In 2e it was so it could drain their energy and later use it to strengthen Rajaat's prison.
In 4e the entry on the Dragon still mentions its the guardian of that prison, and that that's why the other sorcerer-kings helped Borys become the Dragon.
The Dragon was formerly Borys, one of Rajaat's Champions tasked to eradicate dwarves. When he and the other Champions (now SKs) discovered humans will be among those destroyed, all but a few betrayed their master and imprisoned him. They slew his body, keeping it in the Black Sphere in Ur Draxa, and Rajaat's essence in the Hollow. But not before forcing Rajaat to turn Borys into the Dragon. All this took place in the Pristine Tower.
more info in wikis and here.
That is one version, which sucks (Rajaat forced to do something?), another is the sorcerer-kings made the Dragon after Rajaat's imprisonment, so as to help with his jailkeeping. That last version seems to be the one in the DSCG (and the one in Lyne Abbey's Rise and Fall of a Dragon King novel).
1,000 slaves per city per year as a Levy is a ridiculous amount that has created noting but puzzlement and frustration from the community, since it appears to not be a sustainable number.
4e does not mention a Levy, and if it ever does they'll probably gloss over the numbers, for everyone's sake.
DSCC: The Dragon of Tyr
After the champions resettled in the Tyr Region, each claimed a city-state and began the magical transformation into a dragon. Borys, demanding the power to guard Rajaat's prison, enlisted the help of the others to complete the process first.
[snip]
The people of Athas see the Dragon only when it collects its levy from the other sorcerer-kings. It claims hundreds of slaves, which it devours or brings to Ur Draxa for use in experiments or as gifts to the liches that serve it.
[snip]
The people of Athas see the Dragon only when it collects its levy from the other sorcerer-kings. It claims hundreds of slaves, which it devours or brings to Ur Draxa for use in experiments or as gifts to the liches that serve it.
One way that we've discussed making it more sustaninable in the past is as a slight ret-con; it's not 1000 slaves per-city per-year, but rather 1000 slaves per-year in total -- Each city gets a turn in the hot seat .
Other options are that it's really 1000 HD worth of slaves, but that's taking metagaming a bit far ....
It is not a sustainable number, but I leave the exact number vague in my games. But it's important in my games that the number be unsustainable, because it motivates the City States to constantly raid wasteland villages or nomad communities for slaves, a theme I always tend to incorporate in my games. The oasis villages or caravan stops are under constant pressure and fear that one day some City State isn't going to meet their quota and their heads will be on the chopping block. Even the free citizens of the City States might share this fear.
You'd think they'd setup captive breeding programs!
Since it's come up, the story of Rajaat and the Champions is fully intact, it's simply been obscured to allow for greater DM freedom.
Now do you wish you voted for Rajaat in the Season 3 Encounters creature competition?
Honestly, I did but not anymore.
I agree with Pennarin that the most interesting (and 4e correct) lore interpretation is that Borys was made the Dragon after Rajaat's imprisoning.
I can't seem to find the reference (it's not the in CC entry as I thought) but at some point reading the manuals I noticed a line saying something along the lines of "the Dragon is the most powerful creature Athas has ever seen", or something on the tone.
I think (expecially looking at the Dragon's statblock, which is closer to the powerlevel of the currently statted gods than primordials and demon lords) the intention is to make Borys the ultimate athasian being; which could sort of make sense, and also add an interesting undertone to the setting.
On one hand, the "there's a superpowerful terror imprisoned who could come and bring doom to the world" theme is always fascinating; however, it's also overused, and to me, it sort of adds to the setting that in order to seal one evil, a much more powerful and dangerous one was created, and he's alive and well, and extremely real. This is Dark Sun, not Middle Earth. The idea that Sauron is waiting to be unleashed fits the setting less than the fact that Sauron got his ring, won the war and is now choking the world in his grip.
Wait a sec. You think the dragon is more powerful than Rajaat? I must have misunderstood that or you're bogarting some kind dank.
I'm persuaded in 4e he is.
First off, Borys became the Dragon after Rajaat was imprisoned. While Borys alone wasn't capable of downing Rajaat, we don't know how would they have fared against each other once Borys became the Dragon. Even when Rajaat returned, the match was made impossible by Rikus' stunt, and in many ways, Rajaat could return exactly because Borys wasn't there to stop him.
We know that Borys became a lot more powerful once he transformed into the Dragon. We're never told if he became more powerful than Rajaat, but it's not crazy to assume so.
If you want, take it from a mechanical angle. Borys is a level 33 solo. Despite some exploitable (but we're talking munchkinism) structural weaknesses, it's possibly the most deadly non-divine being designed for 4e. In my opinion, he's actually deadlier than several deities (I'd rather face Tiamat or possibly even Bahamut than him).
Rajaat wasn't a god; there's no reason to assume he would be a lvl 35 solo. He was downed by the Sorcerer Kings before Borys became the Dragon and some millennia before the stats they have no - maybe not a massive difference, but they didn't become weaker over time. If you think it took most of them to down Dregoth, it's quite safe to assume he wasn't much more powerful.
Even if he was a lvl 35 solo, he wouldn't be leaps and bounds above Borys. Mechanically, the Dragon and the SKs as a group (despite having lost the aid of possibly the second strongest one) would be able to take him on as they're able to take on any statted deity in 4e, and Rajaat is probably weaker than Lolth or Bahamut.
People tend to overblow Rajaat's past power (I won't comment on his Prism Pentad role, as it's one of the many things that disappointed me in the books - he makes no sense as a divine being). He was downed by the SKs when they were still fundamentally stage 1 dragons. He's a being from a time when "personalities" were much weaker. Unless we assume the Black made him much more powerful than he was, there's no argument for assuming that when the manual states Borys is being a guardian to his prision they mean so literally - as in, he steps out and the Dragon will eat his face.
In all honesty, unless they pulled a Prism Pentad and inserted a god in the setting, I don't see any room for statting something more powerful than the Dragon in 4e DS, and that fuels the (canon-compatible) idea that the Dragon may have become more powerful than Rajaat ever was. Maybe not as accomplished as a cosmic level spellcaster, but that's another argument.
I'm persuaded in 4e he is.
IMO, not even close.
First off, Borys became the Dragon after Rajaat was imprisoned.
As he did in 2e. He had no choice. Rajaat would have gotten free, otherwise, as he almost did when they first trapped him in the orb/egg.
While Borys alone wasn't capable of downing Rajaat, we don't know how would they have fared against each other once Borys became the Dragon.
Rajaat would have crushed him into paste. There is a reason the dragon did everything possible to prevent rajaat's escape. Because Rajaat is the ultimate bubba and borys would have been ankle grabbing. If the dragon could destroy Rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't. No one could. Only trap him, which ultimately didn't last.
Even when Rajaat returned, the match was made impossible by Rikus' stunt, and in many ways, Rajaat could return exactly because Borys wasn't there to stop him.
Borys wasn't there to stop tithian from using the dark lens to free rajaat.
We know that Borys became a lot more powerful once he transformed into the Dragon. We're never told if he became more powerful than Rajaat, but it's not crazy to assume so.
I think it is. If the dragon could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. If rajaat wasn't powerful enough to bend the dragon over, the dragon wouldn't have bothered keeping him trapped. Borys isn't as powerful as rajaat. Borys was killed where as nothing could kill rajaat.
Rajaat wasn't a god; there's no reason to assume he would be a lvl 35 solo.
Correct, Rajaat wasn't a god. You can kill a god, you can't kill Rajaat. He's the ultimate plot device. He's every inch a level 35 solo. And on athas, he IS a god. The best you can hope for is to trap him. The most powerful beings on athas could only trap him. When they first did it, he nearly broke free. The second time they did it, he was released and the third time they did it, he did break free.
He was downed by the Sorcerer Kings before Borys became the Dragon and some millennia before the stats they have no - maybe not a massive difference, but they didn't become weaker over time. If you think it took most of them to down Dregoth, it's quite safe to assume he wasn't much more powerful.
A few differences. When they trapped rajaat the first time, they were champions. They didn't begin the steps to becoming dragons until after. The major difference is that Rajaat can out last all of them. When rajaat came back, he was far more powerful and killed how many sorcerer kings? Yeah, even after they started becoming dragons. Even then, after nibenay, hamanu and the oba had grown in power, they still couldn't destroy rajaat, even with the dark lens.
Even if he was a lvl 35 solo, he wouldn't be leaps and bounds above Borys. Mechanically, the Dragon and the SKs as a group (despite having lost the aid of possibly the second strongest one) would be able to take him on as they're able to take on any statted deity in 4e, and Rajaat is probably weaker than Lolth or Bahamut.
Don't mistake the systems mechanical limits with the limits of a plot device. Rajaat is the ultimate bad guy. Even at 35th level, you could create a monster that is vastly more powerful than the SKs. A single "Rajaat is immune to damage by creatures under level 29" and it's over. As for lolth and bahamut, they are gods and gods die. Rajaat was unkillable.
People tend to overblow Rajaat's past power (I won't comment on his Prism Pentad role, as it's one of the many things that disappointed me in the books - he makes no sense as a divine being). He was downed by the SKs when they were still fundamentally stage 1 dragons. He's a being from a time when "personalities" were much weaker. Unless we assume the Black made him much more powerful than he was, there's no argument for assuming that when the manual states Borys is being a guardian to his prision they mean so literally - as in, he steps out and the Dragon will eat his face.
