| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1nnjguyJul 21, 2009 23:05:01 | I am really excited with the release of the Campaign guide to start a new campaign in Eberron with my group...so, all of a sudden I am on here asking questions... I got my spellscarred in Eberron question sufficiently answered, got in a fight with my question about changing damage types for magic character themes but came to a decision anyway and am still thinking about where to put Revenants... My next question is related to the Umbragen and the Shadar Kai... The Shadar-Kai made a pact with the Traveler to thwart death...how? Do I have pacts in Eberron wrong or do I have the influence of the Gods wrong? Is it just that I am limiting myself by trying to put the two things into separate boxes so I have it all wrong? The Umbragen Drow are a similar case for me...they have a pact of sorts with the Umbra...which might be the Shadow. I like to keep my Divine and Arcane powers somewhat separate so I was thinking initially that Warlocks made pacts with things like Daelkyr, Rakshasha Rajas, Demon Lords, Devil Princes, Archfey...in other words supremely powerful but bound or restricted beings with a physical presence. Gods either are manmade archetypal constructs of faith, beings far beyond comprehension and life or death, or expressions of the prophecy without manifest forms. Now we have Gods making pacts...how does this happen? They don't speak to the people...do they? I like the mystery part of it...is the Umbra really the Shadow? But for me to wrap my head around some of the contradictions that exist I would rather it be along the lines of the Dracolich being a possible avatar of the Keeper. He or she is still a physical being. I think typing that out made me think that very Dracolich would be the perfect origin of the Vestige Pact...all that collecting and keeping souls and all that rot. The Umbra is clearly a great origin for the Dark Pact...I dunno, I just wanna find a way to tie things together a little more neatly when it comes to pacts in Eberron, who grants them and what role, if any, Gods play in those pacts. So many conflicting items have me confused. While I could always just do things on a case by case basis this is against my nature. I would rather say Infernal Pacts come from here, Dark Pacts come from here...Gods don't interact with the world...Gods have avatars that are very loosely tied to said Gods that can make certain pacts with races or Warlocks... I dunno, I was hoping for some more guidelines in the Campaign guide. |
| #2Alex_Jul 21, 2009 23:51:23 | I am really excited with the release of the Campaign guide to start a new campaign in Eberron with my group...so, all of a sudden I am on here asking questions... I got my spellscarred in Eberron question sufficiently answered, got in a fight with my question about changing damage types for magic character themes but came to a decision anyway and am still thinking about where to put Revenants... They bound themselves to some mysterious entity of shadow. Could be the Traveler or the Shadow. Could be some larger disembodied force that people have anthropomorphized to be the Traveller or the Shadow. Could be the power of Malbar the Endless Night. Could be some shadowy Rajah or Quori spirit. I don't recall the Umbragen ever being approached, however. They turned to the entity. They bound themselves to it. They made the pact. I highly doubt there is actually something physically bound to a corporeal form down there issuing direct orders and making actual demands. Given the way in which the nature of the gods and divinity are muddied in Eberron, I'm afraid that the clean cut distinction of core D&D between Divine powers sources coming from gods and other power sources not coming from gods simply will not work. Try multiclassing if you want both the flavor/powers of a Divine class and the Shadow Pact Warlock. |
| #3nnjguyJul 22, 2009 0:18:50 | I dont want the flavor of a Divine and Arcane Warlock, and I am the DM, but thanks for the suggestion. :o) |
| #4HellcowJul 22, 2009 3:14:23 | The Umbra is a force like the Silver Flame. There is no question of whether or not it exists. Perhaps it's a god. Perhaps it's the combined souls of the Qabalrin, just as the Silver Flame is the essence of the Couatl. Perhaps it's a demon overlord of the first age. With that said, Alex has it right. The Umbragen didn't make a BARGAIN with the Umbra, and those born today have no choice in the matter at all. Their mystics found this force of darkness and bound the soul of their race to it... the quote in the ECG is that they "tapped into" the force of darkness. What we've said before is that the more powerful they get, the more they have to surrender their soul to the Umbra, and that's likely how I'd play the dark pact warlock. It's not that he's chatting with it and making a verbal deal - it's that he knows that the more of this power he takes, the more he is surrendering his soul and becoming a vessel for the Umbra, which is an unknown and alien force. Perhaps his epic destiny will have him becoming the avatar of the Umbra; if you