Feedback request for Savith / Saventh-Yhi history [spoilers]

[Gark the Goblin]

I'm trying to brew up some ways to tie together City of Seven Spears, and one of the ways I'm going to do that is by having each district have a specific major secret that will help piece together the greater story of Savith (based on this post). In the below, bracketed text is notes about things behind the GM screen that won't be revealed when the secret is. Any feedback would be very appreciated.

Savith's History
The heroine Savith was born on an island southeast of Azlant, an island that had for unknown eons been ruled by serpentfolk. The serpentfolk of this unnamed island kept a large stock of human slaves – too many, in fact. When Ydersius' attention was focused on the Azlanti war in the northern continent, it diverted resources from its more secure holdings, and it was in just this time that Savith came of age. Independent of any cleric, any book, she began extolling rights and virtues that awakened her fellow slaves into a revolutionary fury. As one, they broke free of the mental bonds, rose up against their masters, and fled to Azlant's shores. [the island Savith grew up on sank during Earthfall, OR could be Smuggler's Shiv with some pre-planning]
What Savith did to then become the leading general of Azlant's armies is unknown, but she did so quickly. Within five years, her favored weapon had not just been enchanted with mythical power, but five copies had been made for each of her five lesser generals: a cyclops with the power to see the future, an elven saint who was also Savith's lover, a Mwangi halfling paladin who had liberated her own people, an Azlanti battle mage with a storm of ioun stones, and a “noble” ghoul who would kill only serpentfolk. [3 of these weapons were lost when Azlant fell, one is Eroeme, and one was left in Savith's Tomb by her greatest friend; any of these weapons grants immunity to domination in a 70-foot radius; the halfling founded Mzali?]
As the serpentfolk were chased from their redoubt in Sverenagati, Savith led her army to Garund. Her mages used artifacts gifted by the elves to teleport her entire army from the surface to Ilmurea thousands of feet below. [these artifacts were later repurposed to create the portal in the Vaults of Madness]
As her generals battled the serpentfolk empire's last great army, Savith tracked down Ydersius alone. Though poisoned, she invested all of her mythic power into one final strike, slicing his head from his body, and cast his skull into a lake of fire. His body she kicked down a hole into the deepest pits of the earth.
Savith's sword rotted away from the venom, and she died with her saint at her side as the battle continued to rage. The serpentfolk were routed, but the ghoul was slain by the Emperor of Scales. [the ghoul's weapon was returned to Azlant and lost there]
Savith's remaining generals, Azlant's bureaucrats, and thousands of followers built a memorial to their heroine: an entire city. Savith's Tomb, the Seven Spears – everything in every district adds in some way to Savith's glory. [this information would be best granted in the district with the Tomb entrance]
Unfortunately, this glory was but shortly appreciated. Just a hundred years after Savith's death, the first split occurred: The sizeable cult of Zura was banished from Saventh-Yhi for seeking to transform the entire population into undead. Later, as Earthfall neared, denizens of the city began experiencing troubling visions. Hundreds of years after Savith's death, a priest of Pharasma named Urschlar Vohkavi rose to prominence by expounding on the inevitable death that waited for everyone in the city. The people of Saventh-Yhi became paranoid, fearful, and constructed underground vaults to hide their valuables. They cut off trade with the surrounding Mwangi nations, and Urschlar and a whole coterie of mages layered powerful protections to prevent both entry and exit from the slowly declining city. [then when the Starstone hit, of course, everyone died fast]

Do the broad strokes look good? I'm particularly unsure about who the other four generals (Aveshai, of course, needs to stay the way he is) should be. I'm also unsure if I should make the teleportation method be part of the Vaults, because I'm not going to have my players use the Vaults - they're going to have to find their own way through the Darklands - and foreshadowing artifacts that the PCs don't get to use could be a bummer. Most importantly, I want canon corrections based on what we actually know about Savith. It's hard to make sure timelines track when you have to cross-reference four different books, haha.

[justaworm]

I really like the idea and stories, Gark. Unfortunately, it has been too long for me to remember the details of the AP.

What are you thinking for the other generals? Should they be somehow connected to players/faction in the AP or just others in Azlanti folklore.

The Radiant Muse could certainly qualify for another general position. With her current dementia, her lack of memory is completely excusable. In fact, maybe there could be ways to bring her back to full sanity.

[Gark the Goblin]

I'm just not sure if the generals sound *interesting*, really. Connecting them to the factions could definitely help, but I don't think it'd go so well with the Aspis Consortium being concentrated evil and the Red Mantis being only a little better, in my game. Actually though, earlier today I wrote up the draft italic text I'm going to give the players when they discover the Government District's secret.

My thoughts on Savith's five generals:

Secret Just northeast of F3 is the Hall of Generals, which honored Savith's most trusted commanders (emanates illusion CL 15th?). A long, rectangular building, about 100 feet from the base of its stairs to the top of each of its five rooves, stands on the northeastern shore of the island. The steps up to the five great doorways are covered in Azlanti writing – thousands upon thousands of names. Inside the westernmost building is a colossal statue, in what appears to be solid ruby and gold, of a one-eyed man with an oversized crossbow strapped to his back. Azlanti runes carved between his feet read, “General Aveshai, Protector of Ghol-Gan, Savith's Seer. His sacrifice is remembered.” Through another great doorway – almost as big as that statue – is a smaller model of what appears to be a robed halfling [Mwangi]. This statue was done in purple sapphire and silver, and the halfling has bushy hair and wears a headdress that looks like a rising sun. Her inscription reads, “General Suchir, Founder of Ndzoli [Mzali], Savith's Conscience. Her advice is remembered.”