Rajaat was written to be the ultimate bad ass in a setting of ultimate badasses. Nothing about him is overblown. In darksun, he is the alpha and the omega. He is the inevitable. His track record is undeniable. You just cannot kill him and he will always get free. Eventually, he will win.
In all honesty, unless they pulled a Prism Pentad and inserted a god in the setting, I don't see any room for statting something more powerful than the Dragon in 4e DS, and that fuels the (canon-compatible) idea that the Dragon may have become more powerful than Rajaat ever was. Maybe not as accomplished as a cosmic level spellcaster, but that's another argument.
The entire "what if" scenario is moot. Could Raistlin beat Elminster? Is Drizzt more dangerous than Soth? Can anything kill Rajaat? All moot as we have no idea. Based on what we do know, No, nothing can kill Rajaat.
In darksun, Rajaat is the most powerful being, or he would not be trapped. They would not waste slave labor, life force and the dragon's time if they could simply destroy him. If anyone was capable of putting rajaat in check, they would not expend so much resources to keep him locked away. The dragon isn't stronger than rajaat in the old material and nothing in the new material suggests otherwise. If the dragon and the SKs were truly more powerful than rajaat, when united, there would be no rajaat at all. They would have destroyed him.
Rajaat eats orbs of annihilation for breakfast and the orbs suffer heartburn as a result, not rajaat.
Anyways, I think the fact that 4e makes Borys so strong (and thus mechanically superior to a possible Rajaat statblock, or at least capable of facing him) is sort of satisfying for that part of the audience that wasn't too fond of his introduction.
Personally, I don't hate Rajaat, but I feel the last thing Dark Sun needed was a midget Sauron/Voldemort/Dark Lord Mc Guffin. Rajaat is as generic as it gets. The Dragon is a much more fitting villain (and at least for me, Dark Sun was a much more frightening place when he was the big dog) because he's like Athas. He's feral, strange, alien, horribly powerful, mysterious and unpredictable. He's infinitely more fascinating than the umpteen supermage that Rajaat ultimately is.
I like Rajaat because his story makes the actually interesting villains - the SKs - much more interesting, but in general in my games (when I DM or when I play in Athas) the approach is that while Rajaat was incredibly powerful, the Dragon-transformation process takes the arcane power scale on a level even he couldn't imagine.
While I do like Rajaat and find his story very interesting, it's the simple logic that is undeniable. People who don't like Rajaat won't accept it because "Rajaat sucks" but if anything was more powerful than him, he wouldn't still be around.
There would be plenty of reasons.
Rajaat was fundamentally immortal; that may not equate more powerful, after all, he lost both times and in the second case in an embarassing short amount of time.
What is certain is that Rajaat had a much deeper understanding of arcane magic than the SKs had. He could have foundt a way to make himself fundamentally unkillable (something akin to lichdoom would make sense) and to everyone else in a world that was completely ignorant about arcane magic he would look absolutely immortal.
Borys could have gotten stronger than him, but still not want to challenge him. First, why risk? Who knows how powerful Rajaat got in those millenia. If you were like a god to your world, would you risk awakening the only thing that could possibly challenge you? Also, remove Rajaat from the equation, and suddenly there's no need for a Dragon anymore. Sure, you're powerful but you know how powerful the SKs can get when they unite against someone. Are you gonna risk it? But as long as Rajaat is there, you get them in line, and you get your levy so that you can build your small empire in the Sea of Silt and...
There's plenty of logical reasons for Borys wanting Rajaat alive and not-so-well.
People tend to overblow Rajaat's past power (I won't comment on his Prism Pentad role, as it's one of the many things that disappointed me in the books - he makes no sense as a divine being). He was downed by the SKs when they were still fundamentally stage 1 dragons. He's a being from a time when "personalities" were much weaker.
I just wanted to throw out that while most of the Champions/SKs may have been weaker, they had greater numbers at that time. Just in canon they had the current SKs and Dragon, Dregoth (who was already pretty powerful before becoming a champion), Kalid-Ma, Sielba, Daskinor, Oronis and anyone else that was still alive (Pennarin possibly). Even with the new stuff there are 15 original Champions. If you discount Wyan and Sacha as traitors to the cause that still leaves 13 to imprison Rajaat.
I like Rajaat but the setting is much stronger by keeping Borys around to kick butt.
Rajaat was fundamentally immortal; that may not equate more powerful, after all, he lost both times and in the second case in an embarassing short amount of time.
Rajaat defeated how many sorcerer kings in how long? It was like under a minute. I don't think even the dragon could have defeated that many SKs that fast, if at all. As far as losing the battles, it was the only reasonable conclusion to the novel. Rajaat couldn't very well win and everything they threw at him had no effect. Using his shadow as his weakness was brilliant. He also had to lose the first time, too. Or there would be no darksun setting.
What is certain is that Rajaat had a much deeper understanding of arcane magic than the SKs had. He could have foundt a way to make himself fundamentally unkillable (something akin to lichdoom would make sense) and to everyone else in a world that was completely ignorant about arcane magic he would look absolutely immortal.
Rajaat was the first sorcerer and his understanding of magic and psionics was way more advanced than the SKs knowledge, even back then. After thousands of years of study, the SKs are still ignorant in regards to magic when compared to rajaat. As for making himself unkillable, yeah, it's a good comparison with a lich, except the world of athas is his phylactery. He appears to be linked to the world in an unknown way.
Borys could have gotten stronger than him, but still not want to challenge him. First, why risk?
Because almost all of the dragon's time was spent on guard duty. That's basically all he's ever been. A very powerful prison guard. I'd imagine that borys is obsessed with keeping rajaat locked away BECAUSE he knows exactly how powerful rajaat is and that he isn't his equal. I'd also guess that the SKS and the dragon have attempted to destroy rajaat while in the hollow and found it impossible. Why risk it? Because the dragon is still a slave, doomed to guard a prison for all time.
Who knows how powerful Rajaat got in those millenia. If you were like a god to your world, would you risk awakening the only thing that could possibly challenge you?
Being a god among insects doesn't mean much when you face a tiger. The dragon is a god compared to a mortal, as are all the SKs. Rajaat, on the other hand, is a god when compared to them. Of course no one would risk it, because they know what would happen. Exactly what did happen. Rajaat got free and killed a bunch of godlike sorcerer kings.
Also, remove Rajaat from the equation, and suddenly there's no need for a Dragon anymore. Sure, you're powerful but you know how powerful the SKs can get when they unite against someone. Are you gonna risk it? But as long as Rajaat is there, you get them in line, and you get your levy so that you can build your small empire in the Sea of Silt and...
If the dragon were powerful enough to destroy rajaat, the sorcerer kings would be no threat to him. If the dragon could destroy rajaat and he had anything to worry about the SKS, he'd destroy them first, and he could.
There's plenty of logical reasons for Borys wanting Rajaat alive and not-so-well.
Among the many, many ideas I'v heard in the years I'v been having these discussions, the only one that ever actually made any sense, was that borys wanted to discover the secret to rajaat's power. Borys hates rajaat and with the rare exception, the SKs including borys, consider their transformation at the hands of rajaat, to be a curse. What a joy it would be then, to wipe away that curse yet retain not only the power you acquired, but gain even more power. The power of rajaat.
It's fun to speculate since we don't know the "what ifs" but in the end, we end up back to the facts. Rajaat is the athasian boogyman and it appears, he always will be, while the dragon is a glorified prison guard and the sorcerer kings are little more than cattle herders, doing their job by providing sacrifices to keep the boogyman in the closet.
Given that muls exist we can pretty much assume that all sorts of forced breeding shenanigans are well within the bailiwick of the SKs/athasian slave traders.
While I have yet to see any direct references to it in 4e, in 2e muls were sterile, and human women almost ALWAYS died giving birth to them... so other than Neeva it wasn't something they would be likely to do willingly. (though in 4e there are depictions of female muls, and statements that they make up sizable minority populations in some cities... so I don't know if this stuff is still cannon.)
If you need an example of how quickly mass numbers of fairly slow breeding mammals can be produced for slaughter, consider the cattle industry.
Granted, we have hormone injections to help them out... BUT the SKs have magical rituals, and I'm sure they use them.
Also they probably send old/infirm/criminal populations (that don't go to the arena), not to mention that Kreen clutches are potentially huge, and I wouldn't put it past the SKs to raise them like chickens.
On top of all that I'm sure the free populations probably breed more like agricultural families in the 1800's and less like US urban populations in 2010.
I'm guessing that WOTC won't publish these sort of thoughts, because well, even though it is Dark Sun, they have to maintain a certain level of "family friendlyness" in their games. ^.^
You only need ONE big bad super ugly: the Dragon of Tyr does it nicely.
Leave DMs to work on their OWN history of Athas, I'll take Clark Ashton Smith with a touch of Barsoom and Gor for inspiration of my view of Athas and it's history, over a TSR plot to force gamers to buy new material every few years and they FELL for it.
One thing I'm surprised of is that the Dragon has only 2 action points, while all gods and primordials have 3, a sign of sort of their uberness.
Maybe. On the other hand, I spent some time "simulating" solo vs solo combat, and it's my opinion that right now, with the possible exception of Bahamut, Borys is the most powerful solo out in a 1v1 fight.