decide it's an overlord, he could essentially BECOME one of the Lords of Dust and be responsible for the release of this darkness. So he makes a sacrifice for his power, but it's not about signing a contract in blood; it's mortgaging his soul. The Traveler is the only deity of Host and Six who IS said to walk the world. Hence the phrase "beware the gifts of the Traveler"... the point is that any stranger you meet COULD be the Traveler in disguise. However, the point here is that it's said to wander the world, but in an infinite array of forms... so the question when you make a deal with the Traveler is what you're actually dealing with. IS it an incarnate god? A fiend? An archfey? An angel? Just a cunning doppelganger? Any of these things could use the name; they might even be using divine channeling to speak for the actual Traveler, if it exists. So the Shadar-Kai made a deal. The believe it to be with the Traveler. And perhaps that's exactly what it is, whether or not they actually spoke with a god; many angels claim that they speak with the voices of the Sovereigns, and can you say for certain that they don't? (Of course, I'd design a special angel of the Traveler for this purpose - something clever and deceptive.) Looking to the Keeper, the first dracolich is in the Demon Wastes. But its lair isn't called "The lair of the first dracolich which may be an avatar of the Keeper" - it's called "The Lair of the Keeper". The Shadar-Kai made an arrangement with the Traveler. It may have been an angel, an aspect, or something else entirely; but it at least claimed to speak with the Traveler's voice. You decide if it did. Or perhaps there's something else at work |
| #5accuserAug 16, 2010 0:15:09 | ARISE! Thought this would be better to bump than to start a new thread, given the Hellcow response. tl;dr version below I'm sort of retro-fitting a character to Eberron. Basically, our DM wanted to run an Eberron game, we didn't know what that meant, we all made characters, and later on I learned more about Eberron and decided I want use the setting in my backstory. I am a Shadar-Kai Swordmage. Part of the problem with the tacked on explanation of what the Shadar-Kai are in Eberron is that it doesn't really give the characters a stake in the world. We don't know if any of them had any involvement in the Last War, or if they know what the Five Nations are, how they feel about the Dragonmarked houses, etc, etc. So I'm coming up with an alternate explanation for my Shadar-Kai. Two nations struck me as appropriate for Shadar-Kai origins - Karnath and Cyre. Karnath because, well, Blood of Vol, undeath, and Shadar-Kai all go together nicely. But it's a little on the nose. Cyre, on the other hand, is a dead nation - so what if some of its people could reflect that state? Let's say something happened to a handful of Cyrrans when the Mourning occured that changed them. Now, I know what you're thinking, and I'm not suggesting that some people were just immune to the Mourning and got superpowers from it. But what happened on the other planes while Cyre was burning? I can only imagine Dolurrh must have felt something. So what if the Mourning spilled into Dolurrh and, while not exactly annihilating everything there, changed things? What if someone was caught in that maelstrom? So, as I said, I'm new to the setting. Am I correct in assuming the parallel nature of the other planes - that there's a "Cyrran Dolurrh" area? Any examples of how people find themselves exploring Dolurrh other than, uh, being dead? And why they might? Any better ideas for tying a Shadar-Kai to Cyre? tl;dr version: I want my Shadar-Kai Swordmage to be from Cyre. Help me get there. It's even okay if he was born human originally and something changed him. Explain the "something" though, please. |
| #6JohnLynchAug 16, 2010 5:37:18 | You're ideas certainly fit into my vision of Eberron. That said, here's an alternate way to ensure Shadar-kai have a "stake" in Eberron. Shadar-kai have lived in Dolurrh for all of recorded history. There are myths and legends of where the Shadar-kai came from, but none know how true they are, with many of the tales contradicting each other. That said, the Shadar-kai battle each other on a constant and regular basis. Some say that its a survival mechanism, to stop the ennui from sending them into a mindless depression. Others say its a tradition handed down to the Shadar-kai from the dawn of time when the gods first created the race. During the Last War some Shadar-kai caught wind of the battles raging across Eberron. Predictably some wanted to get involved simply for someone new to fight. A few companies ventured out into the Plane of Eberron, and they brought back with them tales of a race that enjoyed fighting just as much as the Shadar-Kai did. This race called itself the Valaes Tairn. This occassioned excitement for a period of time among the Shadar-kai cities. In a plane where very little occurs but fighting and death, it doesn't take much to send the cities abuzzing. However after the excitement had died down, ACCUSER was approached by a Shadar-kai sage and, along with 5 