Alternate Timeline/Scenario: Kalak Falls, But So Do The Heroes of Tyr

Setting
1

In this timeline, the events of The Verdant Passage go as written up until the final fight. Kalak tries his accelerated metamorphosis spell, Rikus wounds him with the Heartwood Spear, Kalak retreats into the ziggurat and the heroes pursue him.

But that last fight against the wounded, metamorphosing Kalak goes differently. Perhaps, knowing he’s dying, Kalak unleashed some devastating final spell out of spite? All that is clearly known is that a few minutes after Kalak was wounded by the Spear, the ziggurat collapsed completely, burying the sorcerer-king and his foes under thousands of tons of rubble. The templarate suddenly loses spell abilities.

Tyr is free of Kalak, but there is no Tithian to claim the throne, no Agis to rally the nobility.

Probably, without PC intervention, the templars are nearly all killed very soon, either by angry mobs or by the nobility. With the templars losing their spells, and no sorcerer-king to back them up, and no Heroes of Tyr, the nobility is the only meaningful power bloc left. They will probably act quickly to consolidate that power, killing or enslaving any templars the mobs haven’t already gotten to.

The Senate is the only remaining governmental body of Tyr, and it’s used to being essentially powerless. But something is needed - Tyr is vulnerable to its enemies now. If Tyr is to remain free of a sorcerer-king’s rule, someone has to lead its defense.

And two artifacts - the Heartwood Spear and Ktandeo’s Cane - are still buried under all that rubble… And there’s a halfling chief out there who will be expecting them back…

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This leaves a free city for PCs, but there are no Heroes of Tyr around to overshadow the PCs. The PCs can lead the protection of Tyr from Urik, etc.

1 Like
2

Where have I seen this before? :wink:

As mentioned on the Piazza, don’t forget House Vordun, which wanted a revolution, and were about ready to go when Kalak was killed.

And Urik is the closest nearby city state, and they’re not going to let the iron mines die.

(I am mentioning these things to bring them into the conversation here; I, too, am a crossposter)

3

Yes. Those would probably be things that would happen shortly afterward.

I imagine the conflict with Vordon would probably be first, then an attack by Urik.

Although… Vordon was going to revolt because Kalak was destroying Tyr. Conceivably, with the threat of Urik on the horizon, Vordon might make a deal rather than fight a civil war. (Noble titles & seats on the Senate for X family members, in exchange for putting Vordon’s pretty large forces available for Tyr’s defense.) The Senate would be in a poor enough position that they might have to accept.

One wrinkle is that in this scenario, where nobody comes out alive, it may not be immediately known to everyone that Kalak is dead. I mean, a ziggurat fell on him, but what if he teleported away at the last minute or something? People might be expecting Kalak to return. Though maybe Hamanu could magically confirm his death?

4

Oh, good point… They knew Kalak was dead because the people saying he was dead were still alive. If he were alive, I imagine one of the SKs could verify it… but they wouldn’t be able to be 100% sure about a non-response. Is he dead? Is he off-plane? Is he protected?

Another thing to consider: Borys. Tithian paid the Dragon’s price, but without Tithian, does that happen? Even if Hamanu is turned away, will Borys be?

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Yeah. That uncertainty might delay Hamanu’s attack long enough for the PCs’ actions to have a chance to change things. I think Hamanu’s army still does show up, but it might be a couple months.

The Dragon’s Levy is definitely a huge issue, but late enough that what the PCs do will heavily shape what happens.

One possibility is that if several months on Hamanu still isn’t sure that Kalak is actually dead, Hamanu might send his army, but not to immediately conquer or destroy Tyr; only to capture enough slaves to ensure Tyr’s share of the levy gets paid (so Tyr’s share doesn’t get taken from Urik instead). He’s probably not going to go for outright destroying Tyr until he’s sure Kalak won’t come back, and occupying it would split his forces to the point that somebody else could threaten Urik.

Assuming Urik’s forces get turned back and Tyr remains independent until the Dragon arrives for his levy: IMO, without the Heroes of Tyr, slavery doesn’t get abolished in Tyr without major PC intervention. If the power groups are the nobility (semi-organized in the Senate) and House Vordon, well, neither one is going to benefit from abolition. There’s no Rikus and Sadira as formerly slave heroes, and no Agis to push abolition on the other power groups.

So I don’t think the issues Tithian had to face (no slaves to offer to the Dragon, and you can’t just give up a bunch of free citizens) would happen at all. So whoever’s in power --short of PC intervention of course – will pay the levy as normal; the politics would be about trying to minimize its cost to your own house/faction. (More slaves from the other factions, less from yours; how many can we steal from random villages; etc.) If the nobility wins out, House Vordon might become the next levy, but I think they have too many troops to definitively lose like that - if anything, theirs might outnumber what the nobility has immediately to hand.

If Tyrian agriculture gets badly messed up by the chaos, which doesn’t seem unlikely, there may be a lot of starving people and thus no difficulty finding enough to hand over.

Only PC types or crazy people would even consider trying to fight off the Dragon IMO. (honestly, one thing that bothered me in the Prism Pentad was Tithian having to hide what he was doing there. Obviously he couldn’t use Tyrians for a levy without a mass revolt, but raiding random villages to keep the Dragon away should have been completely publicly acceptable – I don’t see Athasians having that kind of sense of human rights/solidarity, especially in the face of the threat of the Dragon. Tithian would have had tons of volunteers to go out and raid villages to keep the Dragon away from their families and homes, IMO.)

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Considering the uncertainty, you could also throw a LOT of intrigue into Tyr… not just between power groups trying to control the city, but servants of other SKs trying to figure out if Kalak is dead. You might even see some down-low visits from high-level templars (or templar/thieves) to seek out information.

Do we know the fate of Kalak’s defiler corps? Were they part of the sacrifice for Kalak’s gamble? The presence and activity of the defiler corps may also come into this.

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Checked City-State of Tyr; in the canon timeline, the defilers either fled or were in hiding, which means many might still be causing problems in Tyr itself… one or more might even be holding the gardens of Trees of Life.

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Yes, as information spreads, everybody (other city-states, and likely other power groups like the Order and major merchant houses) will be trying to find out what is really going on in Tyr.

Re the defiler corps: one thing that just occurred to me is - what if one of them uses an illusion to pretend to be Kalak returned? It probably wouldn’t work long term, since the templars would not be getting spells, but it could definitely throw even more confusion into the situation.

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The chaos in the templarate is probably going to be a big sign to the other SKs… a few templars losing their spells? That’s one thing. All of them? That’s a different fish all together.

10

Absolutely, they will figure it out, but when makes a big difference. If it takes them a while to sift through the (likely conflicting) information they’re getting*, that may be the difference between dealing with Tyr in chaos vs. Tyr with a new organized government. And it may give the PCs time to retrieve the Cane and Spear from under the ziggurat’s ruins (and that Spear might be useful as a threat against enemy sorcerer-kings), or try to gather external allies or enemy-of-my-enemies (like directing a major raiding tribe against Urik, or trying to get powerful druids or pyreen on the side of the first non-sorcerer-king-ruled city in ages, or…), or maybe seeking out some other artifact or power source to use to defend Tyr.

Even if they do think he’s dead, they may wait a bit in case Kalak had a clone or some other return-from-death mechanism. (I think the revised box set ought to have had at least one of the dead SKs return through something like that…)

*One thing that occurs to me: if it’s not obvious that Kalak is dead, some templars might try to fake still having their powers using psionics, magic items, etc. like defilers trying to fake being preservers or charlatans trying to fake being wizards. That might further delay everyone figuring out what’s really happening.