It's as if he's designed to be a solo slayer. For example, I would say Lolth is an equivalent if not superior fight for a party, however in a direct confrontation, Borys would butcher her - fast.
The most peculiar thing is that Borys has very little of the Controller. He looks more like a Soldier. But he's an absolute engine of destruction and his single target damage potential is so much above the competition it's not even funny. Once again, to design a solo that could survive contact with the Dragon you would need to design something impossible to face for a party, and that's not what 4e does. The Dragon is probably statted as non-divine (lower level, less AP) for role purposes, but he's mechanically on the very top of the 4e foodchain.
Like he should. I understand the boogeyman argument, but I think that what people has been lamenting over the years is the fact that the Dragon already is a boogeyman, just a very real one, and in my eyes a much more awesome one.
I think his relationship with Rajaat isn't similar to that of Sauron and Melkor; if anything, right now it's more like Palpatine (Rajaat) and Darth Vader (the Dragon). The outcome of a direct confrontation would be uncertain, in fact the Dragon (Vader) may be potentially stronger but the "lord" Rajaat (Palpatine) has a powerful ally in his pupil's fear.
Remember that's it's a misconception that Rikus killed the Dragon, on the contrary he snapped the Scourge's blade in the beast's body, and black ichor pooled out of it, apparently rendering the Dragon powerless while it dissolved him. That ichor (also seen in the Abalach-Re death scene) has been interpreted as a window through the Black and beyond, to Rajaat's prison, from which he cannot escape but could enact vengeance through the ichor's medium. The ichor was a manifestation of Rajaat's power, a relic of sort from what he invested of himself into the forging of the blade...exactly like Sauron did with the One Ring.
I've always seen the black icor as some sort of FoxDie. Rajaat was SMART. He was prepared. Heck, he may have set the icor as a reagent of the ritual to create champions to be sure he always had a tool to take down his potentially rebellious followers.
Personally, I've always seen the death of the Dragon as the intervention of Rajaat. It's like he needed to get him out of the way in order to be released, because it was the only thing that could take him on in a direct fight.
Remember that's it's a misconception that Rikus killed the Dragon, on the contrary he snapped the Scourge's blade in the beast's body, and black ichor pooled out of it, apparently rendering the Dragon powerless while it dissolved him. That ichor (also seen in the Abalach-Re death scene) has been interpreted as a window through the Black and beyond, to Rajaat's prison, from which he cannot escape but could enact vengeance through the ichor's medium. The ichor was a manifestation of Rajaat's power, a relic of sort from what he invested of himself into the forging of the blade...exactly like Sauron did with the One Ring.
Yeah, I just didn't want to be the one to say that it was Rajaat who actually killed the dragon. Rikus just wounded the dragon. Not even a wound that would have saved his life, had it not been for rajaat's blood, or athasian oil or that black ichory oozy stuff. Whatever you want to call it.
At the very least it was the work of both. Without the Ichor Rikus might not have been able to kill Borys but without Rikus, Rajaat wouldn't get the chance to even touch Borys.
Maybe. On the other hand, I spent some time "simulating" solo vs solo combat, and it's my opinion that right now, with the possible exception of Bahamut, Borys is the most powerful solo out in a 1v1 fight.
It's as if he's designed to be a solo slayer. For example, I would say Lolth is an equivalent if not superior fight for a party, however in a direct confrontation, Borys would butcher her - fast.
The most peculiar thing is that Borys has very little of the Controller. He looks more like a Soldier. But he's an absolute engine of destruction and his single target damage potential is so much above the competition it's not even funny. Once again, to design a solo that could survive contact with the Dragon you would need to design something impossible to face for a party, and that's not what 4e does. The Dragon is probably statted as non-divine (lower level, less AP) for role purposes, but he's mechanically on the very top of the 4e foodchain.
I find that very interesting. Just looking over his stats I noticed all the AoE damage the Dragon can do while not having many tools to deal with stuns etc, so my (untested) assumption was that it would do better against a party then in a solo fight.
Out of curiosity how did the Dragon deal with Loth's ability to Weaken and Dominate?
Edit: Oh and I agree that the Dragon was/is a much more interesting big bad then Rajaat. The death of the Dragon is where I lost intrest in the novels and the 2nd Ed metaplot.
Maybe. On the other hand, I spent some time "simulating" solo vs solo combat, and it's my opinion that right now, with the possible exception of Bahamut, Borys is the most powerful solo out in a 1v1 fight.
It's as if he's designed to be a solo slayer. For example, I would say Lolth is an equivalent if not superior fight for a party, however in a direct confrontation, Borys would butcher her - fast.
The most peculiar thing is that Borys has very little of the Controller. He looks more like a Soldier. But he's an absolute engine of destruction and his single target damage potential is so much above the competition it's not even funny. Once again, to design a solo that could survive contact with the Dragon you would need to design something impossible to face for a party, and that's not what 4e does. The Dragon is probably statted as non-divine (lower level, less AP) for role purposes, but he's mechanically on the very top of the 4e foodchain.
I find that very interesting. Just looking over his stats I noticed all the AoE damage the Dragon can do while not having many tools to deal with stuns etc, so my (untested) assumption was that it would do better against a party then in a solo fight.
Out of curiosity how did the Dragon deal with Loth's ability to Weaken and Dominate?
Edit: Oh and I agree that the Dragon was/is a much more interesting big bad then Rajaat. The death of the Dragon is where I lost intrest in the novels and the 2nd Ed metaplot.
A solo vs solo fight assumes a certain degree of DM fiat. For example, considering Borys' immediate reaction, it's plenty possible to imagine a scenario where Lolth never manages to get in range of him and he kills her simply by "kiting" her.
I can't go too much in the details in order to avoid posting the full stats of the two solos, but here goes.
The scenario I recreated wasn't a pure simulation but a critical evaluation. I somewhat ruled out complete shutdowns (a situation that favoured Lolth, because once again Borys' knock prone ability is more severe in many scenarios). While Lolth has powerful minor actions, most of her tricks are ended with a save, and Borys saves thrice per turn. Domination is tricky, but once again, so is the knock prone effect, and I didn't want a shutdown scenario. Once you look at numbers, their attack rolls are similar; Lolth has sensibly better minor actions but Borys has an absurdely higher damage output (provided he can save on her 50 damage poison, but he can sacrifice one action for tactical positioning and do so) and if he can get here sub 640 hp, she will go spider mode and in that form he'll rip her to shreds.
The point is Rajaat killed the Dragon at a distance, while being imprisoned, using goo. What could he do if free?
By that logic Gollum killed Sauron from distance using his mouth.
The ooze was a trap - it was a mechanism set up by Rajaat to maintain control over the destiny of his subjects. I always perceived it as a case of Rajaat being smart and cunning more than powerful. It's a fairly classic case, and I'm sure that if Dennings wanted to showcase Rajaat as incredibly superior to the Dragon, he wouldn't have missed the chance for a showdown.
However, the point here isn't what happened in novels that aren't part of the 4e lore. My original point is that it's mechanically undeniable that in 4e Rajaat would struggle to keep up with the Dragon, since the most powerful gods in the game would have a terrible time too. There simply isn't the design room to portray an undeniable superiority (unless you would do so by making Rajaat some sort of ubergod, which he clearly wasn't). The consequence I drew is that what most likely happened is that when Rajaat lost the creature competition, WotC decided to make the Dragon the ultimate DS badass.
You cannot accurately playtest this alone. You need at least threepeople. One neutral person to act as judge, in control of trap, hazard and terrain placement. And two players, each using a different monster. As it is now, there is too much bias as you want borys to be the best of the best.
You're bias also keeps you from seeing the truth about rajaat. He was designed to be the more powerful, unkillable bad guy in darksun. If the dragon would have fought him one on one, the dragon would lose because that is the sole purpose of rajaat, a plot device. To be the most dangerous threat to the world. These comparisons with star wars and lord of the rings don't work, because none of those characters were written to do what rajaat does. He fills a specific role in the story. He's not suppose to be a fight-able bad guy. He's beyond that.
Rajaat's purpose in the story, was to be the super alpha-omega, stronger than all. That way when the SKs trapped him, you could gauge their power based on that. We know exactly how powerful the dragon is suppose to be, as he is the only one who could keep the beast trapped. The dragon is probably capable of destroying all life in the tyr region, yet he is unable to destroy rajaat. All the Sks and the dragon are unable to destroy rajaat and all of them fear his release.
This also tells us how powerful the dark lens is and how powerful sadira is during the day, by the events in the novels. Rajaat is a plot device and he's never been officially stated because he is the darksun equivalent of an overgod. FR has AO, dragonlance has the highgod and darksun has rajaat.
All of which are beyond the measure of a level scale.
In 4e, that could change through dungeon magazine and if it ever does, I'm putting my money on level 35 solo controller immune to the attacks of creatures under level 30, with incredible control abilities and super high self defense. (see auto save against conditions)
The dragon is leaps and bounds above other level 33 solos, as rajaat probably would be nearly impossible to fight, requiring artifacts to defeat. Bahamut and Torog are both incredible bosses as is the tiamat found in the dungeon adventure. Allabar is also a very tough fight.
