Three of the PCs in my 4e game are Raven Queen cultists of some form or other. The most fanatical is a tiefling paladin/Questing Knight/Marshall of Letherna.
For most of the Heroic tier of the campaign, the PCs' principal enemy was a mage called Paldemar (adapted from module H2), a worshipper of Vecna who was doing deals with various other factions (or trying to): Orcus; gnoll Yeenoghu cultists; hags in exile from the Feywild; and a cult of Far Realm worshippers called "Those Who Hear" (adapted from the 3E module The Speaker in Dreams).
Early in the life of the campaign I wrote the following notes on the last faction:
The PCs duly defeated the Far Realm cultists, and Paldemar also. I don't think it ever came out, in play, why Paldemar was working with the cultists.
Not long after defeating Paldemar, the PCs explored an ancient necromancer's tower (the Bloodtower on the Moorland, from Open Grave). Therein they found:
In the course of play, this got elaborated on somewhat: Ometh was an exarch of Nerrul who was taken by the Raven Queen into her service when she overthrew the former death god. At the time, the paladin was suspicious of any exarch recruited in such circumstances, moreso when a statue to it is found in a Vecna-ites tower.
Ometh recurred from time to time as a subject of conversation among the players, and an object of the paladin's hostility, but only came to prominence again when the PCs reached Epic tier. At that point, the paladin had a dream of a part of the Shadowfell he had not heard of before - the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. He saw the wailing souls of the dead trudging across it, into some unknowable distance, under the cruel supervision of Ometh. The paladin then became more convinced than ever that Ometh was no good, and resolved that he would somehow remove Ometh from his role as keeper of the bridge.
A couple of levels later, and the PCs are debating whether to continue through the Underdark to find and liberate Torog's Soul Abattoir (this is the paladin's quest) or instead to travel to Mal Arundak, a fortress of Pelor on another plane, to liberate it from siege. The Mal Arundak faction wins the debate (in the end I made them roll dice to settle an argument that seemed interminable and had carried over two sessions), and so the PCs find themselves on The Barrens riding towards Mal Arundak on conjured steeds. (The Barrens is the Abyssal realm of Oublivae, from Demonomicon. Mal Arundak is described in The Plane Below. I am merging the two setting elements, and also borrowing from the description of the Deadhold Wasteland from module P2.) En route they find a deep pit, which - upon inspection - turns out to have been an oubliette trapping the spirit, or some other remnant, or Elidyr, the last king of Nerath. The paladin says a prayer to help Elidyr's spirit to rest, and in the process sees (in a vision) Elidyr's spirit at the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. A further prayer frees Elidyr from that fate and sees him off to a happier afterlife, much to the chagrin of Ometh. Further en route they find a buried Nerathis castle - all ruins of civilisation and things lost end up in The Barrens - and discover skeletons of the dead within it. The paladin says prayers over them, and frees both from Ometh and the (uncertain, but unpleasant) fate of the Bridge.
The player of the paladin was enjoying the repeated thwarting of Ometh, and so I decided it was time for Ometh to appear! I had statted this creature up on the model of a levelled-up Bloodkiss Beholder (from Open Grave) - a 23rd level solo, with a 22nd level solo soulstorm (based on the bonestorm in module E1) as a hanger-on. I had been planning to have them appear in the Soul Abattoir, as part of a treacherous plan involving Vecna, but opportunity knocked in a different context.
The fight itself was furious but not too hard (a 26th level encounter for a 23rd level party at full strength but for a few surges lost from travel; both defenders went down for brief periods, but were brought up easily enough). The highlight for me came when Ometh was bloodied, and the paladin confronted him as to his motivations and (suspected) treachery. And Ometh explained the basis on which he had entered into the Raven Queen's service - he had helped her hide her name "with beings beyond the stars", and in return had been allowed to continue serving as an exarch of death. And he warned that, were he to be killed, the pact would be broken and the Raven Queen's name no longer safe.
This decision to link Ometh to the idea of a pact with the Far Realm to hide the Raven Queen's name wasn't quite spontaneous - I had come up with the idea at the same time I statted up Ometh as an aberrant undead - but it did catch the PCs (and the players) by surprise. The paladin wanted to reach some sort of accommodation, but the ranger-cleric of the Raven Queen was still up for killing Ometh, and the fighter-cleric of Moradin, who is increasingly fed up with the Raven Queen and her cultists, was even keener to finish off Ometh once he realised that doing so might hurt the Raven Queen. So negotiations broke down after only a round, and Ometh was killed - the paladin striking the killing blow in the end.
I had some ideas for Vecna hijinks in mind (inspired in part by an encounter in E1), leading up to the Ometh treachery, but the sequencing of all that will nw have to change. And I had been wondering how I might incorporate Star Spawn and the like in my campaign, because I enjoy the flavour but they didn't really seem to have any logical place in the story; but that should be easy now, as Heralds of Hadar and Emissaries of Caiphon enter the world bearing word of the Raven Queen's name.
For most of the Heroic tier of the campaign, the PCs' principal enemy was a mage called Paldemar (adapted from module H2), a worshipper of Vecna who was doing deals with various other factions (or trying to): Orcus; gnoll Yeenoghu cultists; hags in exile from the Feywild; and a cult of Far Realm worshippers called "Those Who Hear" (adapted from the 3E module The Speaker in Dreams).
