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    Canonfire :: View topic - The Soul Husks of Iuz
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    The Soul Husks of Iuz
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:24 am  
    The Soul Husks of Iuz

    Confused Hi Guys!

    I'm trying to find out about Iuz's soul husks and what they do for him?

    Do all divinities have these "husks", or only demi-god and/or quasi-deities have them? Are they some form of receptacle for divine energy or do they rather function like the lich's periapt?

    I would theorise that the husks hold some or most of the Old One's power or divinity anyway, since he is an Oerth-native power but I'm very keen to hear what you guys can tell me.

    Not that it would be highly likely or even good for the setting itself but should Iuz be slain on Oerik, would he be destroyed permanently? Or, since he has an active and large priesthood and following, would he be reborn?

    Hope to hear from you guys?

    Darrel
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:53 am  

    Hello.

    Do you have Iuz The Evil Accessory by Carl Sargent??

    I found this, mayby it can help you a bit:

    ".....Within it, some six structures are found which resemble ten-foot-tall chrysalises. Each contains a shrivelled remnant of a humanoid form, reputed to be the mortal remains of a powerful wizard or extra-planar creature which had its being extracted by Iuz....."

    And later in the book i found this:

    "......for each of the soul husks destroyed, Iuz would lose one of his special spell-casting powers....."

    I don't know if this is of any help or if you already knew this??
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:22 am  
    Soul husks of Iuz

    Well, even if he were slain, he was originally a cambion. I can't remember the distinctions, but as the son of Grazz't, he'd be one of the greater type. I don't think the old MMII specified whether or not these cambions had talismans, like powerful demons, but I think it has been printed somewhere that Iuz has one. A talisman functions like some sort of Amulet of Life Protection/soul object thingy. So, if a demon has his soul stored away in one, and gets slain, it can be restored later. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Iuz had his soul object secreted somewhere on Zuggtmoy's plane. So, if you really want to get rid of The Old One, ya gotta find his soul object first! Smile
    Master Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:47 am  

    The idea of draining the mystical or divine essence of something in order to use it to ascend to divinity is not limited to Iuz. That is what Zagig did to become Zagyg. Which came first is uncertain, as is who got the idea from whom.

    In my campaign, Iuz got the idea for this type of ascension after having been a prisoner in Greyhawk Castle and having his outer planar essence siphoned off to feed Zagig's rise. The first thing he did when he was released is begin research into a similar manner of his own ascension.

    A more common view would be that Iuz used the husks first to ascend and then was captured by Zagig.

    _Iuz the Evil_ implies that the husks were essential to Iuz's rise to divine status but that he has somewhat transcended them. Thus, there may have been a time when the destruction of the husks would have removed Iuz's divine status, but he is now beyond that. If the husks are destroyed now, he will lose some power, but he will still be a demi-god.

    IMO not all ascended gods have something like the husks themselves, but they do all have to have had some way to draw divine energy into themselves, to ascend. Zagig and Iuz, being nuetral and evil, had no problem with the idea of capturing other creatures and using their essences. For good beings it would be more difficult. I would think that the source of divine power for a good being to ascend would have to be provided willingly.


    In my campaign, the Husks are actually the remains of other "Iuzs" from parallel worlds. I posit that all creatures have divine essence. The gods are unique in that their essence is whole. Mortals have their divine essence split up between similar beings spread out across time (reincarnations) and across the parrallel universes (multiple simultaneous incarnations). So long as a creature has such a "divided soul", he or she cannot ascend. Thus, one of the tasks in divine ascension is to seek out the alternate "yous", and kill them in such a way that you gain their essence for your self, becoming divinely whole. I have not seen the Jet Li movie _The One_, but I am told the idea is similar.


    As far as killing Iuz, that is very complicated.

    At the start of his career, he was just a cambion. Meaning that if he was killed on the Prime, he could reform in the Abyss. As a kind of demon, he could only be truly slain in the Abyss.

    Then he created a Soul Gem. Meaning that he cannot actually be slain anywhere, for if his material body is destroyed, he will reform on the plane of the Gem.

    Then he ascended to godhood. Meaning (I think) that he can only be truly slain on his home plane, which he took as Oerth.

    Thus he seems to have set up a number of protections. As a cambion, he can only truly be slain in the Abyss, as a god, he can only truly be slain on Oerth. Even without the Gem, slay him on Oerth and he reforms in the Abyss. Slay him in the Abyss and he reforms on Oerth. But regardless of where he is slain, his Soul Gem will save him.

