A question I meant to ask:
These gods are 'lost gods'?
Not really. They're known as "Trickster Gods", which really from a wider perspective could be thought of more as powerful animal spirits of questionable godhood. They were worshipped in Omu (and only really Omu) who had forsaken Obtao. Qawasha would not be fond of them.
Yes, but Qawasha (and other traditionalist Chultans like him) still worship him. They think that if their faith is strong enough, they can bring him back. And they're probably right. His influence has been... maybe... seen in this campaign.
What is the consequence for freeing these gods into the world?
Good question. I don't think anyone knows. They certainly won't be powerful (at least not any time soon). They are dead (a state that they can possibly recover from, of course) and all their followers (Omuans) are dead. They'd probably be "harmless" jungle spirits again. Maybe.
It seems that Ascerak was a pretty evil guy who hunted these gods down and entombed them here.
Yup. He's a terrible jerk.
Would it not be a service to Chult to free them?
I don't think anyone in Chult particularly cares either way. Some might be offended by the idea. They DO care about stopping the Death Curse, though. It's hard to say if they would have much role in that, but freeing them is undoing Acererak's mechanations, so there's that.
I mean, from reading through the story hour, it seems the only way to free them is to get possessed by their spirit.
That's true, though I'm not sure that Qawasha understands that. We can say that he has a theory on it, based on his observations. He definitely doesn't trust any of them, though.
I'm asking from Qawasha's PoV as I assume he's pretty familiar with the local gods.
He's done as much research on them as is possible, which isn't much. He's learning more as we go along here. He can at least read ancient Chultan.
Which reminds me: was one of them a goat god????
Not that is known, no. Something else is weird about that.
(I'm thinking about the paladin's unfortunate transformation...although, I guess this doesn't explain the lizard guy.)
The lizard is an "awakened" lizard. I'll just say that now because we'll all probably forget about him if we're not careful. He came here with the Company of the Yellow Banner (an NPC party that was sent by a wizard who also spoke to Harb, one of the original members of the Sticks (a PC). The party also found their abandoned camp outside (yellow yurts). AND the ram-headed staff that Chrysagon is using now came from a ram-headed corpse that had a yellow banner sash. There may have been one or two other signes of those guys that I'm forgetting.