Nearly all feedback from those who have defeated those bosses have been by min/max opt characters, as unopt characters almost always die.
I'v got a playtest this weekend with the dragon. We're doing a level 29 group and a level 30 group. So I'm hoping to have the entire encounter report posted in a blog by monday, with all the details. Using those exact same characters, we will playtest lolth, bahamut, tiamat(dungeon version), torog, vecna and a few other powerful solos, record every detail and compare notes. Doing this because some of us do view the dragon ashead and shoulders above some of the other "beyond epic" solos. These playtests will be running for some time, since we need to run them over and over and over again.
But you simply can't do these playtests alone and you can't find an honest result off of only a single playtest, as it could have been a fluke. Tactical error is also another factor. How many mistakes did the players make during the encounter and how did those mistakes impact the test?
Opinions will differ dramatically on this - based on lore, wishful thinking, or personal preference - so there's not much point in having a conversation on who's got the biggest balls amongst the baddies.
You're absolutely right; that's why I took a mechanical approach to it. I'm not discussing who should be the BBEG in everyone's game - expecially considering in 2nd we've run games where Rajaat was the ultimate badass like in the novels, even if we never got to see him, and then in another we played as a group of SKs that didn't rebel against Rajaat and were banished with him, and once we got freed we had to stop the Dragon from *freeing* Rajaat because he got more powerful and wanted to obtain his knowledge.
Every game is a different story.
My approach was brutally mechanical. The way the Dragon is statted in 4e, there is no way possible to design a Rajaat that isn't completely inconsisted with all past design of 4e *gods* and as the same time out of the Dragon's league. My argument is simply, if Rajaat ever get stats, the Dragon will have a shot at him. How relevant is that? If you consider that no SKs is even remotely close to being mechanically capable to fight the Dragon, I would say it has some relevance.
That won't stop DMs who want Rajaat to be massively more powerful than the Dragon to make it so, but if the PCs were ever to confront something that overpower the Dragon, that would be an interesting sight.
That also raises another point: D&D isn't Dragonball. There isn't a "powerlevel" that applies to all fields of expertise. It's possible that Rajaat is more powerful than the Dragon in many aspects - the Dragon could never fix the sun or bring rain or cast cosmic spells that change the face of the planet in the same way Rajaat does, but maybe he's the ultimate killing machine and he could eat his master's face off in direct combat. It wouldn't be absurd. Heck, maybe even in the novels Rajaat knew he had worldshaping magic powers that the SKs couldn't still match, but if he foundt himself with 4 tons of Borys sitting on his stomach and punching him in the face it wouldn't have helped him.
Power isn't an omongeneous figure.
On the issue of playtesting, it is indeed very complex; I'm not even running simulations, but simply stating that unless you pull some 4e-inconsistent sheanigan ("Hey, I'm immune to 34lvl and below dudes!" or "Hey, I can stun a Dragon for 3 turns as a minor action!") it's close to impossible to design a solo the Dragon couldn't kill. The Dragon has very little in the way of effects or statuses; he's all about damage, and he does a gigaton of it.
- personally, despite his power trip in the novels, I have an hard time picturing Rajaat as an overgod. Overgods create cosmologies, Rajaat is struggling with pollution. Maybe they're quantitatively similar, or cover similar roles, but the quality of their power is much different in my opinion.
No, you misunderstand. I'm not saying rajaat is an overgod. I'm saying he fills that role in darksun. Overgods are nothing more than plot devices that can be called upon to drive a storyline. Nothing more.
That also raises another point: D&D isn't Dragonball. There isn't a "powerlevel" that applies to all fields of expertise.
Mechanically, there is a power scale. The mechanics of the system have limits and those limits get pushed every time we see something new. Until we see those limits pushed higher, we assume it's improbable that those limits will ever be pushed. The dragon, as awesome as he is, isn't the peak of monster creation limits. Player characters can completely destroy him, just like bahamut, lolth and torog. We've yet to see the true mechanical end point, where a monster simply cannot be improved upon without becoming impossible to defeat.
It's possible that Rajaat is more powerful than the Dragon in many aspects - the Dragon could never fix the sun or bring rain or cast cosmic spells that change the face of the planet in the same way Rajaat does, but maybe he's the ultimate killing machine and he could eat his master's face off in direct combat.
Again, I just don't see anything that supports this at all. The dragon couldn't even save himself from the black liquid and he was wounded by one of rajaats creations (the scourge). IMO, everything points in the same direction.
On the issue of playtesting, it is indeed very complex; I'm not even running simulations, but simply stating that unless you pull some 4e-inconsistent sheanigan ("Hey, I'm immune to 34lvl and below dudes!" or "Hey, I can stun a Dragon for 3 turns as a minor action!") it's close to impossible to design a solo the Dragon couldn't kill. The Dragon has very little in the way of effects or statuses; he's all about damage, and he does a gigaton of it.
If borys can kill every other solo doesn't mean much, when you consider that a solo's threat level is measured against player characters. A monster could eat another monster with a single minor action and it wouldn't matter if it sucks against the pcs. The dragon isn't as strong against conditions as some other high level solos and player characters have ways to reduce the amount of damage they take. If borys gets locked down by conditions, there isn't much he can do.
IMO, Bahamut is still king. Against level 30 pcs, he's very hard to beat. His ability to stun is near maddening and he has the potential to do amazing damage. Bahamut can summon 7 dragons (summons, not actual monster write ups) and he can fight in two forms. He has an insane HP total, his defenses are great, he has the ability to instantly roll saving throws against conditions.
As the old man with gold dragons, he's a deadly leader with hard to kill summons. He can fight in this form to soften a foe up, then when he's weak, he can transform into his dragon form and finish a foe off. Bahamut is built to be a "test" fight and played to his maximum potential, he truly is nearly undefeatable. Unless the dice hate him, bahamut wouldn't lose to borys. No way.
The problem with solo vs solo is that they're designed to fight against a group of enemies. So a lot of powers would be useless in a 1v1 fight. Now, don't get me wrong. I'v always loved borys. IMO he's the single coolest dragon in all of D&D. I love dragons in general and the spin on dragons in darksun helped get me addicted to the setting. And the nerdfan in me would find it cool if darksun provided the most dangerous solo in the game. It would be fitting. But we have some very powerful and deadly solo monsters in the game and Bahamut is (IMO) far more deadly than borys.
We also have to consider Allabar, which can kill groups of player characters. I doubt borys could win that fight either.
Borys is a serious bad ass. But he isn't the most dangerous D&D monster.
Wait a sec. You think the dragon is more powerful than Rajaat? I must have misunderstood that or you're bogarting some kind dank.
Even bogarting the kindest of dank, one can't seriously believe ol' Borys could take Rajaat. Big scaly magic lizard vs. giant cloud-covered skeleton with the power to alter the whole region at once......
A somewhat more reasonable middle ground would be that when Rajaat was first imprisoned, Borys may have been somewhat more powerful, but Rajaat's power has been able to keep growing and growing.......
However, if I understand the novels correctly, the Dragon never, ever stood a chance solo against Rajaat. The ONLY way IIRC to banish Rajaat was to eradicate his shadow with Sun magic. Borys has no access to Clerical Sun magic.
Rajaat wouldn't even have needed to use any magic against Borys, he probably could have just smashed his head in with the Lens like he did to Tectuktitlay.
Wait a sec. You think the dragon is more powerful than Rajaat? I must have misunderstood that or you're bogarting some kind dank.
Even bogarting the kindest of dank, one can't seriously believe ol' Borys could take Rajaat. Big scaly magic lizard vs. giant cloud-covered skeleton with the power to alter the whole region at once......
A somewhat more reasonable middle ground would be that when Rajaat was first imprisoned, Borys may have been somewhat more powerful, but Rajaat's power has been able to keep growing and growing.......
However, if I understand the novels correctly, the Dragon never, ever stood a chance solo against Rajaat. The ONLY way IIRC to banish Rajaat was to eradicate his shadow with Sun magic. Borys has no access to Clerical Sun magic.
Rajaat wouldn't even have needed to use any magic against Borys, he probably could have just smashed his head in with the Lens like he did to Tectuktitlay.
Observations aside, isn't this enough to justify the reaction of a solid part of the fanbase to the last novels in the Pentad?
You build a setting over the idea that Sorcerer Kings are frightening and powerful. That there's something, the Dragon, the entire planet fears, that has ruled it for millenia and could destroy entire cities in a matter of minutes... and then you tell people they're actually all gimps because there's Sauron hidden in a hole.
I really like Rajaat's storyline... in the past. It fits the world, he makes plenty of sense with SKs and Borys. For me, he doesn't work when he comes back, because it makes you go from "oh hell yeah this setting is so unique!" to " ah ok, it's just like every other one, with the Dark Lord waiting to be freed. Tolkien got it better the first time, tho".
As an archetypal Sauron clone, Rajaat isn't devoid of points of interest (he's twisted enough to draw attention). However, Athas isn't the Shire. Sauron works because you go from your idilliac, peaceful world to knowing an ancient evil existed and he's coming back and if not stopped a waterfall of crap will start falling on your littel utopia.
