Tattoo Artifact Idea for D&D fans

AngelWick

AngelWick

New Member
Before anyone here bashes me for even considering what I have posted below, hear me out.


I'm guessing that there are other people here that are fans of many other RPGs than just Exalted. This is the type of fan base I'm looking for in this thread. Particularly, I'm looking for fans of the D&D setting of Eberron. Now, if you are a part of that fan base, then you may have a good idea of where I'm going with this... Dragonmarks!


If, by this point, you have no idea what I'm talking about, then this is not the thread for you.


Dragonmarks are a wonderful concept inspiration for tattoo artifacts. I've been looking at different ways of how to adapt these wholly D&D items into Exalted because, well, I think it could work.


For some time, I've been looking at ideas of how to convert/adapt certain D&D elements and campaigns/adventures into Exalted. There's one smaller adventure called The Eye of the Sun that just screams Exalted and Dragon Kings. Then I also see a lot of potential for the popular Red Hand of Doom adventure to convert. There are many other ideas floating around too, but I'll keep those brief here.


The idea to adapt Dragonmarks first hit my brain when I was looking at the Eberron adventure, Eyes of the Lich Queen. Early in this adventure, after exploring a mysterious tomb, the PCs are "afflicted" with new or enhanced Dragonmarks. As the adventure progresses, the Dragonmarks take on new effects, and once the main antagonist is defeated, these particular Dragonmarks fade away.


Now, I think this would be an interesting and unique way to (at least temporarily) give non-Lunar characters Moonsilver tattoo artifacts. But then I was looking at the Infernals book, and I saw that There are Demon-Ink and Green Sun Tattoo Artifacts. The former grants various amounts of Specialty points depending on the level, while the latter is a direct corruption of Moonsilver Tattoos that grant demonic protections.


Thinking canonically (as I like to try to keep things in my games somewhat legal, mechanically speaking), Moonsilver Tattoos need to be applied, Green Sun Tattoos are corrupted Moonsilver tattoos, Demon Ink Tattoos also need to be applied. However, I'm thinking that the Demon Ink Tattoos mechanically resemble these mysterious Dragonmarks from Eyes of the Lich Queen the closest. Moreover, it could be that the chalcanth that is used for these mysterious tattoos is enchanted to infect anyone who goes near the tomb.


Considering that the tattoos from EotLQ had allegedly killed earlier explorers, it could be explained that the demonic essence from the chalcanth poisoned those it infected. If the tattoos infect Exalted, beings historically known to be able to resist poison and infection just by being Exalted, then this could explain why the infected Exalted characters are granted enough time to complete their mission. Also, the flexibility of the Demon Ink Tattoos (at least as a template for my Dragonmark adaptation) couls also help to explain why the characters gradually gain additional enhancements throughout the adventure.


Too much to ingest all at once? Sorry. I tent to ramble when I get excited about something.


Your Thoughts?
 
Demon Ink Tattoos seem perfect to me. They could be inflicted through some Sorcerous Trap if you are worried about Poison or Disease being too easy to shrug off, but then again there are some nasty magical diseases already.


The growth of the Tattoos could be an effect of being contained inside the sorcerous trap for so long, instead of an immediate onset they must grow into their power. Or Maybe the tattoos are made from Nascent 2nd or 3rd circles that have to grow into their full potential. If you did that, you could achieve the "once the main antagonist is defeated, these particular Dragonmarks fade away." by having the main antagonist be a 3rd circle demon, Yozi, or rogue primordial whose soul hierarchy goes crashing down into the Underworld once your party kills it.


Sounds neat.
 
I just looked this up for a bit of a refresher. It seems that the unusual dragonmarks that the PCs would get after exploring the ancient tomb would get their power (and grant eventual mechanical bonuses to the PCs) from an ancient artifact of demonic origin known as the Dragon's Eye. According to the Eberron adventure, the Dragon's Eye was constructed by a group seeking to gain control over dragonkind. As the "infected" characters draw closer and closer to the nearly rebuilt artifact during the final confrontation, the additional bonuses begin to manifest until the artifact is destroyed.


