So, just kicking around some thoughts this morning on my fave super villain and what his plans will be when he finally breaks out of his prison. In the distant future of my current long running campaign, the characters in my group will be trying to face this bad boy down. Seeing that he is, oh, I dunno, one of THE most powerful mortals to walk Golarion, was he thinking of taking the Starstone test? (Tar-Baphon, demi-god of EE-vil necro-thugs) Did he think that by killing Arazni (My other fave Golarion character)that he could steal her divine essence/power (if there is a divine essence/power to steal, that is)? I was just wondering if he is going to try for godhood or is he just to "kewl" to be a god (In his own opinion, of course) =P
I realize that my own campaign isn't always canon, but I would like to hear something official or at least find out if we are going to have more official goods on The Whispering One and his goals/future machinations when he gets out of Gallowspire in future publications =} If this has already been answered some place else, could someone please point me to a post?
Thanks!
the way the star stone lore has been setup is it isnt the 'go to' place for some person with power who wants to be a god. Basically jus tbecause hes powerful doesnt mean he will pass the test. and no one with that much time invested in himself wants to loose at something he has no control of.
I dont know that he struck Arazni down as part of a plot so much as part of the over all war. Though i havent read up on it recently.
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I kind of like the idea that deep down, for all his arrogance and despite having killed a demigod empowered by a Starstone-risen deity, he fears being found wanting by the Test.
Irori can frownyface about the Starstone crew for using hax all he wants, but they still had to have had that special spark to make it through.
Maybe something deep within Tar-Baphon realizes he lacks what the divine spark they had, hence his pursuing of power through other venues?
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Irori "I was cool enough to attain godhood on my own, and not with a cheap knick-knack! Harrumph!"
Cayden: "Good for you, I guess. Here, have a beer."
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I think that you're right, T-B would rather be the bully supra baddy that he is now than risk trying for godhood and failing. His ego just wouldn't deal with that at all =p Besides where IS the fun of zapping mortals from afar when you can snuff them out all up close and personal. I like that extra insight into his character a lot. Sometimes I over work a subject looking for a new angle.
Thanks =D
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Taking the Test of the Starstone means putting your fate in some other forces hands. I don't see Tar-Baphon doing that. Call it fear. Call it arrogance. Call it whatever you want, but he's already fought a full on god (who, yes, did in fact kill him, but he got better), and slapped a demigod around like a red-headed stepchild.
Whatever esoteric criteria mark the divide between mortal and demigod, he's already close enough to the line all by himself that he probably would consider the Starstone to be a dangerous and unreliable shortcut to something he's already got in the bag, if he keeps going the route he's going, slow and steady...
It took a full god (not a mere demigod) to kill him back when he was a mortal, and he's only gotten stronger since then. With the Whispering Way as his philosophical 'faith,' he's even got a proto-church up and running.
Now all he has to do is pay off the Daemon Horsemen to take out Urgathoa, his competition for the 'god of the undead' title. :)
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One thing to remember at TB is that he is the most successful and presumably devout member of the WW in historic memory. The Way is all about undead supremacy. Why would the literal embodiment of the Way want to change his type to Outsider. Besides his HD dropping to d8's, he would now be able to be killed a whole lot easier:
The history of Golarion is rife with divine beings slaughtering each other or at least beating each other up. Rovagug doing his thing in prehistory, Lamashtu stripped Churcanus of most of its power, Aroden is for all intents and purposes a hurricane now, and there are like 20 dead deities listed on the Pathfinder Wiki.
Tar-Baphon? He's built god-trapping (or killing?) magics, outright killed a demi-go, been killed once but returned better, and in the end, only the destruction of a "Major" level artifact managed to 'weaken' him enough to be put in a demi-plane-like prison with his army of CR20+ minions for the last 950 years. I would think a being who is this accomplished would have little interest in becoming one of the above divine statistics.
I'm going to repeat what everyone else has been saying, the quest of the starstone represents a crapshoot on a cosmic scale. You either succeed and the gods greet you as their new brother, fail and Pharasma greets you as her b~#@%, just like everyone else.
Tar-Baphon, what little I know about him anyway, strikes me as being someone extremely methodical and calculating. That so much about the quest of the starstone is unknown, and in fact unknowable (due to the high attrition rate of applicants), it seems like something he would never even consider.
One thing to remember at TB is that he is the most successful and presumably devout member of the WW in historic memory. The Way is all about undead supremacy. Why would the literal embodiment of the Way want to change his type to Outsider. Besides his HD dropping to d8's, he would now be able to be killed a whole lot easier:
His HD would rise from d8 do d10. But he would lose that magnificient Charisma bonus to hp added for each HD for some measly Constitution bonus... :P
I always liked that idea that godhood is counter to Tar-Baphon's goals. God's have rules, remember, however difficult they are to comprehend for mortals. Gods are held in check by each-other. Asmodeus has tremendous influence over Cheliax, but if he were to suddenly go stomping around in reality, I think it's a fair bet one or more other Gods might show up to give him trouble. See what happened to Rovagug.