    So, as a DM, if I were deciding how Iuz could be ultimately destroyed, I would require at least that the PC's:

    1. Destroy the Soul Husks. This will sever his link to the Oerth so that he will not reform on Oerth if slain elsewhere.
    2. Destroy the Soul Gem. This will mean he cannot reform at the location of the gem if slain anywhere.
    3. Destroy his material body in the Abyss. This will destroy him permanently if steps 1 and 2 (in either order) have occurred.
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:28 pm  

    Very interesting stuff!

    I'm not sure I would want or even allow a party to kill the Old One, just interested in these "Husks" of his. Perhaps my party will be able to injure or weaken the Old One but I'd prefer for him to escape.

    I like the cambion angle, doesn't that just translate to a tiefling these days?
    CF Admin

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:49 pm  

    Good initial post and great response Kirt.

    I suspect that becoming a god has changed Iuz's "status" as a demon-born (cambion). IMO, his apotheosis ended this fundamental connection to the Abyss (though his Soul Gem is on Zuggtmoy's plane according to Gord the Rogue).

    It'd be great to send Iuz off Oerth. Beyond Vecna Lives!, I've not read the Vecna series of modules, but it seems to me that killing Iuz on Oerth should bar him from returning unless someone cast a gate.

    MTG
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    PS - Greyhawk Adventures provides some 411 on this subject at page 14.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 11:53 pm  

    IMO Cambion (Half Demon) more closely translates to Half-Fiend than Tiefling in 3/3.5.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Fri Dec 10, 2004 11:58 pm  

    I wouldn't think that all divinities have something like the Sould Husk Caverns feeding them power, particularly from other entities.

    Seeing as Iuz is such an evil s.o.b., the Sould Husks would be the means for him to achieve divinity by syphoning the essence of powerful mortal and immortal creatures and absorbing it himself to feed is rise to divinity. Only evil would make use of something like the Soul Husk Caverns.

    I doubt Herioneous said to Mayaheine "Go out and capture a bunch of powerful people, devas, devils, or whatever and stick them in these giant lightning jars. Then just hook yourself up and suck up their soul essence and power. So what if doing so utterly oblitereates them from existence and the afterlife? I know that such a thing is considered to be black necromancy, but that is how its done. Ask Iuz. he'll tell you." Not very likely

    Good beings seeking divvine ascension are usually sponsored by a divine patron, who gifts them with a bit of their own power, or gives them responsibility over a lesser aspect of one of their spheres of influence.

    Neutrals seeking divinity might be shown by their patron how to tap into limited amounts of the very essence of the Natrual Order of things to gain divine enlightnement/divinity.

    The method for achieveing divine status is surely different in each case and is probably influenced greatly by alignment as well.
    CF Admin

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    Sat Dec 11, 2004 7:01 am  

    Cambion = Demonic Father - Human Mother

    Tiefling = Human Father - Demonic Mother (Succubus)

    I think that is somehwere in the FF, DD, MMI, or MMII of 1st Ed.
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    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:03 am  

    Cebrion wrote:

    I doubt Herioneous said to Mayaheine "Go out and capture a bunch of powerful people, devas, devils, or whatever and stick them in these giant lightning jars. Then just hook yourself up and suck up their soul essence and power. So what if doing so utterly oblitereates them from existence and the afterlife? I know that such a thing is considered to be black necromancy, but that is how its done. Ask Iuz. he'll tell you." Not very likely.


    Uhm, that would've been Pelor giving Mayaheine advice for attaining divinity.

    Maybe creating soul husks, imprisoning deities and such things is what must done w/out a sponsor?


    Last edited by Tiernan on Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Adept Greytalker

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    Sat Dec 11, 2004 11:43 am  

    abysslin wrote:
    Cambion = Demonic Father - Human Mother

    Tiefling = Human Father - Demonic Mother (Succubus)

    I think that is somehwere in the FF, DD, MMI, or MMII of 1st Ed.


    MMII: The offspring of succubi are the alufiends who are always female.
    Cambions are always male and the offspring of human females and demons. They are separated into major and marquis/baron depending on the status of their demonic parent.

    I think tieflings didn`t appear until Planescape, and have only some small amount of fiendish blood somewhere in their bloodline AFAIK.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:34 am  

    Slip of the tongue Tiernan. Pelor was/is Mayaheine's sponsor.