Dark Sun is a world where the waterfall has been falling for centuries. I think Rajaat works better in a "there was an ancient evil once, but someone stopped and in doing so created something even worse, and now the world is REALLY screwed" than in a "you know, things are bad but we STILL have Sauron coming!". Expecially when Rajaat's return actually made the world... better. He eliminated half the SKs. He killed the Dragon. He brought rain to the world, and green, and all, and then he bowed and bended and got kicked back out of the scene. I wonder why none of the characters said "let's leave this dude around a bit more, he's doing a great job!".
Then again personal tastes are personal tastes. I'm not exactly in love with the Pentad (or rather, the end of the Pentad) but some other people may find it the best thing to happen to DS. To me, the BBEG of the setting will remain the fearsome Dragon and not the treehugging Sauron midget
.The Dragon demands a yearly "tax" of 1000 slaves from each city-state (ruled by an SK) so that he may drain their life-forces to maintain the prison of Rajaat (located under Ur Draxa).
The Dragon was formerly Borys, one of Rajaat's Champions tasked to eradicate dwarves. When he and the other Champions (now SKs) discovered humans will be among those destroyed, all but a few betrayed their master and imprisoned him. They slew his body, keeping it in the Black Sphere in Ur Draxa, and Rajaat's essence in the Hollow. But not before forcing Rajaat to turn Borys into the Dragon. All this took place in the Pristine Tower.
more info in wikis and here.
Wow. This thread really got sidetracked. Anywho, I believe someone mentioned this already but the SKs did not force Rajaat to turn Borys into the Dragon of Tyr. They did that themselves with the Dark Lens after they imprisoned Rajaat. I would guess they had to do it so that Borys could maintain the prison on his own without relying on all of them combined. They didn't anticipate the pain and beastial nature of the transformation though and Borys went on an uncontrollable, beastial, rampage for years afterwards. That was when they lost track of the Dark Lens.
I mean... immortality and power, while often hand-in-hand, aren't joined at the hip, ya know? You can have an immortal but weak character, someone that always gets back up but is completely powerless, and you can have something incredibly powerful that can't get better from death.
The two concepts aren't joined. To claim a character has one because they have the other is conflating correlation with causation.
You build a setting over the idea that Sorcerer Kings are frightening and powerful. That there's something, the Dragon, the entire planet fears, that has ruled it for millenia and could destroy entire cities in a matter of minutes... and then you tell people they're actually all gimps because there's Sauron hidden in a hole.
Actually, what it always said to me, was that you have these godlike beings that rule the city states, who laugh at any attempts to unthrone then. Then you have the true terror of athas, the dragon, who could and in some ways, does rule the tyr region from his super city in the most dangerous part of the known world. As powerful and terrifying as these beings are, there is one, far more dangerous than all of them. An evil pyreen of unmatched power.
I really like Rajaat's storyline... in the past. It fits the world, he makes plenty of sense with SKs and Borys. For me, he doesn't work when he comes back, because it makes you go from "oh hell yeah this setting is so unique!" to " ah ok, it's just like every other one, with the Dark Lord waiting to be freed.
Except that it isn't like every other setting. Rajaat doesn't want to destroy all life or rule the world. He wants to restore it and return it to the people he believes should have it. He's completely madbonkerscrazy and in a very twisted way, he's the ultimate insane hero. He's a very unique spin on a universal bad guy flavor. While rajaat is as unique as the entire story of darksun.
When you try, you can link anything back to mythology and call it a clone or you can see that fictional characters are just extreme reflections of real world people. Sauron is the fictional extreme of Hitler. But Tolkien's not the standard I measure everything else by. He's just another guy who took ideas from ancient mythology and put a spin on it. Just like any other fantasy author.
Neither borys or sauron measure up to rajaat, because unlike rajaat, both of those BBEGs got killed. Something you simply couldn't do to the plot device. You can only hope to put the plot device away in a special place until it's needed again to drive the plot forward.
It should also be said, that rajaat doesn't take any of the cool factor away from borys or the SKs or the setting. I think he actually adds more depth to the setting and those characters. Because it leads you to question if they truly are the bad guys and not just victims of a mad man. It also forces them into the role of protectors, since they are defending not only themselves, but also all of athas. It makes the entire story more interesting than simply having 7 saurons ruling 7 city states and 1 super sauron ruling them all. So that treehugging midget clone does it better than the original, who was defeated by getting his finger cut off and his cereal box jewelry thrown into really hot bathwater.
I'm really amused by the repeated line of "If Borys could kill Rajaat, he would have. Since he can't, Rajaat must be more powerful."
I mean... immortality and power, while often hand-in-hand, aren't joined at the hip, ya know? You can have an immortal but weak character, someone that always gets back up but is completely powerless, and you can have something incredibly powerful that can't get better from death.
The two concepts aren't joined. To claim a character has one because they have the other is conflating correlation with causation.
I completely agree. But since Rajaat punked a bunch of godlike beings in just a few moments, began to transform a wasteland region into a paradise and was completely immune to harm by those godlike beings, I used a summed up version of a valid reason. It required the help of rajaat's own artifact to stop him. Without the dark lens, R'kard wouldn't have been able to destroy the shadow.
More funny facts. The scourge was made long, long ago by rajaat before he became a super powerful, primordial being capable of changing the planet by will alone. Compared to what rajaat had become in the CS, the warbringer version appeared to be weaker. Borys was wounded by the scourge, created by a weaker version of rajaat. So that tells us that even after all that time, borys could still be harmed by rajaat's "outdated" magic.
Then, rajaat's black fluid did kill borys and I highly doubt the black fluid was more powerful than rajaat's full potential.
So basically, borys couldn't destroy rajaat, wasn't strong enough to not be harmed by the scourge and wasn't powerful enough to save himself from the black liquid. Borys simply wasn't as powerful as rajaat, in any noticable way. If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful. On the other hand, everything points to rajaat being more than capable of destroying borys. I'm really amused that anyone that knows this information could think otherwise.
he's the ultimate insane hero. He's a very unique spin on a universal bad guy flavor.
^this.
Dark Sun has evil with purpose and reason, every major bad guy can be seen as an antihero, the SKs are bastards because they must be to protect what is left of civilization from the Dragon (when he was in crazy mode) and Rajatt, the Dragon is doing what he must to protect the sentient races and the world from Rajatt, Rajatt for his part just wants to fix a mistake made long ago by others and return the world to a more pristine state, if he didn't see the sentient races (other than halflings) as part of the problem, he'd probably be a good guy.
Then again, if Hitler didn't want to enslave (or worse) the rest of humanity to the benefit of blonde people, who knows what we'd think of Him now.
In other settings Evil just is... and much of the time there aren't any reasons, or we don't know them, or they are shallow and somewhat ridiculous reasons like "the other guys stole my magic wookie so I pledged myself to an eternal quest to destroy all of creation and now millennia later I still haven't bothered to think it through."
Why is Bane such a jerk? Now that Asmodeus has his stolen divinity and has killed the god he once served why is he still Evil? These guys don't even really have a "means justify the ends" excuse... In Dark Sun, everyone has a reason to be who they are, you might not agree with their methods, but you can understand them, and in all truth it is heroic characters like Rikus/Sadria/et al that are the biggest threat to the world as they lash out at things they do not understand.
In Dark Sun the question is whether the PCs will screw things up even worse (on a planetary scale) as they try to fix things, or will they get lucky and make things slightly better in the end, like the heroes in the PP did. Things could have so easily gone so very much worse for example if Tithian were even slightly less of a self serving/power hungry character.
If everything had gone as planned in the Vally of Dust and Fire... Athas would probably be flooded and everyone would be dead except for whatever Halflings Rajat decided were pure enough.
Also, I'd point out that several of the "evil" SKs and the Dragon himself made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up their lives in a valiant effort to save the planet from the "heroes" meddling.
If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful.
Power != immortality. Just because you can't kill something does not mean you can't possibly be more powerful then that something.
That is to say, whatever other support you have for or against one or the other being bigger and badder, the fact that one was mortal and the other wasn't shouldn't be part of the equation. It's just not good support for any argument.
You were going so strong, and then you did it again...If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful.
Power != immortality. Just because you can't kill something does not mean you can't possibly be more powerful then that something.
That is to say, whatever other support you have for or against one or the other being bigger and badder, the fact that one was mortal and the other wasn't shouldn't be part of the equation. It's just not good support for any argument.
Indeed.
Imagine a world where nobody knows how you become a lich, and you become one. The SK kill you. Tomorrow you're back. And again and again and again until they need to figure something out.
Besides, the SKs defeated Rajaat before imprisoning him. And the SKs now can't defeat Borys.
You were going so strong, and then you did it again...If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful.
Power != immortality. Just because you can't kill something does not mean you can't possibly be more powerful then that something.
That is to say, whatever other support you have for or against one or the other being bigger and badder, the fact that one was mortal and the other wasn't shouldn't be part of the equation. It's just not good support for any argument.
I'm not arguing the power=immortality aspect and never was. Also Immortal=/=unkillable. For example, As far as anyone knows, the sorcerer kings and the dragon are immortal. Which didn't save them from death.
But it stands that if borys could have killed rajaat, he would have. It's very safe to assume he couldn't by the evidence we have and it's also very safe to assume that borys would have been slain by rajaat, based on the evidence we have. There is also nothing to support the idea that keeping rajaat "alive" was a benefit to the sks or the dragon, but, using logic, anyone should be able to see the benefit of removing the most potent threat to the sks and the dragon.
