Shardmind as a Plaguechanged Selu'Kiira - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Damon_Tor Jul 24, 2010 1:26:52	Wanted to run this buy some of the denizens of this forum: I was trying to come up with a good way to include Shardminds in FR, and this is the best I came up with. If anyone wants to read it and look for errors, continuity issues, or just stuff you don't like, I'd appreciate it. The being taken into the underdark and being messed with by Mind Flayers is just important to the particular campaign, where all our characters escape from Illithid slave pens. Show The Selu'Kiira are powerful elven artifacts, intelligent telepathic gems that hold immense quantities of knowledge. These stones would teach and aid their masters in the art of high-magic. The Elven house Starym had one such stone, called Starlore. Created in -1758 DR (3,237 years ago) in the city of Cormanthor (later called Myth Drannor), Starlore had been used to store and teach house Starym wizards the secrets of celestial magic, high magic based on the position of the stars and other heavenly bodies, an art with great rewards and great risks. The stars are not simple, benign specks of light after all: the stars are vast alien intelligences of unimaginable power, and few are capable of mastering the art wit their sanity intact, at least not without Starlore's guidance. For hundreds of years, Starlore performed his duty for his house, during times of prominence and times of exile. In 714, Starlore was stolen, and Myth Drannor was overrun at the end of the Weeping War. The gem was known to be valueable, and eventually found it's way into the hands of Illithids, or Mindflayers, as they are commonly known. Knowing the value of a Selu'Kiira, they had attempted to learn Starlore's secrets, but like most non-elves who attempted to absorb the knowledge contained within, met with lethal consequences. Why they wanted Starlore's knowledge is unclear, though an ancient connection exists between the realm of the stars and the Illithids. Perhaps they seek a way home? Do they wish to bring something from that realm to Faerun? The Far Realm is incredibly difficult to reach after all, and indeed travel to that realm is within the bounds of High Magic, but why they would want to do so is a mystery. Unable to make use of it, they locked the gem away, and while their Elder Brains probed at the consciousness from time to time, it lay forgotten for centuries. When the Spellplague swept across the world, Starlore was changed. The blue fire consumed many of the magic items alongside the gem, but the Selu'Kiira survived. Slowly, the gem began to grow, breaking free of its setting, as crystalline growths appeared, randomly, at first. Soon, Starlore discovered he could shape this growth, and over the course of several decades, he developed a humanoid form. Reaching out with his mind, he discovered others, prisoners of the Mindflayers. His prison was simply a vault, filled with magical items not unlike the amulet he had once been, replenished by the Illithids after the plague took so much. When the other prisoner finds his way to the vault, he finds not only weapons and armor, but a strange new ally, eager to get back home.
#2 Zireael Jul 24, 2010 3:18:51	I've always loved the idea of Selu'Kiira.... The story is good, quite believable. And I don't see any continuity errors.
#3 18DELTA Jul 24, 2010 6:11:43	That's really cool. Star Pact Warlock?
#4 Damon_Tor Jul 24, 2010 14:32:04	Yes, dual-pact dark pact so I can have a usable at-will (he's char/int) besides Eldritch Blast. Spiteful Glamour is psychic damage, so it gets bonuses from his Shardmind psychic goodness.
#5 Imruphel Aug 10, 2010 6:18:30	I love both the item and the idea of making it a shardmind. This is really cool. I'm planning, at some point, to run a campaign centred on Myth Drannor. If I do, I am definitely going to use this. Well done!
#6 Cypher2009 Aug 17, 2010 8:22:55	Great inspiration! Thank you!

Show

The Selu'Kiira are powerful elven artifacts, intelligent telepathic gems that hold immense quantities of knowledge. These stones would teach and aid their masters in the art of high-magic. The Elven house Starym had one such stone, called Starlore. Created in -1758 DR (3,237 years ago) in the city of Cormanthor (later called Myth Drannor), Starlore had been used to store and teach house Starym wizards the secrets of celestial magic, high magic based on the position of the stars and other heavenly bodies, an art with great rewards and great risks. The stars are not simple, benign specks of light after all: the stars are vast alien intelligences of unimaginable power, and few are capable of mastering the art wit their sanity intact, at least not without Starlore's guidance. For hundreds of years, Starlore performed his duty for his house, during times of prominence and times of exile.

In 714, Starlore was stolen, and Myth Drannor was overrun at the end of the Weeping War. The gem was known to be valueable, and eventually found it's way into the hands of Illithids, or Mindflayers, as they are commonly known. Knowing the value of a Selu'Kiira, they had attempted to learn Starlore's secrets, but like most non-elves who attempted to absorb the knowledge contained within, met with lethal consequences. Why they wanted Starlore's knowledge is unclear, though an ancient connection exists between the realm of the stars and the Illithids. Perhaps they seek a way home? Do they wish to bring something from that realm to Faerun? The Far Realm is incredibly difficult to reach after all, and indeed travel to that realm is within the bounds of High Magic, but why they would want to do so is a mystery. Unable to make use of it, they locked the gem away, and while their Elder Brains probed at the consciousness from time to time, it lay forgotten for centuries.

When the Spellplague swept across the world, Starlore was changed. The blue fire consumed many of the magic items alongside the gem, but the Selu'Kiira survived. Slowly, the gem began to grow, breaking free of its setting, as crystalline growths appeared, randomly, at first. Soon, Starlore discovered he could shape this growth, and over the course of several decades, he developed a humanoid form.

Reaching out with his mind, he discovered others, prisoners of the Mindflayers. His prison was simply a vault, filled with magical items not unlike the amulet he had once been, replenished by the Illithids after the plague took so much. When the other prisoner finds his way to the vault, he finds not only weapons and armor, but a strange new ally, eager to get back home.