Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've been going over the AoW Overload to make sure that I understand the entire Ebon Triad/Kyuss/Dragotha conspiracy, and here's what I've got.
Backstory
-Dragotha has been trying to get Kyuss to come back from the monolith because he is bound to him/wants to slay him (AoW Overview)
-Dragotha's avolakias servants/allies created the Ebon Triad to fool clerics of Vecna/Hextor/Erythnul into thinking that Kyuss is the harbinger of their Overgod. (Into the Wormcrawl Fissure)
-Dragotha recruited chromatic dragons to assist him in this endeavor, including Lashonna and Ilthane (Encounter at Blackwall Keep, The Prince of Redhand, Kings of the Rift)
-Lashonna has been plotting against Dragotha, and used Balakarde as a pawn in that game, ultimately resulting in his death (Into the Wormcrawl Fissure)
-Either Lashonna or Ilthane contact Loris Raknian and turn him into an agent of the Ebon Triad. The mission they give to him is to use the Apostilic scrolls to create super-ulgurstasa. (The Champion's Belt)
-Loris Raknian uses his illithid agent to acquire the scroll. He is somehow involved with the Ebon Triad cell in Diamond Lake (Hall of Harsh Reflections)
-Ilthane creates new varieties of kyuss spawn using the lizardfolk as guinea pigs. He sets the lizardfolk against the humans, though it's not clear why this is done before his experimentation is complete. (Encounter at Blackwall Keep)
-The Faceless One sets up shop in Diamond Lake because there is an abandoned lair of Vecna in the area. For some reason, the Vecna lair also has a significant link to the Ebon Triad. (Three Faces of Evil)
-Balabar Smenk is pressed into helping the Faceless one keep his cult activities secret, but doesn't trust him. As a result he hires Filge to perform research for him into the cult's activities. (The Whispering Cairn)
Questions (some of these will hopefully be answered in future installments)
-If Balakarde knew of the location of the Libarary of Last Resort, he presumably knew of where Dragotha's phylactory is located. That being the case, why did he go to the Wormcrawl Fissure w/o the phylactory?
-Do the Wind Dukes have anything to do w/Kyuss, or are they just the vehicle for introducing a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts?
-Is anything about the Ebon Triad true, i.e., will there be an Overgod that follows Kyuss's arrival? If not, how do you explain the mini-overgod in Three Faces of Evil?
-If the PC's (presumably) keep foiling the plots of Dragotha, how is he able to activate the monolith and bring Kyuss into the world?
-Why does the monolith get teleported to Redhand? Why does Dragotha wait there to get attacked by the PCs? Why would he let Lashonna hog all the glory? If he knows the PC's are going after his phylactory, why does he not also realize that Lashonna is a traitor?
Good questions. About the Overgod: I doubt any of that is true. The Ebon Aspect could easliy have been made by Kyuss, or possibly the three dark gods actually support the Triad somewhat and lent the monster to them. This makes some sense, as it promotes evil as a whole, which they would probably be favorable towards.
As for how Dragotha releases Kyuss after suffering defeats as the party's hands several times: My guess is that Dragotha's plans are largely unscathed by the party, except for a handful of key elements. There's still plenty of plots and actions going on that the party hasn't messed with, a majority of the actions needed to bring Kyuss back maybe. But, the party has a few key elements that will make him/his minions weaker. Though the party won't know it, it's more about reducing Kyuss' strength when he returns than it is to stop his return all together.
Those are my best guesses at the moment.
Creative Director
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Quick Answers (warning: Here Be Spoilers)
1: Balakarde's reasons for going to the Wormcrawl Fissure without the phylactery will be explained later in teh campaign.
2: The Wind Dukes have nothing to do with Kyuss.
3: The Ebon Triad's beliefs are not true. There will be no Overgod that follows Kyuss' arrival; they're tools created by Kyuss and his minions from priests of other cults, since Kyuss himself doesn't have an organized cult of his own yet. Better to "steal" worshipers of established religions and twist them to your needs, and that way if they get found out, your actual plans aren't endangered. The Ebon Aspect that appears at the end of Three Faces of Evil is a testament to the power of belief and divine magic—even though the Ebon Triad's faith is based on lies, the members of the Ebon Triad don't know that. Therefore, their faith is just as strong as any other cult, and this faith (combined with the residual energies left in the dark cathedral from Vecna's time spent therein) was enough to generate the Ebon Aspect. Or perhaps there IS something to this Overgod business after all! Exact explanations for the Ebon Aspect's existance are left to you to decide, although the "official" stance is as I detail here.