others, was given the task of finding out if the Valaes Tairn were in fact related to the Shadar-kai. He had researched some of the most ancient legends which suggested that the Shadar-kai may have come from the plane of Eberron (other legends also suggest that the Shadar-kai came from the plane of Thelanis). ACCUSER and the others travelled to Eberron and started travelling through Cyre. By this time the Valaes Tairn had conquered a good portion of the south-eastern part of the nation. However disaster struck. On the Day of Mourning ACCUSER and his fellow Shadar-kai were caught in the blast that decimated the nation. ACCUSER was the only one left alive. ------------- This plays up some parts of Shadar-kai society (they do numerous extreme activities including fighting in order to fend off the ennui that crushes down on everyone in the Shadowfell) while making a few tweaks (as most Eberron races do). It provides an easy connection to the material plane and gives your character a reason to explore the material plane. It also gives your character a campaign-long personal quest to go on. In order for this to be a fulfilling quest, you don't need to learn the Shadar-kai are in fact descended from Xen'drik elves. It could be a simple coincidence. However if the DM decided to go down that road, he should allow you to discover the true origin of the Shadar-kai race. |
| #7accuserAug 16, 2010 22:45:25 | I think I like that better as a general origin for the Shadar-Kai. Just a simple, "We don't really know how we got here, but this is what we're like now that we are here" is a good way to handle it. For my specific character, though, that tie to Cyre is important. So I'm sticking with that I have so far for him. He's going for the Archlich epic destiny, so having that transition from a regular human, to Shadar-Kai, to Archlich is a nice little arc that I'd like to keep for the character. (Why Archlich? Well, it would seem that the best way to study the Mist would be from the inside, and what better way to survive it?) |
| #8AvonRekaesAug 20, 2010 12:00:56 | Now, I know what you're thinking, and I'm not suggesting that some people were just immune to the Mourning and got superpowers from it. ...Why not? Sounds like a perfectly valid PC origin to me. It's not as if the Mourning is completely understood. Actually, it's as far from completely understood as you can get! Your PC could have been a Cyran that just so happened to be in a manifest zone to Dolurrh when the Mourning hit. The combination of energies warped everyone in the zone. It could have been a villiage of people, who built their community there because of some ironically beneficial effects the manifest zone had. (Perhaps food lasted longer because small insects and bacteria died off easily) Or he could have been among a military patrol, investigating odd occurances coming from the manifest zone, which higher-ups in Cyre's military might have interpreted as enemy soldiers. He might've been working at a House Cannith research facility that was experimenting with the energies of Dollurh (probably trying to harness it into a weapon.) Whatever the case, when the Mourning plowed through, instead of annihilating everyone like it did elsewhere, it combined weirdly with the Shadow energies, and transformed everyone in the manifest zone into Shadar-kai. (Hell, if you use the last suggestion of working with House Cannith, you can even give your Shadar-kai the Mark of Making dragonmarked feat. That'll eberron him up like nothing else. :P) |
| #9accuserAug 20, 2010 14:10:30 | I like the Cannith idea. A lot, actually. I may do just that. I mostly didn't want to say, "I know this stuff kills everyone, and if anyone had both experienced it and survived it a lot of the mystery would be removed from the event, and I know it's still around and is a major impediment to anyone trying to going around in this whole area, but what I'm saying is... my guy is special." Just a little too Mary Sue-ish to me. It can work if there's a horrible flaw that goes along with the special-ness, but being special just for the sake of being special is poor writing. That's why I wanted to work in another plane - he's just as in the dark about what actually happened as anyone else, because he never saw the inside of the Mist the way everyone else did. This Cannith thing is a good way to get him there. Thanks. |
| #10AvonRekaesAug 20, 2010 14:46:31 | I dunno, I guess I'm more lenient. If I ran a game and a PC came to me and said "My character survived the mourning, and doesn't know how or why", all that'd go through my head is "DING! PLOTHOOK!" not a judgement about how mary-suish the character is. And I think it's cannon for the Mourning to have not necessarily KILLED 100% of the people or creatures caught in it. There are the monsters inside the mists, afterall, and they were probably once something recognizable. |
| #11accuserAug 20, 2010 21:09:18 | Entirely plausible. It's a very deep setting and I'm new to it. When I don't fully understand a setting, I'm less confident about changing stuff willy-nilly. And that's an interesting take on Deva. |