    I keep relating Heironeous to Mayaheine in this way as I'm currently running an adventure that features shrines to both of these deities. It is a Necromancer Games module called The Tomb of Abysthor. I have replaced Thur and Muir with Heironeous and Mayaheine resepctively and set the location within the heart of the Cairn Hills. The whole complex is dedicated to the followers of gods of justice(and is the burial place of many clerics and paladins), hence my use of these two deities. The pc's have been sent there by the church of Heironeous in Greyhawk City to check out the disappearance of a previous group of pilgrims who went to visit the shrines and tombs. So far it is working out well.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:09 pm  

    Thanael wrote:

    I think tieflings didn`t appear until Planescape, and have only some small amount of fiendish blood somewhere in their bloodline AFAIK.


    To my knowledge, you are correct. The first reference I've sen to tieflings is in Planescape. I can't remember exactly which book it was in, but I remember reading something that said they were 1/16 fiendish, 1/8 at most. So, if you have a tiefling PC, he or she might have an alu demon for a great grandmother (for example).
    (And a succubus ancestor one more generation up... "Come give granny a kiss.")
    GreySage

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    Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:48 pm  

    Faces of Evil established that tieflings were 1/4 fiendish at most. Yes, they originated with the first Planescape boxed set, where they were defined in much more vague terms (merely "part human and part something else").
    Master Greytalker

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    Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:40 am  

    Any word on an official 3.5 conversion for alu-fiends and cambions? Half fiend templates just don't do it for me and the recent variant in Dungeon looked interesting. One of my pcs would quite like a cambion template with similar abilities to the 1e version.
    GreySage

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    Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:01 am  

    PaulN6 wrote:
    Any word on an official 3.5 conversion for alu-fiends and cambions? Half fiend templates just don't do it for me and the recent variant in Dungeon looked interesting. One of my pcs would quite like a cambion template with similar abilities to the 1e version.


    James Jacobs posted something about that on ENWorld.

    James Jacobs wrote:

    Alzrius wrote:
    James, a quick question. The goes out of its way to mention cambions and alu-demons, calling them "breeds" of half-fiends. And yet, there's no mechanics for these two half-demons in 3.5E D&D (third-party material notwithstanding). Why the nod with nothing to back it up?


    Because D&D already has rules for half-fiends. Both alu-demons and cambions are just humans with the half-fiend template.

    Put another way, not all half-fiend humans are cambions or alu-demons, but all cambions and alu-fiends are half-fiends.

    I was, however, tempted to put in an altered set of abilities for alu-demons and cambions (similar to how we're handling lemorian half-fiends in the Savage Tide Adventure Path), but in the end there just wasn't enough room in the article. BUT! There's certainly room in this thread! So what follows is my "quick and dirty" rules for creating cambions and alu-demons (drawing upon their 1st edition incarnations) by altering the half-fiend template slightly:

    CAMBION
    Armor: Natural armor improves by +4 instead of by +1
    Speed: A cambion has no wings, but gains a +10 ft. bonus to its base land speed.
    Full Attack: A cambion gains claw attacks as a half-fiend, but does not gain a bite attack.
    Special Attacks: Cambions cannot smite good.
    Spell-Like Abilities: Replace darkness 3/day with detect magic at will. Replace desecrate with cause fear 3/day. Replace unholy blight with levitate 3/day. Replace contagion with polymorph.
    Abilities: Str +4, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +2, Cha +2

    ALU-DEMON
    Armor: Natural armor improves by +4 instead of by +1.
    Full Attack: An alu-demon gains no claw or bite attack. She does gain a special touch attack usable once per round as a standard action. If she hits, she deals 1d6 points of negative energy damage plus additional damage equal to her Charisma bonus. She gains half of any damage inflicted in this manner back as healing.
    Special Attacks: Alu-demons cannot smite good.
    Spell-Like Abilities: Replace darkness 3/day with charm person 3/day. Replace desecrate with detect thoughts 3/day. Replace unholy blight with suggestion 3/day. Replace poison with polymorph 3/day (humanoid form only). Replace contagion with dimension door.
    Abilities: Str +2, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +2, Cha +6
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:32 am  

    Kirt wrote:
    The idea of draining the mystical or divine essence of something in order to use it to ascend to divinity is not limited to Iuz. That is what Zagig did to become Zagyg. Which came first is uncertain, as is who got the idea from whom.


    In the "Places of Mystery" article in LGJ # 9 it's related that it was in the ruins of the Ur-Flan city of Veralos, which was destroyed during the Migration period, that Zagig discovered a "prototype for his infamous binding cages." Zagig's expedition was in 318 CY. IIRC Iggwilv was something of a protege of Zagig's at some point early in her career. If this is correct she could have gained some knowledge of the "binding cages" which she later revealed to Iuz, through whom they became the Soul Husks.