4: The PCs don't really foil any of Dragotha's plots. They foil the plots of Ebon Triad cultists, lesser Kyuss agents and cultists, and other allied creatures. It's not until the PCs get ahold of his phylactery and confront him in the 10th and 11th adventures that they really get his notice, and by then, he's already set into motion the monolith's activation.
5: The exact details and motivations for Dragotha and Lashonna and the transportation of the monolith to Alhaster will be covered in detail in the final adventures in the Age of Worms adventure path. Which is another way of saying we haven't nailed down these elements completely yet beyond vague ideas in our heads. Never fear; it'll all make sense by the time we get there! :)
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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-Dragotha recruited chromatic dragons to assist him in this endeavor, including Lashonna and Ilthane (Encounter at Blackwall Keep, The Prince of Redhand, Kings of the Rift)
This is true, except that Lashonna is not technically a chromatic dragon, but a vampiric silver dragon.
-Either Lashonna or Ilthane contact Loris Raknian and turn him into an agent of the Ebon Triad. The mission they give to him is to use the Apostilic scrolls to create super-ulgurstasa. (The Champion's Belt)
It's actually yet another agent of Kyuss who converts Loris Raknian, rather than Lashonna or Ilthane, but otherwise this is correct. This bit is pretty well detailed in "The Champion's Belt" (which is really very good).
-Loris Raknian uses his illithid agent to acquire the scroll. He is somehow involved with the Ebon Triad cell in Diamond Lake (Hall of Harsh Reflections)
Right. Raknian's relationship to the Ebon Triad cult in Diamond Lake isn't as well established as I would like, but it's a certainty that he has met the Faceless One and perhaps even knew Theldric for gladiatorial reasons. At the very least, he is aware that they have a beachhead in Diamond Lake, and has enough contact with the cell to realize when they go silent.
-Ilthane creates new varieties of kyuss spawn using the lizardfolk as guinea pigs. He sets the lizardfolk against the humans, though it's not clear why this is done before his experimentation is complete. (Encounter at Blackwall Keep)
First, Ilthane is female. Second, she likes to keep the lizardmen stoked with rage. If they happen to attack the Free City when she's away, that's just bonus carnage, and doesn't play into the larger plot.
-The Faceless One sets up shop in Diamond Lake because there is an abandoned lair of Vecna in the area. For some reason, the Vecna lair also has a significant link to the Ebon Triad. (Three Faces of Evil)
The connection to the Ebon Triad is simply the fact that the locale is connected to the history of Vecna. The Black Cathedral has little to do with Kyuss himself, and is merely convenient to the Kyuss cult's cover story.
I'll answer the questions in another email, since the board software is choking on the original long post.
--Erik
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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-If Balakarde knew of the location of the Libarary of Last Resort, he presumably knew of where Dragotha's phylactory is located. That being the case, why did he go to the Wormcrawl Fissure w/o the phylactory?
This is a little like saying "If Erik went to the Ballard Public Library last week, he presumably knows the chemical composition of glow stick fluid." The library is going to be a little more abstract than people are prepared for. You have to know what you're looking for when you go there.
It's all moot, though, because Balakarde never visited the Library of Last Resort. He may have known of it, but he was more interested in Kyuss than Dragotha, as the latter was in a "dormant" period and in any event was not thought to be interested in his former liege any longer.
-Do the Wind Dukes have anything to do w/Kyuss, or are they just the vehicle for introducing a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts?
The latter. Their time on the world predated that of Kyuss by many thousands of years. That said, I've seen some intriguing posts elsewhere in this folder that suggest way to tie together the Wind Dukes and Alastor Land, so if you're looking for a more concrete way to tie the Wind Dukes to the overall story, someone here has probably already thought of a way.
-Is anything about the Ebon Triad true, i.e., will there be an Overgod that follows Kyuss's arrival? If not, how do you explain the mini-overgod in Three Faces of Evil?
It's pretty much all B.S. The mini-overgod will be explained later in the series. Basically, it's probably a good idea to think of it as a creature fueled by the absent will of Kyuss, albeit one that apes the mannerisms of the gods associated with the Ebon Triad. It's quite likely that the party will later face several "Aspects of the Overgod" at the same time, at which point more about this mystery will be resolved.
-If the PC's (presumably) keep foiling the plots of Dragotha, how is he able to activate the monolith and bring Kyuss into the world?
