The encounter with Tonatiuh (the couatl in the rakasta temple) indicates that couatls remained on the Isle after the first savage tide for a variety of reasons. Does this mean to suggest that Tonatiuh was alive and present for the event, or is he merely a descendant of those who were?
The encounter with Tonatiuh (the couatl in the rakasta temple) indicates that couatls remained on the Isle after the first savage tide for a variety of reasons. Does this mean to suggest that Tonatiuh was alive and present for the event, or is he merely a descendant of those who were?
As far as I know, Coatl are outsiders, and generally speaking, outsiders are immortal, agewise. They are based on representations of an Aztec God, & thereby may be looked at as the equivelent of Olman Angels.
As a slight counterpoint, couatls are of type "Outsider (Native)", which (unlike other Outsiders) "need to eat and sleep". Doesn't mean they're not immortal, but they're not quite the same as other Outsiders.
I'm not sure what the harm would be in knowing how the Isle came to be how it is, but I'm also not sure what the benefit would be. I think I'm inclined to just hope the players don't ask, and treat Tonatiuh as a "young" couatl if they do.
Split the difference. This one may not be the original, but it is only a generation or two removed from the original Savage Tide.
did something similar with one of the infamaous 7.
If my players were into that much backstory I might need to be more careful, but I would explain it as follows.
Dragons can sleep for centuries (that is why this particular 'infamous seven' has not been seen in a while). After eating couple dozen diplidocii (sp?) she retreats to her lair to sleep. She has done this just often enough to stay in the collective memory. Any other dragons that come to the isle are presumably looking for a lair and a hoard. She defeats (and eats) any such interlopers, and after such a large meal is again ready to sleep for a century or so. This is in fact how she became infected. Looking for a lair of her own a five or six centuries ago she woke up one particularly savage dragon. This wyrm had eaten every other dragon on the island by that time and fell into the deep sleep. The two fought, she won but not before being bitten several times. As a green she was not bothered when the other drake burst into acid instead retreating to lick her itching wounds. It took a long time for the infection to reduce her int to zero, she probably fought it for a year, but since then has emerged every so often to gorge herself savagely.
If I thought enough of them had not read the Crystal Shard, I could simply pull the iciingdeath with her (or any others)...
I'm not sure what the harm would be in knowing how the Isle came to be how it is, but I'm also not sure what the benefit would be. I think I'm inclined to just hope the players don't ask, and treat Tonatiuh as a "young" couatl if they do.
To be honest, I'm fond of the idea of giving out background info (not dangerous secrets or anything, mind you,) just so the players can have an idea of what's really going on. I know one problem I have with a previous Adventure Path (Shackled City)... PCs don't know what's really going on until it's almost too late, and the end bad-guys don't quite get the foreshadowing they deserve.
If the PCs come to know how the Isle of Dread came to be the Isle of Dread, there's a bigger incentive for them to say, "Holy crap, this Black Pearl thing wiped out a whole civilization in the past, and it's part of a horrible demonic plot! We gotta stop this!" It's more pointed foreshadowing than Demogorgon pulling a Skeletor/Dr. Klaw "Next Time, Heroes! Next Time!" periodically. Grant you, I'm posting this late at night, so my memory might be off, but I seem to remember him popping his image up to do that a couple of times.
In short, I think it helps pacing the plot info.