Early in the life of the campaign I wrote the following notes on the last faction:
Paldemar has a theory that the Raven Queen forfeited her name by engaging in a strange pact with the Far Realm. Hence, he has supported a cult of Far Realm lunatics – Those Who Hear.
The PCs duly defeated the Far Realm cultists, and Paldemar also. I don't think it ever came out, in play, why Paldemar was working with the cultists.
Not long after defeating Paldemar, the PCs explored an ancient necromancer's tower (the Bloodtower on the Moorland, from Open Grave). Therein they found:
an imposing statue carved in the likeness of some ancient, alien creature with too many eyes in its head and a body type similar to a cross
between a dwarf and a skinned corpse.
An inscription in the statue’s base reads in the Rellanic script, “Ometh watches from beyond the grave.”
. . .
Runes etched on the sanctum walls reveal that this chamber was once a chapel to an entity known as Ometh, once an exarch of a deity of death.
between a dwarf and a skinned corpse.
An inscription in the statue’s base reads in the Rellanic script, “Ometh watches from beyond the grave.”
. . .
Runes etched on the sanctum walls reveal that this chamber was once a chapel to an entity known as Ometh, once an exarch of a deity of death.
In the course of play, this got elaborated on somewhat: Ometh was an exarch of Nerrul who was taken by the Raven Queen into her service when she overthrew the former death god. At the time, the paladin was suspicious of any exarch recruited in such circumstances, moreso when a statue to it is found in a Vecna-ites tower.
Ometh recurred from time to time as a subject of conversation among the players, and an object of the paladin's hostility, but only came to prominence again when the PCs reached Epic tier. At that point, the paladin had a dream of a part of the Shadowfell he had not heard of before - the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. He saw the wailing souls of the dead trudging across it, into some unknowable distance, under the cruel supervision of Ometh. The paladin then became more convinced than ever that Ometh was no good, and resolved that he would somehow remove Ometh from his role as keeper of the bridge.
A couple of levels later, and the PCs are debating whether to continue through the Underdark to find and liberate Torog's Soul Abattoir (this is the paladin's quest) or instead to travel to Mal Arundak, a fortress of Pelor on another plane, to liberate it from siege. The Mal Arundak faction wins the debate (in the end I made them roll dice to settle an argument that seemed interminable and had carried over two sessions), and so the PCs find themselves on The Barrens riding towards Mal Arundak on conjured steeds. (The Barrens is the Abyssal realm of Oublivae, from Demonomicon. Mal Arundak is described in The Plane Below. I am merging the two setting elements, and also borrowing from the description of the Deadhold Wasteland from module P2.) En route they find a deep pit, which - upon inspection - turns out to have been an oubliette trapping the spirit, or some other remnant, or Elidyr, the last king of Nerath. The paladin says a prayer to help Elidyr's spirit to rest, and in the process sees (in a vision) Elidyr's spirit at the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. A further prayer frees Elidyr from that fate and sees him off to a happier afterlife, much to the chagrin of Ometh. Further en route they find a buried Nerathis castle - all ruins of civilisation and things lost end up in The Barrens - and discover skeletons of the dead within it. The paladin says prayers over them, and frees both from Ometh and the (uncertain, but unpleasant) fate of the Bridge.
The player of the paladin was enjoying the repeated thwarting of Ometh, and so I decided it was time for Ometh to appear! I had statted this creature up on the model of a levelled-up Bloodkiss Beholder (from Open Grave) - a 23rd level solo, with a 22nd level solo soulstorm (based on the bonestorm in module E1) as a hanger-on. I had been planning to have them appear in the Soul Abattoir, as part of a treacherous plan involving Vecna, but opportunity knocked in a different context.
The fight itself was furious but not too hard (a 26th level encounter for a 23rd level party at full strength but for a few surges lost from travel; both defenders went down for brief periods, but were brought up easily enough). The highlight for me came when Ometh was bloodied, and the paladin confronted him as to his motivations and (suspected) treachery. And Ometh explained the basis on which he had entered into the Raven Queen's service - he had helped her hide her name "with beings beyond the stars", and in return had been allowed to continue serving as an exarch of death. And he warned that, were he to be killed, the pact would be broken and the Raven Queen's name no longer safe.
This decision to link Ometh to the idea of a pact with the Far Realm to hide the Raven Queen's name wasn't quite spontaneous - I had come up with the idea at the same time I statted up Ometh as an aberrant undead - but it did catch the PCs (and the players) by surprise. The paladin wanted to reach some sort of accommodation, but the ranger-cleric of the Raven Queen was still up for killing Ometh, and the fighter-cleric of Moradin, who is increasingly fed up with the Raven Queen and her cultists, was even keener to finish off Ometh once he realised that doing so might hurt the Raven Queen. So negotiations broke down after only a round, and Ometh was killed - the paladin striking the killing blow in the end.
I had some ideas for Vecna hijinks in mind (inspired in part by an encounter in E1), leading up to the Ometh treachery, but the sequencing of all that will nw have to change. And I had been wondering how I might incorporate Star Spawn and the like in my campaign, because I enjoy the flavour but they didn't really seem to have any logical place in the story; but that should be easy now, as Heralds of Hadar and Emissaries of Caiphon enter the world bearing word of the Raven Queen's name.
