ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist/Crypta Hereticarum question [SPOILER]

von_recklinghausen · Jan 15, 2019

I've got a question, and I'm wondering if others have an answer on this one --

The party finds the first blade of Srasama in the Crypta Hereticarum. Can they find the other blades of Srasama as well? If so, where do they appear? Apologies, but I've been looking and haven't seen them in the rest of the path, so wanted to check.

Thanks!

Elfshire · Jan 15, 2019

The PCs can find the Third Blade during chapter 8. During the memory-event "Srasama's Fall" outside of Alais Primos, if the PCs rush over to the bonfires at the edges of the clearing, they can make a Charisma check (DC 25, at least for the 4e version) after grabbing the sword in the middle of the fire to cause it to remain real, even after the Arc finishes its manifestation of the past.

Since there's no way to bring back more than one object from the past, the other blades cannot be retrieved in this way. As written, there is no way to get blade #2, or #4-6 in the AP. But you could certainly homebrew some stats for blade #2 based on the other two swords and drop it in somewhere--like [sblock]on Srasama's corpse in Adventure 12.[/sblock]

efreund · Jan 16, 2019

Asrabey Varal has one of the blades. (Which you could most believably pick up in advs 5 or 8).

There's only three in the AP. A long while back, RangerWicket confirmed this was the case, because he thought it would be unrealistic to have all six retrievable, and leaving some out creates a sense of mystery.

I concur with Elfshire that <the place he mentions> is a great place to house a fourth. If I needed a place to put a fifth ... I'd let the Old Stag, or some other figure at the top of the Vekeshi pyramid have it, and the reward for getting to the top of that secret organization is the blade. Then, per the dev, I'd say the sixth was lost forever and/or destroyed. Keeps it poetic. (Though, if you need completionism: maybe learning the hymn of the lost blade from a bard in Sentosa during the siege in adv 13 is enough to create a spiritual projection of it?)

gideonpepys · Jan 16, 2019

I thought Asrabey just had a vekeshi blade?

RangerWickett · Jan 16, 2019

Asrabey doesn't have a blade of the goddess of womanhood. But hey, it's your game. Do what you like.

Andrew Moreton · Jan 17, 2019

For my purposes 2 of the blades is plenty as I only have 1 PC invested in the Eladrin/Vekeshi path . So rather than adding extra toys along that path I am tempted to add similar interesting toys which will fit the central interests of each of the other pc's

von_recklinghausen · Jan 17, 2019

This is great -- thanks everyone. I have a character in my campaign who has a particularly strong connection to the Vekeshi, the elves, and the fey. She's a skyseer/wizard, and she's positioned as balanced between the material plane and the fey. She has a blade (a dagger) that she was given by Harkover Lee, except it was actually a shapeshifter from the Fey/unseen court (I'm looking forward to when she asks him about this and realizes something is amiss). I'm essentially letting her collect the blades of Srasama over the course of the adventure, and having each blade meld into the dagger to create one artifact that is deeply tied to her story. Depending on how the story develops at the end, it may be interesting to create an opportunity for her to embody Srasama the goddess at a critical moment in the final conflict -- perhaps sacrificing her mortal life for the final victory...

I like the idea of not providing all of the blades, but will likely try to seed at least 3-4 of them throughout the adventure to build out this thread.

I've also been thinking about interesting and appropriately-flavored fey powers for the other blades that would be useful for a wizard. The original blade gives her some limited powers of augury/prediction of the future (fits well with her skyseer focus). I'm continuing to think of other powers for other blades -- if anyone has any ideas of fey/wild powers that would be thematic/interesting, I'm all ears!