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Kalashtar and the Triliths...
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<blockquote data-quote="Walker N. Waistz" data-source="post: 4901392" data-attributes="member: 5727"><p>Yeah, I think a lot of this stuff suggests itself from a close reading of the modules and the Eberron material, so I'm not surprised you already had a similar plan. Really, I'm just trying to set out the ideas that seem simplest and most obvious.</p><p></p><p>As I said, I think there are two choices-- a young race of Kalashtar, and an old race. However you do it, there is one crucial point that must be kept in mind-- the Kalashtar must be created in such a way that they are NOT aware of the Trillith or their ultimate plan, otherwise much of the campaign saga is spoiled. The existing material in the mods (and Eberron) suggests a simple and useful way to do this for both an old and young version of the Kalashtar:</p><p></p><p>For an "old" race of Kalashtar=[sblock]An ancient race could be the last remnants of the trillith-like creatures the Flamebringer Dragon created, in a variant of the original author Ryan Nock's post above: I think the simplest way to use this is that, when the Dragon ate the Eagle's flesh, he instantly became a more powerful version of Trilla-- immediately his dreams began to become living beings, without his even having to be asleep. Given the power of the Flamebringer Dragon, he soon learned to discipline his mind, but not before giving birth to this first generation of dream-beings-- sort of proto-Trillith. Before fleeing the world for another plane, he set the most powerful of his unwitting creations, Time, as the guardian of the Aquilline Heart. Shortly after he left the world forever, leaving this newly spawned race to fend for itself.</p><p></p><p>Now, the Trillith were first born in Trilla's moments of fear and desperate desire for survival, while the proto-Trillith (I'm just calling them that for convenience) were born amid the Flamebringer's sudden remorse and need to discipline his mind. The mindset of their creators can explain the difference of these beings' view of the mortal world. While the Trillith have sought to keep Trilla asleep out of fear and are desperately pursuing a reckless plan to ensure their own survival, the proto-Trillith had no such urgent need. Being the children of a primordial god, their hold on existence was not quite so tenuous. Rather, they sought to understand themselves and the world into which they had been born. This seems seem like the simplest way to account for their being a generation of "trillith" before Trilla was empowered.</p><p></p><p>In order to make as much of the existing Kalashtar material useful as possible, I would do explain the race's existence this way: these primal Trillith visited certain primitive humans in their dreams, inspiring them with their own need for a greater understanding of the universe and desire to discipline their minds they had inherited from their progenitor. These humans founded the first contemplative orders (perhaps even the precursors of the Order of Echoed Souls and the Monastery of Two Winds). Eventually, one order of monks proceeded so far in their mastery of their own minds that they reached an agreement with the proto-Trillith to grant them existence in the physical world by offering to share their bodies with them symbiotically. The proto-Trillith agreed, and the monks became the original Kalashtar.</p><p></p><p>Though knowledge of their origin has been passed down through the generations, many of the details have not been, in order to protect the secret of the Aquilline Heart. For example, the existence of Time, the one "proto-Trillith" who chose not to incarnate, is not known to any modern day Kalashtar. For them, the tale of the Aquilline Heart is an important myth, but they can be no more certain of it than the people of Gate Pass are. They do know that they are the descendants of an order of monks who chose to share their bodies with beings made of pure dream. This version retains as much of the original Kalashtar origin as possible, but makes no significant change to the default setting.This sense of connection might not only exhibit itself near the Pyromancer's Tomb, but also manifest as a very different, deja vu like sensation in the presence of trillith-bound humans like Kathor and Crystin-- beings very much like the kalashtar, but who have not taken the next step of fully merging their souls. Perhaps, if Crystin does not accompany the party, a kalashtar PC could experience her visions instead, due to his ancestral tie to Time.[/sblock]For a "young" race of Kalashtar:[sblock]Forty years ago, when the Trillith began to escape their Underdark prison, they soon discovered that they could bind themselves to mortal beings. Eventually, some of these Trillith realized that, by merging themselves completely with a human soul, they would be able to exist independently of the sleeping Trilla. However, they would pay a great price in power, becoming little more than enlightened humans. In addition, just as a mortal soul has no recollection of what it was before it was born in a human body, they would retain only a hazy memory of how they had come into existence. </p><p></p><p>For those Trillith who had grown to love and appreciate the world of mortals as it was, and who were unwilling to sacrifice it to retain their power, this was an easy choice. For Trillith who refused to become anything less than the magnificent, ever-changing, powerful incarnations of imagination they were, this was completely unacceptable. The world would change to suit them-- they would not change to suit the world. To them, the very notion was an abomination, and soon the trillith were split into two major factions, with a few-- those who did not wish to incarnate as humans but who also had no desire to destroy the world-- caught in the middle.