You were going so strong, and then you did it again...If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful.
Power != immortality. Just because you can't kill something does not mean you can't possibly be more powerful then that something.
That is to say, whatever other support you have for or against one or the other being bigger and badder, the fact that one was mortal and the other wasn't shouldn't be part of the equation. It's just not good support for any argument.
Indeed.
Imagine a world where nobody knows how you become a lich, and you become one. The SK kill you. Tomorrow you're back. And again and again and again until they need to figure something out.
Besides, the SKs defeated Rajaat before imprisoning him. And the SKs now can't defeat Borys.
There is nothing to suggest rajaat is a lich. As far as we know, he's not undead, he doesn't return to "life" like liches, he regenerates. As for not being able to defeat borys, we have nothing to suggest that. We know the sorcerer kings don't "want" to defeat borys, that they want and need a powerful dragon to keep rajaat locked away.
Can they unite and defeat borys? Probably.Look what they did to dregoth. Look how easily they put him down. It would probably cost the SKs some of their numbers, but I doubt the dragon would win against the remaining sks if they united. But since they need the dragon and the dragon needs them...
I'm not arguing the power=immortality aspect and never was.
...
If borys could have destroyed rajaat, he would have. But he couldn't because he wasn't as powerful.
Borys isn't as powerful as Rajaat. Understand it as you will.
That Borys could not kill/destroy/whatever Rajaat does not mean that Borys was not as powerful as Rajaat, it just means that Borys could not kill/destroy/whatever Rajaat.
That Rajaat was unkillable by Borys is no basis for saying that Rajaat was necessarily more powerful then Borys. Just that for whatever reason Rajaat was unkillable by him.
At that point Rajaat is more of a plot device than anything that can be destroyed and requires stats. My opinion.
At that point Rajaat is more of a plot device than anything that can be destroyed and requires stats. My opinion.
I think the description is exactly what reinforces the idea behind what Escher is saying. Rajaat WAS bested. There's no reason to think he got immensely more powerful in the Black.
However, between putting him down and putting him down forever there appears to be an universe of difference.
It's an age old plot device; in almost every fantasy setting there is an evil that was defeated and yet didn't die so it can threaten new generations. The controversy about Dark Sun is that evil ALREADY is in the world, and putting an even more powerful or mean evil force in is somewhat counter intuitive, expecially when its appearance makes things better instead of worse.
Also, one should also consider the psychology of the SKs at the time. Rajaat was their master, probably a father figure. They trusted him, possibly loved him in their perverted way. He made them - what could he do next? To them, he was probably the closest thing to a god, and some day they find out he plans on killing them like everyone else. They would be terrified, hurt and scared, but also angry and confused.
In the end we got into an age old discussion of power level that leads nowhere; Rajaat is as powerful as you want him to be. Most people I played and discussed with hated Rajaat and would probably remove him. A lot of people (like shown here) like him in his ubervillain position. Personally I like Rajaat but I think the Dragon makes a far better villain, and so I rationalize Rajaat as someone who brought the real horror into this world.
Rajaat had control. He had a plan, it was working, and it was logical. He didn't want what Athas is now. He probably didn't forsee anything of what happened. In fact, the consequences of his return are world-shattering because hell on earth wasn't what he wanted. That's the problem with him - in the world of Athas, he's a less interesting villain, because the world he envisioned is probably a better place than Athas is now.
In my canon, Rajaat didn't know about the dragon transformation of the Champions. He unleashed an incredibly powerful spell, drained incredible power from the sun and made his Champions without knowing what they would become. In my canon Rajaat lost his control and if he could see the world now, and what Borys became and his effects on the world, he would say "what have I done?". That works better for me, at least, because I see Athas as a post-apocalyptic world, and how can you have a post-apocalyptic world if the apocalypse has yet to happen?
Once again, my personal take on things.
Not interested in a semantics argument.
That Borys could not kill/destroy/whatever Rajaat does not mean that Borys was not as powerful as Rajaat, it just means that Borys could not kill/destroy/whatever Rajaat.
That Rajaat was unkillable by Borys is no basis for saying that Rajaat was necessarily more powerful then Borys. Just that for whatever reason Rajaat was unkillable by him.
How ever you wan to word it, Rajaat was more powerful, both psionically and with arcane magic, than Borys. Borys was unable to stop Rajaat's psionic ability to regenerate and all of the SKs together were unable to destroy Rajaat's spirit/life force.
It took all the old champions together to defeat Rajaat the first time (IIRC) and Rajaat even at that point, never stopped being a threat. Once the number of champions thinned out, the dragon upped the levy count because if Rajaat regained his freedom, they probably wouldn't of been able to stop him again. Rajaat's purpose was/is to be more powerful.
When Rajaat regained his freedom, he trapped Andropinis in the black and killed Tectuktitlay with a single blow of the dark lens. This speaks to the power of Rajaat. Rajaat killed Borys with the black fluid. People can argue this just like they can say a creature killed by a fireball cast by a wizard wasn't actually killed by the wizard. There was nothing Andropinis or Tectuktitlay could do to stop their fate and there was nothing Borys could do either.
So, to put it simply, If Borys was more powerful than Rajaat, he would have been able to save himself from death, he would have been able to stop Rajaat's psionic regeneration and he would have been able to destroy Rajaat instead of just trapping him and he wouldn't have needed any help. Borys was not as powerful as Rajaat.
To put it more simply, Rajaat > Borys.
When Rajaat regained his freedom, he trapped Andropinis in the black and killed Tectuktitlay with a single blow of the dark lens. This speaks to the power of Rajaat. Rajaat killed Borys with the black fluid. People can argue this just like they can say a creature killed by a fireball cast by a wizard wasn't actually killed by the wizard. There was nothing Andropinis or Tectuktitlay could do to stop their fate and there was nothing Borys could do either.
So, to put it simply, If Borys was more powerful than Rajaat, he would have been able to save himself from death, he would have been able to stop Rajaat's psionic regeneration and he would have been able to destroy Rajaat instead of just trapping him and he wouldn't have needed any help. Borys was not as powerful as Rajaat.
To put it more simply, Rajaat > Borys.
More properly, this speaks of Rajaat's reliance on artifacts and McGuffins. Rajaat kills Borys with a magic blade, Tectu with the Dark Lens; he creates the Champions using the lens and the tower, and so on.
In fact, his personal power seems fairly limited; he's completely relying on magical artifacts to achieve his goals.
Once again, your reasoning lacks logical evidence. Naomi Hunter killed Liquid Snake from 400 miles away with a virus. Does that make her more powerful than him? I doubt anyone would think that.
Rajaat is smart. He probably injected the vulnerability to the black fluid into the spell with which he made the SKs. No matter how powerful they would become, he would always have a way to down them with no effort.
If we were to uphold your logic, then Sadira is more powerful than Rajaat; you may say that she used tools do destroy him, but once again, we can use your fireball example. Besides, like you say, if Rajaat was more powerful than Sadira, he could have avoided dying. I think all the evidence here is that the Dark Lens was one hell of a McGuffin.
But really, no point arguing over that; you're entitled to your view of Rajaat, but the 4e lore and mechanics are quite clear about Borys being the ultimate BBEG, and on the fact that it's fundamentally impossible for Rajaat to be massively more powerful than him. The problem isn't even level - Borys and Dregoth are 3 levels apart, but Dregoth doesn't stand a chance. It's design. Borys has the stats of a god, Rajaat isn't more powerful than gods, so the power balance is what it is.
I'm not gonna reply to the rest, because it's little more than bait at this point, but I'll reply to the mechanical aspect.
and on the fact that it's fundamentally impossible for Rajaat to be massively more powerful than him.
The problem isn't even level - Borys and Dregoth are 3 levels apart, but Dregoth doesn't stand a chance. It's design.
It's not impossible for rajaat to be more powerful than borys, mechanically. Not in the least. Bahamut and Borys are only three levels apart and Borys has even less of a chance at winning that fight than Dregoth does in defeating Borys. As you said, it's design and we know for a fact that it's possible to design a monster more powerful than Borys because we have Bahamut. Hell, Allabar is of a lower level and yet he has a very good chance at defeating Borys, who deals more damage and is a higher level.
Borys has the stats of a god, Rajaat isn't more powerful than gods, so the power balance is what it is.
Borys isn't a god, yet he could defeat Vecna, who is 35 level, and a god. Borys is therefore more powerful than a god. Rajaat, therefore could be more powerful than a god as well. Again, I think you let your bias prevent you from looking at things objectively. I like rajaat and I like borys. Both are great characters. But I look at the events in the storyline and I look at the design possibilities and that is what leads me to my conclusion. Rajaat could be yet another innovation in monster design. Pushing the mechanical limits like the gods do, like allabar does, like lots of monsters do. Look at Borys. If you homebrewed Borys, people would scream that he was completely broken. Yet, here we have another example of how it's possible to push those limits without breaking the game.
If you believe that you cannot create monsters more powerful/challenging than borys while keeping them balanced, then that's not any actual mechanical limitation, and more of a personal limitation. No offense intended, but making monsters like bahamut, torog, borys and allabar balanced isn't easy. So it's easy to look at them and think it would be impossible to create something more challenging. But it's not. Borys can be better. Bahamut on the other hand, is damn near perfect and almost impossible to improve.
