to become the Triad of Insufficient Light (As opposed to the Dark triad). Ouch. :P I have to agree with you, Charles. The problem Xvim had was that he was too much like Bane, without the prestige. I want to like him, in fact, it's not that I don't like him... it's just that he just isn't his own person. I have two crazy theories that might be fun to explore: Bane never actually returned. Xvim simply faked his own death in order to gain more worshipers and gain more power. Therefore, the new Bane is really Xvim in disguise. Bane has really returned and everything happened exactly as it seemed. However, part of Xvim might still exist within Bane. Bane's holy symbol - a black gauntleted hand with green ray's escaping... those green ray's symbolize Xvim and Bane's attempts to snuff out his existence. There is a possibility that Xvim still might exist within the mind of his father, trying to somehow gain control over him. It would be interesting for Bane to experience a voice in his head, and start to believe that it was his own voice - when in fact it was the voice of his son, who was surely but slowly taking him over from within.
johnkretzer 12-02-07, 03:36 AM	I kept Xvim around...Xvim is still in service to his father...but I decided to make Xvim much more sublte(also female...long story and very strange about Bane's rebirth in my FR). Xvim is the velvet glove to Bane's iron fist. The work in concert with Xvim priests praising Bane benvolent rule to the needy...they start underground cults and such...and work to subvert free goverments. Xvim's clergy laid alot of the groundwork for the Bane army that took over one of the Lake of Steam city(I can't recall the name right now...I am lousy with names). I don't know where it would end up between these two(in my FR)...and heck it could take centuries for something to develope anyway.
Vasyek 12-03-07, 01:25 PM	The two things I based my portrayal of him upon were his demonic heritage and his marginalization for the bulk of his existence. He remains lawful at the end of the day, but it's a far different sort of lawfulness than that displayed by the likes of Gargauth and Bane. Basically, it takes the form of a neurotic, circumstantially fragile sense of discretion/restraint that was more or less beaten into the fiber of his being, which otherwise has more in common with the gross, whimsical depravities of the Tanar'ri than the systematic oppressions of the Baatezu. It's not a question of how he goes about perpetuating a brutal, restrictive order per se, but more a matter of when/how he can shake off the brutal, restrictive order that his trauma imposes upon him. I suppose I treat him as an evil Ilmater of sorts: endurance and willpower in the face of torments unjust or otherwise, but achieved by drowning the self in the sum total of the bitterness, frustration, and hostility born of their treatment. In another sense he's akin to what Shar hopes to turn Hoar into, though taken a few steps further. It's not really about vengeance anymore, if it ever was, as his rage is such that it only cares to discriminate by the imposition of convergent circumstances rather than the character of those who are to suffer its effects. He's like a dog weaned on violence and deprivation to the point that it can't help but hate and fear everything it sees, or the faint ring of truth to the excuses that criminals often raise about the role of society, family, and legal institutions in creating them. Xvim was undoubtedly born bad, but that hardly matters anymore: so much of what he is and what he does has nothing to do what he wants or even what he thinks, it's simply the entrenchment of violent routine. Even when he was his own man in the years following Bane's death and prior to his return, the only time he was really himself was in those instances where he lost control. They form the crux of his greatest yearning and his greatest fear, a release that defies any moderation or even conscious awareness of what it perpetrates, the pure, blind venting of the misery of a lifetime measured in centuries. On that note, I tend to consider him to be one of the most wretched of the evil gods (in the sense of personal anguish and dissatisfaction that is... he's nothing special as far as depravity goes.) If he had lived long enough for Shar to get her claws into him, I see him as being the one figure in the Faerunian pantheon that would have whole-heartedly devoted himself to the same agenda. Compared to Bane I generally used/saw him in an even less subtle capacity. On the other hand, he was also less stable and less concerned with appearances, so he did on occasion resort to trickery that caught most if not everyone by surprise.