I have this image going through my head of someone being thrown through the glass tank at the Hagfish in Sandpoint during a bar brawl over payment of "the challenge" and during the clean up finding a perculiar shaped rock..."What is this????" :) I also like the reference James made earlier to possible former runelords thought to be dead possibley maybe making appearances...there are a couple of vacancies that need to be reclaimed afterall.
dont think its a sin sidherion. should actually be one of those rare saintly artifacts. Ya know, virtue rune magic. It was the runelord followers that turned the virtues into sin.
Afterall they didnt rebuild the star, being evil bastards. But also didnt want dogooders to recover all the saintly stuff xin had hidden away.
Finally an adventure where paladins can shine again, and not have to hide since they glow too brightly of goodness. But also, i wonder if not the xin hideout isnt filled with angels and their kin.. so all those holy blades will be kinda useless.
Well should be useful for the first 5 adventures, and hopefully the dogooder players will recover many chaotic evil swords of angel-slaying +4.. which would be useful in the last part.
Or maybe being able to handle the recovery of the artifacts via diplomacy. Ohwell.
Virtue paladin prc
After 10 or whatever levels, it opens up and the virtues can be taken in any order. Like special abilities, one choosable each level.
wealth, -create coins or equipment out of thin air. Max of 100 gold*cha bonus/day?
fertility, -summon followers? (difficult one) Should be chastity? And thus some armor bonus would be logical.
honest pride, -diplo skills?
abundance, -sharing an ability, say wizard gets paladins healing and paladin gets a ninth level slot. Both retain those abilities aswell (sharing makes more.. ;) )
eager striving, -needs neither rest, food nor even air. can run all day long. Ultimately living forever?
righteous anger, -some kind of smiting. Smite sinner?
well-deserved rest -more healing.
All leveling up also, so there should be no diff in what order they were taken.
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Actually, the thing that I thought was interesting was that though the First Emperor Xin was good (at least it SEEMED he was good aligned) he worshipped Lissala, who was an evil goddess. It makes me wonder if she deliberately gave him the secrets of Rune Magic knowing that it would become corrupted by "human" nature...
First Emperor Xin may have been LN. Then he would have been able to see the good, the neutral, and the evil in all the runes and chosen the ones for his kingdom that he felt embodied the virtues he strove for. It opens the possibility that the Seven Virtues of Rule were not in fact Good and never were meant to be Good. They're Neutral.
::is ignored:: Bear with me here. The Virtues of Rule are seven qualities that serve a kingdom well: wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and rest. These qualities are neither Good nor Evil. They just Are. Any kingdom, regardless of alignment, can show all of these qualities without them affecting their alignment. Cheliax has all of them in addition to slavery and diabolism, without allowing slavery and diabolism to replace any of the seven and without the seven virtues dragging Cheliax into a less than evil alignment.
Therefore I propose that the seven virtues are not Good and never were Good. Emperor Xin was not required to be LG to bring these virtues to his rule. First Emperor Xin was LN. And so are the original Virtues.
If you're really going to demand there be an opposition of alignments between the Virtues and Sins then I propose that the opposition be one of Law versus Chaos rather than Good versus Evil. After all, it was humanity who distorted Lissala's gifts. If humans merely made the Virtues Evil then why would Lissala have not just granted those?
Unless, of course, Lissala wasn't always evil...
Creative Director
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Actually, the thing that I thought was interesting was that though the First Emperor Xin was good (at least it SEEMED he was good aligned) he worshipped Lissala, who was an evil goddess. It makes me wonder if she deliberately gave him the secrets of Rune Magic knowing that it would become corrupted by "human" nature...
Xin was indeed Lawful Neutral. He worshiped Lissala, but as a wizard, not a cleric, he certainly wasn't nearly as "hemmed in" by Lissala's scriptures. In any event, Lissala was always a Lawful Evil deity—whether or not she actually gave Xin the secrets of the Sihedron or not will have to wait for the Shattered Star AP, I suspect...
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Those of you interested in a few Shattered Star spoilers might want to read James's feedback on my RPG Superstar module proposal.
