Four years ago, I started DMing a 3.5 game for my girlfriend, who'd never played before. I wasn't expecting her to get into the game, and I didn't really do any long-term planning for the campaign, I just picked a few generic modules (Scourge of the Howling Horde, Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, and Red Hand of Doom), set them in Geoff and Sterich, and we started playing.
Well, so anyway, she's addicted and we play every week now. One of her characters is Dagoberto, a now-15th level monk who fled the Scarlet Brotherhood and turned LG. When she created the character, she decided that Dagoberto had been turned from the racist Suloise ideology of the Brotherhood by some kind of vision from Tsololandril, the Hero Deity of Wave Motions, and had come to Geoff to fulfill some obscure goal of his very obscure deity.
I thought that was cool, and said okay, and figured I'd come up with something great to further that thread pretty soon. Unfortunately, I haven't, and that's where I need some ideas. What keeps blocking me is fathoming exactly what the Oerthly goals are of a sexless alien being obsessed with wave motions: Why would he care about Geoff at all? why send this monk there?
I need to figure this out soon. Dagoberto just sought out the renowned Elayne Mystica in irongate, a fellow Tsololandril worshipper, in hopes of learning what his deity wishes from him.
And I have no clue.
She picked Tsoloandril because in Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Sean Reynolds placed a member of an adventuring company called the Darkstar Guardians (the resistance) in, I think, Pest's Crossing, with a backstory that he had personally met Tsololandril on the Ethereal Plane and was told to come to Geoff and free the land from giants. (My campaign, however, is in CY 595, so Geoff is free and the giants are already beat back to the mountains.)
The party recently completed the Shadows Over Istivin trilogy, Headless, and The Black Egg, and I've decided to try to run them through as many of the modules mentioned by Tenser in that Age of Worms module Spire of Long Shadows as I can, so coming up, perhaps, will be Black Blade of Aknar Ratalla, Lost Temple of Demogorgon, Maure Castle, Root of Evil, and Quicksilver Hourglass. I want to play Age of Worms next, so am basically am trying to foreshadow that campaign now.
But I am stuck and am baffled what Tsololandril wants and how he really fits in to anything.
Geoff might not be of importance at all. But, an event that is building up to happen there might be.
A breach in time of some kind perhaps.
A traveler from the future (or past), could be showing up to disrupt the Flanaess in some major way.
Or, somebody there is preparing to enact something which will cause the same. The individual could be doing it on purpose, fully aware of the catastrophic consequences, or could be an intelligent (but unwise) individual who seek to meddle with something beyond their understanding.
Or it could be a seemingly random series of events that will lead to something catastrophic.
Whatever the case, the monk has to stop it. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
This is Greyhawk, when in doubt, blame it all on Tharizdun, his aliases, and minions.
SPOILERS BELOW - A LOT!
You mentioned the Quicksilver Hourglass as an adventure to be used, and at suggested level 30 it is likely be the capstone to the campaign. There is a demi-god of entropy named Erivatius in that adventure, who has resigned himself to fueling the namesake doomsday device. You know what a demi-god of entropy sounds like to me? A servant, minion, or disciple of the greater, yet imprisoned Tharizdun (god of eternal darkness, decay, entropy, malign knowledge, insanity and cold). Perhaps the end result of activating the Quicksilver Hourglass, and the massive temporal damage that results, is the sundering of Tharizdun’s prison and the heralding of the unmaking of all things (time, matter, memory, thought – everything). Adjust the motivations of the other villains – or make them unwitting tools of Tharizdun.
Entropy is at odds with periodic cycles. In entropy all things fall apart, never “recycling,” and things truly end. But for Tsolorandril, perhaps all things come back around to their beginnings, nothing truly ever ends (on a basic and fundamental level often incapable of being discerned during mortal existence). Tsolorandril might very well have his nemesis in Erivatius and his superior, Tharizdun.
According to some, Tharizdun is also worshiped under the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye – a cult, previously worshiped by the drow noble house of Eilservs. It was this group of drow elves that initially instigated the alliance of giants in the original Against the Giants adventures that are reprinted in Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff. Here is your link to Geoff.
Tharizdun has many other cults and followers operating under different names – check the wiki, as well as entries for Elemental Evil. There is also a rumored connection between Tharizdun and a sect of the Scarlet Brotherhood called the Black Brotherhood (check Scarlet Brotherhood wiki entry). So another tie-in to the character’s background!
For Root of Evil – don’t describe the tree as demonic, describe it was withered and its effects as withering and blighting not just civilization, but the countryside around it. For the druid that is the main villain, her motivation is that entropy is the very essence of “nature.” Blights, rot, spoilage, etc., are the nature she embraces and which motivates her in that adventure. She has been inspired by Tharizdun and perhaps more specifically by Erivatius.
For the other adventures, just hint at the disruption of the “natural cycles” – this would work for the beastly and unnatural things in Lost Temple of Demogorgon. House Maure on the other hand seems like it wants to rule creation – not unmake it. So the party has to race against the cultists of Erivatius to uncover the powerful magic of the Maure Castle. Eli Tomarast is still there seeking power of his own – or has gone mad due to his demonic arms and has “embraced entropy.”
Perhaps, if the character is successful, and completes the epic Quicksilver Hourglass adventure so that Tharizdun is not released – she herself will be “recycled” due to the grace of Tsolorandril. Reborn at first level (even with new ability scores and class or race), with faint memories of a prior life, yet growing up in a mining town called Diamond Lake just before someone finds some writhing green worms…
Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
Those are supremely good suggestions. I hadn't considered the opposition of waves and entropy, but that's great. Thank you.
And keeping with the Tharizdun/Elder Elemental Eye theme (I'm still undecided whether these two are one entity or not IMC), my party left all of the drow in the Touch of the Abyss adventure alive, preferring to negotiate with them for Ilkharis so they could deal with their true enemy, the Malgoth. And all these drow worship the Elder Elemental Eye, so they could be used as active antagonists to Tsololandril.
And I've decided that Verbane, in his subtle schemes to turn Sterich into a personal wizard fief, has behind-the-scenes negotiated with the drow and formed an alliance in preparation for his takeover. He's also been plying one of the party members (a gnome favored soul of Baervan) with presents to the point she's almost behaving like his henchman. So that is a situation rich with possibilities, particularly if, when Verbane's coup comes, we have party members on both sides of the conflict.
I haven't given too much thought to Erivatius in Quicksilver Hourglass, or the demon tree Malgarius in Root of Evil, as they're still some levels away, but I wonder if anyone else has modified either adventure to bring them a little closer to a Greyhawk ethos.
Would anyone recommend swapping out either Erivatius or Malgarius for some more Greyhawk specific entity? Or do those figures' obscurity actually add to the mystery? It seems okay, I guess, there being so many demon lords, that Malgarius has never been mentioned before. I wonder, though, if Erivatius needs foreshadowing or a greater connection to the setting.
Has anyone else used Erivatius in connection with Tharizdun?
Its my recollection that in the Quicksilver Hourglass, Erivatius is from another epoch, unknown, and a blank slate. Have some fun. If you do link to Tharizdun - who is often used - I would recommend using Erivatius and Malgarius as complete unknowns, allowing the players to wander in the dark a little.
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