The Death of Big D, Who is Lithe? Options

[Ancient History]

Summon is a strong word "retain" may be more apropos.

[Boondocker]

AH,

[ Spoiler ]

Thanks. :)

[Ancient History]

So ka.

[Lucyfersam]

Hmm, I have some theories about what Dunklezahn/Lethe may be up to, although they came about because I needed an excuse to run a modified version of Harlequin's Back (one of my players wanted to go through it, but those events happened a bit too long ago to just run it). For reference if your one of my players, I would greatly prefer you not to read beyond this point, it may lessen surprises. Some of this may also contain a few more spoilers from the end of the Dragonheart Saga, so read on at your own risk.



First off, Thayla is not necessarily dead. She fell into the chasm yes, but the end implies she may not be dead as Dunklezahn/Lethe sends what's her name the free blood spirit off in search of her. My theory/personal plot: the spirit never did find Thayla as she searched the depths of the metaplanes, but she found something else, namely Ghostwalker imprisoned somewhere by Horrors. She reports back to Dunklezahn, and he sets about weakening the prison to set his brother free.

A further bit that I added to the theory solely for the purposes of running my modified Harlequins Back is that somehow while he was weakening the prison, somehow the Horrors caught Dunklezahn/Lethe himself, leaving the chasm once again undefended.

[joe12south]

I'm planning a meta-campaign that will start before big D dies, and continues on through. I do plan on Lethe being a background player (in addition to the impact of his Will.) I cannot imagine D's spirit being content to vacation on some metaplane. I'm going to make him actively seek connection with the "real" world. It won't be a focus, but it will be a sub-plot.

BTW, I'm happy to close up the whole horrors episode. Not that it wasn't good, it was just too big, too overwhelming, to cataclysmic. The awakened world is scary enough as is, moving too fast for players to keep up with as is. Wait a couple more decades of game time, then they might be more appropriate.

[Dog]

About this idea that the big D killed himself to power some kind of artifact : I've heard this elsewhere, but I've never read anything that's convinced me that it's true. Possible, I know, but isn't assassination by the Azzies also as likely? I don't recall reading anything conclusive about the causeof death.
Someone help me out here. Ancient H?

[Abstruse]

Read the Dragonheart Saga. It answers all your questions. And you get an official Sixth World knowlege skill of 1 according to AH.

The Abstruse One

[Dog]

I did read Dragon heart. I just don't recall anything in it that confirmed how Dunkie died. What's in there that rules out an assassination? (It's been a while, I might have just forgot.) Spell it out for me.

[Black Isis]

I've done something very different in my campaign (you can see it here), but I have a lot of changes to the canon timeline (actually, after reading SoNA, I regret making some of them, but...). I also did not really like the whole Dunkelzahn dying in some spectacular fashion, I had him die peacefully at his lair (well, as far as anyone knows anyway). As for the whole Horror angle, no one in the game really knows about that yet, so I haven't bothered to address it.

When I do have wraiths or other malevolent creatures that could be Horrors, I intend to simply make them powerful, malevolent spirits or creatures, and not link them to any giant group -- instead, they will seem unconnected. I do like the idea of the Horrors, and of having a Horror behind much of the action in Aztechnology and Aztlan, so I will probably keep them, but make it very subtle -- something I've generally done with all supernatural aspects of Shadowrun really.

[Drain Brain]

[Abstruse]

[ Spoiler ]

It's in the last chapter of the book, when Ryan and Harlequin sit down after getting back from the metaplanes. Laughing Man says that Far Scholar gave his life to power the Dragon Heart because there was no way an item of such power could exist in the current low mana levels otherwise. No one in the game world, however, knows that Lethe is Far Scholar. Not unless Ms. Daviar has been sending a few messengers to the metaplanes without letting anyone know that is...

The Abstruse One

[Ancient History]

Do I have to drag out quotes? Dog, it's fairly implicit in the Dragonheart Saga that Dunkie cacked off to bring the Dragonheart into being. Check the sections where Harlequin's talkign about it.

[Bearclaw]

Was the Aztlan sourcebook written before or after the election was decided?
That has the whole thing leading up to Big D killing himself, and completely explains it. I knew what happened when I read The Dragon Heart Trilogy, because I'd just finished reading the Aztlan sourcebook. As soon as he blew up, I knew why. It was part of the plot before the election was officially decided, obviously.