    Beside this point is my own speculation that some kind of soul/energy-draining magical-technology could have been one of the secrets of the power of the Ur-Flan and may be found in sites related to that culture other than Veralos. Given this it's possible that Iuz might have gained knowledge of constructing the Soul Husks from one of those other sites.

    Of course it's also possible that the two are unrelated or related through some other means less tidy to the storyline.
    CF Admin

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    Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:20 am  

    smillan_31 wrote:
    In the "Places of Mystery" article in LGJ # 9 it's related that it was in the ruins of the Ur-Flan city of Veralos, which was destroyed during the Migration period, that Zagig discovered a "prototype for his infamous binding cages." Zagig's expedition was in 318 CY. IIRC Iggwilv was something of a protege of Zagig's at some point early in her career. If this is correct she could have gained some knowledge of the "binding cages" which she later revealed to Iuz, through whom they became the Soul Husks.


    FWIW, I always figured these were the Prisons of Zagyg (bird-cage-like artifacts from S4), rather than soul husks.
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:18 am  

    grodog wrote:
    smillan_31 wrote:
    In the "Places of Mystery" article in LGJ # 9 it's related that it was in the ruins of the Ur-Flan city of Veralos, which was destroyed during the Migration period, that Zagig discovered a "prototype for his infamous binding cages." Zagig's expedition was in 318 CY. IIRC Iggwilv was something of a protege of Zagig's at some point early in her career. If this is correct she could have gained some knowledge of the "binding cages" which she later revealed to Iuz, through whom they became the Soul Husks.


    FWIW, I always figured these were the Prisons of Zagyg (bird-cage-like artifacts from S4), rather than soul husks.


    Dang... I thought I was on to something. Yeah that definitely sounds like Zagyg's Prisons. At least now I know about them. Thanks Allan.

    Besides that aspect I still think it's likely that Iuz made the Husks based on transmission of knowledge from Zagig via Iggwilv, since she did gain much of her knowledge as Zagig's apprentice. Does anything specifically say that Zagyg gained the power for his apotheosis by draining power from the imprisoned demigods? If not it's still a pretty safe assumption -- he probably wasn't holding them hostage for their milk money. If so then it's even easier to see a connection between Zagig's demigod prisons and Iuz's Soul Husks.

    What I'd be interested in is the identities of the six "powerful wizard(s) or extra-planar creature(s)" imprisoned in the Soul Husks. Kirt's idea of them being other Iuz's is really interesting, but I'd probably go for something less creative. Say... whatever happened to Keraptis? Smile
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Mar 23, 2007 5:01 am  

    The difference between Iuz and Zagyg is also worth considering. One was a cambion with up tp 16 cleric levels with an imprisoned Iggwilv as mother and an exiled Graz'z as a not too friendly father, i.e. no major allies. The other was a human and at least an archmage, perhaps a quasi-deity, with the direct backing of Boccon, usually uncaring and aloof.

    IMO Zagyg had a much easier and "cleaner" route to godhood while Iuz had to use a more messy and dirty road. There is no reason to think that they persued the exact same route to power.
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:55 pm  

    Gilban wrote:
    The difference between Iuz and Zagyg is also worth considering. One was a cambion with up tp 16 cleric levels with an imprisoned Iggwilv as mother and an exiled Graz'z as a not too friendly father, i.e. no major allies. The other was a human and at least an archmage, perhaps a quasi-deity, with the direct backing of Boccon, usually uncaring and aloof.

    IMO Zagyg had a much easier and "cleaner" route to godhood while Iuz had to use a more messy and dirty road. There is no reason to think that they persued the exact same route to power.


    Except that they both ascended to divine status by imprisoning powerful beings. In the case of Iuz, powerful wizards and extra-planar creatures. In the case of Zagig, demigods, or at least 8 demigods and 1 very powerful cambion, depending on where you come down in that debate. Smile

    If they both imprisoned powerful beings and Iuz ascended by draining their power then that's plenty of reason to think that Zagig did the same thing. It's not definitive but it is reasonable.

    The power differences you point out between Iuz and Zagig would explain why one imprisoned demigods while the other had to settle for plain old vanilla wizards and extra-planar critters.

    IMO much of why one was clean and one was messy is the difference in who was being drained of power. Draining power from a demigod on one hand and a powerful wizard on the other is kind of like mugging a millionaire and a homeless guy for $50 each. They're both inconvenienced by the mugging but the millionaire won't even miss $50, while for the homeless guy losing $50 could be catastrophic.
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