The PCs don't even know about most of the plots of Dragotha, which have been hatched over the course of centuries, and which are, for the most part, complete by the time the PCs arrive on the scene. It's possible that the actions of the PCs will have weakened Kyuss (enough so that he can be killed by the PCs at the end of the campaign, in fact), but they probably won't be able to prevent his emergance into the world, because where's the fun in that?
-Why does the monolith get teleported to Redhand? Why does Dragotha wait there to get attacked by the PCs? Why would he let Lashonna hog all the glory? If he knows the PC's are going after his phylactory, why does he not also realize that Lashonna is a traitor?
That would be Lashonna's doing. Why rule from the bottom of a crappy cave in a largely abandoned canyon when instead you can rule from the banks of the largest inland lake in the continent, a waterway connected to dozens of important cities and trade routes. The Rift Canyon made sense in ancient days, but this is the modern world.
Dragotha waits for the PCs because, by the time they get to the bottom of the Wormcrawl Fissure, he knows they are quite powerful. Hell, they may have his phylactery, which is something he hasn't seen for more than 1000 years.
He wants to strike a deal with the PCs, because for him the whole point of this has been to destroy Kyuss and free himself from his bondage (and perhaps from existence in general--I haven't decided, yet).
He is content to let Lashonna "hog all the glory" because he does not fear her, or anyone who isn't a god or holding his phylactery, for that matter. He probably does realize Lashonna is a traitor, but since he consigned himself to having to destroy her centuries ago, he doesn't really care.
All that's important is that she plays her part.
--Erik
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Creative Director
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Eric, or whoever else cares to answer...James...anyone.... I am sure that my Bard is going to ask about Kyuss, and the Wizard is already planning on trying to research him. I don't really know that much. What should I give them?
The most recent issue of Dragon has the "Ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss" in it, which includes a table for Knowledge checks about Kyuss and his undead spawn. You can certainly substitute bardic knowledge for the Knowledge (religion) check that article asks for.
If you don't have access to this issue of Dragon, you should probably err on the side of caution. Have your bard or wizard do the research, and tell them that Kyuss is an obscure deity connected to the creation and mastery of the undead, and that the spawn of Kyuss are his most prolific and notorious creations. He has no real organized church, and is generally considered to be a dead god. Of course, as the Age of Worms campaign progresses, your PCs will uncover new information to the contrary...
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Eric and James - Thanks. These are exactly the big picture details I was looking for. It's hard to present a consistent picture to players and answer their questions w/o understanding the whole conspiracy, top to bottom.
So basically, there's a high level plot thread and a low level plot thread.
Low Level Plot Thread
The PC's are introduced to Kyuss, the Ebon Triad, and Dragotha by foiling the minor plots of their agents. Whispering Cairn, Three Faces of Evil, Hall of Harsh Reflections, and The Champions Belt are all about the plots of the Ebon Triad (though Whispering Cairn and Hall of Harsh Reflections are more tangential).
The Champions Belt is the encounter with the pinnacle of the Ebon Triad in the region, the point at which the organization rubs against the true plots of Dragotha/Kyuss. If Loris were to delve just a little deeper, he would probably discover that Kyuss, and not the Overgod, is at the root of his beliefs.
Encounter at Blackwall Keep is the only adventure out of the first 5 where an agent of Dragotha, and not the Ebon Triad, is the actor. However, this connection isn't revealed until A Gathering of Winds.
At the conclusion of these adventures, the PC's return to Diamond Lake, reunite briefly w/Allusten, and realize that the encounters with the Ebon Triad are the tip of the Kyuss iceburg. The encounter with Ilthane provides the link to Dragotha, and propels them into the high level thread.
High Level Plot Thread
Beginning with the Spire of Long Shadows, the PC's have moved from passively encountering the minions of Dragotha/Kyuss to actively seeking to destroy them. Most of the adventures after this point are about gathering sufficient information and resources to accomplish this goal. Beginning with the encounter at the end of the the Champion's Belt, Dragotha/Kyuss are also starting to bring the fight to the PC's as they become a threat.
My job as DM then, is to make the characters care initially about the threat of the Ebon Triad. This will lead them through most of the early adventures and the low level plot thread. By the time they've destroyed the highest level agent of the Triad (Loris) in the Champion's Belt, they've also uncovered enough about Dragotha/Kyuss that they should realize that force of evil has to be destroyed next. And, if they aren't motivated by their own inherent desire to stomp evil, they will be motivated by the fact that they've gained the attention of Dragotha/Kyuss and will be attacked until they deal with the situation. From there, the PC's will really propel the action and follow the high level plot threat pretty quickly.
Again, thanks for the help putting all the pieces together.