Eberron's Dawn of a New Age

[Russell Jones]

I figure this is something that will probably be handled in the online supplement (and if not, it should be). In Eberron, Kyuss was bound to the rakshasa Overlord Katashka, who used the priest's faith to break free of his prison for a short time. Now in "Dawn of a New Age", the players will be expected to finish him once and for all.

The problem is that as a rakshasa Overlord, Katashka/Kyuss is immortal. Should he be destroyed, he immediately dissipates and reforms in the depths of Khyber 4d6 hours later (per Dragon 337). That's why, from what I gather, the couatl decided imprisonment was the best they could do.

My question is, will things be different this time, and the players finally have a chance to kill the un-killable? Would more be required of them if they wanted to banish Katashka for all time from Eberron, much as Mishka the Wolf-Spider was banished by the Rod of Law? Or is stuffing Kyuss back inside his prison the best the players can hope to do?

I have my own ideas, but I'm wondering what the collective geniuses who brought us the Age of Worms thought about it first ;)

[Golbez57]

Certainly not one of the Genius Collective, but my thoughts after reading the adventure:

Katashka made a desperate grab at freedom by binding himself to the mortal Kyuss--a compromise made even more extreme by the notion that Katashka was a lord of undeath, and Kyuss a living being!

(Note that in my campaign, per the fantastic suggestion of another contributor to these forums, Kyuss was a Siberys-marked member of House Vol... but a mortal nevertheless.)

So, should the once-mortal aspect of Kyuss-Katashka be utterly destroyed (rather than simply passing on to Dolurrh), the mighty overgod to whom he is symbiotically connected will share in the destruction just as he once shared in the freedom to walk Eberron. How to single out Kyuss and destroy him--I'm excited to see what the players in my game will come up with! Suffice to say that they'll need to weaken Kyuss-Katashka to the point at which adventure-as-written-Kyuss would be destroyed before whatever they cook up would have a chance to succeed.

[Anarch of Xaos]

Similar to Golbez, I too would use Katashka's reliance on Kyuss's mortal form to his ruin.

IMC, the Dawn is possible because of a rare collaberation of the Planes and Moons of Eberron: Doluurh is coterminous for the entirety of the campaign, Irian is strangely remote for the last few chapters, and Mabar is coterminous for the three days encompasing the Dawn of a New Age.

Lashona uses the Eldrich Machine in her basement to siphon these planar energies, making Alhaster a temporary Manifest Zone to Mabar. Katashka is feeding on this Manifest Zone as detailed in the adventure. By destroying the Machine, Katashka loses this source of power, becoming mortal until the end of Mabar's coterminous phase. By the end of the planar conflux he's gathered enough energy on his own to truely break free of his prison, regains his immortality, and the Age of Worms begins in ernest.

The PC's must use this window to do what no other being has accomplished, dragons and coatl included: Kill a Rajah.

"The children of Siberys were never intended to kill the spawn of Khyber. This task, now as in times of old, falls to the decendants of Eberron. So says Prophesy..."
-Manzorian, Rogue Bronze Wyrm Archmage

Anarch of Backstory

[The Interplanar Society of Intolerant Grammar Nazis]

Personally, I would like to keep the nature of Rajahs as unchanged as possible: ancient evils which are literally unkillable and more powerful than anything else on Siberys, Eberron, or Khyber (note this does not include other planes into this equation; thus a Daelkyr may be rival to a individual Rajah's power, although those would be few and far inbetween). Instead, Kyuss is not bound to Katashka, but rather overwhelmed and absorbed into Katashka's greater identity as an avatar, or maybe a proxy, of 'his' power as it may be.

If the Age of Worms fails, then Kyuss' indivuality is completely obliterated and dragged into Khyber kicking and screaming all the merry way, to be consumed into Katashka. If the Age of Worms succeeds, this does not mean another Age of Demons; this -IS- the Age of Worms after all, the Silver Flame has endured for hundreds of thousands of years, and Kyuss, for all his worminess' granted divinity, isn't going to change that fact (yet). Which is why some dragons are willing to aid the comming of the Dawn, to nurture the possibilities it presents. But it certainly spells DOOM in big capital letters in bold font for all Khorvaire, and dark times to come for the rest of Eberron...