PCIHenry wrote:
As far as I know, all the players who intercated with these vials either left them alone or cracked them and let the energy dissipate.
According to canon at least (those tables that played this adventure when it premiered), none were collected - at least that's what I have written down in my records.
Makes sense, it was fairly strongly indicated that was the "good" thing to do. Which surprised me. It seemed odd that it was supposed to just be released to the cosmos - to me that seems a lot like letting it go to entropy. Unless it is going somewhere (Orumar/cauldron) it would seem like it is being lost from the system, which would seem bad. This is actually the biggest thing I don't understand out of the questions I asked, since it seems priests should want this to enter "their" system, whatever that might be. Seems oddly non-religious to just let soul fragments up and dissipate without sending them somewhere specific. It made me think of death without last rights, where some of a sentient's energy fails to go where it should.
PCIHenry wrote:
Now, was it really "soul-energy"? The deranged elorii there believed so. Of course, the "false Orumar" was created by the servants of the Silence, so who knows what was really in there and what they were using it for.
Except that it said that any, "Any priest, cleric, holy champion or undead PC will feel the presence of raw life essences or soul fragments within the small cylinders," so it wasn't just the crazy Elorii beliefs. I found it interesting that priests and paladins could were automatically aligned with it.
PCIHenry wrote:
As an aside - how does one "drink" energy?
Consume the entire bottle (without opening)? Do it inside a magic circle? open the lid while you have a vampiric touch spell active on your hands? Open and try really quickly (you have 20 to try with)? Put together a ritual magic based off of consuming someone else's soul or strength (a pretty standard idea)? Ritual sacrifice of a tiny jar? Wires, syringes, and dead chipmunks as you scream "It wants to LIVE!" Its the kind of thing I would think most casters could figure out some way to do, with varying degrees of efficiency.