;-)
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Creative Director
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I'm hoping for Windsong Abbey because the older ruins buried beneath the place sound interesting. Any cool interactions with the Shoanti planned for this one? The decennial meet of the Spire clan at Spindlehorn, the Calvatirium, or anything like that?
No big plans for the Shoanti, Spindlehorn, or the Calvatirium.
Windsong Abbey, on the other hand...
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So far we know the first two adventures. James Sutter mentioned that the third adventure would feature elements from City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. James Jacobs gave some awesome insight on adventures 4 & 5, which will feature a monastery and Leng respectively.
Makes me wonder where adventure 6 will take place. One of the lost cities of Thassilon, such as the mysterious totally-not-a-snowglobe Crystilan? Or maybe they'll tie in drow elements from Second Darkness by heading to the Darklands? Can't wait to find out.
Well, James did also have that restriction on giants. So maybe Chorak's Tomb?
Serpent's Skull, Skull and Shackles, Shattered Star? Are we moving to a point where all APs will be abbreviated SS?
Surely the star will be a sihedron?If it's not... I would think that would look like a colossal error on our part, wouldn't it?
...and so, of course, the artist got it totally wrong and depicted the Seven Shards and their fused form as an ordinary seven-pointed star. D'oh!
While the artist who put the sihedron-fusing table in a picture got it right, with the hook-shaped points and all.
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Creative Director
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Surely the star will be a sihedron?If it's not... I would think that would look like a colossal error on our part, wouldn't it?...and so, of course, the artist got it totally wrong and depicted the Seven Shards and their fused form as an ordinary seven-pointed star. D'oh!
While the artist who put the sihedron-fusing table in a picture got it right, with the hook-shaped points and all.
Actually, the artist didn't get it wrong at all. Not having the "hooks" in the arms of the star itself was a deliberate choice to not completely copy the look of the rune itself.
THE THEORY: Those hooks in the Sihedron rune make it look a bit more sinister. And by omitting the hooks from the original Sihedron, which was created BEFORE the runelords came along and adopted that rune and corrupted the seven virtues of rule into the seven sins of rule, we make the original Sihedron, as created by Xin, look less menacing by comparison.
This is NOT to say that the original rune lacked the hooks—originally, the Sihedron was mostly just the symbol of Lissala, and it has hooks there too.
We wanted the Sihedron artifact itself to look a little different is all. Which DOES mean that the illustration of Xin creating it is a bit off model, alas, but I like to explain that away by saying it's still in the process of being created and isn't done yet (note, also, that it lacks the 7 different colors in that image...).
Surely the star will be a sihedron?If it's not... I would think that would look like a colossal error on our part, wouldn't it?...and so, of course, the artist got it totally wrong and depicted the Seven Shards and their fused form as an ordinary seven-pointed star. D'oh!
While the artist who put the sihedron-fusing table in a picture got it right, with the hook-shaped points and all.
Actually, the artist didn't get it wrong at all. Not having the "hooks" in the arms of the star itself was a deliberate choice to not completely copy the look of the rune itself.
THE THEORY: Those hooks in the Sihedron rune make it look a bit more sinister. And by omitting the hooks from the original Sihedron, which was created BEFORE the runelords came along and adopted that rune and corrupted the seven virtues of rule into the seven sins of rule, we make the original Sihedron, as created by Xin, look less menacing by comparison.
This is NOT to say that the original rune lacked the hooks—originally, the Sihedron was mostly just the symbol of Lissala, and it has hooks there too.
We wanted the Sihedron artifact itself to look a little different is all. Which DOES mean that the illustration of Xin creating it is a bit off model, alas, but I like to explain that away by saying it's still in the process of being created and isn't done yet (note, also, that it lacks the 7 different colors in that image...).
Coolness, my apologies to the artist. :)
...Might this create a situation where Sheila Heidmarch is unsure whether or not the Shard the characters have discovered is in fact a real piece of the Shattered Star or some sort of flawed counterfeit? Does the Society know that Xin's Sihedron was unconventional?
