MrWakka |
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In some ways Tar-Baphons greatest enemies may not be the 'good guys', but the villains, or at least that is potentially how i'd play it.
Arazni as already mentioned has more than enough cause to want to see him crushed, and the devil ruled Cheliax isn't going to stand by and just let a massive undead rival form on their doorstep. Neither Asmodeus nor Tar-Baphon strike me as the sharing type. Has the potential for some very interesting groups who hate each other working towards a common goal. Knights of Ozem working with the Harlot Queen, Cheliax and Andoran forces standing together against the undead horde. As far as the world wound, i'd imagine he would ignore it. The crusaders there are too busy to split their attention unless forced to, and as long as they are fighting demons it is siphoning off forces that would otherwise be fighting him.
So if it were me as Tar-Baphon, here is how i'd see things play out:
1: Tar-Baphon gets free, immediately nukes Vigil. At his level he doesn't need allies or a horde to help do it and no one there is going to have the power to stop him, and having undead would simply alert others as to the true cause. If possible try to throw suspicion elsewhere, but at the very least leave it a mystery, don't announce his presence and take precautions to ensure divination is unlikely to reveal the truth. Sure, hes going to be top of the suspect list, but if no undead hordes stir, or anything else people suspect would come with him happens, they aren't going to be sure.
This will throw his most dedicated opposition into disarray.
2: Leave Ustalav, leave a trusted servant in charge of quietly rallying his forces and keeping them hidden so they can spill out across the land when he needs them. Set up a new base, and set about fortifying it while moving to step 3.
3: Gain influence and spread chaos. Razmir might be an ally given his desire for immortality that mirrors in some way Tar-Baphons own, but it would likely be easier to kill and replace him with a puppet. Have said puppet start a war of expansion into the river kingdoms, it will weaken those realms and provide ample corpses for his own use later, and if it succeeds, all the better. Galt is so chaotic he could likely start a new faction there and with subtle hand gain control of it as well, and no one will pay it much notice because, well its is Galt after all. Once he has control of Galt have it join in the wars of the river kingdoms, using Graltons actions in Galt as a pretext. Getting the orcs of Belkzen bent to his will would also be beneficial, and if not and word of orcs dying by the hundred from some unseen menace gets out, is anyone going to care all that much?
At some point someone will have already started to piece things together, but if he works well to misdirect things he could by this point have a large swath of the inner sea under his control. The war in the river kingdoms would slow reinforcements to the crusaders in Mendev, he could have his forces in Ustalav spill forth into Lastwall, and use his agents to cause as much chaos as possible among their ranks as he does, all while still not directly revealing himself. If a bunch of forces arrive to bolster lastwall, then he can go about taking all those lovely dead people in Galt, Razmiran, and the River Kingdoms and put them to use either opening an additional front no one was expecting, or cross the lake to hit those in last wall from an unexpected direction. He can either have the orcs join in, or the dead orcs, as the case may be, or keep them as a surprise reserve.
From a GM perspective i'd probably just have his forces attack everywhere at once. This creates a world war type scenario with a front that spans nearly all the way across the continent, with an easy excuse for massive early gains thanks to the speed, size, and unexpected nature of it all.