WotBS The Elemental Beasts, and Time (endgame questions)

[emeraldbeacon]

Two endgame questions, possibly connected...

1. Why won't Khor-El-Jiese, the Flamebringer Dragon, reply to any attempt to contact it? Is it unable or unwilling to respond, or both? Is it "dead" like Jhial-el-Avilona, or simply bound in a way that separates it from the material world as a whole?
2. What is Time, the enigmatic spirit-dragon near the end of the campaign? Is it an echo, a ghost of the Flamebringer, or is it the Flamebringer itself, transformed into a new entity, due to its treacherous destruction of the Stormchaser Eagle?

I ask, because I'm using the Flamebringer and Stormchaser as recurring elements in the campaign, even more than just what's written in the modules. The weakened, fragile spirit of the Stormchaser has reached out to one of my players, acting as its Warlock Patron, begging them to stop Ragesia's attempt to destroy reality (though in its weakened state, it hasn't been able to properly convey that message yet). The Flamebringer (or alternately/simultaneously, Time) has charged a Way of the Dragon Soul Monk with the task of doing much the same... though, again, the actual mission hasn't much been divulged yet.

 

[RangerWickett]

In my original concept, the Flamebringer knows his near-murder of the Stormchaser was wrong, and that if the Heart dies the other spirits would try to destroy him. He did it out of a fit of greed, out of a primal urge to consume. After he hid the Heart he wants never to get involved again, so he won't be tempted to finish the job.

Time is something like an ur-trillith, a reflection of the Flamebringer's mind the same way the trillith are a reflection of Trilla's. It was born of the Flamebringer's fear that if he returned to the Heart, it would mean his death, something he as an immortal being felt intense horror over. So Time is a manifestation of willingly doing things you know will kill you, of racing toward death, represented by growing old and feeble.