Izrador, Aradar, and the Truths of My Campaign

[Pheros]

I think you can only give out cookies if you have more than 50 posts or some such.

But for the most recent post (killing Aradil! ...damn...) you definitely get an Evil cookie from me.

Welcome back, Bleak!
Joe

[DaveTheMagicWeasel]

Ah, that would explain why the option isn't there.  Best get posting I suppose!

Liking Aradil dying - she's pretty much in a corner so an honourable death is probably her best chance at this point.  Do the PCs know that Ressial is the evil mastermind behind the fall of the Elves yet?

I like how Orc politics is playing out with Grial and the White Mothers as well - I had Grial down as becoming a kind of Orc nationalist leader myself, rejecting Izrador, the Keepers, the Night Kings and maybe even the Kursatch Udareen (sp?  I can never remember how that's spelled) as well, and instead deciding to conquer the world for the Orcs themselves.

One big question does occur to me reading all that - Ardherin.  Always struck me as a very conflicted character, even more so with these changes.  What was his goal in attacking Caradul?  To kill Ressial, or Aradil, or both?  I imagine that being the defining moment for him - the choice between love and redemption, or darkness and damnation.  Unfortunately for him, Aradil's position means that even choosing redemption may require him to sacrifice his own life.

Berial aiming to claim godhood for himself is pretty much what I had down for his goal.

One addition I am going to do for Berial - some of the fluff refers to the leader of the Cabal as simply "The Riven One".  So, on that basis I'm thinking there are actually multiple Berials.  The one original one (CR in the mid-30s, basically the first Night King so statted appropriately), and then loads of Simulacrums of him running round.  Which would mean a significant proportion of the Cabal is, in fact, Berial.  Surely no better way to guarantee loyalty over all these years?  Also has the advantage of bringing Berial down to a more appropriate CR if I want to have the PCs fight him ..... only to later run into him all over again.

Or possibly something whereby Berial was defeated in ages past, but they couldn't work out how to kill him so dismembered him and scattered the pieces throughout the 4 corners of the world.  What they didn't foresee was that each piece would grow to become a new Berial.  So, maybe Berial's short-term goal is trying to find the last few pieces of himself before he can make his play for godhood.

[Bleak Knight]

Aradil's death was far from honorable. She tried to kill her former lover in a fit of hate and rage, and then a (relatively) innocent human being who had just saved her life. She got stabbed to death, and died tainting the elven race. Grim and bitter, just like Midnight should be.

Aside from the Order of Truth Wizard character, my PCs have no idea who Ressial even is at this point. They believe Ardherin was behind it all, and are in for a few rude surprises.

In my game, Darshod will become the greatest fear of the Kurasatch Udareen. He considers them part of the scheme to dominate the orc race. Thus, Grial will probably seek an alliance with them in order to gain a powerful ally against the orc sorcerer. What he does with them later is up for debate, but they are the spiritual leaders of their people.

Chief amongst Ardherin's objectives was the destruction of Ressial. Secondly, a peace of sorts with Aradil. He mistakenly believed she could be reasoned with. Aradil, however, was willing to die to protect Ressial, and Ardherin was willing to take her down in order to get to the fallen angel. At that point, things got extremely heated due to old grievances, and the old lovers had a proper fight. With spells that destroyed parts of the Elder Tree. Then he realized she was already corrupted and lost, and all bets were off. Love turned to hate, justified from both sides by the need to remove a great evil from the world.

Berial as more than one creature is an interesting idea. I might actually go with this one! I like the idea of my players having to hunt him down again and again and again. Of course, it could also be that many of these copies die when the original breaks the Grand Mirror. Perhaps one of them even wants revenge for this betrayal?

Dismembered and scattered has been done before, and I think it is better suited to demons or such. It's a viable alternative to the clones/simulacra of course.

EDIT: At the time of Ardherin's second attack, I was going a way for a long time. I needed a climatic event that could serve as a temporary ending of the game, or even a finale. I partially went outside of my own plot in order to achieve this. The PCs had assisted in the process, though.