</p><p></p><p>Once the more morally-conscious ("good") faction of Trillith had decided to completely incarnate as mortals, they sought willing participants, since permanently entering the bodies of humans would likely be an unwelcome violation. They began to appear in the dreams of certain enlightened mortals, seeking willing hosts. The first generation of true Trillith-symbiants were an order of (psionic?) monks whose philosophy prompted them to eagerly agree to sharing their forms with sentient dreams. The monks' only knowledge of the dream-beings came from the negotiations the human monks had with the Trillith before their incarnation, and from what they put together from their hazy and (for lack of a better word) dream-like memories of existence before. Even the name Trilla, and the word Trillith, were forgotten. This new race called itself the Kalashtar.</p><p></p><p>Since the two factions of Trillith were so at odds, the pro-incarnation faction had kept their plans secret. The monks they had negotiated with were part of an obscure order, whose monastery was hidden from the nations around them, so that even the Trillith scouts in the Lands had no idea these monks existed. To the anti-incarnation Trillith, the fate of their rival faction was a mystery-- one day, they were simply gone, and their investigations in the mortal world they were still struggling to understand yielded few clues.</p><p></p><p>Years passed. The second generation of Kalashtar, children born with half-dream, half-mortal souls, has grown to adulthood. With only a vague understanding of how they came to be in the world, and an even more uncertain sense of their place in it, these young Kalashtar have left the hidden location of their monastery (An island? A hidden valley or fog-shrouded mountain-top? Perhaps even somewhere in the Underdark?) to seek their fortunes in a world to which they only half belong, unknowing that elsewhere, their unincarnated brethren plot to destroy that world before they have the chance to know it.</p><p></p><p>As before, this approach seems to allow the most use of extant Eberron material without making any significant changes to the default world-- if anything, its central conceits are reinforced. Also as stated in the "old" version, PC Kalashtar (who would all be part of the second generation) could experience odd feelings of familiarity when meeting trillith-bound humans and an eerie connection to something beyond the fire seal in the steam tunnels beneath Seaquen, and even take the place of Crystin in experiencing visions of the future.[/sblock]Wow, I had no idea detailed those suggestions would be. I guess the cosmology of the WotBS world just suggest a lot of possibilities to me.</p><p></p><p>At this point, I'm now desperate to see a Kalashtar PC in my own campaign.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Walker N. Waistz, post: 4901392, member: 5727"] Yeah, I think a lot of this stuff suggests itself from a close reading of the modules and the Eberron material, so I'm not surprised you already had a similar plan. Really, I'm just trying to set out the ideas that seem simplest and most obvious. As I said, I think there are two choices-- a young race of Kalashtar, and an old race. However you do it, there is one crucial point that must be kept in mind-- the Kalashtar must be created in such a way that they are NOT aware of the Trillith or their ultimate plan, otherwise much of the campaign saga is spoiled. The existing material in the mods (and Eberron) suggests a simple and useful way to do this for both an old and young version of the Kalashtar: For an "old" race of Kalashtar=[sblock]An ancient race could be the last remnants of the trillith-like creatures the Flamebringer Dragon created, in a variant of the original author Ryan Nock's post above: I think the simplest way to use this is that, when the Dragon ate the Eagle's flesh, he instantly became a more powerful version of Trilla-- immediately his dreams began to become living beings, without his even having to be asleep. Given the power of the Flamebringer Dragon, he soon learned to discipline his mind, but not before giving birth to this first generation of dream-beings-- sort of proto-Trillith. Before fleeing the world for another plane, he set the most powerful of his unwitting creations, Time, as the guardian of the Aquilline Heart. Shortly after he left the world forever, leaving this newly spawned race to fend for itself. Now, the Trillith were first born in Trilla's moments of fear and desperate desire for survival, while the proto-Trillith (I'm just calling them that for convenience) were born amid the Flamebringer's sudden remorse and need to discipline his mind. The mindset of their creators can explain the difference of these beings' view of the mortal world. While the Trillith have sought to keep Trilla asleep out of fear and are desperately pursuing a reckless plan to ensure their own survival, the proto-Trillith had no such urgent need. Being the children of a primordial god, their hold on existence was not quite so tenuous. Rather, they sought to understand themselves and the world into which they had been born. This seems seem like the simplest way to account for their being a generation of "trillith" before Trilla was empowered. In order to make as much of the existing Kalashtar material useful as possible, I would do explain the race's existence this way: these primal Trillith visited certain primitive humans in their dreams, inspiring them with their own need for a greater understanding of the universe and