Unlike the others, the middle room of this building has cracks in the roof that allow light to shine through directly, though it is still austere but for the statue in its center. The statue is in emerald and platinum, and depicts an elven man wearing spiked leather armor. A seemingly unconnected halo floats over his head. The inscription reads, “General Jikushtna, Savith's Soul. His love is remembered.”

The fourth room's statue is in diamond and iron, and shows a crouched figure about the size of the elf garbed in nothing but a loincloth. Their face is rotted and peeling around the mouth, and unlike the other statues, it seems that the sculptors didn't put much attention into making their eyes seem alive. Their inscription reads, “General Kragu, Marshal of the Dead, Savith's Psychic. Their abstinence is remembered.”

The fifth room's statue is made of black opal and copper, and is the only one to utilize the animation sometimes seen in Azlant art. Around the head of this chainmailed human woman [Azlanti] is a swirling storm of black stones. Her inscription reads, “General Ommarra, Router of Sverenagati, Savith's Sophist. Her chisel is remembered.” [she was a major builder]

Every one of the statues carries the same object in their hands: A greatsword made of pure light.

The weakest one is definitely General Ommarra, I think. So I may change her out for the Radiant Muse . . .

or now that I read over that bit about the chisel and building the city, I realize I was apparently subconsciously planning for Ommarra to be the sculpture-loving Radiant Muse all along??? There were several lillends in the Artisan's District during Saventh-Yhi's heyday, but only one of them had fought alongside Savith. I may say that a) that statue of a human is replaced by one of a lillend, or b) Ommarra was a human who passed peacefully in old age and was immediately raised by Shelyn to become the first Muse of Saventh-Yhi. Either way, I'd love to see my party burn some resources to help her remember. Perhaps she'll keep remembering more as the campaign advances - by the end she might once again be fighting the serpentfolk at the head of an army in Ilmurea.

Thanks for the feedback and the inadvertent brainstorming help!

[Vahvero]

I like the idea of incorporating the generals more strongly in the city's lore.

I was thinking of making general Jikushtna a father of a PC as a personal quest. She would be his ultimate heir from the time before he met Savith. She'll have a noticeable resemblance with his statue, and it should give some push for the party to discover more of the history of the city. I might change his statue's text "His heart is remembered", if I'm going to paint him as a sort of saint of both Savith and Azlanti.

I don't know yet where that plot hook will lead to, maybe a relic or an artifact. Or a way to drop clues how to get into Savith's crypt and acquire an epic sword which Jikushtna left there. It should tho be a blunt weapon/bow/shield instead so you can't imagine cutting Ydersius' head off with it and thus you won't make finding Aveshai/Eroeme in later chapters unnecessary...

Savith's Crypt would have been nice post-Ydersius place to use to destroy the God for good, but no sense holding a good location back.

Radiant Muse being a reincarnated general is also a nice touch. Maybe she lead building of the city as Ommarra.

[Gark the Goblin]

I'm glad I helped inspire you!

To be fair, finding Jikushtna's weapon doesn't quite preclude the necessity of Aveshai. The swords are powerful (especially for PCs in the mid-level range), but the true boon is a general that has more years of experience fighting serpentfolk than anyone else alive AND who personally knew Savith. But I have also seen discussions elsewhere on the forums about how the "replicas" of Savith's weapon may have been more replicating the weapon's powers than its appearance: after all, in her character portrait, she's wielding something that looks like a falcata, not a greatsword. I think it makes plenty of sense to give the warriors different weapons.

Savith's Crypt I'm honestly not planning on working with until after they kill Ydersius. The idea of making it some sort of ultimate incinerator to throw his head in is good, though.

[Tacticslion]

.

[Vahvero]

I introduced the statues for my players at Government district. Or one of them... I got only so far as describing bronze-and-ruby Aveshai and them confirming the greatsword of light was not hurting them, and that the 15ft tall statue was a cyclop and not a titan, and did not seem radiate other magic except the sword... Two of the players continued to other rooms, but two other players stayed - and started to pry rubies free. They would have stopped after a few minutes, if they would have not appraised the golf ball sized ruby the statue had embedded in the iris.

So FYI, 2-2,5k gp ruby is indeed enough motivation to mutilate a 10000-year-old memorial's face with two axes and a knife.

Thanks for the statues.
Sorry, not sorry.

[Gark the Goblin]

Hahaha! Well, I'm glad they got fun out of it. I was thinking about making the statues more or less illusions which might solve the problem in my game, but I also don't really want to depribe the party of more loot in this AP.

[Gark the Goblin]

So I introduced a recipe/instruction for making Omarra's sword, as one of the discoveries in the Mercantile district. The party immediately decided that they were going to use this recipe to scry on the sword, and I can't really argue that they wouldn't now be familiar with the sword. And it also qualifies as a creature, due to being intelligent.

I think I'm going to say that, if the sword fails its Will save, they see the inside of a pile of rubble, and hear the muffled roar of the deep ocean. That's not "cheating" them out of the result of the spell, but also making it clear that getting to the sword is going to be a quite onerous task - potentially just as hard as making a copy of the sword:

Quote:

Magical treatise detailing the creation of Arophe, the intelligent monstrous humanoid bane short sword created for General Ommarra after the model of Savith's sword. Steps: 1. collect the feathers of an angel, 2. mix with primordial air, 3. mine the last diamond in the [Mountain of Dragons], 4. add iron ore dislodged by an earthquake, 5. smelt all in superheated breath, 6. quench in the blood of a great serpent, 6. fold into shape on an open plateau with runes of righteous anger. Construction Requirements: CL 12th, 60000 gp, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, summon monster i, true seeing