As always, it's been fun chatting about Rajaat, but the bias and baiting has reached a counter productive level, so I'm gonna participate in some other threads now. Thanks for the discussion.
How ever you wan to word it, Rajaat was more powerful, both psionically and with arcane magic, than Borys. Borys was unable to stop Rajaat's psionic ability to regenerate and all of the SKs together were unable to destroy Rajaat's spirit/life force.
I don't want to word it. I haven't worded it. In case you completetly missed it, I haven't said a single word about who's more powerful.
All I'm saying is that whether or not one can be killed is a different question of whether or not one is more powerful.
And I mean really, what does it matter? If you, as the GM, ever end up having Rajaat and Borys go toe-to-toe in front of the players, that means that your players are probably bored and you, as the GM, are doing your job wrong. So it's just not an interesting question to me.
So again, all I am saying, quite simply, is that you can't decide who is more powerful based off who can be killed and how. Which you keep going back to for some reason. It's like saying "because 2 + 2 = 4, apples are better then oranges."
DSCS & DSCC are the only two canon sources anymore.
CANON:
They say that the 15 people who would come to be known as the sorcerer-kings and The Dragon became "champions" (small 'c') rebelled against and captured Rajaat "The First Sorcerer", a very powerful psion-arcanist and supposed originator of defiling, "in a place of nothingness outside the world"/"outside time and space".
Only after this, did they claim city states and begin the dragon transformations. Borys demanded the aid of the others, and got it, to advance through the whole proccess to become what we now know as the Dragon of Tyr. This killed Ebe, to be remade by him later as Ur-Draxa, now full of liches, slaves and undead templars.
Borys now collects a levy (doesn't say how often) of "hundeds of slaves" for personal use and gifts for the liches, for fun and experimentation.
OPINON:
I think that Rajaat was the most powerful person on Athas at the time of the rebellion, and had some trick they couldn't figure out how to kill him, so they inprisoned him. Since then, I bet Borys has become much more powerful than Rajaat was at the time of the inprisonment, this brings me to two points:
1. Even if Borys is much more powerful, he would have to let Rajaat out of the prison to kill him. There would be a lot of variables involved so it probably isn't worth risking.
2. No one knows if Rajaat has become more powerful in his prison... as we don't know how/where he is imprisoned (though the gateway/material focus is probably in Ur-Draxa). The second location I quoted disturbingly sounds like, in D&D terms, the Outer Realms where the crazy insane things-that-should-not-be-starpact-abberation-things come from. Which creeps me right the hell out the idea of Rajaat being there... of course... as a crazy psion-arcanist, maybe he was friends with them before hand?
Anyways, we have no evidence of Rajaat being anything other than an impressive psion-arcanist a few hundred years ago.
this brings me to two points:
There is a third point to be made here. As long as Rajaat remains as a potential threat, the SKs have to cooperate with the Dragon and pretty much give him whatever he asks for. Even if the Dragon could snuff Rajaat without much effort, he'd have to be very stupid to actually do so and thereby remove the only reason the SKs have for not banding together to get rid of him.
this brings me to two points:
There is a third point to be made here. As long as Rajaat remains as a potential threat, the SKs have to cooperate with the Dragon and pretty much give him whatever he asks for. Even if the Dragon could snuff Rajaat without much effort, he'd have to be very stupid to actually do so and thereby remove the only reason the SKs have for not banding together to get rid of him.
Very good point. So in the new edition it is clear that it is in Borys The Happy Dragon's best interest to keep Rajaat in his prison.
In fact, his CC entry is quite obsessive in stating he fears nothing on Athas; however, explaining the fact that he may be keeping Rajaat prisoner even if he's capable of killing him is possibly even easier than saying that he's scared of him.
The benefits of Rajaat's imprisonement for Borys include:
- having the other SKs in check by them needing him to keep another uber-powerful being under control
- having a reason to exact the levy he may end up using for his own, completely Rajaat-unrelated goals (he's been collecting the levy for thousands of years, and he rules a city of undeads - what kind of army could he have now?)
- he could even have gotten in contact with Rajaat, and maybe he's squeezing more magical knowledge out of him
- maybe deep down Borys regrets his dragon transformation and wonders if Rajaat could know something about how to revert it without making him lose his power
Remember that Rajaat is the father of magic. The SKs are powerful pratictioners, and maybe Borys has become even more powerful than Rajaat, but nobody understands magic as well as Rajaat.
One could even possibly imagine that, to make a comparison with game mechanics, maybe Borys now has become the equivalent of a lvl 40 sorcerer, and Rajaat is a lvl 30 wizard. Borys' magic would be more powerful but a wild, innate power he doesn't fully understand. Killing his master means shutting himself out of greater understanding. Not something one would do lightly.
Rajaat is power, but more importantly, he's knowledge. Any SKs would give anything to be able to interrogate Rajaat.
In rise and fall of a dragon king, the sks state that rajaat cannot die while they live. It also very clearly states that rajaat killed borys and that the dragon of urik would actually be more powerful than the dragon of tyr. Yet rajaat, if freed, would still be capable of defeatingthe dragon of urik. Since rajaat wasn't free yet, the dragon of urik succeeded in separating rajaat's bones (substance) from the dark lens.
So that basically tells us that borys along with the rest of the champions, don't stand a chance at destroying rajaat, but rajaat did destroy borys and other champions. Iteven goes into how powerful rajaat was when they first defeated him and how even after a thousand year, none of them were even close to his equal, magically, psionically or intellectually. Even after a thousand years, they couldn't figure out how rajaat could do most of the things he did or how he accomplished what he did.
I'm not gonna debate the novel, line by line, but I invite anyone interested to re-read the novel again, as it's very clear on the subject, storywise. Mechanically, I'v already stated what I believe in my last post.
Besides, we seem to still be stuck in a discussion that analyzes power in very superficial terms; once again, this isn't Dragonball. There's no "power level number" that tells you that Combatant A is completely impossible to defeat for Combatant B.
Fourth edition puts a very clear power level cap; nothing can exist that a lvl 30 party can't face. You simply can't (following the rules, then DMs are free to do what they want) become more powerful than that. Even the most powerful divine beings can't escape that rule.
So in 4th edition, if a canon version of Rajaat exists, he's killable by a lvl 30 party (outcome uncertain; he may win or lose). And in this case, he's killable by the Dragon (outcome uncertain; any of the two beings could come on top, and one of the two may have a slight advantage).
If you have an hard time thinking Rajaat became "weaker", you could contextualize it as the Dragon being stronger in 4e; the bottom line is that there's no possible Rajaat writeup that would consider the Dragon not a threat.
Did you ever run those test against the Dragon and other big bads? I would be very interested to know how they turned out.
Fourth edition puts a very clear power level cap; nothing can exist that a lvl 30 party can't face... Even the most powerful divine beings can't escape that rule.
I was with you until here. Where is this rule, or is it only inferred?
Fourth edition puts a very clear power level cap; nothing can exist that a lvl 30 party can't face... Even the most powerful divine beings can't escape that rule.
I was with you until here. Where is this rule, or is it only inferred?
I would have to dig through my books, but I think that somewhere in the core rulebooks or among the interviews that were published during the 4e release, it was stated that if something exists, it does within the 30 levels range, and that while some beings may go over lvl 30, they're meant to be always accessible to properly decked lvl 30 players. My fuzzy memory ties this to one of the MM releases, but it's quite clear that the idea is that.
It's a philosophy I share, in all honesty; D&D is a game where everything exists in function of the players. If something exists, players should be able to interact with it, and absolute submission isn't interaction. If you don't want your players to challenge the setting's overbeings, don't make them reach the level cap; but designing content that isn't meant to be interacted with is completely pointless.
Otherwise, you create that kind of artificial situation where either things don't have stats because they're meant to be impossible (in which case very rarely bringing them to the game would add anything positive, because an invincible opponent is frustrating and an omnipotent ally is antithetic to the game's principles) or they have stats that make them impossible (making them a total waste of space, see the 3rd edition deities).
The creation of overbeings that are in complete control of the DM and can't be interacted with should be the realm of individual DMs. Removing important lore players from the gaming aspect of the hobby ("You'll never be powerful enough to face Cyric" to "Rajaat is completely out of your league, roll initiative to die and listen to me raving about how awesome he is") is a choice that should be left to DM who know how the players will react to that. I know players who absolutely loathe the idea of becoming powerful enough to challenge gods, but if a player doesn't want to become powerful, you can just stop him before he does.
Duke515,
Did you ever run those test against the Dragon and other big bads? I would be very interested to know how they turned out.
I did run some tests, but they were rather imperfect.
To my surprise, Borys killed Bahamut. The summoned gold dragons hit him on 20, and Bahamut wastes too much time in human form to pull them out, so I tried again using Bahamut in dragon form from the get go. The result was that Borys is a LOT more powerful in terms of damage and attacks, but Bahamut has a huge attack and defence bonus advantage. On turns where Bahamut recharged his free action breaths, he would take the upper hand. However, I was fairly lucky with attack rolls with the Dragon and his immediate interrupt and clever positioning made a real mess of Bahamut's strategies. The ability to act thrice per turn is overlooked; Borys has incredible control over the fight. In my simulation, Bahamut hit 3 turns with no breath recharge and Borys managed to discorporate him.
