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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 9188490" data-attributes="member: 25818">Huh, I always thought Jergal was Ed back-handedly putting Sheelba/Ningauble into the Forgotten Realms. TIL.I went through the hardcover adventures looking for references to obelisks.[ISPOILER]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hoard of the Dragon Queen -- Episode 7, "Hunting Lodge," takes place in an area where there are a lot of standing stones. Several are noted as part of gate networks. Not a lot of detail is given to them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Rise of Tiamat -- I'm not remembering any from it, but my memory of this one is spotty.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Princes of the Apocalypse -- There are three obelisks in the Temple of Howling Hatred are specifically noted as being "ancient" (room A16). As referred to earlier, there's an obelisk mentioned in the Temple of Black Earth (room B23), but my read on that one is it is much more modern, constructed by the Black Earth Cultists. On the other hand, the Black Earth monolith "contains" an unexpected visitor, which is absolutely fantastic foreshadowing for monoliths in later books...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Out of the Abyss -- The Whorlstone Caverns have a faction of derro called the Gray Ghosts who study a mysterious monolith (room 14). There is a lot more detail on the obelisk given here: it's made of black metal, is alien in origin, and it leaks magic.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Curse of Strahd -- Near the Old Bonegrinder and in the Ruins of Berez are ancient menhirs. Of the latter, the book says: "The ring of menhirs is one of the oldest structures in the Balinok Mountains -- older than the Amber Temple, and much older than Castle Ravenloft and the various Barovian settlements scattered throughout the valley. The menhirs were raised by the same ancient folk who carved the megaliths near Old Bonegrinder." The individual obelisks don't have magic powers, but the ring does -- druids get enhanced powers of Wild Shifting inside.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tales from the Yawning Portal -- None that I can remember.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Storm King's Thunder -- The village of Nightstone, the starting location, gets its name from an ancient monolith in the center of the town. "The obsidian megalith had strange glyphscarved into it and radiated magic under the scrutiny of detect magic spells, but its properties and purpose couldn't be ascertained." Then the cloud giants stole it, because you can't have s*** in the Forgotten Realms. This whole subplot is mostly dropped in the rest of the adventure, which made it tricky when I ran because it was the first thing my players asked about whenever they met any giants.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tomb of Annihilation -- Just outside the Tomb is a black obelisk (it is foreshadowed earlier in the module in a vision the NPC Zitembe can relate). The obelisk radiates abjuration magic and contains an unexpected visitor. I remember a reference that Acererak didn't make the monolith, but found it somewhere else and brought it to the Tomb, but I don't remember where I read that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Waterdeep: Dragon Heist -- None that I can remember.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage -- In the Shadowdusk Hold is a black obelisk. The obelisk radiates abjuration magic and contains an unexpected visitor. The module notes the Shadowdusks found the obelisk on another level of Undermountain and brought it to their Hold.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ghosts of Saltmarsh -- These obelisks don't show up in this adventure. However, there are a couple of standing stones in the water outside Saltmarsh, that do contain an unexpected visitor -- the spirit of a siren which is trapped inside after being sacrificed to provide the people of Saltmarsh with good fishing. At the time I ran the module, I thought this was a reference to the Greek myth, but there's a lot of monoliths containing visitors in these...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus -- There's an obelisk surrounded by smaller standing stones in one encounter. but it's not apparently related to these obelisks, instead being set up by Mephistopheles.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden -- In the Spire of Iriolarthas, there's a cracked obelisk. A sidebar, "The Secret of the Obelisks," it explicitly ties this one to the others and gives their origin with the Weavers, as noted above.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Candlekeep Mysteries -- None that I can remember.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Wild Beyond the Witchlight -- Standing stones show up in the module, but they radiate conjuration magic and operate as a gate to the Feywild. No relation to these obelisks under discussion.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep -- Never ran this one.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Journeys through the Radiant Citadel -- None that I can remember.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen -- Haven't run this one either.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Keys From the Golden Vault -- Haven't run it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk -- I don't own this one, but from the title, I'm suspecting there's an obelisk in it somewhere.</li> </ul>[/ISPOILER]My impression was that they were building up to something with them, but they didn't really push the Obelisk angle enough for it to register when the payoff happened in Rime of the Frostmaiden, which I didn't run to completion. I doubt we'll see too many of them in future hardcovers.</blockquote>

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