Cross Into Shadow Storyline Interpretation
Goat takes on a new history project and is looking for your insight into the mega epic Cross Into Shadows storyline in the Landing.
Category: Towns
Topic: Wehnimer’s LandingDate: 03/15/2017 03:02 AM CDTFrom: GOATSubj: History Project: Context for the six Cross Into Shadows spoilersI was re-reading old teasers from Kenstrom, preserved at https://gswiki.play.net/Cross_Into_Shadows_(saved_posts). This was a series of six monthly posts by Kenstrom leading up to the kickoff of the Cross Into Shadows super-mega-epic storyline.Now that the related in-game stories have happened, it’s easy to understand the context for a lot of them, but I couldn’t figure out everything. Anyone able to confirm / fill in the blanks? I’d like to post info to the wiki for posterity.
[Side note: Hot damn, Kenstrom… you did some serious planning, didn’t you?]
Chapter 1: Walkar is wounded within an inch of his life by a Vathor under the control of Grishom Stone. Elithain Cross arrives with an offer to save his life, and Walkar accepts. Thus begins the saga of Walkar and his cursed, but life-giving, breastplate.
Aftermath: Walkar’s armor gives him inhuman strength. His powers are instrumental in breaking Talador’s siege/assault of the Landing, but he falls under Cross’ thrall and becomes the Abomination. He is finally freed of his curse after Cross is killed, regains his senses, and dies peacefully in the company of his friends.Chapter 2: The demons of the Southron Wastes (specifically, the WizardWaste) approach the Demonwall, and The Order of the Golvern Star does battle with them.
Aftermath: I seem to remember the Demonwall falling during an invasion, and so the Hall had to seal off the portal between nearby Barret’s Gorge and The Swale (which also had a portal to/from the Landing for a time). I don’t recall what came after that. Is Barret’s Gorge now in ruins and occupied by demons? How far did they advance, and where are they now?[Odd side note – Althamael, a construct of the order of Luukos, is seen fighting on the demonwall, and mentions something about ancient burial sites. He then fades away from the storyline. Does this have anything to do with the release of Sanctum of Scales two years later?]
Chapter 3: A man considers the success that led to a horde of loot on his ship, with a healthy dose of hubris. A heavy storm panics his crew. His traveling companion kills him.
I’m sure what to make of this one. The eyes sparkling like feystone, and scarlet triskelion, very strongly suggest that the murderer was Aralyte. Before I researched that, I thought maybe this depicted the murder of the real Lord Winter, but now i really don’t know.
The man considered Korthyr and Daephron. I think Korthyr is the founder of house Faendryl? Daephron is apparently a dark elf, but that’s all I can find (http://jypsie.tripod.com/Information/cultures.html). There’s also a mention of Rhoska’Tor. So it seems the man is Faendryl. Could this the sorcerer who had contacted Althedeus through Planar research (and Aralyte’s lover)? Why did she kill him? Had he fallen under Althedeus’ sway?
Aftermath:
Aralyte had studied Althedeus for centuries. She was instrumental in planning how to defeat him. She ventured into the Shadow Realm with dozens of adventurers, and performed the ceremony that unraveled Althredeus, ending the threat to the entire plane.In case this has anything to do with Lord Eldurn Winter: Cross eventually assumed the identity of Eldurn Winter, and occupied his Manor in Brisker’s Cove. Adventurers found Grishom Stone in the basement of the manor, under constant torture. They freed him in hopes of enlisting his aid to defeat Cross. Grishom did help, to some extent, then escaped to the Sea of Fire, where he apparently united with the Star of Khar’ta, and has been gathering power for a couple of years now.
Chapter 4: A group of Tehir raiders ambush an imperial caravan, slaughter its guards, and take the caravan’s women and children as slaves. That night, a woman dies giving birth to the shapeshifter Deylan. The leader of the Tehir raiders is very alarmed, yelling that the boy has “blood skin” (Tehir to English is almost always a loose translation.) A woman kills the leader to ensure the baby’s safety, and runs off into the desert with the child.
Aftermath: Deylan came to the employ of Wehnimer’s Landing. “He spent months impersonating Lord Kuligar Gardane in Talador in hopes of using his soon to be Baron powers to help Mayor Walkar fight a war against Elithain Cross. In the end, the urnon golem, Madelyne Cross, assassinated the Baron during the coronation and the corpse shapeshifted to reveal that it was Deylan.” (from https://gswiki.play.net/Cross_Into_Shadows_(saved_posts)#Deylan) This lead to the war between Talador and Wehnimer’s Landing.Chapter 5: Stephos and Alendrial DeArchon are chased from from their home in Idolone, by mob incensed by their mixed-race marriage (Alendrial is a half-elf). The mob burns their home as they escape to sea. Stephos is consumed by anger.
Aftermath: Stephos took to a life of crime. He supplied the Krolvin with weapons, which they used to attack the Landing. He and Alendrial became associated with the Brotherhood of the Rooks. The Rooks arranged for his escape while he awaited trial for supplying the Krolvin. His whereabouts are unknown. Alendrial came to lead a faction of the Rooks, and later organized an underground escape path for half-elves when Prelate Chaston Griffin whipped Talador into an human-supremacist frenzy. She also worked on a cure for the blight that was affecting half-elves.Chapter 6:
Thrayzar, a (previously human) orc, tracks Mirayam, the urnon golem. He descends a rock face during a heavy storm. He slips and injures himself. He finds Mirayim in a cave, amongst the bodies of priestesses of Koar. Just as Mirayim steps back and disappears, imperial soliders arrive, to scene that looks like Thrayzar slaughtered the preistesses. Thrayzar prepares for battle.
Aftermath: Thrayzar had been hunting Mirayim on Stone’s behalf, but eventually Thrayzar turned on Stone. He protected Mirayim until she sacrificed herself to save Wehnimer’s Landing (I’m fuzzy on details – that’s all third-hand for me). He later defended the Landing against Drangell and his troll army, and became a steadfast ally of the Landing. He served as interim Mayor when Walkar transformed into the Abomination. He now serves as the Landing’s Marshal/Steward of the Militia.
I should have updated this before posting – it seems quite clear it has nothing to do with Lord Winter, but I think everything else there is accurate.
Daephron Illian is the Faendryl who was trying to summon the Ur-Daemon after the Undead War, but accidentally unleashed the Vvrael on the world and tried to seal the rift by binding his life force in a box. This was passed down over the years and ended up as a puzzle box gift in Ta’Ashrim for the wedding of Chesylcha. In the temporal distortion visions under Melgorehn’s Reach there was a ship leaving the Ashrim isles, which I assume refers to the box making its way with refugees to Ruin Creek.
A few thousand years later Malaphor (a still living Ashrim royal mage) and his apprentice get themselves killed opening the box, releasing the Vvrael’s “black knight” which was basically something called a dark reaver (referring to an older storyline where the same thing happened in Danjirland). The knight gets defeated in the Elven Village, and Daephron Illian rapidly ages from a baby to an old man, explaining how we’re all doomed. Korthyr Faendryl was the founder of Old Ta’Faendryl.
I was not around for most of Kenstrom’s storylines so my understanding of their details is relatively mediocre. The dark elven woman has to be Aralyte because of the gossamer cloak fastened with the scarlet triskelion, where triskele / triskelion is the symbol of the Palestra. They get a triskele of scarlet despanal when they graduate from one of the academies. My impression was always that this guy was a sorcerer she was assigned to as a Palestra, and she was using him for his dangerous research into Althedeus for which she kills him since that is her job. The comparison with Daephron I’m guessing is using this great demonic power for Faendryl supremacy.
– Xorus’ player