I was recently taking my players through Beneath The Dust - which culminates in an optional contract with an entity from the Gray. Our bard & assassin took the pledge, and have been enjoying the extra element it added to their character. The campaign has also been based around Nibenay city. I was thinking I could flesh out the entity. How does this sound?
1) The entity is a gnome. This was just for randomness at first, as a player said an inn was called 'The Unlucky Gnome'. It turns out that Gnomes were masters of teleporting & shadow magic; just like our (original type) assassin! And they're small; just like our halfling bard!
2) The entity is the previous 'Caretaker' - the headmaster of the necromancy & shadow magic school the gnomes ran before Gallard (now known as Nibenay) became a student there and killed everyone.
3) Some gnomes escaped to the deepest areas of the Black - including this guy
4) He is collecting souls to get the power to fight Gallard/Nibenay once again
5) The entity will give items to the people he contracted, but not (yet) skills, as items make them dependant on him, while skills make them independant of the caretaker, and he's been burned already that way. ie: He can be a source of thematic magic items.
6) The bard & assassin could get items like the Shade Weapon (property that when an enemies dies you briefly control their shade & can explode it. Easily justifiable as the Caretaker is taking those shades) or one that do teleporting stuff. The assasin is big on teleports, and the bard big on aura/zones.
7) The players can learn this through the items given to them - all the items would be made of Shadowmetal - a metal only gnomes knew how to make. Someone (maybe a Nibenese templar) might notice it and explain it, or something else. Nibenay, as the 'current' Caretaker probably has some of his own shadowmetal - especially if he known as the 'Shadow king' with his Shadow Brides.
Now this also works on the assumption that the Black = the Gray. I haven't seen much mention of the Black in 4e, and I haven't come acros any mention of the Gray to date in the Prism Pentad (I'm on book 3 of 5). If they are different how so? It seems to fulfill the same role as 'dead/ghost plane'?
If anyone has ideas on how to make it mesh better, particularly how to reveal it over time to players, I'd love to know. Similarly cool stuff about Nibenay, The Gray/Black & gnomes would be appreciated.
Sources:
Gnome Myths (homebrew?): community.wizards.com/scalesofwardarksun...
Beneath The Dust adventure: www.wizards.com/dnd/downloads/dungeon/18...
Nibenay: He's Gallard 'Bane of Gnomes'
but the grey and the black are different. without spoiling anything, the grey is where souls go to perish. when rikus faces death multiple times in the first few books, and is faced by that nameless/faceless being that becons him to join them, thats the grey. the black is the plane of shadows, and thats where the Umbra character resides. they get into that more in the later books.
are you having this gnome be a BBEG or is Nibenay the BBEG? the idea of collecting souls to extract revenge doesnt exactly sound "good", but dark sun has always blurred the lines between good and evil.
and i dont think the whole thing hinges on the black/grey being the same. the gnom could be pulling soul matter from the grey and into the black thru the use of some colossal gate artifact that he could comission the PC's to gather reagents for.
also, the grey could be a reskinned version of the underdark from 4e stock, and do the same for the black being similar to the shadowfell.
there is a great PDF on athas.org about the deadlands, and it has lots of gnomes featured in it (mostly undead lol) so you could pull a lot of info and inspiration from it.
ok, now that im awake....
are you having this gnome be a BBEG or is Nibenay the BBEG? the idea of collecting souls to extract revenge doesnt exactly sound "good", but dark sun has always blurred the lines between good and evil.
and i dont think the whole thing hinges on the black/grey being the same. the gnom could be pulling soul matter from the grey and into the black thru the use of some colossal gate artifact that he could comission the PC's to gather reagents for.
also, the grey could be a reskinned version of the underdark from 4e stock, and do the same for the black being similar to the shadowfell.
there is a great PDF on athas.org about the deadlands, and it has lots of gnomes featured in it (mostly undead lol) so you could pull a lot of info and inspiration from it.
Thanks for the distinction being the Grey & the Black. The names make a lot more sense now :P Most of my knowledge comes from the 4e source books, and I think in there they mention the Grey is roughly equivalent to the standard Shadowfell plane. I think it mentioned shadow giants are even in the Grey, so it might be that the 2 planes were combined on the sly for 4e? Kinda random to do so if they did.
In regards to your other question, at the moment I'm thinking Nibenay will be the BBEG, with the gnome being a source of buffs & motivation if they pick up that plot hook to get to more harcore/world-changing story arcs. I guess it would be one of those 'shades of grey' (har har) morality ones, where noone is really doing the right thing, just doing what they want. So far the bard has been really keen to collect souls (he always goes wholeheartedly & with enthusiasm into plot hooks or unexpected magic items), and the assassin has proved interested but slightly wary of a double-cross.
I'll go check out athas.org!
Taken from the 4th Edition Dark Sun Campaign Setting book:
"The Gray is another echo of Athas, an otherworld of shadows and ghosts. In this realm, the restless spirits of the dead linger amid the hunted ruins of the great cities. Some sources call this otherworld "the Shadowfell" or "the Plane of Shadow". Like the Lands Within the Wind, the Gray is home to strange and powerful creatures, including mighty shadow giants, fearsome nightmare beasts and a race of devils that traveled to the Gray when the connection between their home plane and Athas withered.
The Black, would be the Under Dark. I'm assuming.
Mind you, I've only read the 4th edition campaign setting book, as well as the creature catalog for Dark Sun and no other.
And OP, definitely check out athas.org! Its amazing!
I really want to read the Prism of Pentad, but I have yet to find the books in any of my local game stores or book stores.
Beneath the Dust author here. Just thought I would say I'm stoked to hear that some PCs are making bargains with the Collector. I like the Nibenese, gnomish connection that the OP is using. You probably know already, but the Isle of Death in Dungeon #202 is the sequel to Beneath the Dust in case you want to use it.
I did not! I shall check it out post haste. Thanks!
Edit: Nice. I was only just needing a nice travel-and-island based adventure for the same dark sun game, so even better that I don't have to use a mod a standard campaign to dark sun. The links to Dregorth will work particularly well.
I wanted to congratulate you on Beneath the Dust, I liked the Thri-Kreen encounter & final encounters the best. In the end the players played a ruse to distract the enemies away from the Thri-Kreen, who had the seed of life. As you can see, The Collector will likely become quite a significant part of the story!