In preparation for our AoW endgame, I came across the idea of divine apotheosis through deicide. I'm happy to hear your ideas on this! But let me explain the situation:
The group I GM for sports a very well played favored soul of kord who has taken levels in a homebrew prc that is called "Chosen of Kord" which at the expense of some spellcasting progress gives abilities to more closely match Kord (i'll post details if anybody is interested). We will not continue the campaign any further than DoaNA, and I have woven in epic destinies for all the PCs. Thus I thought, divine ascension would be a fitting end of campaign for this character.
In deities and demigods, there are many possible ways of apotheosis. One of which is deicide: Kill a god, become one. It seems plausible, at least in Greyhawk which sports a number of mortals that became gods. After all, Kyuss was a mortal as well! He ascended through the sacrifice of a whole city - with the monolith as a focus. In one of the visions in SoLS, there are even visuals to this; energy that flows towards the monolith. So - killing this god might free that divine power, and I plan on having checks for each involved to capture it and ascend to a hero deity (rank 0).
Now if one of the PCs could potentially do it, others can as well. Namely: Lashonna. She is an intriguing villain, but her motives lack some mojo IMO. All this careful planning and scheming, all the work with the Ebon Triad rouse, just for being second in command after Kyuss? No, she wants the whole deal :) and become a god by herself. Her plan is to use the PCs to track down Dragothas phylactery, destroy it, and then bring him down. This removes her biggest threat, and gives her time to prepare the Age of Worms. When the PCs return to Alhaster, she will time Kyuss' emergence precisely (on a side note, that removes the railroady feeling I had when reading through DoaNA). She would observe the confrontation, and try to snatch divinity.
Now, Dragotha should not suspect this; otherwise he might tell the PCs too early if they talk in Wormcrawl Fissure. It can be argued that he is blind to her true intentions because he is too upset when discovering that she wants to upstage him.
Still, the PCs will probably not trust her after learning from Dragotha that she is actually a vampiric dragon and used them to slay him; but: In LoLR they saw her fall, and so she could convince them that she has ever sought a) revenge , and b) a cure for her vampirism. The latter, she might explain, can be achieved through destroying both dragotha (her creator) and Kyuss (his creator). It is entirely likely that they won't trust her; but that is assumed in DoaNA and thus poses no problem. On the other hand, if they do fall for her trap, she might enjoy a prime tactical position when Kyuss emerges, as she might offer them help in slaying Kyuss.
Either way, the PCs would have to confront both Kyuss and Lashonna in the showdown, but *shrug* that's the price for apotheosis :)
Again, I'd be happy to hear your ideas on this!
If Lashonna is still around when Kyuss is defeated, you could use the mechanic thats in savage tide for apeothesis. Have anyone who wants to capture the freed divine essense make an opposed check. Add in level or hit dice plus charisma modifier. With a bonus to whoever dealt the killing blow. Other than that, your motives for Lashonna seem pretty good and I may steal them.
I am going to have to look into that. It would be great to use if the PC's somehow defeat Kyuss more easily than I expect. It would be similar to the video game bosses that change form after you deal X amount of damage.
Thanks for commenting! TheWhiteknife, you are right about the opposed divinity check. In Prince of Demons, its laid out nicely. Should work well.
And Dennis, continuing the battle is awesome - and assured for whoever wins the first check :) Nice.
Still, I'm unsure about the "divinity mechanics".
A) Just slaying a god should not bestow divinity, otherwise if said PC makes it, he would be assassinated on an hourly basis. Deicide would be *very* common. Whole pantheons would battle against each other. Evil overlords would crusade against heaven on a weekly basis. Maybe apotheosis through deicide only works on the Material Plane (which would provide a logic as to why gods don't go there). Maybe it requires consent of the contender's patron deity. Maybe it requires the presence of a divine focus (the monolith, in that case). Or all of the above.
B) Divine rank: Kyuss is rank 1 (demigod), and I will not lower that by the preparatory side quests in DoaNA. (Instead, these steps are required to lower him to divine rank 1, from 2 or 3). My initial thought was that you become a deity of a rank 1 lower than the one you slew. Now if Lashonna wins the initial check, she'd be rank 0, and if killed, divine power is lost altogether. But that would remove her zeal to kill an ascended character if she loses the first check. So it should work like this: Kill a god, and regardless of its rank, you become a rank 0 deity (if prerequisites are met).
