The Liberation of Tenh Plot Thread

[spunky_mutters]

I think without knowing what role Tau's god plays in all this (especially its relationship to the emotes), it's hard to be definitive.

I'd be tempted to say that either the Iuzians/Stonefisters disturbed the god(s) back into action (or maybe Tau did), the emotes were stolen for their divine power, Iuz and Tenha god X battled, they have been removed from play either to the hole where the god has been dormant, or some sub-dimensional oubliette where Iuz drags prisoners, and now the nasties of the Boneheart are trying to figure out how to use the emotes to bring Iuz back.

Of course I'm making a bunch of assumptions here, and I can't find enough info on the emotes, or Tau's god to clarify things.

 

[Capellan]

A) Rescuing the celestial emotes
B) Preventing Iuz from reforming

B-a) Why has Iuz sundered?
B-b) How do they hope to put him together again?

Tie it all together.

Iuz sundered when he came to godhood (which is why his forces haven't simply swept the world).

The boneheart needs the emotes to put him together (though they haven't worked out how, yet).

Thus, the reason for going is both (a) and (B).

 

[Schmoe]

Here's a thought:

Perhaps the emotes are Iuz. Say that Iuz did whatever he needed to do to finally gain divinity. But gods must be the pure embodiment of their domain, and Iuz, being only a demigod, still had some small vestige of emotion and thought that was impure, perhaps even a shred of happiness that he kept locked tightly away. So when he tried to gain godhood, the force was too much for his shell to take, and he was sundered. Those parts of Iuz that were impure or even (shudder) good became the emotes. Now it remains to Iuz's followers to track down the emotes and ritually destroy them as an act of faith in their master's divinity. Each emote that is destroyed purifies the remaining Iuz-essence and puts him one step closer to regaining sentience. Think of it as the ultimate test of a god, that your followers will recreate you even when you cease to be.

You could place some vast, deep, black chamber near the bottom of the dungeon where the Iuz-essence rests. The essence might be nothing more than a pool of swirling blackness and blood. The essence should be impervious to damage, as it is more a vision of divine potential than an actual thing, but proximity would be deadly. At a range of 200', living creatures gain 1 negative level per round. At 100' or closer this increases to 1d4 negative levels. At 50' or closer have creatures make a suitably difficult Will save each round (DC 30+) or have their souls and bodies completely subsumed into the Iuz-essence.

The Iuz faithful have a raised altar high above the essence where their rituals are performed. The emotes, having been bound to living human vessels, are ritually sacrificed and dumped into the essence. The humans obviously die, but the emotes are still bound, and their they sit, in the heart of the swirling death, waiting for the last of the emotes to be sacrificed. At that time, Iuz will be reborn as a full-fledged god.

Although the Iuz-essence should be pretty much invulnerable, the emotes could prove to be its weakness, as well as its path to supremacy. Perhaps if all of the emotes are gathered at a shrine of good, the proper rituals could be performed to forever bind Iuz to powerless non-sentience. Of course, doing so requires all of the emotes, and some of those are surely already waiting within the Iuz-essence to be reunited with thier siblings, and there will always be Iuzian faithful willing to guard the undying essence of their god-to-be.

 

[Whitey]

Iuz's foot bone's connected to his ankle bone, his ankle bone connected to his leg bone -

Let's try to incorporate as many previous plot points as we can. Iuz is not 'a thing of this world', and needs particular circumstances to exist in Greyhawk. The abilities of the Seven Stones created the opportunity for him to arrive, but not to persist. Iuz was in a suspended state, like an ethereal traveller, being partially present and partially not. Only when there's an abundance of Evil on the gitty-up is a plane suitable for Iuz and his bony evil subtype self to arrive. The Crook of Rao shot a huge gaping hole in the Iuzian plans, and the heroics (or failures, depending on how you look at it) at the Temple made it worse. As rotten as he is, Iuz is still subject to the same restrictions on fiends that apply to a manes. No gate means no opportunity for Iuz to manifest. Remember what the angel there said - without the demon invasion and the increasing radius of nasty, Iuz merely postures.

When the baddies lost one of the stones, Iuz started to crumble. Each virtue represented by the emotes counteracts a particular component vice of the Abyssal Keith Richards, and without other factors to hold him together Iuz went all to pieces. At that point destroying the emotes wouldn't do any good for the bad - their overlord is still confetti. Instead, the forces of evil are working on the Evilest Jigsaw Puzzle of all, not just negating but subverting the power of each mote by binding it to the High Tyrant. The dregs like Maskaleyne, Festering, and even Faustal represent a lesser version of this same corruptive process. In a larger cosmological sense, it's what Iuz plans to do to the whole world - thrall it to his evil.

It's the showdown between the Liberators and the Enslavers. Between good and evil.

 

[(contact)]

I love you guys.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Mialec was just a hot young(er) secretary I inserted to light a fire under Prisantha's ass. She picked up Gwendolyn shortly thereafter which did the trick....

Y'know, if I had a dirty mind, I could read that phrase in quite a titillating way.

Because the Risen Goddess shouldn't be the only (contact) story hour with lesbian overtones.

 

[Capellan]

So, (contact) - are there any more denizens of darkness you require? Or can we all go back to inventing ways to impugn 'Little Heydricus'?

 

[qstor]

Contact - get the .pdf download of Iuz the Evil. Its well worth the $5 bucks. There's a map of Molag in it that you can use. Plus lots of other good stuff.

Mike

 

[CrusadeDave]

2 Updates in one day. Bravo!

Bringing Dabus back, Bravo!

Detailed prophecy of Doom with no chance for success, Bravo!

Killing off all the other Winey Heroes of the Age who get in the way of the Liberators, Bravo!

Wonderful Prisantha/Heydricus innuendo, Bravo!

You killed off the Lord of Stoink in an aside? No Zinvellon treatment for his death? I'm hoping at least that we can get some interludes of Belvor, Halrond, and the rest of the hopeless company as they meet their doom.... Good stuff for Dreams for Prisantha or something. Not like Heydricus would care, you know....

After downloading the current XP and Treasure .xls off your website, I'm curious if the Liberator's next stop is Dorraka, of if there is another way point we can help you with. I have this really nasty template I built for my RttToEE, that's driving my players fits.

Also, what's up with Dabus? Is he Exalted? I didn't notice a treasure slot for him, so did he take a Vow of Poverty?

 

[CrusadeDave]

Cohort XP

Another thing I noticed, looking at your XP table on your website for the next encounter you haven't written up yet, the party as a whole gained more than twice as much XP as the creatures themselves listed for due to all the Cohorts running around, now at a 3/5 ratio.

Once they get to Dorraka, it doesn't seem like the party's going to have time to craft any more magic items, so are you worried at all about the party leveling up too quickly? We built all these 19th level baddies, I don't want to see the Liberators roll over them cause all the cohorts just made Epic Levels as well.... Not to Mention Prisantha throwing off Quickened Wishes when she hits level 25.