As is, Tar-Baphon is the head honcho of the Whispering Way, which desires eternal mortal life through undeath. He is possibly one of the single most powerful entities on the mortal plane. There are no mortals that can currently stand against him (eventual epic level players being obvious exceptions) and even when General Arnissant defeated him, in Big T's opinion, that was more fluke than anything else.
Other than being imprisoned (a temporary setback, I assure you), there is nothing in the heavens or hells that he could possibly want. Why would he join a club of over-lords that would place new shackles on what he could and couldn't do to his favorite playground? He's KILLED one of them, for crying out loud, and seen another die since he was imprisoned.
I can't imagine him thinking he'd be better off as anything other than what he is.
Mortals die.
Gods die.
Tar-Baphon lives forever.
You are all right about the T-man, my question was rather ill thought through. Every campaign world needs a complete over-the-top eeevil megalomaniac. In truth, I like TB too much to let the players do away with him for good no matter how tough they become. He'll be back =P
You are all right about the T-man, my question was rather ill thought through. Every campaign world needs a complete over-the-top eeevil megalomaniac. In truth, I like TB too much to let the players do away with him for good no matter how tough they become. He'll be back =P
That's fairly easy. So long as they don't find his phylactery, he always WILL come back. Even the Shining Crusade didn't locate it.
I'm of the opinion he probably used that thrust of the negative energy plane that exists in Gallowspire to keep it there. Rather hard to get to.
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As I understood the Whispering Tyrant, he disliked Aroden for using the Starstone to become as powerful as the Last Azlant became. Tar-Baphon, I think, saw the Test as a cop-out of sorts for mortals, a shortcut. That's why he used his own methods and tools to become the immortal and infamous being he is feared as. He didn't need some alien rock, he had all he needed and thus he ascended into an entity that could kill a god (or at least Arazni).
Besides, when he learned of Aroden's death, Tar-Baphon probably thought to himself "HA! Told you so!", or something on those lines. He is not divine, and yet here he is, still existing and influencing Golarion. Aroden was divine, and he is no more. He would see himself above godhood and as an unstoppable force of un-nature. No mortal is his equal, no one could hope to undo him or his evil without personal loss.
I'm throwing my two coppers as I am about to run the Carrion Crown AP in a few days, and I'm looking up more source material/recommendations/homebrewed ideas/etc to make my game that much better. Saw this thread and I wanted to voice my opinion on Golarion's most dangerous villain sans perhaps Rovagug or House Thrune ... or Deskari prior to WotR.
There are no mortals that can currently stand against him (eventual epic level players being obvious exceptions) and even when General Arnissant defeated him, in Big T's opinion, that was more fluke than anything else.
I feel like Baba Yaga could face him as an equal, although she never would, she didn't get to be an immortal virtual demigod by taking chances like that.
There are no mortals that can currently stand against him (eventual epic level players being obvious exceptions) and even when General Arnissant defeated him, in Big T's opinion, that was more fluke than anything else.I feel like Baba Yaga could face him as an equal, although she never would, she didn't get to be an immortal virtual demigod by taking chances like that.
I suspect Baba Yaga, if she was even inclined to approach T-B, would crush him entirely, including his li'l phylactery, too.
But why go through that effort to get rid of someone who is doing a *really nice job* of keeping those 'meddling kids' out of your business?
I imagine Dear Grandmother and the Whispering Tyrant would just have tea and compare notes on necromancy. Baba Yaga's pretty chill as long as you don't bother her.
(Though she'll cheerfully destroy everything you ever loved if you bother her. Baba Yaga's raised disproportionate retribution to an art form.)
Baba Yaga could almost certainly take Tar-Baphon in a fight (IMHO, Baba Yaga is the single most dangerous entity to be statted out in the system, and I am dead serious about that), but the phylactery would be a problem even for her - Urgathoa personally shields TB's phylactery from all divination.
Meaning that you'd have to find and ID it without magical help, and then figure out how to destroy it (as a mythic lich, TB's phylactery is an artifact in its own right) without magical help.
That could means years or decades of trial and error while having to deal with TB respawning to fight you every 1d10 days.
(Edit: Huh, this thread pre-dates TB and Baba Yaga getting their stat blocks. Just noticed the necromancy. Heh.)
I can't see Tar-Baphon doing anything with the Starstone beyond handing it to random people as a joke and killing the 1 in a million that become a god as they pass the test and laughing at the other 999,999 that die, or possibly ripping it apart to figure out it's magic and maybe use it. Or possibly making it into his phylactery just because he'd take it as a challenge to his ingenuity.
Between TB and Baba Yaga... well, Tar-Baphon ripped his soul out of his body and used a god's power to catalyze his phylactery for becoming a lich and therefore cheated death. Baba Yaga just went "C'mere death," and shoved it into a box and went on her merry way. Both are amazing feats, but between cheating death, and capturing her death, I gotta give it to Baba Yaga in that regard.
Technically, liches do that too, and it's even canon.
So, not a point to Baba.The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster’s life-force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death,
I will admit, however, that I've always been partial to the good ole lich anyway.
Undead are so much cooler to me than witches.