This may work as a double advantage for me. The demonic nature would be well enough to explain now these unusual tattoos appear on the characters that explored the tomb. Power with proximity is a no brainer too.


Now here's something that I would like to try with this though too... if the original artifact, the Dragon's Eye, could be used to control or manipulate Dragons, then I'm thinking that the Exalted translation could be used to control or manipulate the dying Dragon King race. If used for ill, the pitiful remains of the Dragon Kings could be killed off forever, making the once-great saurian race totally and utterly extinct. Or, they could be restored as a reduced race of demonic slaves. If used for good, it could be used to restore the Dragon Kings back to their previous greatness, including their racial genetic memory that passes on between incarnations. Such a racial restoration could be a powerful tide-turner for the Solars and their allies.


The trick, then, would be to defeat the main antagonist who is trying to gain control of the DKs to use them as slaves, power-houses, or whatever. The demonic poison that has been inflicted on the PCs and caused these tattoos to manifest will need to be counter-acted before the poison can kill then utterly. To do so, they would need to either destroy the Dragon's Eye, as described in the original adventure, OR find some other way of using the artifact to extract the poison without killing the infected characters. See, then destroying the Dragon's Eye, while the easier solution, would also remove the option of restoring the DKs to their First Age glory. If the main bad guy can be beaten without destroying the artifact, then it can be used beneficially.


And then who would the antagonist be for such an adventure when adapted for an Exalted setting? Well, the final confrontation takes place in an orerry, much like the one in Rathess. Rathess is the ruined capital city of the Dragon Kings, now run over by a death cult of Dragon King stalkers. Why not have the main antagonist(s) be Filial Wisdom and Han-Tha?
 
I think the only thing Exalted's Dragon Kings share with D&D Dragon's is the name and being reptilian. They're really on opposite ends of the power scale in their respective settings.


Also, the DKs themselves are only diminished in their loss of infrastructure (desperately needed to allow them to reach maturity when their previous memories start to return), and the fact that a ridiculous amount of their souls were permanently destroyed from both the Primordial War and The Balorian Crusade.


Then there is the fact that their entire race is permanently displaced. They were the rulers of Creation, but once the Exalted came around, they were really a people without a purpose. Their civilization was in decline before the Usurpation even happened. The real way to restore the DKs is a social revolution, which is kinda hard to do given the fact that they'll always have memories of the time before and things won't ever be right. If a bunch of new DK souls were created so that there was a new youth unshackled from the chains of the past, then the social revolution could come and maybe the DKs could reintegrate into society.


Now I'm really excited to see how the DKs are played out in the upcoming Shards of Creation book that comes out later this month.
 
To be honest, this is kinda where I was trying to go with this Dragon's Eye artifact from this D&D adventure. I know that D&D's Dragons and Exalted's Dragon Kings are on opposite ends of the power spectrum. It never crossed my mind to try to contend with that.


The truth is, as far as non-Exalted playable character types go, DKs are probably my favorite. At their best, they can be loyal and devout allies of the Solars and possibly their Lunar consorts in the Age of Sorrows, while at their worst they are corrupt worshipers of a forbidden god's death cult. The Dragon King Paths of Enlightenment, corrupt or not, offer a wide variety of abilities that no other non-exalted race can match. I see a potential for the Dragon Kings to go one of two ways as a race and culture when you come down to it, depending on how this adventure would play out.


The first thing that comes to mind when I think Dragon Kings is Rathess. Now in ruin, yes, and also over-run by Han-Tha and his death cult of Dragon King stalkers, with none other than Filial Wisdom as his Solar Exalted figurehead. If I replace the main antagonist from the D&D adventure as it's written - a blue dragon bend on gaining control over all of dragonkind in Eberron - and replace him with Han-Tha, then we have a race to determine the fate of the Dragon Kings.


