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 Acererak and Faerun.

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Shadowsoul Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 00:02:40
Can anyone explain away how Acererak's presence hasn't been known on Toril if he's been there for a long time? Again, this is why I hate it when WoTc decides to throw in the NPC's that have supposedly been there for a long while but no previous books ever mention him.
10   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Zeromaru X Posted - 23 Jan 2018 : 06:10:20
There are some few differences between the game mechanics of "D&D Next" compared to those of 5th edition, as "D&D Next" was, after all, the prototype for 5th edition (so, 5e is like a refined version of "D&D Next"). The conversions they did for "D&D Next" have some few differences in game mechanics to those they did for 5th edition proper, albeit if mininal, IHMO.

Or at least, that is the excuse they used when someone asked why they were publishing stuff like Tomb of Horrors and Death in Thay in Tales, despite those adventures already had a "D&D Next" version.
Diffan Posted - 23 Jan 2018 : 05:23:33
What were the differences? When I ran it, I felt it was pretty true to the brutality of the original version.
Zeromaru X Posted - 22 Jan 2018 : 17:40:53
Well, the one of Dungeon 213 had some kind of "excuses". First of all, it was a "D&D Next" conversion, so a conversion for the public playtest. Mechanically, it has difference with the 5e stuff, albeit if minimal.

And also, Dun 213 is from 2013, while Tales and ToA are both from 2017.
Diffan Posted - 22 Jan 2018 : 02:10:38
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X

Not only that. There is already a Tomb of Horrors conversion for 5e as well, as compiled in Tales from the Yawning Portal (the product released right before to Tomb of Annihilation).



Also in Dungeon 213 I believe. My group wasnt too thrilled with the adventure
Zeromaru X Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 23:51:15
Not only that. There is already a Tomb of Horrors conversion for 5e as well, as compiled in Tales from the Yawning Portal (the product released right before to Tomb of Annihilation).
The Masked Mage Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 22:06:42
I don't mind that he came to FR, but I think it amounts to laziness on the part of designers. Tomb of Horror was literally the first rpg I ever played all those eons ago, and they are still not able to come up with anything that competes? Sad.
sleyvas Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 15:36:00
This I could buy. I know how much you hate Atropal's Wooly, but a further spin could be added to the above in tying Eshowdow as being tied to this Atropal. We have lore calling Ubtao a primordial, and lore suggesting he is Qotal. We also know that Ubtao was blind to Eshowdow. Methinks that perhaps this entity "hidden away" or "imprisoned" by the ba'etith was something to do with Eshowdow long ago, and that the "recent" release of Eshowdow following Karsus' Folly may have simply been Eshowdow being released from whatever the ba'etith did.

As to Eshowdow's origins, we're told he's some kind of diametrically opposed thing to Ubtao.... but what if he's actually Ubtao and Dendar's love child. Dendar the Night Serpent... Eshowdow being a shadow, but also being a giant...

By the way, this really makes me want to have "shadow giants" in Chult and ESPECIALLY in Samarach's mountains and POSSIBLY in Nimbral and POSSIBLY on the moon (they're in the 3.0 fiend folio... and I just realized that they have at will the spells shades (recreate any 8th level or less conjuration spell as an illusion) and shadow evocation (recreate any 4th level or less evocation spell as an illusion). Maybe they are the mortal form of the children of Ubtao and Dendar, and Eshowdow would have become their "deity" but Ubtao still-birthed the child via the ba'etith somehow (maybe informing them through an intermediary).

This also makes me want to send Shadow Giants to Abeir in a similar way as I was having Eldritch Giants, and maybe these two groups of heavily magical giants don't like one another.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 05:12:16
Here's the spin I offered, all going off the top of my head. I've no idea how well this does or doesn't fit into existing material; I was just trying to respin what I see as a bad idea. It is, admittedly, rough and in need of some polish.

quote:
Maybe the Ba'etith had a stronghold in Chult. Some of the early work that went into the Nether Scrolls was done in this area. In fact, this work could be why this is one of the few areas in the Realms to have dinosaurs -- perhaps some proof-of-concept experimentation was bringing back/recreating various species of dinosaurs.

And then one or more of the Ba'etith went rogue, because of something they found... Something ancient and evil that predated even the sarrukh. The remainder of the Chultan Ba'etith destroyed the rogues, sealed away whatever the object (or entity) of evil was, and then turned their old stronghold into a deathtrap to keep it all safely contained. Then they headed back north, joined with the rest of the Ba'etith, and made the Nether Scrolls.

Meanwhile, the ancient evil doohickey proved to be only imperfectly sealed off. It raised one of the fallen rogue Ba'etith, one Ash'r'rahkk, and made him a unique form of lich. This ancient evil later corrupted one of Ubtao's nature spirits, turning it into the shadow giant Eshowdow.

The first non-Ba'etith who ever penetrated this hidden stronghold was a powerful human wizard, whose original name has been lost to the sands of time... Encountering the sarrukh lich Ash'r'rahkk and the evil force backing it, this wizard realized too late that his very mind was being overwhelmed by what he had found. He fled, eventually journeying to another sphere entirely, in a vain attempt to hold onto his own personality. In the end, though, his strength was not enough, and he became another extension of that ancient evil doohickey.

Forgetting his own name, he chose a new one from his fragmentary and shattered memories: Acererak. He sealed himself away in his own cunningly-designed deathtrap, intending to contain the evil that had consumed him.

This did weaken the ancient doohickey, though, because now its own essence was sundered. It's still powerful, and still rather evil, but it is no longer the threat it once was... And it's not cool with that.

In the millennia since then, the Ba'etith stronghold has remained forgotten and sealed away... Until the chaos of the Spellplague and the Sundering brought one of the entrances back into the sunlight....

As for that ancient evil doohickey... I have previously suggested that there was some horrible evil that all the gods had to get together to defeat, and even their combined might could only shatter this evil. I suggested that it could have been one of the shards of this evil that made Cyric get so crazy, and another could be imprisoned under and contained by the Wall of the Faithless. Maybe that's what the Chultan Ba'etith found.

Or maybe a simpler explanation could be something like a spawn of Dendar... Or perhaps at some point, Dendar herself was in the Realms. Someone, perhaps Ubtao battled and wounded her, driving her from the Prime and into the Fugue Plane. And when she was wounded, some of her blood splashed on and corrupted some native creature, granting it power beyond that of mortals, but still shy of the true Elder Evils of the Realms.

This spins the whole thing into something new, built on existing Realmslore, but still keeping the ridiculous connection to the Tomb of Horrors. With the similar names and nature of the dungeons, it'd not be unlikely for someone who knew of the Tomb of Horrors to hear about this place and assume they were one in the same.
Storyteller Hero Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 03:10:47
After the Spellplague hit, there was a lot of turmoil and rebuilding, and magic was unwieldy for most.

It's possible that Acererak was stuck for a while trying to get a handle on the lack of a stable Weave, because he never experienced such a calamity on Oerth or other planes that he traveled through.

Zeromaru X Posted - 21 Jan 2018 : 01:26:03
According to Tomb of Annihilation, he is a planeswalker, he came from Oerth, and only has been for a century in Toril. So, he came like a few years after the Spellplague (as Mezro was already "destroyed" when he appeared). The Tomb of the Nine Gods was also constructed during that century. So, it doesn't contradict with any previous lore, as in 4e there was no lore about Chult besides was the two pages in the FRCG.

Why nobody knows about him? He never left Chult, and acted in secrecy. Though, a few characters indeed know about him (Szass Tam, a cell of the Harpers, are some examples). Whatever powerful NPC you want to know about him, may as well.

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