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Creative Director
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...Might this create a situation where Sheila Heidmarch is unsure whether or not the Shard the characters have discovered is in fact a real piece of the Shattered Star or some sort of flawed counterfeit? Does the Society know that Xin's Sihedron was unconventional?
Not at all.
It's pretty difficult to mistake an artifact fragment that radiates overwhelming magic and carries with it a significant and unique curse for something else.
It's an artifact. It's unconventional in a LOT more ways than missing hooks.
...Might this create a situation where Sheila Heidmarch is unsure whether or not the Shard the characters have discovered is in fact a real piece of the Shattered Star or some sort of flawed counterfeit? Does the Society know that Xin's Sihedron was unconventional?Not at all.
It's pretty difficult to mistake an artifact fragment that radiates overwhelming magic and carries with it a significant and unique curse for something else.
It's an artifact. It's unconventional in a LOT more ways than missing hooks.
So glad it's an artifact, it gives me an ingame excuse to playtest the upcoming mythic adventures playtest with my current Shattered Runelords campaign.
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Creative Director
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OH!
Just remembered another reason that the "hooks" are not present in the actual artifact's shape! (This was actually the initial reason I requested the Sihedron to not have those elements, but after I made the art order it all faded away and I only just remembered...)
The "hooks" in the rune itself are, in fact, represented by the ioun stone sockets in the actual Sihedron, so what you're seeing as "hooks" in the rune itself are not really hooks, but circular "holes" in the arms themselves representing the places where the ioun stones go. And over time, the idea was that the rune itself got a bit more stylized—the sockets increased in size and eventually crossed the sides of arms and ended up looking like the rune does now.
All of which is REALLY a deep peek behind the curtain of how and why we art direct and design elements in our world... and none of which really has a significant impact in game play, but now if the topic DOES come up in play you can have the player that asked why have his character make a DC 35 Knowledge (history) roll and if he's successful, you have an answer.
OH!
Just remembered another reason that the "hooks" are not present in the actual artifact's shape! (This was actually the initial reason I requested the Sihedron to not have those elements, but after I made the art order it all faded away and I only just remembered...)
The "hooks" in the rune itself are, in fact, represented by the ioun stone sockets in the actual Sihedron, so what you're seeing as "hooks" in the rune itself are not really hooks, but circular "holes" in the arms themselves representing the places where the ioun stones go. And over time, the idea was that the rune itself got a bit more stylized—the sockets increased in size and eventually crossed the sides of arms and ended up looking like the rune does now.
All of which is REALLY a deep peek behind the curtain of how and why we art direct and design elements in our world... and none of which really has a significant impact in game play, but now if the topic DOES come up in play you can have the player that asked why have his character make a DC 35 Knowledge (history) roll and if he's successful, you have an answer.
Ah, nice!
...But now I'm a bit confused about how Lissala's version of the symbol relates. Did her rune originally not have the hooks as well?
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Creative Director
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OH!
Just remembered another reason that the "hooks" are not present in the actual artifact's shape! (This was actually the initial reason I requested the Sihedron to not have those elements, but after I made the art order it all faded away and I only just remembered...)
The "hooks" in the rune itself are, in fact, represented by the ioun stone sockets in the actual Sihedron, so what you're seeing as "hooks" in the rune itself are not really hooks, but circular "holes" in the arms themselves representing the places where the ioun stones go. And over time, the idea was that the rune itself got a bit more stylized—the sockets increased in size and eventually crossed the sides of arms and ended up looking like the rune does now.
All of which is REALLY a deep peek behind the curtain of how and why we art direct and design elements in our world... and none of which really has a significant impact in game play, but now if the topic DOES come up in play you can have the player that asked why have his character make a DC 35 Knowledge (history) roll and if he's successful, you have an answer.
Ah, nice!
...But now I'm a bit confused about how Lissala's version of the symbol relates. Did her rune originally not have the hooks as well?
It probably did not. I've honestly not really given a LOT of thought into the evolution of the Sihedron's shape beyond what I've said here. It IS a well-over 10,000 (and probably over 15,000) year old rune, after all... it's probably gone through a LOT of changes in that time.