Now, let me step back for a moment for a sidebar. In the D&D adventure Eyes of the Lich Queen, this Dragon's Eye artifact holds the power to control not only dragons, but all dragonkind - any creature with just a little bit of dragon's blood in their veins. This includes the very powerful dragonspawn breeds. In the wrong hands, such a powerful artifact could be used for great evil. Now, again, Dragons and Dragon Kings are on opposite ends of the spectrum. In that I agree. But what I was thinking for the Exalted adaptation of the Dragon's Eye would be that it could be used for good OR for ill.


One way or another, the Dragon's Eye is a very powerful artifact. The way I'm envisioning it, it could be used to either restore lost Dragon King souls or create new ones. For power balance, I would probably say that the number of Dragon King souls restored or created could not exceed the race's original population levels, even though this was well into the millions... To add value to both the benevolent and malevolent forces who would see value in restoring the Dragon Kings' numbers, I would also give the Dragon's Eye a perpetual area effect once activated that would simulate the Charm, Dragon-Soul Enlightening Method as seen in Debris of Fallen Races (pg. 14).


In the hands of Han-Tha, this could be used to drastically increase of Dragon King followers within his death cult. While in the hands of those who would rather help to restore the Dragon Kings to their former glory as a race (or as close to it in this day and age), the Dragon's Eye could be used to enhance and accelerate these efforts. Either way, whoever controls the Dragon's Eye would essentially control the fate of a dying race. The direction this takes could potentially affect all of Creation. Heck, we could be talking waves upon waves of a grand Saurian army for whomever has the Eye.


Obviously the modern day Dragon King social revolution won't automatically bring the DKs back to their original First Age glory. If somehow the original souls are restored from oblivion, they would have the past life memories of what their society used to be. Otherwise, if new souls can be created for the Dragon King reemergence, it could almost be like starting anew. Learning from mistakes of the past perhaps.


Then we can throw in the Yozi as a potential wrench. Imagine the potential if the Reclamation effort got a hold of the Dragon's Eye, or at least with Han-Tha as suggested in Return of the Scarlet Empress, and gained control of the former allies, followers and worshipers of the Unconquered Sun and his compatriot demigods. Call it a twisted sense of vengeance if you will...
 
Oh ok, cool. Sounds pretty neat to me actually. Wasn't sure how familiar you were with the DKs. Glad to find another Dragon King enthusiast! My own personal pet theory, is that if you create a new DK civilization that isn't stuck in their past, they'd find they are capable of creating new Paths.


The only question I would pose would be the origins of the Dragon's Eye.
 
For the origins of this race/culture controlling device, one can't really base it off of the D&D adventure. Not only would it not make any sense contextually, but it would also be copying. :P


In the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure, all that is said about the Dragon's Eye was that it was created a long time ago during the Age of Demons by a group of fiends who wished to gain control over all of dragonkind.


For Exalted, my concept of the Dragon's Eye would change so that it would fit in better with the Dragon King's sorrowful history. First off, I would change the name... just for the sake of originality. I mean, we already have a very powerful "eye" artifact and I certainly wouldn't want to steal the limelight from the Great Maker... That being said, I'm not sure what I would actually call it...


As far as origins, probably one of the more "awe damn" ideas that come to mind is this:


If this device can be used to restore/create Dragon King souls, why couldn't it be the very same device that the Primordials used to destroy them during the Primordial War? This very idea would add a whole new layer to the adventure in that the bearer of this device would quite literally carry the fate of a race/culture/species in their hands.


Then the question would become, what would said bearer DO with this device once they've done whatever they are going to do? If the Dragon's Eye (or whatever I'd call it) is destroyed, then any changes done to the DK culture could very well be irreversible (or at the very least rather difficult to reverse). The Dragon Kings could be wholly wiped from the loom of fate... from existence... from history...


