Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sidekick Apr 19, 2011 2:06:37	Hi everyone, I posted in the Scales of War forum but got very little in the way of replies or views. For those of you who might be my players (you know who you are) spoilers beware and dont' read any further. Also here spoilers... So I've been wracking my brain thinking about how I can modify the Scales of War plot to Eberron and I think I've finally cracked the overarching plot. Bel Shalor, through his Exarch Durastoran the “Wyrmbreaker”, is executing a plot to destroy the Silver Flameand release the Rajah Overlord from its prison once and for all. This is most definitely a Bad Thing. In order to do this, Durastoran must perform a ritual which requires the Prophesy and will signal the changing of the Age. So, to effec this uber ritual Durastoran needs to create both a distraction and an adequate sacrifice to allow him the time and liberty to complete the ritual as well as the loss of life for the ritual. To do this he has engineered an invasion from X. Now this is where I encounter problems / options.  I'm trying to decide where the invasion should come from.  The main options that I'm looking for feedback on are A)  Legion of Angels (invasion from Shavarath):  An invasion of Angelic warriors who are fulfilling the prophesy (so they think). B) The Inspired:  Changing the Age also means changing the Dream of the Age.  The Dreaming Dark is not prepared to let that happen.  They will fight to stop it.  Unfortunately by fighting and seeking to control Khorvaire, they're actually bringing about the Age change - silly dream monsters ;) The invasion force is being secretly supplied and armed by a shady Arms Dealer - Sarshan (Aurum Gold Concordian) - which is how the PCs get roped in through the Heroic tier. Anyway I welcome any and all constructive comments, suggestions or further cool invasion forces that I haven't thought of yet...
#2 Juums Apr 19, 2011 13:24:10	Might I suggest my favorite, and arguably the least appreciated, potential BBEGs from 3.5e? The lumi. "The who?", I'm sure you're saying. The Lumi were a race of Light-venerating humanoid outsiders with floating heads introduced in Monster Manual III, who reside on the Positive Energy Plane twiddling away their days preparing for the day in which they shall storm the Material Plane and kill every last liar and deceiver they can find. And given that's pretty much everyone by their standards, it makes for a rather compelling villainous force. It's rather well adapted to Eberron, as Irian is a fine stand-in for the Positive Energy Plane, and Irian becomes coterminous with sufficient regularity that the lumi could easily have kept track of Galfiar's fall into perdition during the Last War and have finally just become fed-up with it. And, really, the world is awash is so many conspiracies and wheels-within-wheels machinations that you can't throw a rock without finding a plot of sufficient magnitude and deception to provoke and/or warrant an extraplanar invasion. If you really wanted to mix it up, you could turn around your Plan B and have the lumi invade Riedra: After all, the Unity is basically one giant deception to grant license to dream monsters to reconstitute their connection to the Prime. If your Aurum gun-runner is selling to the Riedrans rather than the lumi -- as would be most likely, given the lumi are the sort to stab first and ask questions later about shady arms dealers -- it provides an interesting meta-dilemma for your PCs as they get shanghaied into things, at least if they're savvy about the setting. The lumi have, alas, not been ported to 4e. At the same time, as they're basically just palette-swapped humanoids, build them in 4e also shouldn't be too hard.
#3 sidekick Apr 20, 2011 3:36:06	The lumi... a race of Light-venerating humanoid outsiders with floating heads introduced in Monster Manual III, who reside on the Positive Energy Plane twiddling away their days preparing for the day in which they shall storm the Material Plane and kill every last liar and deceiver they can find. And given that's pretty much everyone by their standards, it makes for a rather compelling villainous force. It's rather well adapted to Eberron, as Irian is a fine stand-in for the Positive Energy Plane. That is actually a devious idea.  The Shadow in the Flame manipulating beings of true LG zealotry to help eliminating the Silver Flame... Also my players will NEVER have heard of the Lumi so they make for a nice, implacable foe.  No enemy is more irritating than a force that is totally convinced in its righteousness.
#4 Juums Apr 20, 2011 9:33:55	That is actually a devious idea.  The Shadow in the Flame manipulating beings of true LG zealotry to help eliminating the Silver Flame... Also my players will NEVER have heard of the Lumi so they make for a nice, implacable foe.  No enemy is more irritating than a force that is totally convinced in its righteousness. The lumi, if I recall correctly, were LN rather than LG: They certainly didn't have the [Lawful] or [Good] subtypes, that's for sure. A not insubstantial part of the entry on their culture makes note of the fact that while they'll often make common cause with the multiverse's forces of Law and Good, they invariably have fallings out due to the inscrutable obsession with the turth that lumi have. But, really, that's why they're fun: As they're not physical embodiments of all that is Good, they're also not liable to overcome by their consciences at dramatically convenient times. Such as upon learning they've been had: They just make a note to kill the Shadow to their list and kill it for lying to them when the time comes. (Really, if you wanted to give your PCs a major WTF moment, you could introduce the lumi's truth obsession, hint that they'd been used, then do a grand reveal that Bel Shalor's emissaries had gone to Irian and told the lumi exactly what they were going to do, and the lumi going ahead with things of their own volition due to a respect for Bel Shalor's frankness and their confidence in their ability to handle anything -- including a rampaging rajah -- that might crop up.)