[Senchae]

I haven't managed to acquire and read the trilogy. My question is not why did he die, but why right then? Was there additional power garnered by him blowing up right then and there? Or did Thayla happen to topple over at just the wrong moment and it was all a coincidence?

[Abstruse]

Thalya wasn't gone yet, but the reason why was that Ryan Mercury, who was sent to Aztlan to spy around, noticed that Aztechnology/Aztlan had a locus. Basically, it's a power focus on crack. When Far Scholar found this out, he put his plan into motion.

I'm just guessing, but I think at this point in the dicussion, spoiler tags are pointless, ne?

Oh, and the Aztlan book was written LONG before the Dragonheart Triolgy. It was even before the Harlequin's Back adventures, and I believe in 2054 or 2055. Not exactly sure though...

The Abstruse One

This post has been edited by Abstruse: Sep 17 2003, 10:03 PM

[Ancient History]

Aztlan was written after Harlequin's Back (since it refers to it) and before Dunkelzahn dies.

[Abstruse]

No, before, as it was one of the things that sparked Laughing Man to action.

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't see who I was arguing against. AH would definately know better than I would :P

The Abstruse One

[Herald of Verjig...]

You could just look at the numbers on the books...

Never mind, keep arguing.

[Bearclaw]

If I remember correctly, the Big D complained about the laughing mans actions in the shadow talk.

[Ancient History]

Harley refers distinctly to elements of Harlequin's Back in the Aztlan SB, especially concerning blood magic. Thus, things fall in the following order:

Harlequin's Back

House of the Sun

Worlds Without End

Aztlan

Portfolio of a Dragon

[Dog]

I'll read it again, but I'm still not convinced....
For example: Dunkie might have prepared the dragonheart as a contingency in case he died, like a lot of other things. So sure, his death powered the heart, but was it suicide on D's part? What about all the indications that an elaborate explosive was used? Was it an assassination attempt that he was anticipating? I know of lots of people who are said to have 'given their lives' for something, but that doesn't mean they deliberately killed themselves to do it. I'm not ruling it out, I'm just saying that there might be other interpretations.

[Drain Brain]

erm...

[ Spoiler ]

The book seems to imply suicide. It makes sense if you considder that it was immediately prior to his death that Dunkelzahn was informed of the presence of the Locus in Oscuro's possession.

Knowing that the nasty little Azzie fragger no had the resources to skim the spirit energy off his "flock" of idiots in order to bring the wicked nasties over to our side of the multi-versal pasture, Mr President knew that it was time to shore up our defences (Thayla) with some extra big guns - the Dragonheart.

The actual physical thing had been created by him already - he had forseen this requirement - all that remained was for him to "juice it up." That means sacrificing all the energy of his spirit - his magic (which assuming he must have had a magic rating in game terms of... well, something ludicrous... is a lot of magic) to fuel this little golden ball.

According to the PLAN his protege, Ryanthusar would be back home to Castle Dunk-skull within what, two days? Then he'd get the heart, get his instructions and find Harlequin, take the ball to Thayla and everything would be just peachy Unfortunately, not having the ability of precognition, good old Dunk's plans were spoiled, and so it was all a great waste of time.

There endeth the spoiler.

Not too much of the story there, was there?

[Nath]

[ Spoiler ]

The version told by Mike Mulvihill, but not printed in any book, is that Dunkelzahn commited suicide with a small nuclear bomb planted in the limo (IIRC there's an adventure in Super Tuesday that deal with the plant). and magic reduced the blast radius (it's pretty obvious from the description in the novel, nuke or not).

You could eventually play on word and says that somebody else planted a nuke in the limo, and prepared a spell to contain the explosion (big mojo...): Dunkelzahn 'commited suicide' by entering the limo while he was fully aware somebody was ready to kill him.

Last but not least, the description made by a witness in PoaD clearly suggests two explosions. First theory would be that Dunky's "ritual" caused these chained explosions. Second theory would be that one explosion was the ritual's nuke, the other was a 'regular' assassination attempt by someone else. In which order did they occur, did Dunkelzahn know and did he contain both explosion with magic, everything's possible... It's always difficult to formally contradict an addition of that kind.

[BitBasher]

[ Spoiler ]

either way he died because he allowed it to be so, not because anyone else was cool enough to do it.

[Dog]

Thanks, Nath. Where'd you get the insider info?
Everybody's theories and interpretations are great, too.