OR, would the bearer of the Dragon's Eye hide the device away for safe-keeping? In fear that it would be stolen by some other faction who has other plans in mind for our saurian friends? Would it be kept close by so that it could be more aggressively protected from prospective thieves?


So many ideas. And that's just for this storyline!
 
Sounds pretty cool. To make it even cooler, we don't know how the dragon kings were originally created, explicitly. Maybe this artifact could have something to do with their creation and destruction.


Possibly an egg of some sort? That doesn't seem right. Could be cooler. We need something epic on the level of the clay man....
 
So, I made this thread over on the WW boards to try and spark some conversation. I personally didn't like what they came up with, but the talk of sacrifice got my gears turning and I thought of a good origin for the DKs that would leave an artifact.


Supposedly they were one of, if not the, first creature of substantial soul and body. I had the idea that a race of spirits had to be ritually sacrificed in order to force their souls to enter the cycle of reincarnation, and that in their creation, the Primordials ordered the UCS to do the sacrificing himself, one by one. Every single one of the original DK souls was personally forced into reincarnation in a pool of their own blood at the hands of the UCS. This is why they feel so connected to him. All of their youngest memories are of him, brutally giving them life. The experience marked the UCS so, that from then on he took a draconic form.


The spirits the UCS sacrificed were proto-elementals, and he ceremonially named and murdered each and every one of them. The gruesome deed was done with The Churning Kriss of Draconic Enlightenment (or some better name to be determined later). A barbed knife carved from an unshed scale of Orasmus by the Empyrean Chaos. Any spirit murdered with pomp and circumstance (and possibly a balancing mote cost) and given a new name is sent screaming into the cycle of Dragon King Reincaration.


Addendum: This knife, bathed in the spiritual effluvia of those that have fallen to it, resonates with the carnal existence of its victims. Through some process to be mechanically balanced, the Kriss is able to strengthen the bond between soul and flesh, or sever it eternally.
 
I get the whole bit where Dragon Kings trip over each other for the honor of sacrifice in the name of the gods, the Unconquered Sun being the greatest sacrificial honor. Perhaps sacrificing elementals that already claimed fealty to the gods. The idea of a knife or some sort of special artifact weapon would make sense, in a way that the gods (not necessarily just the US) would use it to sacrifice the elementals to sent their essence into the DK's specialized cycle of reincarnation.


I say specialized because, as I understand it, even modern DK spirits reincarnate in DK eggs, much like Exalted soul shards find their way back to Lytek's cabinet, Malfeas, their Monsterance of Celestial Portion, etc. It's jsut taht with the DK's they require more TLC before their past life memories come back. However, I recall reading somewhere that in Exalted, there are several "parts" of a soul. So the part that retains past life memories could very well retain it's course on the road of reincarnation to the next generation. However, there could potentially be another part of the DK soul that can now become a ghost in the Underworld.


Another thing that I want to mention before I forget is, if this weapon could be used to send new elemental essences into the DK reincarnation cycle (up to the original limit of 150 Million), then by your logic in your previous post magnificentmomo, it could also be used to not just kill a DK, but destroy it completely. Thus, the soul is utterly destroyed, no past life memories to reincarnate, no possibility of becoming a ghost or any other type of servant to the Underworld. Just nothing left.


That being said, then let's move to the point in history we all know and love, the Primordial War. The Primordials killed off many many Dragon Kings for siding with the gods and Exalted. Now, here's a little tidbit that would be the pinnacle of suck: the gods were created in such a way that while they were allowed to do as they pleased, they also could never disobey a direct order from the Primordials. The Primordials ordered the gods to tell the Exalted to stand down. But since the Exalted were humans with total free will, they chose to continue fighting the Primordials despite what the gods said. So, to add salt to a wound that has already had a knife twisted around in it, we could say that the Primordials ordered the gods to use the very tool they used to bring the Dragon Kings into being, and destroy their very souls so that they can no longer reincarnate, thus also diminishing the overall Dragon King population Creation-wide...