Simulating Lolth was messy. Her domination power needs some juggling in interpretation because against a single target it's anything between useless and a complete shutdown, depending on how you read it. Without that power, once again Lolth has a solid numeric advantage and that is a pain for Borys; if he can get her to her spider form, he'll eat her for breakfast, but I stopped simulating after several rounds of slugfest where Borys was loosing multiple rounds on strict interpretations of Lolth's power, and Lolth was failing to deal any sensible damage on him (she's reach 3, and that means she doesn't get near him often). I assume that if you read the rules in favour of Lolth she would eventually win.... in 3 billion years.
I run a Tiamat vs Borys simulation and surprisingly she won, but she lucked out horribly. However, she's a very unsubtle opponent with a tremendous damage potential, which is something Borys eventually payed due to bad rolls and her rolling close to maximum damage on a ton of breath rolls.
One thing I figured out however: if you advance Borys to their comparable level (35-36) and adjust his attack rolls and defenses to their level, he will annihilate them. He has definitely the best abilities of the bunch against a single target, by a too-large-to-measure number.
I did run some tests, but they were rather imperfect.
To my surprise, Borys killed Bahamut. The summoned gold dragons hit him on 20, and Bahamut wastes too much time in human form to pull them out, so I tried again using Bahamut in dragon form from the get go. The result was that Borys is a LOT more powerful in terms of damage and attacks, but Bahamut has a huge attack and defence bonus advantage. On turns where Bahamut recharged his free action breaths, he would take the upper hand. However, I was fairly lucky with attack rolls with the Dragon and his immediate interrupt and clever positioning made a real mess of Bahamut's strategies. The ability to act thrice per turn is overlooked; Borys has incredible control over the fight. In my simulation, Bahamut hit 3 turns with no breath recharge and Borys managed to discorporate him.
Simulating Lolth was messy. Her domination power needs some juggling in interpretation because against a single target it's anything between useless and a complete shutdown, depending on how you read it. Without that power, once again Lolth has a solid numeric advantage and that is a pain for Borys; if he can get her to her spider form, he'll eat her for breakfast, but I stopped simulating after several rounds of slugfest where Borys was loosing multiple rounds on strict interpretations of Lolth's power, and Lolth was failing to deal any sensible damage on him (she's reach 3, and that means she doesn't get near him often). I assume that if you read the rules in favour of Lolth she would eventually win.... in 3 billion years.
I run a Tiamat vs Borys simulation and surprisingly she won, but she lucked out horribly. However, she's a very unsubtle opponent with a tremendous damage potential, which is something Borys eventually payed due to bad rolls and her rolling close to maximum damage on a ton of breath rolls.
One thing I figured out however: if you advance Borys to their comparable level (35-36) and adjust his attack rolls and defenses to their level, he will annihilate them. He has definitely the best abilities of the bunch against a single target, by a too-large-to-measure number.
Very interesting, thanks for the update. Given how many of the Dragon's attacks are AoE I'd think he'd be extremely effective against a party as long as they cannot keep him locked down.
Fourth edition puts a very clear power level cap; nothing can exist that a lvl 30 party can't face... Even the most powerful divine beings can't escape that rule.
I was with you until here. Where is this rule, or is it only inferred?
It's not exactly a rule, but inferred. WotC won't publish stats for anything a party won't fight.
For example, "Good" creatures. Good PCs rarely fight other good creatures (hence the reason while metalic dragons and Angels are no longer "good"). What about evil PCs? Sorry, you're a minority, like people with Macs.
Stating a high level creature (>level 36) would be beyond the capabilities of a level 30 party, and would be a pointless fight for any characters (the characters would die). So, unless they publish mechanics for level 31+ PCs, monster stats beyond level 36 will never be published.
Make sense?
EDIT: This doesn't mean they don't exist. Example: super-high level monsters could be "fought" through a skill challenge....
It is unclear if "Rajaat is power/knowledge", due to the fact that it is unclear how powerful he (and the other 15 disciples) were at the time of inprisonment and it is unclear if Rajaat has been learning since he has been inprisoned. So it is possible that the 15 could be more advanced than Rajaat at this point.
Just because he had a trick to make himself conventinally unkillable doesn't make him all-powerful. Add to that we don't know what effects his prison would have upon him, he could be reduced to a very pathetic state.
It could be as simple he had some variant psi-arcane version of a lich, and his phylactry was unfindable or not reasonably destroyable. In fact, this opens up lots of interesting options: Perhaps they didn't understand the psudeo-lich/phylactry thing back then, so didn't realize they should be looking for it until afterwards... so Rajaat's phylactrcy is just sitting out there somewhere, evading the searches of the 15 disciples (after they figured out what it was), complicated by not knowing what it is. Or maybe... the Ritual that Rajaat invested some power into his "champions" did very little... other than make them his "phylactry". Or as someone mentioned elsewhere, Athas itself is. But I'm rambling now I think.
Or maybe... the Ritual that Rajaat invested some power into his "champions" did very little... other than make them his "phylactry".
Sorry, this just made me think of somthing: Maybe this is the case, and the only one who knows the truth is Tekultunikatinay (never could grasp his name), which drove him mad, but is what lead him to centuries of blood sacrifice and experimentation to find away to divorce himself from being a part of being the "life line" to his greatest enemy without having to kill himself!
Rawr, tangent!
Or maybe... the Ritual that Rajaat invested some power into his "champions" did very little... other than make them his "phylactry".
Sorry, this just made me think of somthing: Maybe this is the case, and the only one who knows the truth is Tekultunikatinay (never could grasp his name), which drove him mad, but is what lead him to centuries of blood sacrifice and experimentation to find away to divorce himself from being a part of being the "life line" to his greatest enemy without having to kill himself!
Rawr, tangent!
Don't apologize! This is far and away the most useful thing to come out of this thread so far.
Let's do less arguing about what fictional, epic tier, campaign capstone antagonists can beat whom using what element of non-existent former future history, and more collaborative brainstorming about useful plot elements for Dark Sun games.
Or maybe... the Ritual that Rajaat invested some power into his "champions" did very little... other than make them his "phylactry".
Sorry, this just made me think of somthing: Maybe this is the case, and the only one who knows the truth is Tekultunikatinay (never could grasp his name), which drove him mad, but is what lead him to centuries of blood sacrifice and experimentation to find away to divorce himself from being a part of being the "life line" to his greatest enemy without having to kill himself!
Rawr, tangent!
Don't apologize! This is far and away the most useful thing to come out of this thread so far.
Let's do less arguing about what fictional, epic tier, campaign capstone antagonists can beat whom using what element of non-existent former future history, and more collaborative brainstorming about useful plot elements for Dark Sun games.
I agree, even though I don't care for the offical backstory/meta-plot that is a very cool idea.
tec - tuk - titlay
Duke515,
Did you ever run those test against the Dragon and other big bads? I would be very interested to know how they turned out.
Not yet, plans changed and we didn't have enough people and we didn't have enough backup characters ready. We're hoping to be able to get together three times this week, so that should be at least six playtests against borys with the same group of characters. I plan to record everything on paper, but it will be too much to put into a blog, so I'll have the record as a downloadable pdf for anyone interested. It will include both the entire fight, step by step and the characters we use. (So you guys can playtest the same fights with the same characters if you want)
We also decided to postpone playtesting with level 29 characters and just focus on level 30. So allabar won't be part of these fights. So far the monsters we plan to playtest with the exact same characters will be:
Borys (starting with him)
Bahamut (both forms)
Torog
Vecna
Lolth (both forms)
Tiamat (dungeon version)
Solkara
Pazuzu
Ogremoch
Balcoth
Mualtar
Orcus (both versions)
Demogorgan
Bel Shalor
and a few other custom bosses we need to playtest.
I'v already playtested a few of those guys in other games, but I'd like to see how they measure up against the same characters. And no, none of the characters will be "darksun" characters, since we're building the characters with the CB.
Not yet, plans changed and we didn't have enough people and we didn't have enough backup characters ready. We're hoping to be able to get together three times this week, so that should be at least six playtests against borys with the same group of characters. I plan to record everything on paper, but it will be too much to put into a blog, so I'll have the record as a downloadable pdf for anyone interested. It will include both the entire fight, step by step and the characters we use. (So you guys can playtest the same fights with the same characters if you want)
We also decided to postpone playtesting with level 29 characters and just focus on level 30. So allabar won't be part of these fights. So far the monsters we plan to playtest with the exact same characters will be:
Borys (starting with him)
Bahamut (both forms)
Torog
Vecna
Lolth (both forms)
Tiamat (dungeon version)
Solkara
Pazuzu
Ogremoch
Balcoth
Mualtar
Orcus (both versions)
Demogorgan
Bel Shalor
and a few other custom bosses we need to playtest.
I'v already playtested a few of those guys in other games, but I'd like to see how they measure up against the same characters. And no, none of the characters will be "darksun" characters, since we're building the characters with the CB.
Thanks, I'm looking forward to hearing about how this goes.
Who's Bel Shalor?
He's a demon overlord of eberron (lv 34 solo controller) found in the ECG.
Who's Bel Shalor?
He's a demon overlord of eberron (lv 34 solo controller) found in the ECG.
An extremely powerful solo, also. In my opinion, quite more dangerous than some of the higher HD gods.