So the group attacked the sunken queen but did not get past Bierawash. In the fight, the character that had Serinthial died and dropped the sword. The group beat a hasty retreat but left the sword behind in Bierawash’s lair. Now I need to think, does the devil fish grab it and move it into his larder, does Illeosa using her clairvoyance/clairaudience abailty send someone to grab it.
What would people do here? So far Togomar died, but Vimanda, Vavana and Krojun are with the queen in the pyramid.
I think having Bierawash adding it to his treasure hoard is the most plausible outcome.
Beriawash and anyone on her side (which is everyone at the pyramid) can't touch the sword without being harmed by it, also what is Krojun doing at the pyramid? Did he get converted by a bad Harrow draw?
I would say they probably don't touch the sword but Beriawash knows and can puppy-guard it knowing he already killed one PC and that they can't just grab it and teleport to safety.
Yes Krojun was the result of a bad harrow draw. As far as I know they are only going to be away from the sword for around fifteen minutes.
So much for peace with the Sklar-Quah.
I'd agree the most likely outcome is Beirawash just gingerly slaps it over on top of his treasure horde and goes about his day continuing to guard the entrance.
But there is something to be said for having Krojun confront the party with it in hand (looking rather green while holding it due to the negative levels and the nausea), stab it into the ground behind him, and then say "If you want your sword back tashmeks, come and get it if you can!" (as the negative levels and nausea clears due to no longer touching the blade). That might give Krojun a cool bad guy moment rather than just making him another generic beefy minion the party has to cut through due to bad Harrow luck, unless you have other plans for him already.
I believe holding a bane weapon also causes damage to the appropriate creatures even to wield it (and Serethtial is basically a "followers of Ileosa bane weapon) so even if the negative levels clear, he should be injured for carrying the weapon up from Beriawash to Ileosa (as he can't just teleport with the devils in a turn) over several turns plus to menace it at the party like that. Nevermind how Serethtial is sentient and can just force an ego check from the wielder to throw it back down/away/to the party. There was a comment at least in the original AP about why Sial/Laori have to team up with the party because they can't just take the sword and fight Ileosa (whether theyre strong enough to or not) because carrying the sword is harmful to them, and its implied more so than just 2 negative levels for carrying a holy weapon.
For Krojun's part, whether he is harmed by the bane portion of the weapon (as the holy part debatably wouldn't affect him even after the betrayal) there isn't really any healing for him to take to remove this, though I guess if you run him as a UC barbarian, he could have just picked up the sword, burned through his temp hp, put it down, caught his breath, gone for some more reps, until he did enough sets to be at the top without any actual damage done to his normal HP.
Don't think I've ever seen just holding a Bane weapon causes damage - I could see that making sense, but it's not in the weapon enchant description so if that is a RAW thing, it's in some weird cornercase blurb somewhere (stupid rule books). Also in the Serithtial description (not sure if using base 3.5 AP or hardcover, I'm going off hardcover here), it does mention that it's 4 negative levels and nauseated until you let go of Serithtial, although it goes away as soon as you stop holding/touching it - so it is a little worse than the standard holy 2 neg levels.
As for the Ego score, it's a DC 16 versus Krojan's base non-raging +9 Will, so better than even chance he can do what he wants unless it's supposed to be an Ego vs. Will save check every single round (in which case why doesn't the text just say "the item always wins" >< ).
Anyway, it all depends on what you have envisioned for the remaining fights in the campaign. If every NPC is clustered around Ileosa in the ritual room for a clown car fight, then I'd agree just let them recover Serithtial from Beirawash's horde and move on to the big finale rumble.
If you're looking for a way to separate out some of those NPCs from Ileosa though, having them standing around guarding Serithial in a "come and get it if you can" could give them/Krojan a chance to have some stakes to their fight outside of "they're in the way of getting at Ileosa".
As a further wrinkle/give Serithtial some agency of its own, you could have it attempting to sway Krojan back to the side of good/have it force an Ego check when the PCs appear, and if Krojan fails, he just tosses the sword back to them before the fight starts as Serithtial plays on his honor/wins the Ego battle and Krojan "wants the PCs properly armed" before they fight.
Hmm, for some reason I always thought an ego score was it's modifier, not the DC, so I assumed that it would always be much harder to go against a magic item.
Part of my assumption with the bane is these lines of text that wouldn't make sense if they only got negative levels with the sword: "The problem is that the undead of Scarwall no longer belong to Zon-Kuthon. Those that haunt Kazavon’s ancient seat of power are free-willed undead who have abandoned their old allegiances, be they to Kazavon or Mandraivus, and are equally dangerous to Brotherhood operatives and PCs alike. Furthermore, no true worshiper of Zon-Kuthon can safely wield or even transport Serithtial."
Maybe it has to do with the ego, as the sword can just force 2 ego checks every so often and if you fail both, you CDG yourself, but it says it's unsafe to transport, not just wield. Also as the AP was originally a 3e AP, maybe there's another rule that didn't get ported over about wielding a "bane yourself" weapon, but I think Ileosa is the only other case I've seen about someone wielding a self-bane weapon, but she has the DR and Regen to not *really* care about it if it say just did the 2d6 every round.