C) Portfolio: What happens to Kyuss portfolio? Lashonna would not have a problem with it, but any PC should :) Kyuss portfolio might resort to Nerull, his patron. A rank 0 deity might not have a portfolio at all. A newly ascended deity might choose his own portfolio. The godkiller might get the slain god's portfolio, whether he likes it or not. I don't know what option I like most.
There are interesting rules concerning divinity and becoming a god here:
http://www.immortalshandbook.com/
Endgame is approaching fast; in fact, it's tomorrow.
I have made up my mind, and wanted to clarify for you.
1) Lashonna will try to play the PCs to her advantage: She tells them that in order for her to "gain the form that fate dictates", Kyuss must be slain. She isn't even lying with that. To protect her from destruction in the initial encounter, she has used a scroll of astral projection.
2) Whether the PCs believe her or not, she will usher in the Age of Worms, as prophecy tells (I have added "The undead dragon's rage / will usher in the Wormy Age")
3) The PCs battle Kyuss. Lashonna either helps them (if they believe her), or remains passive (if they don't).
4) Kyuss dies. All present can make ascension checks:
Hit dice + CHA + circumstance bonus.
Ciscumstance bonus:
+5 if creature was involved in fight
+10 if creature has dealt damage to Kyuss
+20 if creature has dealt final blow to Kyuss
Lashonnas total bonus is +48; + eventually circumstance bonus.
5a) If Lashonna wins, she becomes a quasi-deitiy; She takes on Kyuss portfolio, and rules the Age of Worms (unless the PCs slay her - with will be hard, considering that their resources might well be exhausted.
6a) If Lashonna is slain, new ascension checks are rolled.
5b) If a PC wins, this PC becomes a hero-deity (deities and demigods). Lashonna immediately attacks him; but will probably fail. The PC can choose whether to take on Kyuss portfolio, or not (and thus not gaining a portfolio at all; he would have to claim it in further epic adventures).
6b) If Lashonna succeeds in slaying the PC, new ascension checks are rolled... possibly continuing the final battle.
What happens on divine ascension:
- become a quasi-deity / hero-deitiy (rank 0)
- Full hitpoints for every hit dice
- all spells replenished
- some other nice boni (look in deities and demigods).
Lashonna is one of my favorite NPCs of all time :)
I was planning to do something very like what you have done here, with Lashonna's end-game plan being to usurp Kyuss and become the big boss herself. To that end I advanced her to Great Wyrm and made all sorts of plans.. Unfortunately she ate the Sphere of Annihilation and all my plans kind of fell into ashes :/
Anyway, one word of caution: Some players might be a bit put off if their final victory, which they've been playing towards for months of real-life time, ends up being a red herring and they have to do it all over again :)
To that end I advanced her to Great Wyrm and made all sorts of plans.. Unfortunately she ate the Sphere of Annihilation and all my plans kind of fell into ashes :/
All the planning and scheming, and then there is the sphere... This is exactly what happened to me last Saturday :)
I don't regret to have put effort into it, as the conversation in their first encounter was quite interesting, and when they decided to not buy her sweet-talk, attacked and discovered that they had just disjoined her astral projection, they did become quite nervous :)
Armnaxis did you ever finish AoW? I don't remember seeing any threads (sorry if I missed it). I am curious as to how it turned out especially based upon your ideas in this thread.
Oh yes, we dit. Lots of fun!
First encounter with Lashonna was her + unlife vortex in the basement of the spire - a very tight and momorable encounter because of the unlive vortex sucking d4 levels every round from the heroes ignoring death ward; a puzzle to close the vortex; and the disjoining of her astral projection.
So they met again on top of the spire, Kyuss was already entering the mortal world, but then the sphere hit her and she was obliterated before her plans could become grim reality.
In the end, Kyuss was slain (he had run out of 10th, 9th, and 8th level slots because of his freehanded use of time stop + buffs). Rickas, favored soul of Kord snatched the divine essence and has become demi-god (and is retired - until, one day, he might play a role in the endgame of Savage Tide :)
Cheers!