My players are tearing through The Lightless Depths. Due to the party’s laser focus and the belief there are slaves to save, they opted to bypass the village of Baras and push on deeper into the caverns.
They are on the verge of entering the temple, and they have no real knowledge of the history of the Cerulean Curtain or the war with the aboleths. This presents me with a spectacular opportunity to have the trapped aboleth present the story and completely control the message.
I’m trying to decide the best strategy for the aboleth to take. They still have Irgzid the troglodyte showing them the way, but my feeling is the aboleth taking the form of a troglodyte priest won’t be the most convincing option. I’ve played up Irgzid being a bit insane, so any inconsistency between the aboleth’s story and what the Trog says can be explained away.
I’m sort of thinking the Aboleth should take the form of an Olman and tell them the “true” history of the curtain – I’m just not sure what that should be exactly. I’m thinking that the story should revolve around hubris in some way. The ancient Olmans reached too far into mysteries better left alone and unleashed a horror on the world. The Tear was an attempt to seal the Evil that was unleashed, but somehow the backlash started the Pearl creation process. It’s a little weak, I know, but that’s why I’m here.
What do you think – can we put enough heads together to come up with a suitable lie concocted by a nigh immortal genius telepathic fish. My game session is next Tuesday.
Thanks for the help everyone!
I plan to have the aboleth take the form of an Olman, since the party barbarian is Olman and the party are getting quite familiar with their ancient culture, which I have been foreshadowing. To aide in making this work, I am going to play up Irgzid's insanity due to his disease and incarceration and not least the rapture of pleasing Laogzed, which he believes he's about to accomplish.
Irgzid will be so eager to please his Lord that he won't even flinch when the aboleth channels the "Olman Spirit" to try and convince the party that destroying the Tear will destroy pearl production.
Should they not take the bait, I will make the ziggurat assault... uncomfortable... so that the tactic of destroying the Tear as a distraction will be more attractive. If they want to take it down the hard way, it will just be harder.
Using a nixie or triton or other sea humanoid is an interesting idea, I just have a little trouble seeing how to make it believable. :D
Perhaps it could tell a tale about a rift in the Olman civilization, with a group of evil Olman (or even kopru) trying to take over and the Olman fleeing into golismorga, in which they were again defeated and locked up. Perhaps he tells that they mutated into aquatic Olman (to explain the Cerulean curtain. The story will be very believable when the group later meets the skinwalkers or when they meet the Olman cannibals, which might then be an offshoot of the degenerate evil Olman race. Of course the barbarian is a descendant of the "good" Olman. (Perhaps the aboleth can pick up a family name from the conversation with the barbarian.)
Perhaps it could tell a tale about a rift in the Olman civilization, with a group of evil Olman (or even kopru) trying to take over and the Olman fleeing into golismorga, in which they were again defeated and locked up. Perhaps he tells that they mutated into aquatic Olman (to explain the Cerulean curtain. The story will be very believable when the group later meets the skinwalkers or when they meet the Olman cannibals, which might then be an offshoot of the degenerate evil Olman race. Of course the barbarian is a descendant of the "good" Olman. (Perhaps the aboleth can pick up a family name from the conversation with the barbarian.)
I really like where this is going - I think I'm going to start with the idea of a rift between the Olman tribes. Now I just need to consider how to make destroying the curtain the only way to stop the pearl production.
Maybe the story is by pushing out the water, the source of the magic to create the pearls was uncovered. By returning the balance of things the pearl production will be "drowned out" or some such.
The pearl production cannot have too much water, or it will 'dilute' the abilities of the pearls. Or something like that.
There is omission of the truth too. The “Spirit” calmly thanks Irgzid for bringing assistance and jumps into an explanation of how "...the kopru how long defined the the ancient city below!" "A barrier was erected to keep the “Spirit’s” accentors out and that is needs to be destroyed."