Spitballing: Erastil?

[pennywit]

My new Kingmaker group just started up this past week, and I've got a few weeks before next session. My PCs have made short work of Haps, Kressle, and their merry bands, and they've found the Stag Lord amulets. Just for fun, I had Kesten Garess show them one, too.

One of the PCs got an idea -- is it religious? They made a mediocre Knowledge (religion) roll, so I told them that the stag is a symbol of Erastil, a Lawful Good agricultural deity.

I intended this as a red herring, but the idea of Erastil has grown on me, particularly considering his omnipresence in the Stolen Lands.

So ... what if, instead of Nerissa trying to impress Count Renalc, this whole thing is some kind of spat between her and Erastil?

This got the little hamster wheel in my head spinning, but I'm still wondering ... what is Nerissa's motivation for declaring war on Erastil like this? Is she trying to gain his hand in marriage? Is she trying to supplant him? Is she trying to corrupt him? Is she trying to free him from the shackles of law and goodness? And what is Erastil's motivation/response in all this?

So far, I've jumped on the idea that early on, Erastil is going to be kind of ticked that somebody was going around using his iconography, and he's going to send a stag with glowing eyes to carry the Stag Lord's body away .... and for Staggie to show up again as a replacement for the giant owlbear in RRR.

Other than that, I haven't brainstormed much yet. Does the gang here hage any ideas?

My other idea is to play a bit with the idea of stories and legends, with Nyrissa's ultimate goal being to draw energy from places and objects of power in the Stolen Lands. In this scenario, I would encourage my players to play the roles of underlings as well as their usual characters. While their characters take the fight to Nyrissa directly, their underlings would have to protect/conquer such places as the Stag Lord's Fort (Legend of the Bandit Lord), and Candlemere (Lay of the Dancing Lady) from Nyrissa's faerie forces. I'm thinking that if their armies can hold those places of power, they would get bonuses of some sort in the final battle.

Not sure which of these ideas to follow yet; that's a long way off.

[Lee Hanna]

Wow, that's some good stuff, esp. the high-level maneuvering between Erastil and Nyrissa. Reminiscent of the Greek myths, I think.

His/Her reanimating Stag Lord would be a neat trick, too. If not replacing the owlbear, then somewhere in 1000 Breaths.

[pennywit]

The Stag Lord reanimation I stole from Tauric in this thread:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q0ns?Changes-to-the-Stag-Lord

The whole Erastil scenario is a bit complex because the PCs don't worship him. One of them is a paladin of Iomedae, and the others lean toward Green Faith. Still, I could see Iomedae's faithful taking an interest (or Iomedae sending a paladin in) to battle Nyrissa's attempt to subvert or supplant Erastil. This may even play into some of the classic stories of the Horned God.

[Touc]

If you borrow some from Dudemeister and others regarding the sacred sites in the Centaur lands and combine that with locales like Candlemere, there's plenty of "places of power" in these ancient lands. With all the shrines to him scattered about (and you could add some more), she could be trying to siphon off his power through control of these sites.

As written, besides a few hints (dead unicorn), there's not much involvement from the BBEG till the end as the designers wrote it to be focused around the Kingdom with everything else as a threat to the kingdom rather than the traditional BBEG focus. Very easy to adapt, though.

[pennywit]

Hmmm ... siphoning off power makes sense in a way. I am starting to like the idea of a standoff between nature deities. Erastil is one of the big nature deities. Perhaps Nyrissa wants to siphon power off of him with the goal of replacing him. Hmmm ...

[Ren Outwater]

This is a neat twist. Certainly something good here for my game. I have a paladin of Iomedae, a druid, a cleric of Pharasma, and a ranger of Gorum.

I know, we have silly amount of divine power, but all this talk of Narrisa trying to siphon off Erastil's power and the PC's being sent via their god to stop it has got me thinking too.

Iomedae and Erastil both being LG would make sense for Iomedae helping her fellow aligned god.

Why would Pharasma care though? Is Big N succeeds and brings the whole of the stolen lands into the First World, does that mean all the mortals that were in the SLs be effectively immortal now? That could piss her off enough with breaking the cycle of life and all.

Not quite undeath, but living forever seems close as far as rebirth goes.

[pennywit]

Pharasma is a goddess of fate. If Nyrissa brings the Stolen Lands into the First World, she interferes in the progress of fate.