So with that said, were Star Spawned in 3.5 Eberron?
Smallvile meets Final Fantasy-The Spirits Within:
A meteor shower rains down on the Eldeen Reaches. The shower ignites a "Gold Rush": dragonmarked houses, private prospectors and bandit groups arrive to the Eldeen Reaches and swarm its forests looking for Siberys dragonshards (or anyone that holds one) . The CoW decides to end the nuisance.
As a follow up -
Some of this meteors are actually not dragonshards but pieces of an alien planet in which a war waged between its native race and the Daelkyr invading force. the war ended with the planet crumbling in a cataclysmic event similar to the Mourning (but on a larger planetary scale) and some of its surface now rains on Eberron. A few miles around each meteor impact zone the forest will be terraformed into a strange alien landscape full of twisted Xoriat creatures which still fight the undead spirits of the aliens.
An idea I have is that Star Spawn are Daelkyr's champions. When the Daelkyrs are finished toying with a world, they send a few Star Spawns to cleanse the world.
Another guess, would be that Star Spawns are actually the result of destroyed worlds. And for some reason, Daelkyr like to create them.
However, after putting more thoughts into it, I realised that Star Spawns could make a good opposition to the Daelkyr. Sure, Daelkyr like to destroy worlds, but they take pleasure in transforming it and experimenting in creating new life forms.
On the other end, Star Spawns just like to see the world burn. Their mission is to leave nothing behind, which makes the Daelkyr unhappy since they have less worlds to toy with.
A cool twist to this idea could be that the Daelkyrs are actually the ones who created the firsts Star Spawns, but soon realized that the creature's nature was opposed to theirs. Unfortunatly for the Daelkyr, they weren't able to get rid of the specimens. Maybe the Daelkyr know a way to attract Star Spawns to a particular world, and maybe they discovered how to get rid of them. Maybe they came to Eberron to set a trap to exterminate the Star Spawns. And maybe the Gatekeepers ruined it all, delayed the plans, or are actually part of it !
What do you think?
Rekko
On the other head, the origin of these creatures might stay as it is. In fact, Acamar, Hadar and the other celestial star "entities" were forced in their current situation( and utterly humbled ) by the Progenitor Dragons themselves, who countered their insatiable hunger. Since untold millennia, there is nothing they hate more than Eberron. What do you think?
I can also see a parallel between Star Spawns and the Silver Surfer, as in, they are sent to a world to begin its destruction before some greater evil comes to finish it. But then, who/what would be this elder evil? Rajah, God, Primordial, other?
Rekko
I can also see a parallel between Star Spawns and the Silver Surfer, as in, they are sent to a world to begin its destruction before some greater evil comes to finish it. But then, who/what would be this elder evil? Rajah, God, Primordial, other?
Rekko
An overlord Rajah bound to a dragonshard rocketed into space (instead of Khyber) by the dragons. superman phantom-zone like
Maybe the stars Khyber "consumed" weren't consumed in the "digested" or "destroyed" sense, but in the sense that they became wholely belonging to Khyber. These could be the evil stars whose baleful influence shines down upon Eberron in the form of star spawn and star pact warlocks.
*shrieks like a lady*
Here's a few ideas of my own which are in a similar vein to those already suggested.A Hungry Star
The world Acamar was once a prosperous world when the Daelkyri invaded from Xoriat. Unlike on Eberron, the Daelkyri won and became supreme masters over this world. For millenia they performed their perverse experiments, warred with each other and generally sucked all of the energy from this planet that they could.
Eventually Acamar's star began to die as the Daelkyri foolishly tapped into its energies for their twisted experiments and endless wars. Unable to return to Xoriat because the forces in the plane were keeping Acamar isolated from it after suffering heavily to the Acamar Daelkyri, they were trapped.
Instead of dying as they should have, they imbued their essence within the star and so all the Xoriat-spawn became a part of a collective consciousness that now resided within the star.
It has since feasted upon other worlds, sucking those worlds of their energies so that it can continue to survive. It scouts for planets by sending Maws far away to see whether good or evil rules the planet. As a left over of the Daelkyri that made up the consciousness of Acamar, the star prefers to feed upon the energies of worlds where good has triumphed over evil. Not because it provides the star with more energy, but simply because it prefers the taste.
Acamar has sent its spawn to Eberron recently, and is confused and puzzled by the planet. Unlike the other worlds where either good rules over evil, or evil rules over good. Eberron has managed to find a balance with the evil forces bubbling beneath the surface. Unsure what to make of this, Acamar has focused its attention on Eberron for the near future.
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That keeps most of the core fluff intact while (I hope) giving it an Eberron feel.
Spawn Close to Home
The Daelkyri were intrigued by the rise of lycanthropy and how the moons affect the transformation. As such some lords have begun experimenting on other moon-induced transformations. One such Daelkyri is called Acamar.
Quite early on he developed ways to transform people into various monsters when the light of moons hit them. However he wasn't satisfied by reproducing lycanthropy. He went one step further.
He created a new type of entity that was to be a triumphant assassin for him. Acamar infected people with a contagious disease (so that the infected would then spread it to others). Besides a small cold for a couple of days, it has no visible effect. However what it did was prepare the mind for another host.
He then created an entity that would jump from mind to mind. He caged one of the infected, placed the entity into the person's body and then exposed them to the light of the moons. The person instantly transformed into what Acamar called a Maw. Once the sun rises, the host transforms back into their original shape, but the Maw hides within them.
When the host is killed, instead of the Maw dying, it jumps to a host of its choice. It is constantly aware of what hosts there are within Eberron so if it wishes to jump to a particular one, it can wait until its current host is exposed to light from the moon, then kill that host and switch to the new host it wants.
The idea Acamar had in creating the Maw was that it would be his own personal assassin. Unfortunately for Acamar, the Maw had other choices. The second Acamar let it loose, it went into hiding and has been pursuing its own goals ever since. It has also learnt how to control the thoughts of its host and how to suppress the host body transforming into its natural shape. This has allowed it to affect global politics in ways no-one ever imagined.
What's even more terrifying, is that Acamar first created the host 62 years ago. Due to the highly contagious nature of the initial disease that prepares someone to become a host for the Maw, 80% of the population in Khorvaire are infected.
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The above, while it might not be easily understandable, would make a pretty neat plot I think. Acamar could even approach the PCs and ask them to help capture the Maw for him. Of course, it could be a trick and Acamar simply wants to regain control over a weapon that is much more powerful then he ever expected.
One more idea is:
Spawn from the Moons
Some Daelkyri lords have discovered a way to create powerful creatures that are mighty weapons. However they require energy of a highly unusual nature. The Daelkyri have discovered how to collect this energy from the rays from the moons and then store it.
When this energy is infused into an eldritch machine, all sorts of horrible creatures are created. Some scholars have mistakenly called these creatures Star Spawn. Due to the difficulty in creating these creatures, most Daelkyri don't bother. However there is one Daelkyri who has not only bothered, but has been getting a stockpile of energy for the past thousand years. Whether he is trying to create one extremely powerful creature, or an army of the Star Spawn to sweep across the face of Eberron and kill everything in sight, no-one knows.