Sure, after a decade the Elorii have finally been made the target of catastrophe. How "engaging." Now we can find out that Belisarda is evil, that Elonbe is the power center of the Nyalekene, and that the players are the "defectives" who were exiled into the wider world in the hope that it would corrupt them into accepting their greater mission.
Funny thing: this mod is the first time the PC's get a look at the Eloran quarter of Seremas. I did take me a while to figure out what was missing from the Seremasi soft points from the previous campaign. What was missing from Eldest Sons and it's amusing travelogue of Eloran restaurants and bars and tourist destinations.
Oh right, the
Eloran features of the Eloran city!
Which reminds me: there was just a BI in Seremas. Wow. That's what, the third? That's astounding. And yet...I bet their was nothing actually Eloran about that BI. Oh, that's not true. A peace pact collapsed because of some rules-lawyering on the part of a Gar Warlord involving the suspected survival of Melirios.
I'll admit I'm kind of confused on that score, but the important thing is that the Elorii can be implicated for being why somehow responsible for the Gar's opportunism as a means of introducing them as a formal threat. Because Arcanis needs one more random marauding army of culturally vacuous "barbarians."
I'm sorry, that's unnecessarily sarcastic. When the Gar sourcebook is announced I'm sure it'll be full of mind-bending implications and plot hooks. The first Sstheric book certainly was, I'm sure the second will live up to that reputation.
I've known a lot of Val; it's always charming to hear them sneer that the Elorii should have exterminated the Gar when they had the chance like the Val would have. This is what "the Elorii" -there's that enthusiasm for collective punishment again- deserve for failing to act like everyone else.
Ah, and wallow in that new lore. It is good to know the central tenets of Belisarda -oh wait, sorry.
I mean the history of the Eloran natio- right right, mea culpa.
No no, I got it it's the activities of a major Eloran NPC who is actually representative of the culture unlike that dicksheath Xercel^ -err, whoops.
Rather, it is good to have some vague implications of some great sin of the Ardakene. You'll notice it's "The Ardakene" as though what will be revealed will end up being the collective decision of all Ardakene. Well, that's what they get for not being generic.
I'm sure this is going big places, I'm confident the upcoming destruction of various Orumars will finally drive the Elorii into groveling at the feet of the Human Pantheon as a wandering nation of destitutes looking to shelter their wretched, debased "goddess" with an offer to trade her enslavement for their protection.
I've heard Hurrian is a bachelor, but I suspect Belisarda won't be married into the Pantheon due to her childen's incompatible spiritual nature. At least until the other Orumar are sacrificed into the Cauldron and that changes.
Sounds like high drama to me, sounds like "development" of the Elorii well on track.
Downside? "That guy" will have to get the news second hand because there are no tables. There are no tables of Arcanis local to Portland. Nobody is organizing, nobody is running, nobody* is clamoring to play, and nobody has bothered to update their heroes to Tier 3.
There is content and yet there is no Arcanis. And putting my ocean of suppurating, seething frustration aside for a moment the implications of their being numerous Orumar, that they can be destroyed (and reciprocally created), of the Lysandra/Belisarda/Nyal "Three-Sister" triumvirate etc etc etc are all fairly engaging.
But make no mistake: it's not enough. Arcanis is withering. There aren't enough
players to populate a table, nevermind actual crucial support personnel.
Lastly: Zac Caslar.
See that display name? That's short for Zac Caslar.
He, I, am probably "that guy,"
Dean.
I don't make the cons so much these days, but it'll be funny to sit down at a table some time and notice when "Taffy" or "theVault" or the rest turns pale because suddenly I'm a lot more real than just "that guy" who complained that the largest non-human faction in both campaigns was being ignored.
Thanks for calling me out.
*in this use not literally true
^can't wait for him to be vindicated.