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Quickleaf
Seeker
99 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Dec 2020 : 23:52:44
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What is so great and powerful about the draumrting? And why did Graz'zt specifically want it?
In the conclusion to the Brimstone Angels series by Erin M. Evans, The Devil You Know, we learn that Gilgeam gave the demon lord Graz'zt a magic relic from Abeir that was stolen from stone giants. This was part of a deal Gilgeam made to secure Graz'zt's demonic forces (maurezhi) in Gilgeam's bid to retake Unther.
The magic item was called a draumrting – a shield-sized stone/crystal pendant which had a connection to dreaming. A few excerpts from the encounter with the stone giantess...
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“This is a draumrting,” she said, cupping the stone in one etched gray palm. “In this, we place the essence of our dreams so that we may take them into the waking world. So that we may claim a little of the dreaming world’s strength and channel it into our spells. In dreams,” she said, “we speak as we need to. So the magic of the draumrting can accommodate us, for a time anyway. I would still wish to learn it in the waking, since it seems we are meant to remain here.”
Given the context of someone asking how the Abeiran giants speak Common, this suggests the stone acted like a universal translator. But that hardly seems like something that would make a demon lord covet it.
quote:
For a long moment, Somni didn’t speak. “In the other world [Abeir], in a cave in the mountains, in the caverns where we mine the crystal for the draumrting, there is something that does not belong. In one of these caves there is no crystal, but the whole place pulses with a magic that would be much more at home in this place. We don’t go there—others have. I have not seen it or sought it out myself, but they say it is only a stick of wood, but that it glows and gives strange and terrible dreams.”
I have no idea what this is referencing. Any ideas?
Further reading in Volo's Guide to Monsters has some interesting bits on stone giant culture... They seem to view the surface world as fleeting figments of a dream. If a stone giant lives away from its mountain/underground home for too long, living "among the dream" so to speak, it becomes known as a "dreamwalker" – a mad stone giant who suffers a form of magical solipsism ("I'm the only real thing that exists"), which bleeds off and affects creatures around it (as a charm aura & petrification which allows it to absorb petrified creatures/objects into itself).
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11691 Posts |
Posted - 30 Dec 2020 : 03:11:56
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On the second thing "the thing that does not belong", I can say that that is about. It was the staff of Azuth, and later in the novels they go to Abeir to get it.
On the draumrting and why Graz'zt wants it.... that we can only speculate about. That being said, if I had to GUESS.... I'd say that its from a dreaming primordial on Abeir that was being "mined". It would seem that a lot of the magic of Abeir seems to be item bound in some way, and often those items have ties to the primordials. That being said, the idea of dreams and the "far realm" are often intertwined in 4e lore. There might be some similarities between this material though and things like the "shard of pure evil" that Tharizdun stabbed into the elemental planes to create the abyss, which might be very much why Graz'zt is interested in such materials (as he might seek to create his own outer planar realm). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Quickleaf
Seeker
99 Posts |
Posted - 31 Dec 2020 : 23:00:43
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quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
On the second thing "the thing that does not belong", I can say that that is about. It was the staff of Azuth, and later in the novels they go to Abeir to get it.
On the draumrting and why Graz'zt wants it.... that we can only speculate about. That being said, if I had to GUESS.... I'd say that its from a dreaming primordial on Abeir that was being "mined". It would seem that a lot of the magic of Abeir seems to be item bound in some way, and often those items have ties to the primordials. That being said, the idea of dreams and the "far realm" are often intertwined in 4e lore. There might be some similarities between this material though and things like the "shard of pure evil" that Tharizdun stabbed into the elemental planes to create the abyss, which might be very much why Graz'zt is interested in such materials (as he might seek to create his own outer planar realm).
Thanks Phillip! |
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The Draumrting? (Brimstone Angels, spoilers)