desire to discipline their minds they had inherited from their progenitor. These humans founded the first contemplative orders (perhaps even the precursors of the Order of Echoed Souls and the Monastery of Two Winds). Eventually, one order of monks proceeded so far in their mastery of their own minds that they reached an agreement with the proto-Trillith to grant them existence in the physical world by offering to share their bodies with them symbiotically. The proto-Trillith agreed, and the monks became the original Kalashtar. Though knowledge of their origin has been passed down through the generations, many of the details have not been, in order to protect the secret of the Aquilline Heart. For example, the existence of Time, the one "proto-Trillith" who chose not to incarnate, is not known to any modern day Kalashtar. For them, the tale of the Aquilline Heart is an important myth, but they can be no more certain of it than the people of Gate Pass are. They do know that they are the descendants of an order of monks who chose to share their bodies with beings made of pure dream. This version retains as much of the original Kalashtar origin as possible, but makes no significant change to the default setting.This sense of connection might not only exhibit itself near the Pyromancer's Tomb, but also manifest as a very different, deja vu like sensation in the presence of trillith-bound humans like Kathor and Crystin-- beings very much like the kalashtar, but who have not taken the next step of fully merging their souls. Perhaps, if Crystin does not accompany the party, a kalashtar PC could experience her visions instead, due to his ancestral tie to Time.[/sblock]For a "young" race of Kalashtar:[sblock]Forty years ago, when the Trillith began to escape their Underdark prison, they soon discovered that they could bind themselves to mortal beings. Eventually, some of these Trillith realized that, by merging themselves completely with a human soul, they would be able to exist independently of the sleeping Trilla. However, they would pay a great price in power, becoming little more than enlightened humans. In addition, just as a mortal soul has no recollection of what it was before it was born in a human body, they would retain only a hazy memory of how they had come into existence. For those Trillith who had grown to love and appreciate the world of mortals as it was, and who were unwilling to sacrifice it to retain their power, this was an easy choice. For Trillith who refused to become anything less than the magnificent, ever-changing, powerful incarnations of imagination they were, this was completely unacceptable. The world would change to suit them-- they would not change to suit the world. To them, the very notion was an abomination, and soon the trillith were split into two major factions, with a few-- those who did not wish to incarnate as humans but who also had no desire to destroy the world-- caught in the middle. Once the more morally-conscious ("good") faction of Trillith had decided to completely incarnate as mortals, they sought willing participants, since permanently entering the bodies of humans would likely be an unwelcome violation. They began to appear in the dreams of certain enlightened mortals, seeking willing hosts. The first generation of true Trillith-symbiants were an order of (psionic?) monks whose philosophy prompted them to eagerly agree to sharing their forms with sentient dreams. The monks' only knowledge of the dream-beings came from the negotiations the human monks had with the Trillith before their incarnation, and from what they put together from their hazy and (for lack of a better word) dream-like memories of existence before. Even the name Trilla, and the word Trillith, were forgotten. This new race called itself the Kalashtar. Since the two factions of Trillith were so at odds, the pro-incarnation faction had kept their plans secret. The monks they had negotiated with were part of an obscure order, whose monastery was hidden from the nations around them, so that even the Trillith scouts in the Lands had no idea these monks existed. To the anti-incarnation Trillith, the fate of their rival faction was a mystery-- one day, they were simply gone, and their investigations in the mortal world they were still struggling to understand yielded few clues. Years passed. The second generation of Kalashtar, children born with half-dream, half-mortal souls, has grown to adulthood. With only a vague understanding of how they came to be in the world, and an even more uncertain sense of their place in it, these young Kalashtar have left the hidden location of their monastery (An island? A hidden valley or fog-shrouded mountain-top? Perhaps even somewhere in the Underdark?) to seek their fortunes in a world to which they only half belong, unknowing that elsewhere, their unincarnated brethren plot to destroy that world before they have the chance to know it. As before, this approach seems to allow the most use of extant Eberron material without making any significant changes to the default world-- if anything, its central conceits are reinforced. Also as stated in the "old" version, PC Kalashtar (who would all be part of the second generation) could experience odd feelings of familiarity when meeting trillith-bound humans and an eerie connection to something beyond the fire seal in the steam tunnels beneath Seaquen, and even take the place of Crystin in experiencing visions of the future.[/sblock]Wow, I had no idea detailed those suggestions would be. I guess the cosmology of the WotBS world just suggest a lot of possibilities to me. At this point, I'm now desperate to see a Kalashtar PC in my own campaign. [/QUOTE]
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