So now, the twist that I started to think about pertains on how this race-creating artifact could be integrated into the Orrery of Rathess. The Orrery is a tool that is most effective at aligning with the Loom of Fate. The only thing more effective as I understand it is sanding before the Loom of Fate itself. With strong knowledge in fate, astrology and even a bit of sorcery, the Orrery could potentially be used to align itself with any point on the Loom, past, present or future. For the climax of this adventure (Eyes of the Lich Queen, as adapted for Exalted), the Loom could be set to align with the point in time and fate when the Dragon Kings first came into being (or some other pinnacle point within their elaborate history). Such an alignment could unleash the potential to revive the race as a whole by pulling the now-destroyed souls back through the Loom of Fate and back into the Dragon King cycle of reincarnation.


Such a strong and sudden repopulation of the Dragon Kings would definitely be a culture shock to everyone. How would they react to being pulled through time, fate, oblivion and nothingness and suddenly back into existence? Their final memories from their previous lives could be anything from being flayed apart at the spiritual level to an empty space before they were pulled thru to the present.


Another thing that's been on my mind is the elemental potential for a fifth breed of Dragon Kings. The four known breeds hail from the four outer elemental poles of water, air, wood and fire. However, the Paths of Pre-Human Mastery contain knowledge of all five elements, two paths per element. That opens the argument of why could there not potentially be a fifth breed of Dragon Kings? Canon states that the Dragon King population capped off at about 150-million souls, with no possible way to exceed that number. Hence why they sought to create humankind. Well, with four breeds, that gives us about 37.5 million per breed assuming they were split evenly. By that same argument, there could have been a fifth breed that was just unfortunate enough to have been completely and utterly wiped out during the Primordial War that they had no chance of repopulating their numbers. Again, with 150 million DK souls, split five ways, that would give about 30 million per breed if there were an even split.


But what would the fifth breed be? We already have the Velociraptor-type, Triceratops-type, Pterodactyl-type, and Dino-Croc-type. What would a good earth-based breed of thunder lizard be? I found an argument on the WW forums for a sauropod-based breed, but I can's see how a humanoid version would not look silly.


Thoughts?
 
You pretty much followed my logic exactly.


On the souls bit- Humans have two souls: the Upper Soul, Hun; and Lower Soul, Po. Dragon Kings only consist of a single soul. There are even some Dragon Kings that have defied the cycle of reincarnation and have remained as ghosts. They're in the Underworld book I believe, maybe with a shoutout in the Scroll of Fallen Races.


All that Orrery business sounds all well and good for a personal game; People like to tout NO TIEM TRAVAL EN EXLATEDEDED!!!!!!1111oneonnoeone, but it really isn't a big deal as long as you give it its due weight. As for culture shock, depends on how the dragons kings come back. If they are reincarnated normally, they would have a savage period, so it would be less immediately jarring to have a huge gap, though it would be disconcerting and confusing.


On the breeds and numbers of souls. There soul count wasn't hard capped at 150 million, that is just how many there were. On the Fifth breed, they weren't needed in the First Age, because the Blessed Isle was were the gods lived, and they didn't need any DKs, canonically. If I were to make a fifth breed, it would probably come off of Stegosaurus. Also, for me, if the knife was used to create new souls they could even open up new paths as new breeds are created or new souls form that aren't stuck in the rigid life of the original DKs.
 
Oooooo, instead of having to sacrifice millions of elementals, maybe a single Greater Elemental Dragon is sacrificed, creating the entire race? Less Trial of Hercules Core, but a little less silly. Also would be relatively easier to replicate.
 
***Spoiler***


If you have not yet read Return of the Scarlet Empress, do not read the below post.


Would you say that the death of the Earth Dragon as depicted in the Return of the Scarlet Empress could be harnessed for said Greater Elemental Dragon sacrifice?
 
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